The Limits of Antidepressants

This is an article written on the limits of antidepressants with suggestions for alternatives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com//christiane-northrup/the-limits-of-antidepress_b_654966.html

More on forgiveness

"When you forgive, you in no way change the past, but you sure do change the future"

.....attributed to Bernard Meltzer

Forgiving vs. Forgetting

When you have been hurt or betrayed by someone close to you, forgiveness is not an easy thing.   And yet, people encourage you to forgive.  And, at some point, the realization comes that without forgiveness you are unable to repair the relationship and you find yourself preoccupied with anger.   Below is a link to a good article written by Dr. Pauline Wallin on the reasons to forgive and some tips on how to accomplish it.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/14965986/Forgiveness-A-Healing-Choice

Why We Need a "Practical Psychoanalysis"

 "Why We Need a Practical Psychoanalysis by Michael Bader, D.M.H.  Published on The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bader-dmh/why-we-need-a-practical-p_b_682183.html

The Meaning of Dreams by Heather Catchpole

"The Meaning of Dreams" on the ABC Science website on August 16, 2010.


http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/08/16/2984272.htm

New Testing will Make Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease

This is a New York Times article about using brain scans for early detection of Alzheimer's Disease.  This will increase the number of people with the diagnosis two to threefold.  Is this a good thing?  Or is it better not to have an early diagnosis?  See what you think.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/health/policy/14alzheimer.html?hp

Quote for the Day

"In the course of our lifetime, our personalities are to be transformed and reorganized in such a way that the Ego with its ambitions and goals is no longer the main reference point. Indeed, the guiding element in our personality is to be the will of God, which in psychological language, we call the Self or Center."-John Sanford

I'm Blogging for Mental Health-May 18, 2010

What is Good Psychotherapy?

Below is an article by Dr. Marlene Maheu, editor of Self Help Magazine, an internet magazine written by licensed professionals who "bring you the science of psychology"  (see Interesting and Helpful Links to the right).

I am posting the entire article here because it is a very good synopsis of what psychotherapy is.  It gives the reader some ideas of  what to expect will happen in a "good" psychotherapy. Generally, unless someone has had previous experience with psychotherapy or has had a close friend or family member who has, it's a mystery.  One doesn't know what to expect and, therefore, how to judge whether what is happening is typical and will be helpful.  Because therapy is a process and results are not immediate, it is often very difficult to judge whether what is happening is appropriate and whether, in the end, it will be helpful.  I think Dr. Maheu does a good job of talking about what to expect and why. 

How to Pick a Good Psychotherapist – Part I: What is Good Psychotherapy?

Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 by Dr. Maheu in DR. MAHEU, Online Counseling, Online Counselor, Online Therapist, Online Therapy

Someone commented on one of my blog posts about bad therapists today, and got me writing  It's a few hours later, and I'm still enjoying myself, so here goes!

I'm writing this in part because the average person doesn't get exposed to plain information about what happens in psychotherapy.  People don't generally even know the difference between psychotherapy and psychiatry, let alone what to expect once they get there.

Once started, new clients are often broadsided by their feelings and don't know what's going on. When they ask their therapists what's happening, the explanation can cost them a few hours of therapy time, thereby delaying the goal the client was seeking, a solution to problem X. It's often needlessly frustrating for both the client and therapist.

Here's a synopsis of my view of good psychotherapy, based on over 30 years of being a mental health practitioner of various types:

Depending on the orientation of the therapist and whatever problem you are experiencing or questions you have, in the normal course of your psychotherapy, you will develop a relationship with that therapist.

Some schools of psychotherapy teach therapists to examine their relationship with you for clues that can shed extremely valuable insight into what happens for you in the outside world, your experiences, and your expectations. Other schools of psychotherapy do not teach that and think it is irrelevant.

Regardless, in that relationship with the therapist, if that therapist becomes important to you, you can expect to re-experience the range of emotions you have felt toward the most significant people in your life, such as your parents, other authority figures and lovers.

That's why some therapies will ask you to talk about those relationships. They have direct bearing on how you have learned to understand people and what to expect from them.

You might think about it this way:

If you grew up in an very huggy southern or middle European family, you would expect everyone to know your business and have lots of skills for how to deal with people putting their noses in your private affairs. But if you grew up in northern Europe, like Scandinavia, you would most likely not likely enjoy having people's hands on you or their noses in your personal life.

And now suddenly, as an adult, you have to deal with people from all sorts of backgrounds who have even more ways of interacting with you – some huggy, some nosy, some aloof, some who tease, some who relate by competing, some who want to know everything about you and other who just want you for your opinion of how they look.

Then when you can't stand your wife, or your co-worker makes a pass at you and you go for it despite your marriage; or your child dies; or you have a drink too many and hit a teenage on the side of the road at night by the beach, or your sister has cancer, or you might have trouble finding a husband, or you are eating, drinking, drugging, spending, gambling, or having sex out of control. You might not know how to deal with it and don't want to talk to your parents or other people about it. You want a trained expert. Your world is topsy turvy and you want someone to lean on for a while, someone to give you direction and perspective.

Those are the kinds of problems that most people go to therapy to resolve.

Well, because therapists are people, most clients find themself having strong feelings toward their therapist. If you consider the range of emotions that you felt toward your parents or spouse, you know that anger, resentment, jealousy, hatred, revenge or love, lust, infatuation, delight, security, belonging, fear … are all part of the normal ebb and flow of feelings in any normal and healthy relationship.

