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Struggling with anxiety, depression or other “negative” emotions and disorders
I use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with a lot of my clients who struggle with issues like depression, anxiety, OCD, social phobia and more. ACT gives us a path to help you move out of a stuck place into a life filled with meaning and purpose. This short little video demonstrates a technique used in ACT to “defuse” from the cycle of negative emotions that we can find ourselves caught in. We may notice that we’re having that familiar feeling of depression. As soon as we notice it, something like a switch goes off and we get all tangled up with our depression. We may then begin to feel angry that…
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Another supportive site for those with DID
Another fine resource who supports not just clients but those professionals who want to gain more inforation about how to support this uniqe set of of surivors is: https://www.aninfinitemind.com/ Z :https://www.aninfinitemind.com
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Beauty after Bruises
Beauty after Ashes offers information, financial aid and the ability to support the community struggling with complex PTSD, dissociative disorders and DID. DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder. It was previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder. If people know about it, they generally think of things like “Sybil” or “The Three Faces of Eve.” Those depictions of DID are not quite like what it looks like in real life. A number of people living with DID have had successful careers, are wonderful parents and partners. They bring an incredible amount of resiliency because they have survived the unsurvivable. Generally, this is a disorder that occurs because of early, pervasive neglect…
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Information about the “Unspeakable” Dissociative and DID disorders.
A wonderful webinar was offered to the community – both for survivors, those who care for them and professionals who want to better know who to work with this population. So, I’m going to post some links.
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Anxiety, BIPOC, Birth, Coping Skills, Depression, Miscarriage, Postnatal, Pregnancy, Stillbirth, Trauma
Supportive FREE Webinar
Return to Zero: HOPE is sponsoring a free webinar this Saturday, February 27th, 10am PST – – Optimizing Resilience: Mental Health in Black and African American Communities led by Dorienna M. Alfred, PhD. This webinar is intended for both bereaved parents and providers. We hope you’ll join us at 10am PST on Saturday for this important topic. Register here: https://rtzhope.org/webinar
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Great TED talk on the brain, mind, regulation and relationship
I really enjoy learning more about how the brain works, why grounding and mindfulness and relationships repair and heal our brains especially from childhood trauma. I find the science to be so hopeful and optimistic that instead of learning to cope with trauma, we can heal, truly heal. So I am sharing this video of Dr. Dan Siegel talking about the brain, explaining how it functions and is related to the mind and relationships.
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Did you know this about “grounding” exercises?
I found some research and articles that talked about how all grounding exercises are not good for all clients. For some people, they have spent most of their lives “out” of their bodies, experiencing themselves as “unembodied.” So grounding exercises that ask clients to do things like body scans or monitor their breathing may find themselves activated. For people struggling with being in their body, I often suggest other types of grounding exercises that have clients focus on outward objects. Like 5,4,3,2,1 – notice 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can smell. The body…
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Another important video that guided me into this work
Dr Gabor Mate on the misunderstanding of trauma by society and the medical industry presents this video on the misunderstandings of the ACE study, trauma, addiction, attachment, and authenticity.
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This is why I believe in the ACE study and work as a therapist in the area of recovering from trauma
Here is a video that changed me… taught me that traumatic events, especially in childhood are at the roots of physical, emotional and socio-economic issues. This TED talk by Dr. Nadine Burke Phillip – “How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime” “Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart…
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How is COVID affecting your mental health?
At this point, I do not believe that anyone can deny that COVID has dramatically affected their lives. I hear of stories of adult children who are unable to visit their elderly parents in nursing homes. I know of another family whose mother was hospitalized, and they were unable to visit her during the hospitalization. Visits via online options like FaceTime were attempted, but often the visits did not happen. Nurses were busy and unable to assist elderly clients with the technology needed to facilitate the visits. So loved ones were separated not just by distance but even technology was unable to assist in keeping them connected. The statistics for…