First of all, what is it? Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is “a type of psychotherapy — or talk therapy — that utilizes a cognitive-behavioral approach,” according to John M. Grohol, Psy.D. Originally, psychologist Marsha M. Linehan developed this type of therapy to treat Borderline Personality Disorder. However, DBT has since been used to treat a wide […]
Author: Jenny Helms
Domestic Violence: Why Can’t They “Just Leave”?
Prior to becoming fascinated about the dynamics of domestic violence, I remember thinking: “Why don’t women/men in these relationships just pack up their bags and leave?” or “Why don’t they just go to a shelter?” Initially, I understood very little about the complexities of walking away or the complexities of staying. According to NY Times […]
Eating Disorder Prevention: How to Save a Life
What’s the Problem? With rising rates of eating disorders, it is impossible to have enough treatment providers for all of those who suffer. And unfortunately, many suffer with little to no resources. Eating Disorder Prevention has either never been prevalent, or seems to have taken a seat on the back burner. I became intimately aware […]
Eating Disorders: A Crash Course for Patients
Eating Disorders and Shame For many clients there is a lot of shame and secrecy around their eating disorder. It’s best to introduce this topic with sensitivity and empathy. You can begin by asking your patients about what their diet and exercise regimen is like, and from there ask more direct questions like the ones […]
Embracing Failure to Succeed
As we begin our week, may we be brave enough to remind ourselves that embracing failures is a necessary part of our journey to success. In the past, I have tried to avoid failures at all costs, thinking that if I failed at something the pain of my often self-inflicted shame would consume me. Much […]
Exercising Compassion
Compassion is an ever-growing area of interest within psychology and psychotherapy. Although definitions of compassion vary, there is broad agreement that compassion is comprised of a combination of affective, cognitive, and motivational components. While everyone has, to some degree, a level of compassion, for some it can be beneficial to develop these skills further through […]
Have You Heard of SAD?
What is SAD? SAD is seasonal affective disorder. This is a recurrent major depressive disorder in which people have symptoms of depression during times of the year that have less sunlight (i.e. winter or in places with heavy rain-fall or smog). Unsurprisingly, this means that for those who live FURTHER from the equator, rates of […]
Hitting Rock Bottom: What Can We Learn and Gain from Life’s Woes
Whether by fate, transition, or poor choices – we all struggle with the horrible, hitting rock bottom (i.e. “woes“) in our life. Throughout my life I’ve faced trials in multiple arenas (I’m far from perfect – and that’s okay). However, the gifts I take from these moments are opportunities for growth and learning. We can’t […]
How Avoiding Other People Means Rejecting Ourselves
What Avoiding Other People Means to Us When we are avoiding other people or dealing with a situation, we are really saying no to the hard things that are coming up within ourselves when dealing with that situation. *Whether we are conscious of these hard feelings or not.* This is really unfortunate because those hard […]
How Does Trauma Show Up At Work?
Unresolved trauma doesn’t just go away (as much as many of us try to stuff it down or “forget about it”). One of the places it can leak out sideways is at work. In this video, we cover some of the following common examples of how trauma shows up at work: Being the office doormat […]