The pursuit of perfection becomes problematic when people won’t grant themselves permission to make mistakes and instead cede total command to their self-critical voice.
Tag: shame
A child discloses that her grandfather has been sexually abusing her, and the mother’s response is shock that his abuse didn’t stop with her when she was a child. This scene is not uncommon for Molly VanDuser, the president and clinical director of Peace of Mind, an outpatient counseling and trauma treatment
T heresa Eschmann, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) and addiction family specialist in private practice in St. Louis, experienced firsthand the power of denial in adult children of parents with alcohol use disorders. All her life, Eschmann had witnessed her mother struggle with this disorder, yet upon finding her mother
In 2006, activist Tarana Burke founded the “me too” movement — a grassroots campaign to help survivors of sexual violence, particularly young women of color from low-wealth communities. Over time, the movement with a simple message — you are not alone — built a community of survivors from all walks
Rather than conceptualizing compulsive sexuality as a moral failing, the addiction model provides a framework to empower clients to manage their condition and establish a healthy sexuality.
One of Cyndi Matthews’ most vivid memories of growing up in a fundamentalist Christian church was watching the minister point at her brother’s best friend during a service and say, “You don’t belong here. Get out.” The reason? The boy was gay. Matthews, a licensed professional counselor supervisor (LPC-S), says
Catherine Beckett, an American Counseling Association member with a private practice in Portland, Oregon, has made it a habit to avoid using “must” phrases with clients. “It sends a message to the client about what they’ve experienced,” says Beckett, who specializes in grief counseling. “I don’t ever want to say,
Adults with histories of being abused as children present unique challenges for counselors. For instance, these clients often struggle with establishing and maintaining a therapeutic alliance. They may rapidly shift their notion of the counselor from very favorable to very unfavorable in line with concomitant shifts in their emotional states.
By the time the 43-year-old man, a victim of an industrial accident, limped into American Counseling Association member David Engstrom’s office, he’d been experiencing lower back pain for 10 years and taking OxyContin for six. The client, whose pain was written in the grimace on his face as he sat
With January now behind us, the annual barrage of diet and fitness commercials has started to fade. Many people who made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight or “get fit” have already labeled themselves failures for indulging on leftover holiday chocolate and not making it to the gym more than