Psychotherapy Issues

TYPES OF THERAPY ISSUES COMMONLY ADDRESSED WITH DR. J

• Depression, anxiety and other emotional distress
  • Everybody gets the blues sometimes.
  • Most people occasionally feel anxious or nervous.
  • But if you just can’t shake those feelings, or when they are interfering with your life, you need help.

Life is short and precious. With assistance, you can explore those painful feelings in a safe setting, work through unresolved issues that may be hiding beneath them, and tap your hidden resilience so you can move forward in your life.

• Relationship (or Attachment) problems
  • Your first experiences with relationships were in your family of origin or the home where you were raised
  • If there were conflicts or emotional issues in your home, you grew up with a view of relationships based on those conflicts
  • You may have difficulties in your adult relationships when they set off some of those early life issues
  • These issues are often called “Attachment Disorders” and unless you understand and work on them, your family history will haunt your present and future relationships

You didn’t create the family into which you were born and raised, so you are NOT responsible for any problems arising from that family history. However, you ARE responsible for your current life, for the choices you make, and the consequences of those choices. You can learn to understand how you got where you are and how to make changes to improve the quality of all your relationships, regardless of your family and your past.

• Stress management (including panic disorder and PTSD)
  • Stress is an uncomfortable but normal part of life.
  • Panic disorder is a high stress reaction.
  • Agoraphobia is panic at such intensity that people can become virtually confined to their homes.

Learning to manage stress is critical for physical as well as emotional health. Sometimes the source of your stress is in your family’s history, and other times it comes from your daily life. Understanding what it is and where it comes from (even perhaps before you had language to describe it) will begin to give you some power over it. You can learn to recognize triggers for your distress, and to calm yourself before things spin out of control. Together we can design some ways to reduce the intensity of your reactions and also to relieve the symptoms of stress caused by trauma (post-traumatic stress disorder).

• Life transitions
  • A transition has been called “the pause between trapezes.”
  • This uncomfortable period can result from the death of a loved one, a divorce, a move to a new city, change of school or job, medical condition, or any other loss or change.
  • Even positive changes, like graduation, marriage or a new baby, are often stressful.

Sometimes it takes only a brief time to sort through the difficulty of change, reach your inner strength, and grow through and beyond the uncertainty of transitions. And sometimes you will discover other issues that are beneath the surface, making the current situation feel so stressful. If that’s the case, then it’s to your advantage to address them now, so they don’t continue to interfere with your happiness and peace. In addition to individual therapy for dealing with life transitions, I also conduct support groups program, Transition Seminars® or After the Break-Up® addressing a variety of issues such as job loss, divorce or relationship ending, remarriage, and other transitions.

• Medical psychotherapy: Living through, with and beyond illness If you have a medical problem or have been trying to conceive, you might also be experiencing emotional concerns: fear, anger, disappointment, guilt, depression, or other feelings are not unusual.
  • Medical conditions carry many burdens, both for the patient and other family members.
  • Beyond dealing with the physical and financial aspects of your condition, there are the emotional wounds and the strain on family and personal relationships.
  • Other than handing you a prescription, your medical doctor generally cannot do very much to address those feelings.
  • Family and friends may get to the point where they cannot handle any more of your emotional pain, and may have their own concerns that they do not feel they can impose upon an ailing person.
  • Couples experiencing fertility problems have layers of emotions that may impact their relationship and even their medical treatment.
  • People with Tinnitus or Misophonia are often misunderstood or told either to “just get over it” or “it’s Incurable — you just have to live with it.” Others often do not understand (or even believe) there is a real problem. (Please see my other website, devoted exclusively to these two conditions: www.SensitiveToSound.com)

Healing usually includes grieving, finding support while fighting the odds, and learning how to accept and move forward under changed circumstances. My own medical challenges have taught me much, and I can help you and your loved ones deal with your situation, as well. In addition to individual and family therapy for medical issues, I also periodically conduct a support group program, Lemon-Aid®, for those who have a rare disorder or medical condition of any type (see Self-Help for examples of activities from a similar structured program).

• Addictive behaviors
  • Addictions often start out as an attempted solution to stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, or other issues.
  • But addictive behaviors (such as alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling, or internet) then become problems bigger than the original ones.
  • Whether or not you have attended 12-Step meetings for your particular addiction, personal therapy will help you clear up the issues underlying the addiction.
  • Without addressing the source, you are likely to slip back, or substitute a different addictive behavior, in an effort to numb whatever is causing you pain.

I have a great respect and empathy for the person inside the addiction, and I know how difficult it is for you to kick your addiction. It is hard to give up a behavior that is helpful to you in some way, even if it is hurtful in others – so let’s figure out how it is helping, and find some better ways to accomplish that.

• Eating disorders (especially compulsive eating and yo-yo dieting)
  • Dieting actually makes people fat!
  • The more you diet, the more likely it is that you will spring back up to a higher weight than before you started.
  • From a Neurolinguistic perspective, talking about “losing weight” makes no sense. Our brains tell us that losing is bad (losing the game, losing your wallet, losing your life, losing your mind …). It is more useful to think about what you are seeking to accomplish: health, fitness, ability to play with your kids or fit in your clothes, etc.

My approach to weight management is founded on evidence that most people can learn to eat “normally” and improve their health, well-being, and weight without dieting. Imagine how it would be to love and accept your body and make peace with food. I know, hard to even imagine … yet possible. In addition to individual therapy related to weight issues, I also occasionally conduct a support group program, Never Diet Again® that includes a structured curriculum for a 12-week series (see a sample of activities in Self-Help).