Developmental Psychology
When I started in the field as a counselor, my supervisor Marie preached about understanding where a person was developmentally. Working with the learning disabled you’d see an adult and then realize they operated as a child. Up to this point, I understood that early childhood trauma caused mental illness later in life. It was in our early years we tried to create a strong sense of self. If...Learn More
My Fondest Counseling Memory
28 years as a counselor has had its ups and downs. There were scary times at the Mental Health Urgent Care when people who were psychotic got unruly. How can you convince somebody who feels you are in on the government plot against them that you are there to help? Somehow, I managed to do so. Though, I wondered this morning what was my fondest memory. I’ve had a lot of incredible memories. In...Learn More
Relationship Rescue
Unfortunately, we were never taught in school how to keep a relationship healthy. As with most mental health-related issues, we learned usually how to fix things by mimicking how our parents did things. If you came from a healthy home, no doubt the odds are you will be healthy in a relationship, but that doesn’t have a bearing on your partner. Paying close attention to what kind of environment...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
I Am Sorry
My father, who recently died, came to me in a dream last night. All he repeated was, “I am sorry.” I miss my father. He suffered from depression for the last few years of his life. At 91 he had a lengthy and mostly happy life until his vision and hearing went. “I am sorry” was hard to stomach. It reminded me of how I was trained to punish myself when I did something wrong. As a child, I had...Learn More
How Do We Heal?
How do we heal? What an interesting topic. Do you know? I have devoted my life to showing people how to, in the way I was trained to do so in school, but is that the only way? If you are looking for treatment the first question to ask a potential therapist is what is their theory on healing. Healing. Do people really heal? A coworker asked me that the first week I was working at a luxury...Learn More
Full Circle
This week was my father’s 90th birthday. He and I had been on quite a journey together. At first, things were horrible. I later found out that he was going through a horrible marriage, realized that his wife was interested in another man, and didn’t know what to do with his feelings. He broke things, furniture, walls, and almost me in the process. A month later he was gone. What does a young...Learn More
Love to Hurt
When love is applied to hurt, we heal is what sets Spiritual Psychology apart from the rest. In conventional Psychology, they believe that healing takes place when subconscious issues are brought to the surface. This is partially correct. Spiritual Psychology takes it a step further by applying love to that part of you that went through the difficult situation. According to Gestalt Therapy,...Learn More