As I am writing this, American Counseling Association members from across the country are preparing to deploy to Texas and other Gulf states in response to the historic flooding that accompanied Hurricane Harvey. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this storm — a storm that has a
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As a professor of counseling, I am invested in helping students develop the necessary and sufficient skills to become effective psychotherapists. There is a plethora of evidence to support mindfulness as a tool for fostering these skills. Integrating mindfulness training can: Improve how counselors-in-training relate to self and others with
If you see women in your counseling practice, it will be hard to ignore the issue of female sexual desire in your work together, even if the focus of treatment is something that appears unrelated to sexuality. In fact, a woman’s relationship with her own experience of sexual desire is
Attempting to work from a purely cognitive or emotional perspective with clients who have experienced sexual trauma is like trying to build a sturdy house without laying down a solid foundation. Facilitating recovery from sexual trauma demands the inclusion of the site of the original wounding — the body. A
In 2009, writer Chimamanda Adichie gave a TED Talk on the danger of reducing people to a single narrative, using her own personal stories to illustrate the complexity of individuals. In one of those stories, she revealed how her college roommate in the United States had a single understanding of
Most of us have seen it happen. The founder of a nonprofit program retires or dies after decades of dedicated service and sacrifice, and their life’s work turns to shambles in no time because of drastic changes made by those who replace them. Sometimes it starts subtly, with a tweak
In 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente began what would become a landmark study on the health effects of adverse childhood experiences. Over the course of two years, researchers collected detailed medical information from 17,000 patients at Kaiser’s Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego. In
Residents of the Caribbean and the southern United States are still grappling with the aftereffects of two immensely powerful and destructive hurricanes — Harvey and Irma — both of which caused widespread damage and left millions of people displaced. Rebuilding what the hurricanes destroyed will be a long and painful
“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.” ~ Leo Tolstoy As I sit on my patio, warmed by the early autumn sun, I breathe in the alchemy of rosemary, thyme and oregano and a variety of mints — aromas from my herb garden. The squirrels chatter as
As a newly minted counselor, I sometimes remember back to my early days in the program when my classmates and I shared some deep concerns about “doing it right.” Our heads were full of theories and dos and don’ts, and we really struggled to understand how we could possibly help