The Law of Attraction
Do these statements look familiar? “When you’re down people kick you.” – Well, what happens when you are up? “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” – Well, why can’t we think of the best things? It is interesting how we have been trained to focus on the negatives. In our lives, this is how we create the negative things. It is called: The Law of Attraction. Why don’t we instead...Learn More
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Choosing a treatment program that meets your needs is an important decision to make. Our policy has always been to be ourselves, present our information, and let a person decide. Whether people decide to stay or go, we too are assessing if they meet our standards. As for our groups, we want to make sure that people don’t have a psychotic disorder and can reason. It can disrupt a group if...Learn More
Partial Hospitalization – Discharge Insights
When someone finishes our program, we make a big deal out of it. Our Partial Hospitalization program runs 4 weeks and goes 5 days a week for 6 hours a day. It is the equivalent of residential treatment, but you don’t need to get locked away from family and friends. Facing yourself for an entire month to me is the hero’s journey. Who wants to deal with the worst parts of themselves? Here we do...Learn More
The Gift of Spiritual Psychology
While I was in graduate school and learning the Spiritual Psychology approach, we all knew that what we were being exposed to was something extra special. The fact that a portion of the students were flying in from all over the world to attend may have clued me in on this when I began the coursework. We would meet once a month for three days, practice the new skills we were learning from one...Learn More
Relationship with You
Our relationships reflect back to our relationship with ourselves. This is what Sigmund Freud wrote about in the 1890s. He coined the term “Projections”. Since the film projector just came out, he could see somebody projecting all of their negativity onto another person – the screen. My dad always said, “When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back to you.” If you...Learn More
The Blank – How Am I with Myself?
It finally happened! After years and years of writing articles, I am finally blank. Who knew? My past program clients would be in shock because after four weeks of treatment I still had things to discuss. When I was in graduate school, we used to counsel one another. By the time we graduated, we were pretty seasoned therapists and clients. Session after session, there was always something to...Learn More
Changing for the Better
This article should be entitled personal responsibility since in changing ourselves, it has to be done by ourselves. So often people want to have others swoop in and rescue them because we feel it is their fault, they are making me feel this way, when the truth is, it is all about us. In taking personal responsibility, we are no longer victims of what others do or say. In all actuality, it is...Learn More
The Year 2000 – Revisited
This was a very interesting week at Basic Steps Mental Health. With all of the talk about WWIII and nuclear war, I was reminded of the panic that hit everybody with the Y2K. If you weren’t old enough to remember what was going on back then, the main computers in charge of all the critical systems in the country were not equipped to switch to the year 2000. Fearing nuclear meltdown at the time,...Learn More
How Is Your Inner Child Doing?
The approach that had the greatest impact on me was Reparenting work, where you actually become the new mom and dad to your wounded self. When I was a child, it wasn’t much fun, especially when my bully of a father came home. At that moment playtime and peace were over and you prayed he wouldn’t take your head off. According to Object Relations Therapy, mental illness has its roots in early...Learn More