One of the essential life skills for us all is self-validation. It means believing in the accuracy and value of what you feel and think. Does it mean you can never be wrong in your emptions or thoughts? Of course not. It means that no one can ever presume to know better than you what you’re feeling or thinking. Not your parents, friends, partners, boss, colleagues or anyone. These assessments are yours and yours alone. It sounds so simple to self-validate, but that isn’t always the case. For instance, a client was having lunch with her grown children when she mentioned how hard she’d worked as ..read more

You may think “welcome to the unknown” is a strange title for an eating disorders blog. Actually, it’s perfect, because many people turn to food when they’re anxious about the future. After all, we all want control over our lives because it’s hard-wired into human DNA to try and protect ourselves from physical and emotional harm. If you met someone who didn’t give a fig about what happened to themselves or their loved ones, you’d think them strange. My client Georgio is overwhelmed because his mother broke her leg and he’s her primary caretaker. During one therapy session, he insisted, “She ca ..read more

I had an fascinating discussion with a client about being taken care of. Whereas emotionally healthy folks enjoy—dare I say treasure and glory in?— people showering them with love, attention and affection, unhealthier people (with low self-esteem and self-worth) often feel oddly discomfited and sometimes even unsettled. If you grew up with parents or relatives always telling you to be strong and self-reliant, and/or if they modeled this behavior themselves, you might believe there’s something deficient in you when you lean on others or accept their unsolicited nurturing. Not true.  The go ..read more

It’s hard getting clients to say positive things to themselves. Super hard. You’d think they’d be eager to engage in self-encouragement, as in, “Boy, it’s great to stop saying all those negative things to myself. All they ever did was bum me out. Being my own cheerleader makes all these wonderful feelings bubble up inside me and that makes me feel so good. Why would anyone want to say downer things to themselves?” Why indeed? How can you not feel awful when you say awful things to yourself? Some folks say faking it til they make isn’t right because it’s, well, not true. But, that’s the whole p ..read more

People get confused by what it means to understand versus accept someone’s behavior. Sometimes understanding does move us toward acceptance and other times it makes no difference. That is, understanding doesn’t necessarily mean acceptance. For example, an elderly parent or grandparent who has some form of dementia may repeatedly ask you questions, forget what you asked them, or blurt out things inappropriately. Stepping back you can understand what’s happening with them, including that they mean no harm, and then decide if their behavior is acceptable. It’s likely that you would find it tolera ..read more

Are you a “procrastin-eator”—someone who heads for the refrigerator when they’re not hungry to avoid doing a task you don’t want to do? Many dysregulated eaters use food as a way to put off off-putting activities rather than dig in and get them done.  The internet abounds with instructions for ending procrastination, yet it remains a major problem for many folks, especially those who carry an ADHD diagnosis. Not that you need to have ADHD to procrastinate. It’s characterized by: “Having uncertain goals, feeling overwhelmed, experiencing difficulty concentrating, holding onto negative beli ..read more

When I thanked a friend for how often she had my husband and me over for dinner and said how much she must enjoy cooking, she jumped in with: “It’s not cooking I like. It’s entertaining.” Ah: suddenly I realized I enjoyed entertaining too, aka having people over to the house—minus the food prep and pre- and post- cleaning. I was surprised by her remark because I thought of her as a foodie and had no idea she didn’t love cooking. I began to wonder if others also found cooking tedious but enjoyed (what my parents called) company. My husband and I recently had an afternoon visit from out-of-town ..read more

Although most people who attend therapy voluntarily bring with them a desire to change, they often say things like, “Well, it’s just who I am” or “This is me.” My sense of their sense of their Self is that they see it as something static rather than ever-changing. So, this is where we start in therapy: With the understanding that emotionally healthy people are open to change and recognize that sometimes it happens in what seems like one gigantic leap and most other times it’s such a minor shift, it almost escapes notice. In Existentialism for a New Era, The Millennial Therapist ..read more

Because our culture is so very either-or and one-way-or-the-other, it’s often difficult to value the concept of “and” rather than “or.” I see this with clients who are counter-dependent and co-dependent. These folks either have to do everything themselves or feel as if they’ve failed, or have few inner resources and a diminished belief in their ability to handle life on their own and are, therefor, overly dependent on others. My client Kayla is self-assured and believes she needs no help from others. When she gets into a tight space, she grins and bears it—sometimes with the help of alcohol an ..read more

What is it about “guilty pleasures” that make them so enticing to some people? To both improve mental health and enjoy life, it’s time to stop engaging in this self-abusive concept. Guilt and pleasure are miles apart, at either end of a spectrum, and don’t belong together. Guilt makes us feel bad, inadequate, and selfish because we think we’ve done something wrong. Pleasure, on the other hand, makes us happy, even joyful, and often gets our dopamine popping because something feels so right. One of my clients is the king of guilty pleasures, often starting a session by asking with a sly grin ..read more