Chinese medicine has always acknowledged the link between the body and the mind. In Western medicine, from the time of the ancient Greeks through the Elizabethan era, the thinking was that four bodily humors (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood) influenced mood, physical health and even personality. Shakespeare built
Category: Cover Stories
When Barack Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States in 2008, some optimistic observers thought that American society had finally reached a post-racial age. As the past two-plus years have highlighted vividly, however, the significance of race and the influence of racism on the American
At root, mindfulness is simply the practice of being present in daily life.
“W hat are you?” That is a question commonly asked of individuals who are multiracial. As a society, we have gotten used to checking off a metaphorical — and often literal — “box” when it comes to questions of race. We seem to expect everyone to “just pick one.” But the
For many years, mental health practitioners labored under the assumption that grief was a relatively short-lived process that people navigated in an orderly and predictable fashion until they reached “closure” — the point at which the bereaved would move on and put the person they had been grieving in the
Among the most common difficulties that bring couples to counseling are infidelity, financial problems, sex and intimacy issues, parenting challenges and ongoing tensions with the in-laws. Each of these problems has its own unique characteristics, but according to couples counselors, they tend to share a similar root cause — namely, lack
The stereotypical image of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the raucous little boy who can’t sit still in the classroom and is a discipline problem at home. But counselors who commonly work with ADHD know that it can also manifest as a young girl who is seemingly always in her own
In April, the Tennessee Legislature passed a bill, which the state’s governor then signed into law, allowing counselors to refuse to see any client if counseling that client involves “goals, outcomes or behaviors that conflict with the sincerely held principles of the counselor or therapist.” The law, which is in
According to a study by the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 46.7 million Americans living in poverty in 2014, or a poverty rate of 14.8 percent. The picture was even bleaker for many ethnic and racial minorities. The same study found that 26.2 percent of African Americans (10.8 million people) and
Bullying isn’t just for kids anymore. In the past 10 to 15 years, recognition has grown that bullying goes beyond taunts in the schoolyard. Adults can encounter it at work, “traditional” bullying is now enhanced and magnified by online or cyberbullying, and those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender