When is family counseling appropriate?
Family counseling is usually called for when a child is experiencing mental health symptoms or is demonstrating problematic behavior. While family counseling can be quite effective with adolescents, people at that developmental stage tend to highly value their privacy and are in the process of discovering their own individual identity. Teenagers love the confidentiality that individual counseling offers. In general I recommend family counseling for children 5-12 years-old. There are several benefits to coming in as a family instead of having the child attend alone.
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Grief and Ambiguous Endings
To be human is to experience grief. From denial to acceptance, grief consumes the full spectrum of our emotional experience. We grieve when there is loss: death, unmet expectations, breakups, miscarriages, time. Yet, how do we grieve endings that haven’t quite ended? Ambiguous endings, like the ending of a pandemic that isn’t quite over, is like a relationship with no closure. There’s no marker to honor the time we spent together and little hope for a new beginning ahead.
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The power of gratitude
Tis the season! The season for appreciation and being thankful. It may be hard to think about what to be thankful for especially after the past 18 months and how all our world has changed so significantly. Though it may be difficult to do, cultivating gratitude can have a tremendous impact on our lives. Some proven benefits of gratitude are boosting the immune system and improving mental health. Being thankful allows us to slow down and appreciate what we have and what we need.
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Improving access to therapy in Seattle
This past weekend The Seattle Times reported on why it is so difficult to find a therapist. The author, Hannah Furfaro, paints the picture of how more people than ever are looking for mental health support, due to the normalizing of therapy and reduction of stigma, the intensifying effects of the pandemic on mental health, and an increasing understanding of how mental health and physical health are intrinsically linked. Unfortunately many people struggle to find a therapist with availability they can afford and who feels like a cultural and relational fit. When we founded Self Space, it was exactly these issues that we intended to address and have been focused on solving since we opened our office doors in 2018.
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KIRO Newsradio: Seattle psychotherapist on how to cope with ‘season of toxic positivity’
Self Space was recently featured in a KIRO News story by Rachel Belle, Kiro Newsradio feature reported and host of the James Beard Award-nominated podcast, “Your Last Meal”. In the podcast. Rachel discusses toxic positive with one of our Self Space therapists, and they explore what is toxic positivity, how to identify when it comes up (or when you’re using it!), how to address it, and what to do instead.
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Overcoming my social anxiety: A journey of awareness, reframing, and growth
Social Anxiety has become synonymous with being “shy” or “introverted” and has been defined as significant anxiety, self-consciousness, or embarrassment about being judged or scrutinized by others. Clinicians now understand that social anxiety can go beyond fear of socializing and have a broader impact on how we perceive ourselves and our lives as a whole. Individuals with social anxiety can appear aloof or uninterested, when they actually do want to connect with others but their anxiety is holding them back.
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Navigating an eating disorder in the holiday season
The holidays are quickly approaching, and while that makes some people run to throw on their favorite holiday sweater and fill their cups up with eggnog, it can make others want to fast forward to January. The holidays can be particularly challenging for those struggling with eating disorders, as family gatherings are typically centered around sharing meals together. The foods our friends and families share connect us to our traditions, culture, and loved ones, yet it can be difficult to break away from what diet culture tells us is “okay.” Whether you are struggling with an eating disorder, or suspect a loved one might be, it is important to consider how to best navigate this upcoming season.
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Roadblocks in Therapy
Have you ever been in therapy and noticed yourself holding back? Maybe you and your therapist come up with these great goals and coping skills, only to never attempt them outside of the session. Maybe you find a part of yourself desperately wanting to feel better, but another part of you doesn’t want to embrace any change. Some might call this self-sabotage or being resistant to the therapy process. Fortunately, there is a different way of viewing these roadblocks through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. Whatever roadblock you may be facing, it’s likely the work of a part of yourself whose job it is to protect you.
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Mental health and the acceptance of self-care in the LatinX/Hispanic community
I wanted to kick off the start of Hispanic Heritage month with a conversation about the Hispanic/LatinX community’s relationship with our mental health and the practice of self-care. Mental health is not a topic that is frequently discussed in our community -- instead it is often minimized or seen as a deficit on the individual’s family. As a LatinX therapist, I believe that we need to have more conversations around the role of individual self-care (o auto-cuido en español) and therapy in our community’s well-being.
