How to Connect With Your Partner in the Pandemic and Beyond

Consider this dream: you and your partner experience the pandemic with your marriage intact and your family even closer and more connected than ever. You can practice a more loving way of relating, with more kindness and giving. This blog offers practical tips for becoming a great communicator, being a generous listener, and adding gratitude to your relationship.

The Fight or Flight Response: When Anxiety is Your Friend

Fundamentals of Trauma Recovery, Part 8/8

By tackling pieces of your recovery to tackle that are ever-so-small, you ensure your success; this will build greater self-confidence and foundations for each further success.

Isolation Has Brought Us Together

We’re in isolation, and isolation has brought us together. 

The Wondrous “Black Sheep”: the Truth Teller of a Family

How often have you heard someone describing their family and either talking about a sibling…

Beyond Their Words: Understanding the Real Question

Peter Drucker wisely stated, "The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said." This article delves into that profound truth, illustrating how discerning unspoken messages can transform our interactions. We explore the critical skill of understanding the true questions behind the words, from veiled pleas for help to the silent cries hidden in seemingly innocuous inquiries. Discover why truly effective communication requires listening not just to what is spoken, but to the deeper needs and concerns that remain unsaid.

Making the First Call: A Guide to Choosing the Right Therapist for You

Deciding to seek therapy is a courageous first step, but the initial phone call to a potential therapist can feel daunting. This guide is designed to empower you during that crucial conversation, moving beyond logistics to help you find the right fit. Discover the key questions that reveal a therapist's experience, approach, and, most importantly, their ability to create a safe and trusting connection with you.

Encopresis: A Four-Pronged Treatment Approach

Encopresis, more commonly called “soiling” or fecal incontinence, refers to the involuntary passage of feces. Typically, this condition results from chronic constipation, but it can also be triggered by emotional issues. Encopresis, which has a 9% occurrence rate worldwide, is not considered to be a medical condition until a child is 4 years old. While encopresis is often very distressing to both the child and the family, it is treatable. The earlier treatment begins, the better the outcome. In my years of private practice as an art therapist, I have successfully treated many children with encopresis using the following four-pronged treatment approach.

What is Somatic Experiencing (SE) ?

As a body-mind practitioner and clinical psychologist, I have found that incorporating principles of Somatic Experiencing (SE) into my practice has provided me with a whole new way of helping people move on with their lives when stressed, anxious, depressed, traumatized, or otherwise in pain (including living with chronic pain). So what then, is Somatic Experiencing, and how does it work?

Survivorship Bias: Missing Planes and Missing Data

Survivorship bias is like the WWII military only looking at bullet holes in planes that returned, while ignoring the ones that crashed. In the same way, we copy the 'hustle' of famous billionaires and think it’s a blueprint, forgetting the thousands of people who did the exact same thing and failed. If you only look at the survivors, you’re missing the full picture of the risks you’re actually taking. To truly survive, you have to stop obsessing over the winners and start looking at the planes that never made it home.

How to Create a Sense of Normalcy at Home While Navigating the New Normal

Covid brings with it feelings of anxiety, stress and uncertainty. Though children deal with emotions in different ways, your child has been faced with school closures, cancelled events or separation from friends, they are going to need to feel loved and supported now more than ever.

Bagruyot Testing Accommodations for Olim

The primary focus here will be on accommodations for the Israeli Bagruyot. Providing accommodations at the Elementary school level is usually at the discretion of the school based upon psycho-educational testing. The Elementary school is not obligated in any way to provide the recommended accommodations and likewise can decide to allow them without a specific recommendation. There is no regulatory body regarding testing accommodations at the Elementary level.

Understanding Group Therapy: Benefits, Core Principles, and Distinctions 

Therapists often discuss the need for their clients to have supplemental support and another avenue for self-growth and reflection. Group Therapy, also known as a Process Group is more than support. It is a social microcosm where personal struggles are discussed in the here-and-now. While sharing similar benefits as other group models,  it becomes a living family dynamic where members can support, challenge and model healthy interactions with guidance of the therapist group leader.

At Home Therapeutic Art Activities for Children During Global Pandemic

During challenging times, it is important to encourage children to express how they are feeling. Children often have difficulty articulating their emotions verbally- communicating through art or play is a great alternative. This can serve as a cathartic release, empower them, and help them process new circumstances. 

Fundamentals of Trauma Recovery, Part 6

In building muscle, you will literally build your container to bear it all. When your container is fortified, recovery will be easier.

Get Grounded With Art

Creative expression can be a soothing and releasing form of self care and help us find our anchor.

Re-Frame Rejection so You Can Successfully Move Forward in Relationships

I have been rejected more times than I can count. By friends, boys, jobs, my kids, you name it… One of my most memorable rejections happened while in 6th grade. My English teacher encouraged us to write a journal, which I kept "hidden" in my desk. In it, I wrote all about a crush I had on a boy named Joey, a fellow classmate. I forgot that in the morning we sat at one desk and in the afternoon another. A fellow classmate found my journal and proceeded to read that very entry aloud to the entire class during recess.

The Power of Art Therapy for Emotional Healing

People often ask me, “What is art therapy and how does it work?” Art therapy…

How to Track Anxiety and Help Resolve It

We need our ‘signal’ anxiety, because otherwise, we’d be more vulnerable to danger.

The Pike Phenomenon: A Lesson for an Empowered Life

In Proverbs, King Solomon taught the sluggard to go and learn from an ant. More recently, researchers have taught us that we should go and learn from a fish. Move over, Grandma! There’s much more to pike than just gefilte fish.