Counselor, Author, and Reflective Eclectic
If you ever wondered why you wear the jewelry you wear, you may enjoy Gender and Jewelry: A Feminist Analysis by Rebecca Ross Russell. For an academic paper, conceived, it appears, while working on a combined Bachelor’s of Fine Arts and Women’s Studies, it is eminently readable and fascinating.
This week’s link of the week is the poem, Kindness, by Naomi Shihab Nye.
I’m pleased to announce that I now am an in-network provider for Excellus Blue Cross/Blue Shield. In other words, I “take” their insurance.
Most of the time.
It’s complicated.
If you need to know just how complicated it is, click here to read the article I wrote on what it means to “take” an insurance.
The emotions could use some better PR. They have been blamed for everything from each personal crisis to the insanity that is called this year’s election. We shrinks have mobilized the troops of rationality and have sharpened the swords of Stoicism, recast as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, to do battle against these pesky, animalistic aliens called feelings.
“But wait!” calls out a professor of philosophy and the classics, stepping between the battle lines. “Emotions are suffused with intelligence and discernment… Instead of viewing morality as a system of principles to be grasped by the detached intellect, and emotions as motivations that either support or subvert our choice to act according to principle, we will have to consider emotions as part and parcel of the system of ethical reasoning.”
Martha Nussbaum, the professor of philosophy and the classics, is brave, but if she’s going to be the PR person for emotions, she’s going to have to punch up her copy. Just kidding. She’s done a lot to argue their cause throughout her career, especially in her magnum opus, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions.Continue reading “Upheavals of Thought”
Anger, fear, sadness, hopelessness, joy, hope, gratitude, back to anger, fear, and sadness, in no particular order and sometimes all together, at once. When your relationship is in trouble, you’re on an emotional roller coaster. Let’s take a step away and look at what emotions are and what, if anything, we can do about them.Continue reading “Emotions: Do You Have a Choice?”
If you thought the Pixar movie, Inside Out, was pretty cool, you should also know that its depiction of the inner life of the mind closely follows most current psychological thinking about the way things work. Most current thinking, that is.Continue reading “Inside Out Inside Out”
I’d like to interrupt whatever else you might be doing, to remind you to check your dashboard; you’ll find there almost all the information you need to keep things running smoothly.
No, I don’t mean the dashboard in your car, although you should be checking that regularly, as well; I mean your body’s dashboard. You can see it when you look within. A lot of problems you might have with yourself can easily be explained by a quick look at your dashboard. Feeling anxious? Feeling depressed? Look at the dashboard; it might tell you why and what you can do about it. Are you cranky and irritable; do you just want to kick someone’s ass? Look at your own dashboard before you blame other people and their behavior. Is your work suffering from some kind of a block; is everything just harder for you now than it was an hour ago? Check the dashboard. Do you believe you need a drink or want scarf down great quantities of food? Yup, you guessed it; check the dashboard before you open the fridge.
Let’s go over all the gauges on the dashboard and you’ll see what I mean.Continue reading “Check your Dashboard”
The other day, someone invited me to sign the Citizen Therapist Manifesto. This is a petition, already signed by thousands of therapists, expressing their alarm at the candidacy of Donald Trump, which they see as a threat to the well-being of their clients. Do you want to know if I signed it? I might just tell you at the end of this post.Continue reading “The Shrink’s Links:The Citizen Therapist Manifesto”
The Gervais Principle, named after Ricky Gervais, the creator of The Office, and coined by Venkatesh Rao, of the not as popular blog, Ribbonfarm, states that at the top of any organization are sociopaths, at the bottom are losers, and in the middle are the clueless.
In case that isn’t self-evident to you, let me explain. Continue reading “The Shrink’s Links: The Gervais Principle”
If you were hurt by someone you love, it’s important to get real about the injury and account for all the damages inflicted: the common money the compulsive gambler spent, the trust the adulterer squandered, the confidence the abusive parent wrecked. It’s equally important to note the damages that were not done, the parts of you that are untouched by your misfortune, and qualities of yours that may even be strengthened.Continue reading “What Can’t Be Hurt”
Keith Wilson - Counseling