This bracelet inscribed “Keep Going” was originally meant to inspire me because last year was a tough year with some serious medical challenges that have not wholly been resolved yet. Additionally, I was challenged by a new job which was my first position in a clinical supervisor role. Don’t get me wrong: I love my job and I love being a supervisor. It’s taken a circuitous route to get here, a little longer than a lot of people, but I’m grateful to my manager for taking a chance on me and I hope she is pleased with my performance. Admittedly, I’ve also made some mistakes to which I’ve owned up. I’ve come a long way from my strict perfectionistic mindset, in which anything less than no errors equals complete failure. The ability to hang out, even for a little while, in the grey zone is a monumental achievement for me. This was an issue that my former psychiatrist and therapist, Dr. Lev, and I worked on extensively and now, faced with a relevant situation, I’m seeing the results.

This week, which was a short one due to New Year’s Day, I had a jam-packed schedule as I had rescheduled clients from Monday through the rest of the week. Some of the days were long as well, with 7 pm appointments. There were times I was exhausted and I used the bracelet’s inscription more as a reminder to “push through,” rather than as motivation to overcome what had been a difficult previous 12…

Mental health is a crucial aspect of overall well-being, and supporting someone facing mental wellness issues is vital to fostering a compassionate society.

Let’s dive deep into the various aspects of providing adequate support, from understanding common mental health disorders to using support groups offering practical assistance.

Understanding mental health

While you may not fully grasp what it’s like to have a mental health problem, understanding the basics of mental illness can significantly help your loved ones who are struggling.

Mental health problems can affect anyone, regardless of age, gender, or background.

It’s essential to acknowledge that mental wellness…

Bruce (Springsteen) played at MetLife Stadium this past weekend in New Jersey, about an hour’s drive from my home. I’ve been a huge fan of his for a long time, but I’ve never seen him in concert. There were still tickets available, yet I held back. Why? Because I didn’t want to go alone.

I’m a fairly independent woman, a proud introvert who has lived alone since graduating from college. I love living alone and I admittedly need a lot of solo time to recharge my batteries from a demanding job as a licensed clinical social worker. I enjoy spending time with small groups of friends and also seeing my brother and his family, but I hesitate when leisure time involves large crowds, such as concerts or even movies.

I don’t have social anxiety and I often wonder why I hesitate when it comes going to places solo. I have eaten out alone — and I don;t just mean for a slice of pizza, but sit-down restaurants where I was served by a waiter. It’s not the most comfortable situation, but I bring a book with me; as long I have something to distract me, I’m fine.

If I had a burning desire to see a movie, I suppose I would go, but I’m not really a movie person. I don’t even subscribe to Netflix. Everyone is telling me I have to go see Barbie—some of my friends have seen it twice, especially those who have gone with their daughters. I’m curious, but not sufficiently motivated to go alone.

A study published…

I’ll get right to the point: I had a 1:30 pm appointment with my gastroenterologist yesterday. It took months to get this appointment. One mjor survey found that average wait times for an appointment with a physician have increased significantly since it was first conducted in 2004, and since it was last conducted in 2017. In the 15 large metro markets covered by the survey, the average delay in 2022 was 26.0 days, up 8 percent from 24.1 days in 2017, and up 24 percent from 20.9 days in 2004.

I arrived at my appointment on time. When I was in the waiting room, a nurse came out after about 10 minutes to tell me the doctor was running about 10 minutes late. Okay, I thought, no big deal. After about 10 minutes more, the doctor emerged to bring me back to the exam room and take my vital signs. By that point it was 2:00 pm. I had a 3:00 pm counseling session scheduled back home, and it takes me about a half-hour to get there. The clock kept creeping forward.

At 2:20 pm, I gathered my things and opened the door to the exam room, figuring that even if the doctor came back in now, it wouldn’t be much of an appointment. I ran into one of the doctor’s staff.

“Are you done?” she asked.

“No, I haven’t even started,” I told her. “I’ve been waiting for 50 minutes. I had a 1:30 appointment.”

She looked at her watch.

“I have to go,” I told her.

“You have to go to the…

I have a client who is severely depressed and has been since I started working with her six months ago. She presents with passive suicidal ideation but says she doesn’t want to die; she merely wants the pain to end.

I tell her it will get better and that there is hope. She thanks me for that. I have no idea if she has Googled me and found my website that includes my detailed history or some of my published posts that also contain selected aspects of my illness. Sometimes when we are in session I want to tell her directly I’ve been where she is. I want to provide living proof that people do come back from the depths of the severe depression she has been experiencing. But I hold back because once I disclose, there is no going back.

In a study of the effects of therapist response modes in psychotherapy, Hill et al. stated that although TSDs (therapeutic self-disclosures) occurred only one percent of the time in their sample of therapy sessions, they received the highest client helpfulness ratings of all therapist responses.