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When Forgiveness Doesn't Heal: Creating room for anger and grief
People seem to unilaterally love the idea of forgiveness. But forgiveness language often sounds eerily like the language of toxic positivity to me. As a therapist, I sit with clients on a daily basis and hear many stories of harm and abuse. At its worst, when we encourage a survivor to forgive, we might be inviting them into further harm and shame. What if instead, we invite them into their humanity, by making space for their anger? Once they are allowed this space, it will be so much easier for them to grieve the pain, and this, not forgiveness, is the beginning of the path back into the light.
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How Addiction Impacts the Family
Substance use disorder (the clinical term for drug addiction) can cause a strain on the family unit due to emotional damage, as well as financial, legal, medical, and other consequences that can typically originate in addiction. The impact of this disease can have both short-term and long-term effects on those around. Trust within the family slowly falls apart, conflict becomes the norm, and communication becomes more difficult.
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What is Prepare/Enrich Premarital Therapy? Part 1
With over 35 years of research and experience, Prepare/Enrich is currently one of the leading premarital counseling frameworks for couples. But what is Prepare/Enrich and how does it help couples prepare for a life together? This post is the first part of a 3-part series that explains the different components of Prepare/Enrich and how the different goals can contribute to a couples’ success in marriage and life together.
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Pride Month 2021
Pride Month focuses on the visibility of a marginalized and targeted community that deserves total equality and unencumbered human rights. The LGBTQIA+ community experiences disproportionate rates of violence, discrimination, and mental health concerns. Although symbols for Pride Month are covered in glitter, rainbows, and smiling faces of scantily clad parade-attendees, it is vital to never forget its origins and that the fight is not over yet.
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The Body: Inside and Outside, Lived and Scientifically Studied
I spend a lot of time, both in and out of therapy, paying attention to my body and thinking about the body in general. I am fascinated by the doubleness of the body: it is both lived and felt from the inside, and, like other objects, scientifically observed from the outside. Both of these aspects of the body are crucial to our life, and my therapeutic work is all about combining them.
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Mental Health Awareness Month
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. While this may not be as immediately gratifying as World Taco Day, the existence of a month celebrating mental health speaks volumes to the decreasing societal stigma surrounding the topic. Although so many of us would give anything not to be so viscerally aware of our own mental health, this time reminds us that we are not alone. Here are some resources for acknowledging and celebrating Mental Health Awareness month and for mental health in general.
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What to expect when starting therapy
For many of us, starting therapy is a huge step, often a vulnerable acknowledgement that we want help and support. And for most, even finding a therapist is a chore in and of itself -- how do you find someone? What do all of those different acronyms and lingo-laced phrases even mean? And perhaps most importantly, what can I expect out of therapy itself?
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Attachment: Finding security in intimate relationships and our sense of self
Attachment had been a recent buzzword. But what is attachment and how does it make sense of how we connect and communicate with others? In a very basic sense, attachment is our innate desire to feel safe in our close relationships and goes back to the way we learned to respond to our caregivers in early childhood.
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Social instability, chronic stress, & listening with a settled body
In a recent survey, the American Psychological Association (APA) found that 84% of adults reported feeling ongoing stress about the state of the country. The sources of our stress are almost too familiar to need naming: a global pandemic, political instability, and collective uncertainty. Striking a balance between our own inner needs and the demands of the social-political world means, in part, thinking about how we relate to the media, and how we relate to our bodies.
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Living with Uncertainty in 2021
Most of us will remember 2020 as the year that certainty suddenly collapsed: our daily routines, our relationships with others, and our sense of social stability disappeared overnight. We have, hopefully, adapted and found the structure and security we need. It is worth pausing, however, to ask: what have we learned about living with uncertainty, and how can we carry these lessons forward in 2021?
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Home for the holidays?
“Nobody messes with the holidays!” a client of mine lamented last week. She is right: for better or worse, we rarely mess with our sacred annual rituals at this time of year. 2020 is clearly the exception - as most traditions are turned upside down or cancelled, and we are all attempting to adjust and figure out how to make these days special despite the pandemic.
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