Quality Control

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Quality Control

Mindfulness seems to be the hottest topic in psychotherapy these days, with near-daily articles about its effectiveness in national papers, and with just as many studies published alongside trying to debunk its claimed effectiveness.  Some folks say mindfulness is a miracle cure for everything from stress to autoimmune disorders, others say it’s little more than a hoax.  Regardless of your stance on mindfulness, you have to acknowledge it’s a conversation going on with enough frequency that it affects you whether you like it or not.  From presidential recognition of its health benefits to corporate coaching to a yoga room at your local airport, mindfulness is coming down the pipe, so it’ll probably pay to have a better understanding of what it is...

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Tense Juxtaposition

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Tense Juxtaposition

This weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a sweat lodge.  It was an interesting time to do so - the weather here in Colorado has been decidedly un-springlike, and the prospect of standing around stripped to the undies in the sleet, on the cold, wet stones of the firepit before entering the lodge itself kept a lot of the regulars away.  And as I stood around in my undies in the sleet, on the cold, wet stones of the firepit I viscerally understood why...

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What Lies in the Shadow

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What Lies in the Shadow

Clients offer a lot of reasons for coming to therapy, but at the bottom of all of them is this: it’s hard to be yourself.  The world we live in can seem like a dangerous place, and there are plenty of forces out there that want you to be just a piece of yourself, or something you’re not at all.  And though many of us were lucky to be told to just be ourselves when we were young, many people have a difficult time letting that lesson really sink in.  The truth is, we’re all made up of disparate internal elements; our personalities are complex...

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To Be Righteous and Selfish

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To Be Righteous and Selfish

Earlier today I was talking to my roommate, and he seemed like he was in a rough spot.  His cat was missing, his job was up in the air, and, most present, he was desperate for sleep.  I told him to get some rest, take care of himself; we’d talk later.  It was a funny sort of thing to say, considering the morning I’d had.  I was just coming home from seeing my own therapist, to whom I’d whined gloriously and had my expectations for what reality owed me properly reset.  My advice to my roommate, as is so often the case with advice, was the sort of thing that I needed to say to myself instead.  But it begs the question: how does a person take care of themself?

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What it Means to be Free

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What it Means to be Free

When I was 13, I requested that my parents sign me up with a therapist.  Being 13, I probably actually said psychiatrist on account of not knowing any better, but my folks made a wise choice and found me someone who was more interested in talking than prescribing.  That being said, now that I work with that age group, I can see that this is not as rare a request for a teen to make as I had always assumed.  A lot of my clients are brought to me by baffled parents who don’t know quite why their kids want to talk to a professional.  And when I meet with those teens who ask for a therapist, the reason is often the same: angst...

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