Why Invest in Your Relationship Skills Before You Even Find Love?

No one wants to live with a feeling that disaster can strike at any time….

Adult ADHD

Success for adults with ADHD often stems from identifying and building on their strengths, while not over-focusing on their weaknesses. Discovering one particular talent or specialized area of accomplishment is critical for adults (and children) with ADHD. The earlier in life that individuals with ADHD identify their strengths, the greater the likelihood that they will succeed as adults in their chosen academic or occupational fields of interest.

Get Grounded With Art

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

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.

Simmering Soup: On the Importance of Asking Questions

Sometimes the question sits on the back burner like low-simmering stew that has all but been forgotten. An innocent question may ignite a fire in a chilly room and we are off in a new direction. Or sometimes it buzzes around like a nasty mosquito.

The Flip Side of Stress

Research has shown that when we are able to regulate our emotions in a stressful situation we are able to not only feel calmer but to also become more collaborative, creative and thrive.

Ways to Manage Worry Instead of it Managing You – Part THREE

Worry! Ways to Manage Worry Instead of it Managing You
Part Three
Strategies to Help you Manage your Worrying
I am glad you are back again to read the final part of my blog Worry! Ways to Manage Worry Instead of it Managing You. In part three of my blog I will give you some specific strategies to help you manage your worrying.
Here are some specific strategies and tools that can help you avoid toxic worry. Let’s get to it shall we!
Hallowell’s Strategies of Managing Worry

My Unorthodox life: Exploring Differences of Opinion in Couplehood

When I work with couples through dealing with differences, whether it be religious or any other practice or want, I help the couple explore their deeper feelings around their differences of opinion and differences of practice. Couples deal with all kinds of differences. Some examples are issues around health and fitness, what kinds of food enters the home, what kinds of media are allowed, how to use finances, what dress represents members of the home, places to hang out and where not to go, how much time to spend together, what to do with the time they spend together, where to go on vacation, to name but a few.

Can You Commit to Love Without All the Facts?

When we choose to marry, we often don't know everything. There are often things that are missing. After all, we haven’t seen how our partner behaves in a variety of circumstances, many of which they haven’t yet encountered. But more importantly we don’t always know ourselves. So we search for things to worry about in our partner in hopes of having some level of control. Not wanting to come to terms with the fact that we can't control the other. However, there is one element of control, and this lies within ourselves.

Valuable Tips to Manage Pain

Given what we know today, it appears likely that unresolved trauma, whether minor or major, plays a role in the persistence of chronic pain, through mechanisms of kindling (a self-perpetuating phenomenon of neural excitation) and priming (in which the brain readies itself to respond a certain way), that cause us to continually brace ourselves against the threat that caused the pain or the internal threat of pain itself. This is great news, because it means that to the extent that the trauma is worked through at the body/mind level, the pain should either disappear or lessen.

Communicating for Connection

A key task for couples is learning to express their needs explicitly, rather than expecting their spouse to read between the lines.

Feeling Helpless? Here Are 3 Corona (or Anytime) Coping Skills

It can happen at any time or place. But especially now, with the impact of COVID-19 still being felt here in Israel even as things are finally opening up, it's an expected emotion to be feeling. Helplessness. And we are all in it together. Including your therapist. What can you do when you feel like this? Here are 3 powerful skills I know of.

Vulnerability Just Ahead

Is feeling vulnerable a good thing?   Many of us see it as a sign of weakness, as we’re not being good enough!!  We’re afraid of not being seen by others as the “perfect” mother/father, spouse, child, worker, etc.   

Israel Wartime Anxiety: 3 Emotion-Focused Therapy Tips

The more we turn towards the pain and express unmet needs, and not avoid them, the less anxious we will be.

Exodus and Anxiety

Slavery, while terrible, represented a secure existence. By that, I mean that life was consistent, unchanging, certain. A slave will never achieve great things or recognition on a greater societal level, but he/she will also rarely encounter doubt and anxiety.

Back To School With ADHD

Advice to parents who face particular challenges around back-to-school among children with ADHD. Suggestions are offered in the context of common challenges such as difficulties with lack of routine, learning new habits and impulsivity. I invite parents to consult with me to examine ways to understand what's behind certain behaviors and build strategies, smoothing the way for better coping.

On Becoming a Personal Scientist: Beginnings

As the baby gains enough safety and security via his attachment systems with the significant people in his life, he is able to identify and then befriend the familiar within the strange.

The Fight or Flight Response: When Anxiety is Your Friend

Dying at a Distance: Grief During Covid

Humans are incredibly resilient. I am constantly in awe of the people that I speak to, in my role as a bereavement therapist, who are creating amended rituals to help them cope with their painful losses. There is no correct answer to our predicament. It feels unfair to be deprived of the comfort of our traditions that help guide and heal mourners. However, we can try to creatively engage in meaningful adaptations of our rituals during this crisis to help us process our grief.

Chewbacca Visits: The Power of a Dream

Dreams bring images and messages from the depths of our soul. It is our psyche’s way of compensating for our conscious life, which is only one-half of our life-story. Our dream life brings a richness and ebb and flow to our daily existence. Likewise when we are in touch with our unconscious, there is a flow to our daily existence much like the ebb and flow of the waves of the sea. Our unconscious helps bring us light and creativity and vitality.