With a heavy heart, one of my staff members is leaving the nest and moving to Florida with her family in a few days. We have been together for six years and after supervising her during her college years and while she was working to obtain her counseling license we had grown very close. I am well aware of the fact that people enter and leave our lives, but that doesn’t prepare you for the...Learn More
They gave us an assignment in graduate school to create our own healing strategy. At the time I didn’t take it very seriously and came up with something cute to impress all the ladies. Well, that was 25 years ago, and from that moment I’ve asked myself the same question, what is the best strategy for a person to heal?
I’ve learned many psychological approaches and tools that to one degree...Learn More
Last week my father-in-law passed away. The tricky thing was he lived 30 miles away from the nearest neighbor, just north of Joshua Tree National Forest in California, and all by himself. It was a miracle a delivery person found his body or his dog Max would have been lost too. Peter was a young 82-year-old, who walked 5 miles a day but had a problem with smoking.
The desert oasis he lived...Learn More
There are some interesting experiences as a therapist, which have aided me in being the best therapist I can be. When life and death situations presented themselves in my practice, I wasn’t that prepared to deal with them.
As a college intern, my first placement was at Tarzana Treatment Center, a facility just north of Los Angeles. My position was counseling individuals suffering from HIV...Learn More
With Spiritual Psychology, we see healing as the application of love to hurt. There is an art form to this and it can take on many strategies. Claims of healing have been frowned upon in this industry since many of the top approaches showed improvements in people, but not the true ultimate healing. For example, with Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls believed that when people saw many angles of a...Learn More
This past week marked the passing of one of my best friend’s father, and the wife of another dear friend. Both of these people loved life, loved people, and were active in the community. The biggest part of being a therapist is keeping yourself in balance. In doing so, you are able to be there for others, unfortunately, both of the deaths hit me hard and I found myself counseling myself as I...Learn More
I learned a long time ago that when I compare myself to other people I always lose. My mother used to say, “The grass is always greener on the other side.” I think the reason why I made comparisons was in having low self-worth. We always assume that people are perfect and better, and we make ourselves second best – but that is just my theory. The real issue here is not the comparisons but...Learn More
What if all the problems you were facing were meant to be? What if there was a higher purpose to your life, instead of being here to eat, shit, and die. Because life didn’t make sense to me, and having no religious beliefs, I went on a quest in 1978 to find some meaning in life. If life was just a death sentence, well, that was too much for me to bear.
What if’s are born out of having no...Learn More
In 2001, the first Mental Health Urgent Care center in the country opened and I was fortunate to be one of the founding members. It is shocking that I have never written an article on surviving a crisis because of the thousands of crisis sessions I have taken part in.
I’ve learned firsthand that when a situation is beyond the coping skills of a person, they go into a crisis. Overwhelmed, it...Learn More
Yes, it’s “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” time. It’s time for good cheer and holiday fun. But if you’ve suffered holiday trauma, it probably isn’t a pleasant time for you at all.
Years ago, I coached a little league baseball team and the father of one of my players was killed in a liquor store robbery. Then came the holidays and it wasn’t pleasant for the child, his family, and...Learn More