Holistic Psychotherapy
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.
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Posted in Classical Homeopathy, Faith-based Counseling, Holistic Psychotherapy | 
Tags: advertising, diagnoses, homesickness, Media, psychiatric diagnosis | 
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A Personal Case for Homeopathy Part II
After the debate with my last articles on this topic, I find I couldn't agree with the critics more. Homeopathy is strange and sounds magical. When I try to explain it to people — despite years of study and personal/professional experience — I wind up sounding like my worst woo-woo nightmare, stumbling over words like "energy," "resonance" and "organism."
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Posted in Holistic Psychotherapy, homeopathy, Hudson Valley Psychotherapy | Tags: classical homeopathy, medicine, music, therapy | 1 Comment »
A Personal Case for Classical Homeopathy
Part 1 of a 2-Part Series on How To Explain (or Not) Classical Homeopathy
The American Sound Bite
Out of nowhere, my husband turned to me and said, “I wish you’d tell me what you do so I can tell other people. They ask me what you do and I can’t explain it.”
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A Primer in Classical Homeopathy: How to Make the Interview Easier and More Productive
(this is an expanded version of the piece currently on Huffington Post)
I’ve been a psychotherapist for 25 years. I believe it’s an important part of my job to make my clients as comfortable as possible from the first phone contact. Despite all reasonable efforts, though, the first interview seems to still be somewhat awkward and difficult for new patients. Really, it’s very understandable. They don’t know me. They feel vulnerable and unsure because they don’t know exactly what’s expected. They’re sometimes not even fully clear about why they’re there except they know they want to feel better.
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How Dreams Really Do Come True.
The Force of Will or the Fancy of Fortune?
I've dreamt about farming all my life. You wouldn't know it by the way I live, but it's true. Somehow over all these years, my dreams and my realities have been separated by an inexplicable chasm.
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Posted in Blog, Holistic Psychotherapy | Tags: beef farming, control, farm, Fortune, sustainability, Will | 4 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.
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Posted in Faith-based Counseling, Holistic Psychotherapy, Hudson Valley Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy, Verbal First Aid | Tags: animals, attachment, committment, detachment, dogs, family, primates | 8 Comments »
The Separation Question: Who's More Afraid, Parent or Child?
Recently I found out that a beloved niece — one with whom I lived until she was about two years old — was pregnant. And suddenly, everything I had learned to let go of as she became a toddler, then again as a school-age child, then a teenager, then a young adult, then a married woman, had flown out the window. I had grabbed hold of that life-long chain of release, release and re-release and pulled it back to me and rolled it into a big knot. Then, I found out that she (in her last trimester) and her husband were going to visit the wild, wonderful world of Mickey Mouse in the height of summer. Every adrenal-driven, hormone-based horror came rushing out like a hot flash. I thought of every ride that could make her sick, every long drive that could give her a blood clot, every soda that would push her blood sugar into a snit. What if X and what if Y? And did you talk to your doctor? And how will you ever be able to stand on line?
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Posted in Blog, Holistic Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy | Tags: babies, children, fears, letting go, parenting, separation, toddlers | No 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 »
Living On YouTube.
[This article appeared in Huffington Post in the first week of July, 2011)
There's a man I know who is talented, empathic, possessed of a keen intellect and frightened of everything. The fear has been built the way thunderstorms gather over mountains — imperceptibly at first, then slowly, silently but with great force. With every approaching rumble, it has shut his world down piece by piece. First it was work, then it was social activities, then it was driving and finally it was family. His universe has folded in like a sheet, corner over corner, until it has reduced his life to spending the day in front of the computer trolling YouTube. He didn't understand how it all happened and his anguish was palpable — so was my confusion.
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Posted in Holistic Psychotherapy | Tags: alcoholic, Fear, home-bound, internet, love, video, youtube | 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.
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Posted in Faith-based Counseling, Holistic Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy | Tags: addiction, American culture, dope, emotional, entitlement, fast food culture, twinkies | No Comments »