The feelings that come with being a parent can be challenging at the best of times. You may be navigating external pressures - perhaps from society, or even your own family - about what a “good” mom or dad is supposed to look like, and constantly feeling that you’re coming up short. You might be deeply ambivalent about being a...
When you lose someone, you may hear things like, “Time heals all wounds.” “I know just how you feel.” “You’re doing so well. You’re so strong.” “You’ve got to pull yourself together and move on.” Well-intentioned people may try to comfort you with cliches. Good-hearted people may try to relate your loss as shared, or to a loss they once...
Grief: early 13c., “hardship, suffering, pain, bodily affliction,” from Old French grief “wrong, grievance, injustice, misfortune, calamity” (13c.), from grever “afflict, burden, oppress,” from Latin gravare “make heavy; cause grief,” from gravis “weighty” (from PIE root *gwere- (1) “heavy”). Meaning “mental pain, sorrow” is from c. 1300. In 1969 Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross challenged the silencing stigma of talking about death...
Feeling the doom and gloom of the winter months approaching? Seasonal Affective Disorder is a re-occuring depressive disorder that affects on average about 1% to 2% of the general population, particularly women and young people, during certain months of the year. A milder form of SAD may affect as many as 10 to 20 percent of people. Some people are...
Offerings, Recommendations, Inspirations Where is your office located? City and neighborhood? Lower Pacific Heights, San. Soon I will be opening an office soon in the North Bay. What is your therapeutic orientation? My work is relational, attachment and trauma informed, influenced heavily by Hakomi (a body centered mindfulness approach). I find that somatic...
Trauma and Relationships The concept of trauma was once limited to traumatic effects that could be directly associated with a stressor or series of stressors. For example, people who had been in an accident or had undergone the trauma of war might suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But our increased understanding of trauma has brought with it the insight that...
Offerings, Recommendations, Inspirations Where is your office located? Hayes Valley (SF), and Rockridge (Oakland) What is your therapeutic orientation? I am an integrative therapist and will tailor a specific approach for each individual client, utilizing Mindfulness, CBT, Gestalt, Somatic, Hakomi,...
Childhood is a time when we are learning about the world and coming to understand our role in it. It’s difficult enough to do this even under the best of circumstances. If alcoholism is part of the family dynamic, the chaos and unreliability that typically follow impact our ability to do so successfully. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, such...
Do you worry that you grew up with a narcissistic parent? Do you consistently feel minimized or devalued when you are with a parent? Do you have a deep worry that you’ll never be good enough in their eyes? This article talks about the effects of narcissism and what it means to be narcissistic. It also talks about how change...
Attachment Theory Are you familiar with attachment theory? With books such as Attached coming out, this theory is being spoken about in popular culture more and more. Since the late 1960s, attachment theory has come to be the bedrock idea of how we view child-rearing in the United States. We are coming to appreciate that the environment in which we...