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Counselor's Corner June
It’s your big shopping day and you’ve driven down the hill to find some bargains. As you’re trying to decide between one or two bulk bottles of laundry detergent your concentration is interrupted by the piercing scream of a young child over by the fabric softener. After deciding no one is injured you politely return to your detergent calculations. But before you know it the little girl has thrown her body to the floor, violently kicking everything within her reach, including the bottles of fabric softener which are now all over the floor. Immediately you feel sympathy for the father trying frantically to pick up the bottles, contain his daughter, and get out of the store. You remember...
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Counselor's Corner April
I have a couple sitting in front of me. They are on opposite ends of the couch, bodies turned away from each other, arms crossed. I know they both love each other and want to stay together, but right now they are in a painful, difficult place. Both people feel they have compromised too much, and that they are unable to bend anymore. Both people feel wronged and are waiting for the other person to make amends.
This situation happens throughout our lives in many different forms. A parent and a teenager are constantly battling. Staff members and the boss can’t agree on how to do business. A small disagreement in a community organization turns into an all-out war with people taking sides...
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Counselor's Corner March
I remember as an undergraduate student speaking with a psychology major whose father recently died. “At the moment I’m in denial, but if I move quickly through the stages of grief I should be done by summer vacation,” she said. Being an English major myself I couldn’t speak to these stages, but as a human being I had a feeling she was in for some surprises.
Grief can be difficult business. In the 1960’s, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. and her colleagues found themselves floundering when it came to patients who were facing death. Kübler-Ross decided to take the time to sit and talk with dying patients. Through these connections Kübler-Ross developed her stages of dying: denial, anger,...
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Counselor's Corner February
Before we know it the New Year is well on its way and Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. People’s experiences and opinions about this day are a lesson in extremes, much like our mountain weather!
I once had a co-worker who religiously hosted an Anti-Valentine’s Day party every year. If you attended you were required to wear all black, participate in games like destroying the black, heart-shaped piñata, and not use any Valentine’s words—heart, love, red, pink, happy, couple. She passed out a vocabulary list at the door to make sure you were forewarned, although she was always a bit vague on the consequences.
Some people speak of Valentine’s Day as being created by the card and...
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Are You a Parent at a Crossroad in your Life? by Nina Friedman, M.S.
When I was in elementary school and summer was ending and fall fast approaching, I remember the butterflies in the pit of my stomach. I wonder if kids today are as anxious as I was, but I know that for many parents, because I am a mother now, fall brings a mixture of many possible emotions: relief, excitement, confusion, and anxiety are but a few.
You may be feeling a desire to be a fly on the wall in the classroom of your child for the first month of kindergarten; perhaps you’d like to fling yourself at the nearest train as your “baby” in 3rd grade leaves the house for the first day back without a hug or goodbye kiss! You may be relieved or even joyful that summer...
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Finding Work ~ You Were Meant To Do By Nina Friedman M.S.
Are your thoughts on the job more about FAC’s and weekend fun than on the job at hand? Do you feel bluesy Sunday morning, already resisting facing Monday? Have you been laid off and are dreading continuing with the “same old” but are scared and clueless about anything else? Do you believe that some job, any job (even one that’s “killing” you), is all that you have a right to expect in this economy? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, now is the time to find the work you are meant to do.
If you’re unhappy at work, have recently lost your job, or are re-entering the work force, there are often underlying issues that we will uncover. If these issues are...
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Bad Faith and the Couple's Dilemma by Reed Lindberg MA
As an enthusiastic couple’s counselor, I'm interested in how the life force is exchanged in relationship. What is life force? My practical definition is that it is the enthusiasm we feel in the giving and taking of attention, affection, touch, eye contact and conversation. It's the desire to engage one another in excitement, passion and curiosity - tempered with trust and safety.
Couples seek counseling when this exchange of life force seems lost. They describe their anxieties: Something doesn't feel right. Something is lost that was there in the beginning. There is betrayal, unfaithfulness, boredom - or conversation has dried up. The couple may seek therapy to jazz things up, restore...
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Healing in the Presence of Loss and Dying By Lyn Valverde MA
Loss can take many different forms, resulting in some form of ending – or death. Our culture and the power of the media have inundated us with the thought that death is not only final, but also a failure. With both the sense of finality coupled with failure, we can be left nearly paralyzed with fear. Consequently we may also be left challenged in accepting our loss.
Death is what we often see as the other side of life. The other day my 24-year-old son made a three-word statement that flowed out of his mouth so simply, and yet the words were profound. I asked him if I could quote him. He was surprised, since to him it seemed so obvious. His statement: “Death amplifies life...
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Psychotherapy & Beyond: Clear your Core Issues & Step into your Fullness of Being By Elinor Nygren Szapiro MA
Have you been ‘working on yourself’ for a while but still find that the lasting changes you’ve been longing for continue to elude you? Or perhaps, the peace of mind and emotional balance you’ve been seeking come and go with the ups and downs of life. Are you able to intellectually understand your issues but, despite your insight, continue to find yourself repeating the same old patterns? Why is it that so many of us who have been trying hard through therapy, self-help or spiritual practices, still find ourselves hooked by old issues and triggers? We feel pulled out of the present moment – and can get caught in the “I got it,...
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Compassionate Presence: Or Finding a Therapist You Can Trust! By Sharon Hart, M.A.
Are you facing a time of difficult change in your life and wondering how you are going to find the strength to cope with it?
Would you like wise counsel and support to negotiate this transition with grace and courage?
Perhaps, you’re facing a health, relationship, or parenting issue that has you overwhelmed, anxious, frustrated or depressed. Whatever kind of difficulty you’re facing; my heart goes out to you.
What does it mean to find a therapist you can trust?
---Someone who will listen compassionately as you tell your story; someone who will not judge you or find you lacking.
---Someone who can see the preciousness and wisdom at...