You can expect that at least some of not all those feelings will surface in a strong therapy. When people get stuck in overly negative or positive feeling states, the task of the therapist is to try and teach the person how to have proper boundaries, hang onto the relationship and weather the intense emotions that surface.

If the clients weather these storms, the results are typically intense emotional breakthroughs that help the client deal with very strong emotions in the world, outside the therapy office.

This is the supreme goal of many therapies, regardless of the problem that brings people into treatment. The inability to identify, express and properly respond to our own strong emotions is, in my opinion, the most significant problem that most people have in our society, and the one that has directly leads to our divorce rate being over 50%.

However, if the client is seriously disturbed, cannot become truly attached to the therapist because of their own emotional baggage, or struggling with the chemical imbalances otherwise known as mental illnesses, they cannot properly attach emotionally, and will quit therapy for reasons they believe, but are in fact, inaccurate.

Or they will fall in love and lust, not be able to handle it. They might make a pass at the therapist or drop out of therapy. They might never stop running long enough to understand out why a relative stranger (the therapist) is triggering these intense feelings.

They won't stick around long enough to heal the old emotional wounds that may have more to do with their past than whatever the current therapist has done in that office. They might never get the medical treatment they need to bring their perceptions in line with reality.

After all, how many things can therapists do that are worthy of hatred, revenge, love or lust? We are so limited in our "allowed" behaviors that we just can't do that many things that deserve such intense emotions.

While it can happen that a therapist is just plain bad, or made a serious mistake, it is much more often the case that the client is caught up on the normal process of having a safe place to learn to experience their emotions, find words to express them and figure out how to move on with the other goals of their therapy (get on with life) rather than get stuck in those emotions.

The really sad thing is that our parents, teachers and friends are just as clueless about the real psychotherapy process as anyone else. Who is left to inform the public? Most psychotherapists don't write like I'm doing now. Most are people-people. (Some of us happen to like writing, too 

Dr. Marlene

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/maheu/how-to-pick-a-good-psychotherapist-part-i-what-is-good-psychotherapy/

Developing Consciousness

"Unless we engage in developing consciousness, we become what was done to us-or its opposite."

 -Gregg Furth

Fear and it's Disguises

I am reading a novel (Momento Mori by Muriel Spark)Search Amazon.com for Momento Mori   and came across a passage about a new head nurse at a nursing home.  All the nursing home residents felt was this new nurse mean.  They were afraid of her.  One morning this dialogue took place between two residents about the nurse:

 "'But what's wrong with her?'
'Nothing,' said Miss Taylor, 'except that she is afraid of those old people.'
'She is afraid?  I thought you said the patients were afraid of her.
'It comes to the same thing,' said Miss Taylor.'"

It got me to thinking about how fear comes disguised.  In this instance it is disguised as meanness.  It can be disguised as anger, arrogance, or aloofness.  Sometimes, fear is disguised as withdrawal--withdrawal from another person or group of people.  These are but a few of fear's many faces. There are others.   All these behaviors are defensive reactions---they defend (protect) the individual from either showing his/her fear or most often of even experiencing his/her own fear  So, the next time you see one of these behaviors in people, ask yourself if fear could be what is behind it.

When Anger is an Illness

Below is an interesting article exploring the idea of anger management and whether or not it is a stand alone issue or is, rather, an indicator of some other underlying issue or diagnosis.  The article covers both areas but the main idea here is that difficulty managing anger is not usually a stand alone issue but rather an indicator of other problems such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety.  Anger can also be a defense against other feelings meaning that the person is more comfortable and finds it easier to express anger than, perhaps, sadness or fear.  The bottom line is that while there is such a thing as Intermittent Explosive Disorder, don't assume that it is just a problem controlling anger.  It could be an indicator of something else.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954904575109671604585094.html?mod=djemHL_t

COURAGE

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."


-- Ambrose Redmoon

What Happens in Psychotherapy?

What happens in psychotherapy?  How does it work?

Psychotherapy is a process.  It is not like going to your internist, telling him/her what your symptoms are, taking the prescribed medication and then you're better.  It is a process developed out of the relationship and connection established between the patient and the therapist.  It is through this relationship that the patient and therapist work collaboratively to understand what is underlying the symptoms, issues, unhealthy patterns, and dissatisfaction.  It is with this knowledge of what is underlying, that the process of change begins.  This is the idea that "knowledge is power".  Knowledge is the power to be used for the purpose of change.    The therapist does not have the answers that are then given  to you much like your internist prescribes you medication.  But rather the therapist works together with you to discover what the answers are.  The answers are found together.  The therapeutic relationship that you and your therapist develop also becomes an important part of the healing process.  While there are many factors that go into change and growth, this, in brief, is what happens in psychotherapy.

Quote for the Day

"The aim of soul work is not adjustment to accepted norms or a statistical framework. The goal is a richly elaborated life connected to society and nature. The idea is not to be superficially adjusted, but to be profoundly connected in the heart." -Thomas Moore

"The right way to wholeness is made up of fateful detours and wrong turnings." -C.G. Jung

New Year's Resolutions

Here is an interesting essay in the Wall Street Journal by Jonathan Lehrer on willpower and it's limitations, "Blame it on the Brain". Among other things, he suggests that the best way to strengthen willpower is through self-awareness, i.e., through understanding what is creating the "flaw" in the willpower.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612052322122442.html

Is a medical illness causing your patient’s depression? — Current Psychiatry Online

Is medical illness causing depression? This is always a consideration in diagnosing depression. Here is a good article on possible medical illnesses causing depression

Is a medical illness causing your patient’s depression? — Current Psychiatry Online