Grief Impacts Every Level of Our Being Until we lose someone close to us, or perhaps were faced with a life-threatening illness, we may not have thought much about death and dying (or what it means to grieve). Our culture focuses so much on productivity and quick fixes, that most of us come unprepared for the physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, social, and spiritual impacts of grief. Much of the time, the bereaved get messages that they are supposed to “get over” their grief and control their emotions, as if there is some “right” way to grieve. Nothing could be further from the truth. Gri ..read more

The Grief of Mid-Life Crisis As a psychotherapist based in Oakland, California, I work with folks facing the grief of mid-life. Collectively, the stress and trauma of climate change and ongoing global violence continue to create conscious and unconscious feelings of fear, dread, hopelessness, and helplessness. As if that wasn’t enough, the challenges of navigating a career (or lack thereof), partnership (or lack thereof), divorce, parenting, health issues, and aging or dying parents might easily lead to a crisis point. It might seem like a breaking down, but it’s also an opportunity for profou ..read more

HPPD stands for Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder. In the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, HPPD is defined by the following diagnostic criteria: A. Reexperiencing one or more of the perceptual symptoms that were present while under the influence of a hallucinogen after the hallucinogen has worn off or use has stopped. B. The reexperiencing symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment to functioning. C. The symptoms are not better explained or attributable to another medical condition or mental disorder. Unfortunately ..read more

Boundaries Are Often a Foreign Concept to HSPs Many highly sensitive people were taught in childhood to override their own limits and needs in order to belong, keep the peace, avoid punishment, and/or gain the approval of others. Most of us were conditioned to meet the needs and wants of those around us at the expense of our own. This starts as a survival mechanism early on, as pleasing others may have helped keep us safe emotionally or physically as children. As we grow into adults, the deeply rooted survival mechanism that kept us safe as children begins to work against us. Without being awa ..read more

Finding the Rainbow Fire Dragon The thing about rainbow fire dragons is that they exist everywhere and nowhere. Of all the magical creatures in all the worlds, this one is the hardest to find. You can’t see it with your eyes. You can’t touch it with your hands, smell it with your nose, or hear it with your ears. You have to call out for it, but not with your voice. Rainbow fire dragons only appear when they are needed, and they hear the call from your heart. Rainbow fire dragons keep children safe when they are the most scared. That’s when you find one. No matter what bad thing happens to you ..read more

You’ve probably heard of post-partum depression and/or the baby blues. Yet you don’t have to have given birth, be female-bodied, or have a human child to experience the mothering blues. To “mother” is a verb. Mothering is often experienced as the most difficult and rewarding job possible. Meeting the needs of another being can be exhausting, overwhelming, infuriating, painful and irritating as well as sweet and highly meaningful. A vulnerable creature depends on you, and the responsibility involved can come with a whole slew of intense emotional reactions. We’re often bombarded with messages t ..read more

The Highly Sensitive Person If you’re a highly sensitive person, you process information and sensory input strongly and deeply. Your environment has a large impact on your level of comfort, and you often notice details and how things feel to each of your senses. You are more likely to pick up on, or even absorb the moods and energies of others. It can be wonderful to be this tapped in to life; but it can also be overwhelming, intense, extremely uncomfortable; or, at its worst, unbearably painful and traumatic. Like many highly sensitive people, you may have pushed yourself beyond your limits t ..read more

COVID-19 is like a challenging psychedelic trip. We are in a time of massive collective uncertainty. The COVID-19 outbreak has pushed humanity into the great unknown in a way none of us have ever encountered. We are forced to look our mortality and vulnerability smack in the face. Fear takes over as we spiral out of control. Life as we knew it has receded and we live in a sort of purgatory. However, these dark days also present an opportunity to purge those things in our lives, and those ways of thinking, which haven’t been working for us. As life slows down, and as we are forced to recognize ..read more

Depression and The Highly Sensitive Person’s Inner Critic Something that has really stood out to me in my work with highly sensitive people, and in myself, is how empathic we can be with others, and how critical we can be of ourselves. It’s as if all our compassion and empathy is turned outward, and perhaps, to protect everyone else, we make everything our fault and criticize our tender selves to pieces. This sort of process lends itself to depression, body tension and pain, perfectionism, relationship dysfunction and overall unhappiness. In all our efforts to treat others with compassion and ..read more

*Limited availability for new clients. Please carefully review all of the items below before contacting me at saraouimettemft@gmail.com. These items will help rule out potential barriers to beginning our work together. Resources and possible referrals are listed at the bottom of this post. Please don’t wait to seek support if you are suffering too much. 1.       Are you an adult living in California* and open to online sessions via secure video conference or by phone? I only offer teletherapy (no in-person sessions). I generally work Monday through Thursday from 1 ..read more