Cognitive behavioral therapy is consistently used in my personal therapeutic approach. It helps teach clients to challenge their thoughts and beliefs. Put them on trial, see if they hold up, are they rational or irrational? Imagery can be used to extend this intervention, to create new images to accompany these thoughts, images that reflect the rational versus irrational, new adaptive helpful images. Imagery can be used in treatment of many different mental health diagnoses, including, but not limited to, depression, mania, anxiety, trauma, and phobias.

The book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace: a guide to reclaiming yourself, by Nedra Glover Tawwab, has been gaining popularity for several years now. In it, the author talks about how to set boundaries to find peace and gives concrete examples of ways to do so in various life settings—work, family and friendships to name a few.

When someone engages in disordered eating habits, they may eventually find themselves in therapy to work through their habits. The body the brain and mental health overall suffer from disordered eating. Disordered eating describes patterns of restrictive eating, compulsive eating, irregular or inflexible eating patterns: fasting or binge eating falls in this category. Disordered eating is used to describe certain behaviors that may not meet the clinical diagnosis for an eating disorder. Signs of disordered eating patterns are dieting, compulsive eating, exercise and compensatory behaviors, body dissatisfaction, and food preoccupation. Disordered eating behaviors can have a negative impact on an individual's physical health, emotional well-being and overall quality of life. Even if someone may not meet the full criteria for a specific eating disorder, it doesn't dismiss them from needing help or needing to be taken seriously. Early intervention and support are key proponents of preventing these behaviors from escalating or evolving into more serious conditions.

Someone challenged me years ago to think about each friendship I have and what role that friendship plays in my life. For example, I may be friends with my neighbor, another counselor in the community and my child’s best friend’s mom. I am friends with each of these people and they each have a different role in my life. My neighbor may be the person I like to walk with or the person I call to close my gate when I worry I have forgotten to do so and my dog may get out. Another counselor in the community may be someone I can refer other clients to or staff difficult cases with. And my child’s best friend’s mother may be someone I can hang out with and chat with when our kids are at a bounce house, a birthday party or some other event.

People often fall accidentally and easily into patterns of emotional blackmail, especially when the stakes are high. We have all had a time where we may have felt guilt tripped into a request by a family member or coworker. The request often prioritizes what they want over our own personal wants or needs. Susan Forward wrote a book titled Emotional Blackmail in 1997. She explains how often traumatic relationships or ones that impact us negatively, often involve one person attempting to control another using their emotions. Emotional extortion (a term often used interchangeably with emotional blackmail) involves an individual exploiting a victim’s emotional vulnerabilities to control their behavior (Forward, 1997). This control jeopardizes the person’s autonomy.

When I counsel clients about friendship, I ask them to imagine a swimming pool filled with large steps--maybe 4-5 levels total—descending into the water. I tell them that some friends we hang out with on the first step in the pool and others we swim with in the deepest part.