Mental Health

The use of music as a healing approach can be traced all the way back to the origins of the human species. Prehistoric healers across cultures used specific drumming patterns to induce mental states such as trance and relaxation. Music used in a healing context is evident ...

For my next few blog posts, I will be doing a series about relationships and time, based on Peter Fraenkel’s book Sync Your Relationship, Save Your Marriage: Four Steps to Getting Back on Track. If you would like to learn more about marriage or relationship speed, marriage, ...

The New Year is right around the corner, connoting renewal and resolutions to make positive changes. Why is it that we wait for the first of the year to reflect upon and intentionally make changes in our lives? What are we doing during the other eleven months? Many individuals ...

Imagine the following scenario: You are on the subway, headed to an important work meeting, and have no time to spare. All is good until, one stop away from your destination, the train just sits there in the station — doors open, engine idling.  Then you hear the familiar ...

“Sorry, can’t make it today. Let’s plan something soon.” How many times have you received this text or one of its variations from flaky friends canceling plans once again? We all have flaky friends (or have sometimes been that friend) who cancel plans more often ...

The cold weather has finally set in, the days are shorter, and the holidays are right around the corner. It’s that time of year. For many, this time of year brings feelings of warmth, joy, and connection to loved ones. For the rest of us, feelings of financial stress ...

In a world where “Breaking News” occurs around the clock with threats of nuclear war and natural disasters, it’s only instinctive to play down our own reactions and feelings so that we can carry on with the day. I have to admit, when I watched the news reports on ...

I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t rely on something to get them through the day. For some, it’s the alluring mental-escape waiting inside a bottle of Pinot Noir. For others, it’s a trip to distraction-isle found in the center of a brownie sundae. In therapy, ...

Your head is an intricate radio station. Think of your ears as a pair of sophisticated antennas and your mouth as a transmitter. When engaged, they exchange signals with the world around you. They were specially designed to receive and send messages to and from other ...

I have a pretty large sweet tooth. Cheesecake, oatmeal raisin cookies, lemon bars, speculoos cookie butter, anything with butter and sugar has my name written all over it. These baked treats serve as a pick me up after a busy and stressful day. Eating these sugary foods ...

For better or for worse, the digital age has brought us immediate access to seemingly infinite amounts of information and access to a gargantuan amount of goods and services. You only have to stand in the toothpaste section of any major pharmacy to see a sectional representation ...

Recently, I was listening to a Sounds True podcast in which Linda Graham, author of Bouncing Back: Rewiring the Brain for Maximum Resilience, was describing some findings from neuroscience about how babies see and experience the world. It turns out the preverbal infant ...

At the end of a long week, I review my to-do lists of each day in my planner. Some days, I am relieved during this process, seeing that I have completed all of my daily tasks for the week and that I can finally relax. Other times, however, I look at my lists in dread ...

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across ...

In my last post, I wrote about how the ACT model of therapy creates the conditions for growth and healing. I thought it would be useful to spend my next few blogs writing specifically about each component of the ACT approach in more detail. The 3 main components of ACT ...