Before the advent of the Internet, people worked mostly in the presence of others. Whether they were in the fields of a farm, the sea of typists in an office, the floor of a factory or behind the counter of a retail store, other people and relationships with them were the stuff of every day life. Millions of stay-at-home mothers, who may have been alone with their babies most of the day, nonetheless had that child to hold and other…
Book Review: “I Am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help” by Xavier Amador, PhD. (Vida Press, 2012) For the last 20 or so years, brain research has helped doctors and therapists understand that the serious mental illnesses of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are diseases of brain function. During the century before the “Decade of the Brain (the 1990’s)”, these rare and frightening mental diseases were blamed on bad or inadequate mothering (the “schizophrenogenic mother”), thanks to the early theories of…
If only life was one long, beautiful, inspirational journey. But it’s not. Some of us know that life can include experiences of such fear, helplessness and pain that we wonder how we survived. Over time, and with support, most of us get back to what we would call our normal. Yet others of us discover no matter what, we just can’t. We call these experiences psychological trauma, the kind of experiences that steal our mental equilibrium. Many traumas have their…
For decades, family therapists and other mental health professionals and researchers have believed that trauma in one generation can be expressed in the genetic code and passed as psychological suffering and vulnerability in following generations. This fact has been demonstrated in animal studies for years, but few human trials have followed. A research team at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, studying the DNA and mental health of survivors of World War II Nazi atrocities and their children, have newly…
Several of my clients are suffering with destructive moods, relationships, jobs or unemployment at the moment.I understand what that vortex feels like: overwhelming physical tension, unclear thinking, rushed or confused decision making, hair-trigger temper, uneasy sleep. During times like this in life, it’s very hard to trust that you can find a way to hang on. The present is so unpleasant it seems endless. When times like this come to us (and believe me, they will come to us all,…