Articles
Drug Addiction
Addiction means having no control over whether to use a drug. A person who's addicted to cocaine has grown so used to the drug that he has to have it. Addiction can be physical, psychological, or both.
Physical addiction is when a person's body actually becomes dependent on a drug. It also means that a person builds tolerance to a drug, which means he needs a larger dose of that drug to get the same effects. When a person who is physically addicted stops using drugs, he may experience withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal can be like having the flu - common symptoms are diarrhea, shaking, and generally feeling awful.
Psychological addiction may happen along with physical addiction or on its own. In this case, the cravings for a drug are psychological, or mental. People who are psychologically addicted feel overcome by the desire to have a drug. They may lie or steal to get it. An addicted person - whether it's a physical or psychological addiction or both - no longer has a choice.
FAQ' s on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
Question #1: What is alcoholism?
Alcoholism, also known as alcohol dependence, is a disease that includes the following four symptoms: Craving--A strong need, or urge, to drink; 1) loss of control--not being able to stop drinking once drinking has begun; 2) physical dependence--withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety after stopping drinking ; 3) tolerance--the need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to get "high."
Question #2: Is alcoholism a disease?
Yes, alcoholism is a disease. The craving that an alcoholic feels for alcohol can be as strong as the need for food or water. An alcoholic will continue to drink despite serious family, health, or legal problems.
What are Anxiety Disorders?
Anxiety disorders range from feelings of uneasiness to immobilizing bouts of terror. This article briefly describes the different types of anxiety disorders. This article is not exhaustive, nor does it include the full range of symptoms and treatments. Keep in mind that new research can yield rapid and dramatic changes in our understanding of and approaches to mental disorders. If you believe you or a loved one has an anxiety disorder, seek competent, professional advice or another form of support.
Awareness is Key in Intention Therapy™
The majority of my clients lead ordinary lives. They are successful, professional, articulate, interesting, insightful, often extraordinary individuals. They may be experiencing issues related to depression, anxiety, relationship issues, etc. They are in need of the insight and awareness that good psychotherapy can facilitate. They are often in need of direction, and are usually open to feedback about the issues that are causing them problems. They are motivated for change and ask for what they want in therapy. They typically respond well to counseling and have no need
Caught up in severe addiction, depression, mania, anxiety,
phobias, anger, psychosis, personality disorders, and/or a number of other lesser known issues.
I also have the opportunity to work with clients that wish they could lead “ordinary “
lives.
Too often the extent of the suffering that these individuals were forced to endure was
extraordinary and far beyond our normal sensibilities. Much of the mental disease that I see
has some roots in the past and usually there is a way clear of it.
What is Bipolar Disorder?
Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person's mood, energy, and ability to function. Different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through, the symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe. They can result in damaged relationships, poor job or school performance, and even suicide. But there is good news: bipolar disorder can be treated, and people with this illness can lead full and productive lives.
More than 2 million American adults, or about 1 percent of the population age 18 and older in any given year, have bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder typically develops in late adolescence or early adulthood. However, some people have their first symptoms during childhood, and some develop them late in life. It is often not recognized as an illness, and people may suffer for years before it is properly diagnosed and treated. Like diabetes or heart disease, bipolar disorder is a long-term illness that must be carefully managed throughout a person's life.
Characteristics of Codependency
-
My good feelings about who I am stem from being liked by you
-
My good feelings about who I am stem from receiving approval from you
-
Your struggle affects my serenity. My mental attention focuses on solving your problems/relieving your pain
-
My mental attention is focused on you
Couples Counseling
Couples Counseling is needed when the lines of communication in a marriage or partnership have broken down, making it impossible to relate to one another in a mutually beneficial way.
It benefits both parties to have an advocate and confidant in a mate. If there is resentment there is withdrawal. If there is a list of inequities on either or both sides that has not been discussed, processed and mitigated. Then there cannot be healthy, open, frank discussion.
Depression Can be Helped
In any given 1-year period, 9.5 percent of the population, or about 18.8 million American adults, suffer from a depressive illness. The economic cost for this disorder is high, but the cost in human suffering cannot be estimated. Depressive illnesses often interfere with normal functioning and cause pain and suffering not only to those who have a disorder, but also to those who care about them. Serious depression can destroy family life as well as the life of the ill person. But much of this suffering is unnecessary. Most people with a depressive illness do not seek treatment, although the great majority - even those whose depression is extremely severe - can be helped. Thanks to years of fruitful research, there are now medications and psychosocial therapies such as cognitive/behavioral, "talk," or interpersonal that ease the pain of depression. Unfortunately, many people do not recognize that depression is a treatable illness. If you feel that you or someone you care about is one of the many undiagnosed depressed people in this country, the information presented here may help you take the steps that may save your own or someone else's life.
The Typical Intention Behind Depression
I have seen cases of severe depression that seem to be entirely chemical where psychotherapy is less effective than medication. But, this is very rare, most individuals with depression that I see respond very well the therapy because they are motivated to feel better. The individuals that I have seen that didn't respond well to therapy didn't seem that motivated towards therapy and most were looking for a chemical cure and therapy was something they were going to because they had to. Others appeared to suffer from a chemical imbalance. And, as is the case with Individuals with Bipolar disorder, they had no choice but to endure a mental illness that subjected them to extreme tortuous mood swings. In cases such as these therapy can mitigate the pain and help the individual to accept the hand that has been dealt them. Intention therapy can help the individual see that the intention to not feel the depression causes them to push it away and not accept in. This pushing away actually keeps it there because they are telling themselves "I can't feel this" and they tighten up around the pain. We tend to tighten up around physical and emotional pain. Often, it's not the pain itself but our tightening around it that makes it seem unbearable. In almost all case of depression I have seen the intention to wall off the pain is there.
