Faith-based Counseling
Can We Just Call it Homesickness?
January 2, 2012 | 
Author 
Since 1935, when Dupont adopted the slogan “Better Living Through Chemistry,” we have been a culture pummeled by polymers and overly impressed by the new and shiny. Their advertising not only changed how we thought about the rush of chemicals being delivered to us (through medicine, in our water, in our foods), but reflected a new age of humanity in which biochemistry became a cruel and indifferent king. No longer were people thought of as “heartbroken.” They were thought of as chemically imbalanced.
Read more on Can We Just Call it Homesickness?…
Posted in Classical Homeopathy, Faith-based Counseling, Holistic Psychotherapy | 
Tags: advertising, diagnoses, homesickness, Media, psychiatric diagnosis | 
No Comments »
The Answer Within: Shmuck.
In our Modern Age, we've all been told that to find the real answers, we need to look "within." It's a message we see in magazines, hear over and over on television, and, of course, have thrust into our consciousness with the endless torrent of self-help books published every year. Even that concept–self-help–is an idea all the generations before us would have found both bizarre and blasphemous.
Read more on The Answer Within: Shmuck….
Posted in Faith-based Counseling, Keynote Speaker | Tags: answers within, brain, teenage brain, truth | No Comments »
The Necessary Death of Romance
In My Lost City, Fitzgerald wrote, “I can only cry out that I have lost my splendid mirage.” He was referring to the life and the loves that he and so many others had enjoyed in New York when it truly roared in the 1920’s.
Read more on The Necessary Death of Romance…
Posted in Blog, Faith-based Counseling, Hudson Valley Psychotherapy | Tags: advertising, CS Lewis, false hope, Fitzgerald, Madiison Avenue, market crash, Roaring Twenties, Romanticism | 8 Comments »
Detachment or Avoidance?
The other day I went into a store to buy some wine. I got three bottles and what I believe was an unprovoked sermon on detachment. I use the word “unprovoked” with deliberation.
Read more on Detachment or Avoidance?…
Posted in Faith-based Counseling, Holistic Psychotherapy, Hudson Valley Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy, Verbal First Aid | Tags: animals, attachment, committment, detachment, dogs, family, primates | 8 Comments »
Am I Mine?
[Currently appearing in Huffington Post, Religion section.]
Am I?
Yesterday I sat watching a storm tumble in as they can do only in this region of the country — catapulting, cranky and fast. There were spiny shards of lightning, whipping sheets of rain you could see approach from a distance of 30-40 miles, and a thunder roll that had three large dogs shaking behind my legs.
Posted in Blog, Christian Counseling, Faith-based Counseling, Holistic Psychotherapy | Tags: belonging, Chesterton, creation, fear and control, God, grace, Magic, religion, self-esteem | No Comments »
Emotional Twinkies
As it appeared in Huffington Post this past week:
I know a woman struggling with having an affair. Not the actual "having", but the idea of it. She ruminates about the man in question day and night. Should she, shouldn't she. She is married, has a daughter and the man she is fantasizing about is also married, though apparently he has made it clear that he is more than interested in her. The attraction is mutual, and there are all sorts of innuendos and near-misses — a brush against the hand, a bump in the hallway — all day at work.
Read more on Emotional Twinkies…
Posted in Faith-based Counseling, Holistic Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy | Tags: addiction, American culture, dope, emotional, entitlement, fast food culture, twinkies | No Comments »
Toxic Venting!!
Another article on Huffington Post…
Toxic Venting: When To Stop Listening
Or whilst I can vent clamor from my throat, I'll tell thee thou dost evil. — The Great Bard
An Orthodox priest I know and respect a great deal recently wrote to me about a meeting he'd had with some parishioners. They were upset about some personal issues and were soliciting his help, at least on the surface. As the conversation stretched on, it turned out that they were thoroughly uninterested in anything he thought, and even less in anything he had to say besides, "You poor thing." "Perhaps," he wrote with some bemusement, "sitting and venting your troubles is not as healthy as we think."
Posted in Faith-based Counseling, Holistic Psychotherapy | Tags: listening, narcissism, toxic, venting | No Comments »
Endangered Ideas. Endangered Minds.
The minimizing of communication is no accident. It comes as a consequence of minimal thinking, lethargy, and indifference. To some this is the death knell of American and Western civilization, the end of democracy as we know it (which requires active and informed participation by all citizens), the end of the broadest literacy rate in the history of mankind, and the end of equality of opportunity (for this too, takes an active, watchful, and observant eye). If it is, it is hardly surprising. Before the fall of every civilization came a period of fattening, of loosening, and finally, of decay.
Read more on Endangered Ideas. Endangered Minds….
Posted in Blog, Faith-based Counseling | Tags: civilization, communication, language, literacy, Media, morality | No Comments »
Endangered Words.
There are words that are rapidly slipping from common usage. Apparently, this happens all the time in language. Expressions, phrasing, and cultural emphases go the way of the Dodo every generation or two. No one says, "Golly" or "gee whiz" or "dagnabbit" anymore. We also don't speak the Queen's English even though many of the original settlers came from the Great Isle. Things change.
Read more on Endangered Words….
Posted in Blog, Faith-based Counseling, Verbal First Aid | Tags: Culture, language, words | 2 Comments »
On Real Parenting
This is meant for all parents who need just that small amount of recognition and encouragement to really help their children.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-acosta-lisw-cht/limit-setting-and-parenti_b_682565.html
Posted in Faith-based Counseling, Psychotherapy, Verbal First Aid | Tags: authority, parenting, Psychotherapy, Verbal First Aid | No Comments »