Caring Psychological Counseling

  When the grieving process feels like betrayal, we are lost in a limbo of what could have been By now we have all heard of the airliner that has done missing in the southern ocean. With all the conflicting information released by different governments and story lines being floated by the news media, how are the family members of the missing supposed to carry on? Parallels can be drawn to military families when their loved ones are declared missing in action. Grieving is a process that is personal, without a set time limit, or road map. Though it is generally accepted that there are five stages of grief.   Those stages are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. For the loved ones of these individuals, giving in to the grieving process can feel like a form of betrayal, giving up on the hope of the life of the individual. Families and loved ones left in a state of limbo are unable to move through the grieving process. When there is no closure it can be one ...

When self-promotion is called for, how do we push ourselves to communicate our own worth? Creating this new website has reminded me of a problem I often see. Many of us have a problem tooting our own horns. Writing about oneself can have the feel of bragging, but why so? When our occupational and education skills are so hard won, shouldn’t we want everyone to know about them? It’s a business fact that if you don’t promote your relevant accomplishments no one will know you have the experience to do the job. This is very simpler to the issues of being able to ask for what we want. In a recent professional development seminar, a successful businesswoman stated that about 70 percent of those she hires fail to negotiate with her over the opening compensation offer. Why is it that many of us don’t make at least some effort to strike a better deal? Spend any time at the water cooler at work and you’ll notice the recurring theme of “how poorly this outfit pays.”   People generally know...

Parents and educators often think of wintertime as given over to academic learning, chauffeuring to and from after-school activities and, as often as not, punctuated with cases of cabin fever leading to frustrations as family members react to long months indoors together. But winter is a prime time to fine tune parenting skills and build relationships with children; a time to put an end to the culture of discipline, where the parent does all the work, for one of socially-oriented consequences and encouragement; a time to exchange the disengagement of timeouts for engagement with our children’s sense of social interest and self-worth. As an example, the next time you witness a parent giving a child a timeout, stop and notice who the timeout is designed to benefit. Is it the child or the parent? In many instances, a timeout will be administered by a parent close to their “wits’ end” and often not in the gentlest of tones. For a child seeking attention, the timeout will be experienced a...