A common topic mentioned in my sessions with clients is fear. Fear of saying something to a loved one who hurt them, fear of failure, fear of retaliation if you were to voice an injustice you noticed or fear of judgment. Fear has an odd power over us if we … Read More
Grief and Silence
For those who are experiencing deep grief- the kind that feels like your insides are being ripped out, and you have to struggle just to take the next breath- hearing a platitude can feel insulting. In our culture today, I don’t know think we are taught how to grieve. As … Read More
Facing the Reality of Grief and Suicide Loss
If you’re a fan of college football, you may be familiar with the stories College GameDay highlight on their program Saturday mornings, before kickoff. Recently, they shared the story of Max Maisel and Washington State football star, Tyler Hilinski. This story highlights the reality of grief and loss by suicide, … Read More
What Are ACE Scores?
ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences, a questionnaire created through a study done by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) along with Kaiser Permanente. ACE scores tally three different types of experiences: abuse, neglect, and dysfunction within the household, experienced before the age of 18. The original ACE study noted … Read More
Photography as a Creative Outlet to Cope with Depression
The feelings that often accompany depression include loneliness, apathy, and lack of motivation. Becoming lost in our thoughts and feeling stuck are common experiences for those struggling with depression. People use a variety of coping skills to manage their depression, including journaling, joining a support group, listening to music, and … Read More
Trauma & EMDR- Part Five
The fact that traumatic experiences are encoded and stored differently in the brain explains why we can sometimes know things intellectually (in our head, in our logical brain), but we feel something entirely different (in our sensory responses and in our emotional brain). We may know intellectually that a person … Read More
Find the Right Light: How Lighting Can Affect Your Mental Health
Medical professionals emphasize the importance of daily sunlight exposure for our mental health, but did you know that indoor lighting can also have a significant impact on mental health? We tend to spend the majority of our day surrounded by artificial lighting, whether it be at the office, at school, … Read More
Trauma & EMDR- Part Three
Francine Shapiro, the creator of EMDR (I’ll explain EMDR later in the series), defines trauma as “any event that has had a lasting negative effect… When you lose your peace of mind, or if you never had it, there can be serious physical and psychological consequences no matter what the … Read More
Trauma & EMDR- Part Two
In Part one of this series on trauma and EMDR, we acknowledged that it’s not uncommon for us to have a hard time recognizing traumatic events in our own lives. The reason we may need to look carefully and honestly at our past is because traumatic incidents often hijack our current … Read More
A Buzzword Defined: What Does Trauma Really Mean?
We hear the word used conversationally—“that was so traumatic!”—and sometimes, it’s true. Yet, many forms of trauma don’t come up in conversation at all. What is trauma, really? In this series, we are going to take a closer look at what trauma means, its effects, and how we can move … Read More
