The Importance of Ritual in Self-Care

The Importance of Ritual in Self-Care

Self-care has become a wildly popular concept in the last few years, especially in the field of mental health. While everyone has their own views of what constitutes self-care, I like this definition from PsycheCentral: “Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health.”

Despite its wholesome aim, self-care has a darker side. Anne Helen Peterson wrote about the negative effects of the commodification of self-care: “Give yourself a face mask! Go to yoga! Use your meditation app! But much of self-care isn’t care at all: It’s an $11 billion industry whose end goal isn’t to alleviate the burnout cycle, but to provide further means of self-optimization. At least in its contemporary, commodified iteration, self-care isn’t a solution; it’s exhausting.”

Containment: Beginning Trauma-Focused Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Mindful Psychotherapy Services Director of Education and Training, Bryan Aston explains the essentials of working with post traumatic stress disorder. Mindful will be offering a series of continuing education courses in Spring 2019 to licensed social workers and helping professionals working with trauma interested in learning more about PTSD. This video may also be helpful for clients with a traumatized history to learn more and seek help. 

Fear to Power, Power to Fear: Women’s Voices in Group

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FCGPS Annual Conference
(more info)

November 10, 2018
10:00am-5:00pm

University of Colorado Health Center
for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation
1693 Quentin Street
Aurora, CO 80045


AGPA Annual Conference
(more info)

February 25 - March 2, 2019

Westin Bonaventure Hotel
404 S. Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071


Leaders:
Yoon Kane, LCSW, IFSCP, CGP
Saralyn Masselink, LCSW CGP


"What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say?" -Audre Lorde.

Mindful Founder and Executive Director, Yoon Kane LCSW, IFSCP, CGP will be co-leading a full-day institute and a half-day experiential training group with Saralyn Masselink LCSW, CGP in Denver, CO and Los Angeles, CA. This training opportunity for therapists will explore cultural expectations as a ‘passionate bad fit’ for women and ways they are unconsciously repeated in group.

From a young age, women receive messages about how to be nice, compliant, accommodate others, and gain approval, both from the family and the communities they grow up in. These messages arrest women’s natural development of a sense of self-worth and entitlement. There is a dichotomy introduced into young female psyches that sets women up to believe that the cost of being powerful is a loss of connection and belonging.

These culturally-sanctioned beliefs that govern patterns of behavior are unconscious and are played out and repeated in group dynamics. Group also has the potential to encourage people to have new experiences that foster new beliefs and paradigms and offers opportunities to try on and test out fresh ideas and ways of being.

These experiential training workshops will explore questions such as: What are women’s relationships to having power and agency? What does the fear of power communicate about the female self and early relationships with caregivers? How can group provide reparative experiences that counter dysfunctional cultural norms? The group leader can help members become conscious of these limiting dynamics and establish new norms that offer the space for maturational experiences previously limited by socio-cultural conditions.

Be sure to connect with Yoon Im Kane LCSW, PC for questions and discussion. She will be part of the expert panel at the FCGPS Annual conference in Denver, CO Sunday 11/11/18 4:00-5:30pm.

Look forward to seeing you there!


To Combat Panic Anxiety Think “3-2-1”

To Combat Panic Anxiety Think “3-2-1”

In a previous blog, I wrote about different manifestations of anxiety: generalized anxiety, anxiety attacks and panic attacks. At the Mindful Psychotherapy Practice, I often encounter clients who experience one or all of these forms of anxiety, and many of them get great temporary relief from the “3-2-1” exercise.

One of my patients, Janie, just had this kind of experience few weeks ago. She had turned in the final draft of a report she and her team had been working on for months, and it suddenly occurred to her that she might have forgotten to double check one section.

You Are Not Alone: Common Forms of Anxiety

You Are Not Alone: Common Forms of Anxiety

As a psychotherapist practicing in New York City, I’ve treated my share of patients who experience a baseline of anxiety, intermittent anxiety and panic attacks.

What’s the difference between them?

People who have a persistent level of anxiety live with a baseline of excessive, uncontrollable worry about a number of things – and they may anticipate disaster even when the actual events do not merit it. They may experience any or all of the following symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, trouble concentrating, muscle tension or sleep disturbances.

Dealing with Family at Holiday Get-Togethers

Dealing with Family at Holiday Get-Togethers

Do you long for that connected, loving family feeling at holiday get-togethers? Are you instead disappointed, frustrated or hurt, wondering why your family gatherings resemble a horror film more than a Hallmark movie? Navigating family gatherings can be challenging in general, but particularly around the holidays when expectations and pressure to feel close and happy are high.

Dread no more! Here are some ideas to help you feel more peaceful before during and after the family function.

5 brilliant mindfulness tips to brighten your holiday spirit

5 brilliant mindfulness tips to brighten your holiday spirit

Tis’ the season of the holidays, and while we may strive for joy, peace and yuletide cheer, this time of year often brings  an abundance of stress and anxiety.  The months of November and December can rapidly escalate  the pressure to orchestrate the perfect holiday ambiance. The search for the perfect gift or throwing the perfect holiday party can activate an impulse to measure our self-worth against the standards of our “ideal” selves or others.  Before we know it, holiday cheer is transformed into holiday madness. We find ourselves unwittingly caught up in the frenzied snowstorm of mixed emotions and self criticism.  

Getting to the Heart of the Matter Hawaii Retreat : Unlocking Blocks to Intimacy

Alohavillas.com | Luxurious Beach Front Resort

Alohavillas.com | Luxurious Beach Front Resort

Mindful Psychotherapy Services is happy to announce our Hawaiian retreat “Getting to the heart of the matter: unlocking blocks to intimacy”

We hope that many of you will be able to join us for a uniquely powerful experience and intensive track to positive change in a luxurious, beachfront villa on the Island of Maui. This 5-day Hawaii retreat includes locally sourced meals by a private chef, meditation instruction, yoga and 3 full days of workshops and process groups led by Toni Herbine-Blank, international speaker, author and founder of Intimacy from the Inside Out©. 

In this concentrated program, you’ll transform your relationship to yourself and others and discover the key to unlocking blocks to intimacy. 

How big can your heart get?

Why Therapists Don’t Give Advice

Why Therapists Don’t Give Advice

“I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.” -Oscar Wilde

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and the sun is casting a golden light through the blinds. I am sitting across from my patient Andrew, who wrinkles his face and says in an exasperated tone, “Look, I know you don’t give advice, but what do you think I should do about this mess?”

I respond, “It would be easy for me to answer your questions with advice, but how would that be of any help to you?”