Category: Group Therapy
Getting help with grief never occurred to me My father died by accidental drowning six months before my wedding. The idea of seeking counseling or attending a grief group was never suggested. I couldn’t process the loss at the time, or what it meant for my mother. I was 28 years old, absorbed in my […]
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Navigating a Breakup During the Holiday Season Some people will not be seated at the table for the holidays. Life circumstances are causing spikes in couples deciding to terminate relationships. A leading law firm notes a 122% increase in inquiries about services for divorce between July 2021 and October 2021 compared to the previous year. […]
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As we explore various pieces of our worlds each week, I am reminded how unique and how important the Imago relational experience is, both in romantic relationships and in general. One consistent theme that comes up is that living with chronic illness can be a constantly invalidating experience.
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I imagine, we all know the difference between a genuine warm welcome and a half-hearted, reluctant gesture that is meant to pass for welcoming. We know this deeply in our nervous systems, well before our brains assign meaning to the feelings that arise from a lack of genuine engagement. Our amazing and brilliant survival system is generally excellent at gathering data and sorting it into safe or not-safe buckets. It knows the difference between warm and welcoming and fake hospitality.
READ ARTICLELearning about Spoon Theory is a rite of passage for everyone who struggles with chronic illness. Developed in 2003 by writer Christine Miserandino as she was attempting to explain to a friend what it is like for her to live with lupus, Spoon Theory helps people with chronic illness explain to others what it is […]
READ ARTICLEAs a teenager, I was a little…lost. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my frizzy hair or my big nose, and I had this incredibly unhealthy instinct whenever I walked into a new space to scan the room for all the girls, and then count how many I thought were prettier than me […]
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Recently, a wife of a man in one of my men’s groups said, “Dr. Siegel did you sprinkle pixie dust on my husband? He’s even better than the man I fell in love with!” For most of my 30 years as a psychologist, I have worked with men in group therapy because it is such […]
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In today’s world, where we find so much information about how to cope with various issues, from our finances and investments to our own emotional and mental health, many times we might feel confused and uncertain about the choices we should make in those particular situations. Narrowing down to the mental health aspect, we continue […]
READ ARTICLEThe Well of Grief Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief turning downward through its black water to the place we cannot breathe will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering the small round coins […]
READ ARTICLEIs there a pattern here? “When was the last time you two had sex and was it satisfying?” Couples coming to me for the first time will be asked this question. I usually tell them that some therapists say that “if you fix the sex, the rest will follow,” and others say: “if you fix […]
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