I’m going to start today with a visual example to explain why we should reframe things sometimes. The following image is one I took, and I’m going to frame it in two different ways. In this first image, there’s not a lot to see. Some scruffy grass, maybe a mildly interesting pattern, but overall, not… Read More Top Skills Thursday: Reframe
In a CBT session the focus is on a target area. How a patient thinks, feels, and reacts to a situation or thought is causing problems in their life. There may be multiple target areas, but usually only one is addressed in each session. The first step in CBT is to address core beliefs about… Read More Therapy Tuesday: CBT – Core Beliefs
I’ve had a frustrating realization, and I decided to share it with everyone here. My reason for it isn’t to garner sympathy, but to show how I use the skills I write about. This post may be long, and I’ll put a TRIGGER WARNING here that I’m going to be discussing the ways depression and… Read More Freeform Friday: My battle with depression
It’s such an obvious thing, isn’t it? If you’re having trouble with anxiety or depression, find a therapist. Don’t ask me why, even for those of us who have successfully used therapists in the past, it’s not the first thing we think of. What I’ve learned is that it’s sometimes quite a bit harder than… Read More Top Skills Thursday: Find a therapist
I’m sure most people have encountered a situation where they’ve had a large task and needed to break it into smaller pieces to accomplish it. That isn’t the small goal idea we’ll be talking about today. Setting small goals doesn’t require a larger goal to be necessary. Sometimes the everything is too much. That’s where… Read More Top Skills Thursday: Small Goals
A friend of mine said something mildly self-deprecating one day. I said, “Don’t talk that way about my friend!” She stopped, looked at me in surprise, and then laughed. She’d heard that line before. The ways we talk to ourselves can be small expressions of irritation, and sometimes they can be downright abusive. We wouldn’t… Read More Soothing Sunday: Give Yourself Compassion
Ah, spring! Birds return with bright songs, the days grow warmer, the world begins to turn green, and allergies beat everyone into a miserable, snotty disaster. Thanks to the joys of allergens and dramatic weather changes, I ended up with a sinus infection recently. It’s nothing terribly unusual, just a physically miserable feeling. I talked… Read More Top Skills Thursday: Coping with side-effects
Maintaining relationships, or even finding new ones if we’ve managed to lose all our connections, is a wonderful way to help ourselves out of depression.… Read More TopSkills Thursday: Maintain Relationships
Gestalt therapy rests on five principles based on how people perceive the world around them. The idea is that the mind recognizes patterns, and these patterns fall into groups, or principles. The five patterns are: proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, and connectedness.
I had a very rough weekend. I’m going to talk about it for two reasons. One, it may help someone to know how I handle the really huge anxiety attacks. Two, I often feel like a fake, writing about how to handle anxiety, depression, and PTSD when I still struggle so hard with them. Yes,… Read More Top Skills Thursday: Triggered and Fighting
Kambry Ellis 