Ask the right questions, find a trauma therapist.
I have seen my fair share of shrinks throughout my adolescent and adult life, looking to find a trauma therapist. I’ve experienced all sorts of therapy methods, in different corners of the world, with specialists and generalists alike, cognitive, psychodynamic, behavioral, person centered, and existential therapists. In fact, the reason why I became a psychotherapist has to do with the often questionable practices that past therapists engaged in and my desire to do better, learn from the things they did well as well as their mistakes. My very first therapist I had as a teenager was a psychiatrist that would take everything I shared in session and pass it along…
Feeling guilty?
I have a personal vendetta with the word “should”. I’ve been battling with its’ influence for over 10 years consciously, and have struggled with it for most of my life. Maybe you too have been in the same boat, if not consciously then unconsciously. In the moments I was feeling frustrated I would say that “should’s” ruin lives. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration although in reality, “should” and “should not’s” truly impact our lives to the core. The impact of words We make decisions (important ones) around all sorts of “should” and “should not’s”. As a simple example, when someone says “I should call my parents every week” they create…
A beautiful thing called choice
“I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing” (J.P. Sartre). There have been times in your life when you felt like there are no choices to be made or maybe you figured that because you cannot see additional possibilities, there are none. You rationalize that when it comes to things that are external to you, you have no choice in the matter. If you can think of the situations that shaped your current views on choice, you might realize that most if not all have something in common: in those situations you either felt overwhelmed or underwhelmed by the…
