What Do You Actually Want?
When you want something badly, but aren’t clear about why, your thinking can run wild. It is easy for the mind to build up to conclusions based on unexamined assumptions, creating a tower of thought that appears to be sturdy, but turns out more like Jenga blocks that are about to collapse. Ask yourself what you actually want, and why you want it. When you ask yourself a genuine question, listen for a sincere answer from yourself. It can help to write it down or talk it through with a therapist, partner, or friend, just to hear it out loud. The words you use and your tone of voice can help you sift through the layers of what you think you should want, so you can discover what you actually care about.
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What is Prepare/Enrich Premarital Therapy? Part III
Once couples begin to feel comfortable with their enhanced skills of communication along with their new tools of managing stress and conflict, the nature of premarital therapy shifts. Now that the basic building blocks have been set, the couple is allowed a space in which they can enrich their relationship, and enhance the strengths that they already possess. In this final phase of premarital work, the therapist guides the couple in developing a more balanced relationship, and maximizing teamwork.
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The Seattle Times: Feeling anxiety about returning to the office? Read these tips
This Seattle Times story features one of our Self Space therapists in a discussion of the anxieties that can arise as we contemplate retuning to the office after being remote during COVID-19.
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Technical Control and Human Control: Learning to be a Guest House
I sometimes find clients enter therapy hoping for a ‘quick fix’ or some technical solution to their difficulties. I think many of us, myself included, have hoped that there was some technique, some pill, some mantra, something that could ease our pain. It makes sense that we would hope for some technical solution. The only problem is that ‘control’ can mean different things. Control, perhaps most obviously, looks like mechanical control: the fixing and building of things, technical facility, mastery. But there is another, subtler form of control that I’ll call human control or the control of presence, and it has something to do with welcoming, containing, or ‘being a guest house’.
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Mental Health and Older Adults
Mental health is important at every stage of life, and we have a collective responsibility to include older adults in the discussion surrounding mental health care, both to reduce the stigma of seeking help and treatment and to change the perception of what we expect wellness to look like over our lifespan. While many people commonly believe that mental health issues are inevitable in older age, this is actually not true. For example, while some people experience chronic illness throughout their lives, many others do not, and are diagnosed with treatable mental health conditions later in life.
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What is Prepare/Enrich Premarital Therapy Part II
Part II of this series about Prepare/Enrich Premarital Therapy focuses on how this therapeutic approach helps couples move through conflict. Stress and conflict are present in every relationship. The work we do in therapy provides us with tools that allow us to feel supported when navigating seasons of high stress and conflict. The end goal here isn’t always to find a solution to a problem, but rather to find safety, understanding, and receptive communication within the relationship when problems inevitably arise.
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When is family counseling appropriate?
Family counseling is usually called for when a child is experiencing mental health symptoms or is demonstrating problematic behavior. While family counseling can be quite effective with adolescents, people at that developmental stage tend to highly value their privacy and are in the process of discovering their own individual identity. Teenagers love the confidentiality that individual counseling offers. In general I recommend family counseling for children 5-12 years-old. There are several benefits to coming in as a family instead of having the child attend alone.
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Grief and Ambiguous Endings
To be human is to experience grief. From denial to acceptance, grief consumes the full spectrum of our emotional experience. We grieve when there is loss: death, unmet expectations, breakups, miscarriages, time. Yet, how do we grieve endings that haven’t quite ended? Ambiguous endings, like the ending of a pandemic that isn’t quite over, is like a relationship with no closure. There’s no marker to honor the time we spent together and little hope for a new beginning ahead.
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The power of gratitude
Tis the season! The season for appreciation and being thankful. It may be hard to think about what to be thankful for especially after the past 18 months and how all our world has changed so significantly. Though it may be difficult to do, cultivating gratitude can have a tremendous impact on our lives. Some proven benefits of gratitude are boosting the immune system and improving mental health. Being thankful allows us to slow down and appreciate what we have and what we need.
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Improving access to therapy in Seattle
This past weekend The Seattle Times reported on why it is so difficult to find a therapist. The author, Hannah Furfaro, paints the picture of how more people than ever are looking for mental health support, due to the normalizing of therapy and reduction of stigma, the intensifying effects of the pandemic on mental health, and an increasing understanding of how mental health and physical health are intrinsically linked. Unfortunately many people struggle to find a therapist with availability they can afford and who feels like a cultural and relational fit. When we founded Self Space, it was exactly these issues that we intended to address and have been focused on solving since we opened our office doors in 2018.
