I am back in Washington, DC for American Psychiatric Association governance meetings, and it is hard not to be thinking about politics in this incredibly political town. Ordinarily politics is a topic to avoid in a site like this one, but I am moved to ask you to help with one important and (relatively) non-partisan task – Join the entire …
All About Happy: Resources
What makes us happy? How can we have more happiness? Is happiness just the absence of sadness and depression? These are some of the questions that are addressed in an entertaining, informative and inspiring movie called “Happy.” Some ideas we saw – 50% of our happiness is determined by genes, 10% is related to life circumstances (financial situation, what country …
Aikido for Bad Behavior
We had an opportunity to visit Japan several times, over the course of a decade working with Japanese psychiatrists to improve how Japanese psychiatric hospitals work with potentially violent patients. During one of those trips, we came across a wonderful story that has stuck with us ever since. It is the story of a young man who is confronted by …
Retraumatization
After nearly 20 years of work in the field of post-traumatic stress disorder, one thing that continues to trouble and baffle me is the phenomena that was described by Freud as the repetition compulsion. Why is it that people who have been victimized in terrible ways are at much higher risk of being victimized again. One would think that they would be …
Disaster’s Aftermath
The recent hurricane that hit New Jersey and New York reminded us of the research on the aftermath of disaster conducted by a friend and colleague, Kent Harber, PhD. Kent has been very interested in posttraumatic stress disorder, and in particular, the work of Dr. James Pennebaker, on the value of sharing one’s story in the aftermath of trauma. Jim …
Rousseau and Nature’s Way: Realistically Thinking about Treatment and Medication
We’ve been thinking about people who come to our clinic, say that they are not sure that they have a mood disorder, and they want to try get off of their medications and use dietary supplements to cope with their ups and downs. We have a lot of interest in the idea of using various non-medication options for managing moods. …
Relationships: Love the One You Are With
We had an interesting conversation this morning about the reality of romantic relationships… which ended up being about much more than relationships… When I did more couple’s counselling, I often would think to myself, these two folks are coming in here complaining about each other. But really, if they want to know if the relationship is a good one and …
Ghosts
Today is Halloween. The holiday is felt by many to be derived from the Celtic festival of Samhain. On this night the door of the underworld opened a crack and spirits of the dead, as well as other beings, like faeries, traveled back to their old homes. Costumes developed as a way to avoid being harmed by these spirits, who …
In Memoriam
In memoriam. He was brilliant, a creative artist and writer with a strong and clear voice. He was impulsive and he had a generally paranoid view of the police, which they reciprocated. He had been arrested several times. When we met him he was on probation and that was why he came to see us at all. He could be …
Time Change: Fall Back
The time change in the United States is the classic “time of challenge and time of opportunity.” First, the challenge – If you wanted to do something to make America more depressed you would be hard pressed to come up with a better intervention. Shift everyone’s schedule so that they wake up an hour later (according to the solar clock) …
Carl Rogers Quotes from Becoming a Person
Carl Rogers was one of the most influential people in my life. In a time of turbulence and uncertainty I find it often helpful to review the first chapter in his book “On Becoming a Person.” It is a short chapter but filled with wisdom. In a world that often seems focused on getting things done, reaching the goal, and …
Moodsurfing Courses – Coming Soon!!!
We have been busy on the site, but not in ways that might be visible… The forum has taken quite a bit of work and is likely to take more work to really get it rolling, but so far we are pleased with the positive response to the idea. We have also started to develop course material for online classes …
Forum – Week One
We have had the Bublaa hosted forum up and running for a week. It looks great and we have had some interesting posts already. A couple of notes – You have to sign up for a Bublaa account to access the forum. And the forum is “private” meaning that once you have your account I have to approve your membership. …
Mood Phobias
We were talking with a couple of wonderful psychologists about what it is that helps people come to terms with moods and learn to live with them creatively. One of the barriers to successful mood surfing is a fear of moods. I suppose the analogy is of someone who is afraid of the waves trying to learn how to surf. …
Relationships: Too Many People in the Bed
Many years ago, a consultant we worked with made the observation that there are always at least four people in any intimate relationship. And often, six or more. The four people are (in the case of heterosexual relationship) the man, his female partner, his introjected mother (the internal mother that developed from his childhood), and his partner’s introjected father. Often, …
The Different Types of Vacations
This past weekend, we were at a Halloween party talking to a computer engineer who recently moved here from Holland. The topic turned to a discussion of things that are unusual about Americans, in particular, the American relationship to work and vacations. We take less vacation than almost any industrialized country in the world. Of course, we think it’s responsible …
Should or Could?
The idea for today’s post comes from a wonderful online resource for folks with moods – MoodScope.com (they have an interesting mood tracker app and blog). They wrote about the power of changing a single word in one’s thoughts – going from I should do something, or I should have done something, to I could do something. Give it a …
Mom is Tired: Transactional Analysis
The Winter Blues continue to be on the minds of people I talk to. One thing that sometimes happens when we get the blues is that we feel a bit abandoned, and one type of abandonment that is particularly significant emotionally is the abandonment by one’s mother. We have have had a number of conversations with themes related to Mom …
Starting a Forum
We have finally gotten started with our online forum. This is a place where frequent visitors and subscribers can ask questions, make suggestions, offer advice, share wisdom, etcetera, related to living creatively with moods. We want this forum to be lively, positive, candid and meaningful. To that end we can promise that we will give top priority to answering questions …
Depression is Depressing
Sometimes helping someone deal with their moods can seem a bit like being a gynecologist in Victorian England. How can you help someone with something (sex, or depression) when the topic itself is off limits. We are exaggerating, but there are so many ways that the idea that “depression is depressing” interferes with actually dealing with the mood. Not to …