I was riding in the car with a friend recently and we hit that lull that happens when you travel distances with others. That moment when the conversation stops, the music becomes just background noise and you look aimlessly out the window. As…
Growing up the Golden Rule was taught everywhere; in the home, at school and in communities of faith. But, today it struck me that perhaps we should look at the reverse of the Golden Rule. So, as a quick refresher, the Golden Rule…
I remember being a young child and saying something to the effect of “It hurts when I do this.” And my parent responded “Then don’t do that.” Am I the only one? Surely I’m not. In fact, I know I’m not. Now, I…
Ok, a bit of a warning. This post has a lot of humor and is a bit on the mental health geeky side too. Apparently, the infamous satire website “The Onion” has decided to take on the APA and the DSM-5. To read…
I remember hearing about the bystander effect. I’m pretty sure that the first time I ever heard it was a sociology course in high school. Regardless of where I heard it; I heard it at a time when I was young, naïve and…
I’m not really sure why this particular memory flooded my mind this morning as I sat in my car waiting for the rain to stop. However, I thought it was worth sharing. Have you ever noticed that the art of receiving a compliment…
I was recently consulting with a colleague on a particularly difficult case. As my colleague shared his client’s situation a bit and the clinical impressions, I found myself asking him, “Is it possible that your client has confused his Observing Mind for his…
As I typed this title, I could hear the Star Wars theme running through my mind. No, I don’t think resiliency is Darth Vader or a Sith Lord. However, sometimes the most resilient people (we’ll call them Jedi Knights for this blog)…
Webster’s Dictionary defines resilience as: 1. the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress 2. an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change The second definition is the…
The counseling field has been buzzing about Trauma Informed Care for a number of years now. This has resulted in a strong and much needed push to move from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” Conversely, we find ourselves in…