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KIRO Newsradio: Seattle psychotherapist on how to cope with ‘season of toxic positivity’
Self Space was recently featured in a KIRO News story by Rachel Belle, Kiro Newsradio feature reported and host of the James Beard Award-nominated podcast, “Your Last Meal”. In the podcast. Rachel discusses toxic positive with one of our Self Space therapists, and they explore what is toxic positivity, how to identify when it comes up (or when you’re using it!), how to address it, and what to do instead.
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Overcoming my social anxiety: A journey of awareness, reframing, and growth
Social Anxiety has become synonymous with being “shy” or “introverted” and has been defined as significant anxiety, self-consciousness, or embarrassment about being judged or scrutinized by others. Clinicians now understand that social anxiety can go beyond fear of socializing and have a broader impact on how we perceive ourselves and our lives as a whole. Individuals with social anxiety can appear aloof or uninterested, when they actually do want to connect with others but their anxiety is holding them back.
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Navigating an eating disorder in the holiday season
The holidays are quickly approaching, and while that makes some people run to throw on their favorite holiday sweater and fill their cups up with eggnog, it can make others want to fast forward to January. The holidays can be particularly challenging for those struggling with eating disorders, as family gatherings are typically centered around sharing meals together. The foods our friends and families share connect us to our traditions, culture, and loved ones, yet it can be difficult to break away from what diet culture tells us is “okay.” Whether you are struggling with an eating disorder, or suspect a loved one might be, it is important to consider how to best navigate this upcoming season.
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Roadblocks in Therapy
Have you ever been in therapy and noticed yourself holding back? Maybe you and your therapist come up with these great goals and coping skills, only to never attempt them outside of the session. Maybe you find a part of yourself desperately wanting to feel better, but another part of you doesn’t want to embrace any change. Some might call this self-sabotage or being resistant to the therapy process. Fortunately, there is a different way of viewing these roadblocks through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. Whatever roadblock you may be facing, it’s likely the work of a part of yourself whose job it is to protect you.
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Mental health and the acceptance of self-care in the LatinX/Hispanic community
I wanted to kick off the start of Hispanic Heritage month with a conversation about the Hispanic/LatinX community’s relationship with our mental health and the practice of self-care. Mental health is not a topic that is frequently discussed in our community -- instead it is often minimized or seen as a deficit on the individual’s family. As a LatinX therapist, I believe that we need to have more conversations around the role of individual self-care (o auto-cuido en español) and therapy in our community’s well-being.
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When Forgiveness Doesn't Heal: Creating room for anger and grief
People seem to unilaterally love the idea of forgiveness. But forgiveness language often sounds eerily like the language of toxic positivity to me. As a therapist, I sit with clients on a daily basis and hear many stories of harm and abuse. At its worst, when we encourage a survivor to forgive, we might be inviting them into further harm and shame. What if instead, we invite them into their humanity, by making space for their anger? Once they are allowed this space, it will be so much easier for them to grieve the pain, and this, not forgiveness, is the beginning of the path back into the light.
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How Addiction Impacts the Family
Substance use disorder (the clinical term for drug addiction) can cause a strain on the family unit due to emotional damage, as well as financial, legal, medical, and other consequences that can typically originate in addiction. The impact of this disease can have both short-term and long-term effects on those around. Trust within the family slowly falls apart, conflict becomes the norm, and communication becomes more difficult.
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What is Prepare/Enrich Premarital Therapy? Part 1
With over 35 years of research and experience, Prepare/Enrich is currently one of the leading premarital counseling frameworks for couples. But what is Prepare/Enrich and how does it help couples prepare for a life together? This post is the first part of a 3-part series that explains the different components of Prepare/Enrich and how the different goals can contribute to a couples’ success in marriage and life together.
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Pride Month 2021
Pride Month focuses on the visibility of a marginalized and targeted community that deserves total equality and unencumbered human rights. The LGBTQIA+ community experiences disproportionate rates of violence, discrimination, and mental health concerns. Although symbols for Pride Month are covered in glitter, rainbows, and smiling faces of scantily clad parade-attendees, it is vital to never forget its origins and that the fight is not over yet.
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The Body: Inside and Outside, Lived and Scientifically Studied
I spend a lot of time, both in and out of therapy, paying attention to my body and thinking about the body in general. I am fascinated by the doubleness of the body: it is both lived and felt from the inside, and, like other objects, scientifically observed from the outside. Both of these aspects of the body are crucial to our life, and my therapeutic work is all about combining them.
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