Depression is often a Resentment Toward the Current Self
The definition of resent from Merriam-Webster Online is: to feel or express annoyance of ill will at. This usually involves an intention toward past equilibrium and away from present and future balance. You see this a lot in relationships. One might say, "Why can't things be the way there have always been"? What they are asking for is impossible but they need to see that they are asking the impossible before they can see that their non-acceptance of the present person is preventing their acceptance of the present moment, and their precipitating the holding on to their resentment.
In depression one has a deep and enduring resentment toward the current self. The intention is to sabotage any chance for current contentment. This intention is typically fueled by an intention towards the past. This intention towards the past is fueled by an intention towards balance. The individual is spending a great deal of time thinking of the past, either trying to get back to a time of former balance, or trying to change events that threaten present self acceptance. For example the individual is trying to get back to who they were before a major loss of self balance effected by a trauma or series of traumas. Or the individual is trying to find out how they could have prevented past trauma by reviewing it over and over again. In both cases the intention is to go back in time to change things. Present happiness will always be denied, even though it can't help but happen in the moment.
The Intentionality of Courage (faith) and Doubt
"I cannot know it with certainty but I have faith in its meaning."
Doubt is the antithesis of certainty. Courage (faith) is the middle way. The intention of doubt is to become certain. We doubt so that we can examine the possibilities of outcome. in order to seek to ensure the greatest probability of 'positive' outcome we examine all the probabilities, we focus on the 'negative' probabilities in order to mitigate them, the mind of doubt gets caught there. It gets caught because it pushes negative outcomes away with fear based emotion.
Individual Counseling
The psychological process of self actualization has the opportunity to begin when the individual makes the decision to change. Most often this decision to change takes place when the individual "hits bottom". This decision must be taken advantage of while the motivation is high. Our tendency to slip back into our habitual, mindless patterns of complacency is extremely entrenched.
Mindfulness Practice
Within the last century, Western science and physics have made a startling discovery. We are part of the world we view. The very process of our observation changes the things we observe. As an example, an electron is an extremely tiny item. It cannot be viewed without instrumentation, and that apparatus dictates what the observer will see. If you look at an electron in one way, it appears to be a particle, a hard little ball that bounces around in nice straight paths. When you view it another way, an electron appears to be a wave form, with nothing solid about it. It glows and wiggles all over the place. An electron is an event more than a thing. And the observer participates in that event by the very process of his or her observation. There is no way to avoid this interaction. Meditation is participatory observation. What you are looking at responds to the process of looking. What you are looking at is you, and what you see depends on how you look. Thus the process of meditation is extremely delicate, and the result depends absolutely on the state of mind of the meditator.
What is OCD?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), one of the anxiety disorders, is a potentially disabling condition that can persist throughout a person's life. The individual who suffers from OCD becomes trapped in a pattern of repetitive thoughts and behaviors that are senseless and distressing but extremely difficult to overcome. OCD occurs in a spectrum from mild to severe, but if severe and left untreated, can destroy a person's capacity to function at work, at school, or even in the home.
Post Traumatic Stress
It is common for people to feel that no matter what they’ve faced or lived with, no matter how extreme, they should be able to carry on. But sometimes people face situations that are so traumatic that they may become unable to cope and function in their daily lives. Some people become so distressed by memories of the trauma – memories that won’t go away – that they begin to live their lives trying to avoid any reminders of what happened to them.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease. Approximately 1 percent of the population develops schizophrenia during their lifetime – more than 2 million Americans suffer from the illness in a given year. Although schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency, the disorder often appears earlier in men, usually in the late teens or early twenties, than in women, who are generally affected in the twenties to early thirties. People with schizophrenia often suffer terrifying symptoms such as hearing internal voices not heard by others, or believing that other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. These symptoms may leave them fearful and withdrawn. Their speech and behavior can be so disorganized that they may be incomprehensible or frightening to others. Available treatments can relieve many symptoms, but most people with schizophrenia continue to suffer some symptoms throughout their lives; it has been estimated that no more than one in five individuals recovers completely.
Substance Abuse Treatment Utilizing Motivational Interviewing (MI)
Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a goal-directed, client-centered counseling style for eliciting behavioral change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence. The operational assumption in MI is that ambivalent attitudes or lack of resolve is the primary obstacle to behavioral change, so that the examination and resolution of ambivalence becomes its key goal. MI has been applied to a wide range of problem behaviors related to alcohol and substance abuse as well as health promotion, medical treatment adherence, and mental health issues. Although many variations in technique exist, the MI counseling style generally includes the following elements:
- Establishing rapport with the client and listening reflectively.
- Asking open-ended questions to explore the client’s own motivations for change.
- Affirming the client’s change-related statements and efforts.
- Eliciting recognition of the gap between current behavior and desired life goals.
- Asking permission before providing information or advice.
- Responding to resistance without direct confrontation. (Resistance is used as a feedback signal to the therapist to adjust the approach.)
- Encouraging the client’s self-efficacy for change.
- Developing an action plan to which the client is willing to commit.