There are no stages of grief for those dealing with the death of a loved one! When I was back in grad school in the late 80’s, we received minimal training on grief. There was one elective class called ‘Death and Dying’. Other than that, we were taught about Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ 5 Stages of Grief.…
We all experience various levels of stress throughout our lives, but as we know, the adolescent years can be especially charged with anxiety as teens learn to deal with uncertainty, change and forming their identities. Their lives are full of new challenges and opportunities and these transitions can be stressful, especially around body image, performance,…
When teenagers were attending school remotely, many teens developed habits of sleeping in longer and staying up later. Summer vacation has not helped this issue. To most teenagers summer means sleeping in and staying up later playing online games with their friends or watching movies on their phones. This definitely does not promote a good…
All over the Country teenagers will be starting their first year in high school or returning to high school. Typically I would recommend that parents think back to their first day of high school and how they felt and what they were expecting high school to be like and how they were expecting there…
The essence of healing is connection – first, to yourself. Then, to others. Your human nature directs you to seek bonding. You are, biologically and neurologically, wired for this. Unfortunately, when carrying unhealed trauma, you could seek harmful connections because you’re disconnected from yourself. Trauma is that very separation from the body and emotions.- Gabor…
Art therapy and Trauma informed art therapy Art therapy is a combination of psychological approaches and art to address psychological, psycho-social, emotional, and behavioral issues. The goal of art therapy sessions is often to improve the individual’s overall well-being and reduce the negative symptoms of disorders. According to the American Art Therapy Association, “art therapy…
What is art therapy? Art therapy is a modality, in which art and psychology are combine to address the presenting emotional and behavioral difficulties. The focus of art therapy sessions is often on exploring emotions, thoughts, and behaviors from a symbolic way, in which clients are not obliged to verbalize their thoughts or how they…
Depression can take as many forms as the people who experience it. And given that it will affect almost all of us at some point in our lives, it’s important to be able to recognize the signs — both the common signs and the ones you might not expect. Learning to identify the symptoms of…
How to Check your Self Worth in Two Minutes: Complex Trauma, Safety, and Radical Empathy Complex trauma has earned its name for being just that: layered, invasive helplessness. It can feel like too much weight to bear or to survive. See if this helps: picture an ant carrying an elephant uphill. This type of struggle…
Teenagers will break your trust with their actions. This is a good teaching moment. Impose consequences where they need to earn your trust back. They would need to earn trust back with other people. If they broke the trust of a friend, their school or their employer, they would need to earn their trust back.…