This past week a client and I were chatting as our session opened about not looking forward to the upcoming winter. She asked if I had considered moving to Florida and I said no, because my family is in the Northeast. She asked me if I had a family of my own, meaning was I married. I don’t wear a wedding ring, which clients can see even if the sessions are virtual, so I…

2023 was quite a year.  To say there have been some challenges is an understatement but my hope for you is that you are finding some inspiration and optimism for the New Year.  There were highs, lows and transitions for many.  LoveAndlLifeToolbox.com was about experimentation and change in 2023.  The site has gone through a number of shifts in the over 10 years of its existence.  I continue to be a working therapist in private practice in Marin County, California while maintaining this site.

I am very proud that LoveAndLifeToolbox.com remains a trusted emotional health and relationship resource with a global audience, offering education in many related areas including happiness, family of origin issues, unhealthy relationship patterns, emotional safety and self-help tools to supplement your growth.

In celebration of the upcoming New Year, enjoy my 3 offerings:

Top 3 Relationship Articles of 2023

Unhealthy Relationships? Break Your Relationship Pattern

People who continually get in bad relationships can benefit from understanding their role and how it’s linked to prior their prior experiences.  Then, change can occur.

Rock Solid Marriage

An assortment of views from several relationship experts on how to have the most stable, secure and loving relationship.

Healthy Relationships: Assessing the Emotional Safety

A look at one of the most critical aspects of well functioning intimate relationship and a mini assessement.

Top 3 Emotional…

I’m 62 years old. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m this old as I look back and wonder where all the time has gone. I’ve entered the decade in which my mother passed away — she died at 67 of pancreatic cancer. But as numerous people have pointed out to me, she smoked four packs of Lark cigarettes a day and worked seven days a week; I believe these were the coping mechanisms she used to deal with the severity of my mental illness. She was overweight most of the time, except when she stepped up her bulimia, and then she lost an excessive amount of weight in a short time. But she always gained it back. I can’t recall her ever going to a doctor. She must have been in a tremendous amount of pain when she sought medical help for what were the signs of the cancer.

My father passed away at 81 from sepsis. He didn’t take care of himself either, eschewing the doctor and the dentist. I remember his teeth were rotting out of his mouth and by the time we got him to the hospital — by the time he was willing to go because he was feeling so badly — so much was wrong that he never made it back home.

I, on the other hand, have been diagnosed with numerous medical conditions, including a stroke I had in 2018, asthma, migraines, coronary artery spasms, and undifferentiated connective tissue disease. Not to mention the severe mental illnesses I have dealt with for most of my life and have since recovered…

(The following piece is by Dr. Carl R. Nassar, Ph.D., LPC, CIIPTS)

It’s a Tuesday morning. A world away, more than two hundred hostages are held captive in the underground caverns of Gaza. I’m in my office—an upstairs loft in the heart of Old Town in Fort Collins, Colorado—and I’m caught a little off guard when my client Paul tells me that he feels he’s also being held hostage. He explains that, of course, he’s not physically being held hostage, but rather, emotionally.

All around the world, he reminds me, on college campuses and on iPhones and tablets and laptops, anti-Semitism is on the rise. He pulls out his phone and shows me TikTok dancing to anti-Semitism, X tweeting out hatred toward Jews.

While the hostages in Gaza are trapped by external captors, Paul is held captive by his mind. TikTok and X and the daily news have convinced him his world isn’t safe. Even venturing to my office was risky business.

He tells me that when he leaves my office, people will see an imaginary Jewish badge pinned to his chest, like the star of David Nazis made Jews wear from 1939 to 1945. Everyone will know he’s Jewish, and something bad will happen to him. He might get beat up or killed. “The world is not a safe place anymore,” he declares.

He’s deeply troubled that more is not being done, that presidents and prime ministers around the world aren’t denouncing anti-Semitism, and those who are aren’t doing much more of it,…

Today is World Mental Health Day and I’ve spend the weekend trying to figure out what to write. It’s been four decades since I first stepped foot in a therapist’s office and when I try to reflect, my brain ping-pongs all over the place. There’s so much data, too much to process.

I’m somewhat depressed now dealing with some medical conditions, one of which could potentially require surgery. Lots of testing and more testing. Waiting and more waiting. Feeling as though my health is spiraling out of control and not in a good way. One doctor’s appointment is not until February.

I get scared when I hear statistics like these, from a recent study: “Patients suffering from severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorders, have a reduced life expectancy compared to the general population of up to 10–25 years.” In the back of my mind is the realization I’ve entered the decade in which my mother passed away. She smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, she was overweight, but I badly abused my body with the anorexia, severe malnutrition, and laxative abuse. I will heave a big sigh when I turn 68, as she passed away at 67.

I’ve always maintained that emotional pain hurts worse than physical pain ever did or could. I still feel that way. I never want to go back to that dark place where I loathed myself so intensely I attempted to take my life, four times. Anorexia….