Articles on Personal Stories - Page 5
Put Your Own Spin on It: How Cycling Can Lead to Psychological Balance
It’s just me and the resistance knob now. That small dial that will determine how easy or hard this bike ride will be. The spin class instructor cues, encourages...
It’s Not About the Panini: A Story About OCD and Anorexia
18 years ago I found myself drawn to a light switch. Turning the lights on and off became an ordeal as every room’s light switch hypnotized me into gliding my fingers across it,...
Mental Illness or Brain Disorder?
Why is it that the idea of “mental illness” is so much scarier to many people than any other illness? We talk freely about cancer, diabetes, and heart disease,...
Who Is to Blame for My Son’s OCD?
There is no question the stigma of mental illness is alive and well, even as many of us work tirelessly to eradicate it. Sharing our stories and being candid...
OCD and Social Scrupulosity
Most people associate scrupulosity with religion, and indeed religious scrupulosity is often an issue for some people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Those with this type of OCD have unreasonable religious...
Book Review: A Loving Divorce
When a couple says, “I do,” those two simple words are filled with hope, love, and devotion. There is a sense of permanency, of stability, of forever. And yet...
Book Review: How Does That Make You Feel?
How Does That Make You Feel? True Confessions from Both Sides of the Therapy Couch is the ultimate tell-all book for our times. The people sharing secrets include psychotherapy...
The Dulling Illusion of Safety in Psychotherapy
Therapists bother me1. For most people, this is not an issue. They can dodge therapists like politicians can dodge honest answers. Being a therapist, I don’t have the luxury...
OCD, Worry, and Uncertainty — Then and Now
When I was a junior in college almost forty years ago, I spent the year studying abroad in England. Going overseas for college at that time wasn’t like it...
Is Depersonalization Disorder a Form of Enlightenment?
In Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now he describes the moment when he became “enlightened”. It happened when he was a graduate student living in a bedsit in a...
OCD and Black-and-White Thinking
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is often accompanied by some cognitive distortions, which are basically inaccurate beliefs that usually make us feel badly about ourselves. One of the more common cognitive distortions...
Would Confidentiality Be an Issue If You Saw Your Podiatrist in Public?
This morning while standing in the front office of the counseling practice where I see clients, a woman came to the window, to fill out paperwork for her intake...
Book Review: The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers
Self-care is a growing area of interest in the mental health field and in popular culture. Mental health workers encourage their clients to practice mindfulness and be aware of...
Book Review: This Is Where You Belong
Melody Warnick’s new book is about falling in love – with the place where you live. Warnick used to be what she calls a “Mover” rather than a “Stayer;”...
Attachment and Substance Abuse: Changing the Substance Abuse Treatment Paradigm
“They don’t care what you know till they know that you care” Treating addiction is a complicated process requiring an in-depth journey from childhood to the present. Individuals suffering...
