Steven Topper
Steven Topper LCPC Is depression something that occurs in your body or in your mind? Is it on the outside of your skin or on the inside? How about anxiety? Typically, ways of talking about these disorders use a dualistic framework: there is the physical and the mental, and they are separate entities. We think of the problems listed as mental. Problems of the mind. This type of classification makes sense. A broken arm is clearly physical.…
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Steven Topper LCPC In our modern world, we appear to be connected at all times. Our phones, social media, and the rise of Zoom during the pandemic have all led to the ability to constantly interact with other people. At the same time, many of us have struggled with social isolation during the pandemic, resulting in new ways of reaching out to stay connected. Within all that is a realization that we seem to be working against…
Read MoreSteven Topper LCPC The totality with which patriarchal systems have shaped our culture is robust and only just beginning to be elucidated upon. Those systems seem to reach into every aspect of our lives, and one such place we see this show up is with our history. The histories of medicine and psychology are mostly focused on white men. When we learn about great changes in almost all scientific fields, we end up learning about men. As…
Read MoreSteven Topper LCPC One of the key differences between us and all other animals is our ability to talk. Scientists have observed other animals using vocal sounds to communicate, yet something sets our talking apart from all the rest. Importantly, we are able to connect all words with all other words. We call this arbitrary relational responding, but that strange term belies a pretty simple game we can play: Not up, but _____. Not left, but ______.…
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Steven Topper LCPC The very first signs of life on earth were tiny, single-celled organisms in the ocean. Before that, nothing (that we know of). And since then, all life has come from those protozoa. We are the great great great ancestors of those tiny creatures. Back then, millions of years ago, the organisms could only engage in two behaviors. They could not write disgruntled three-star Yelp reviews, couldn’t halve the recipe from that fancy book, couldn’t…
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Steven Topper LCPC Over the past few years, we’ve seen a boom in the proliferation of mindfulness. Commodified to apps, businesses have attempted to harness the power of mindfulness to increase productivity. Within that proliferation has been a watering down of the tenets of mindfulness- which is frequently the case when ideas move into the mainstream. In an effort to reach more people, the ideas themselves become homogenized, more easily digestible. And while Headspace and Calm have…
Read MoreSteven Topper LCPC Take a moment to reflect on the last few weeks. What has been a struggle? Where has pain showed up in your days and nights? What has gone well? What do you wish could have been different? How do you wish you could have been different? See if some of these reflections yield familiar results. Themes that you’ve known about for quite a while. Commonly, our struggles are old ones, maybe repackaged for new…
Read MoreSteven Topper LCPC One of the more challenging things to do is tell the people close to us that they’ve bothered, frustrated, disappointed, or hurt us. We tend to be conflict-averse, and even when we aren’t, we can do more harm in the ways we communicate these emotions. Navigating these choppy waters can be so difficult that many of us attempt to avoid these conversations, resulting in resentment, anger, and passive-aggressive behavior. There are many helpful strategies…
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Steven Topper LCPC It might be said that to be human is to hide. Thousands of generations ago, danger told us to do one of three things: run, hide, fight. When we look out at the landscape of our lives today, we may see novel representations of those three words, as far from their original behaviors as we are from those who lived all the way back then. We still run, though now it looks like telling…
Read MoreSteven Topper LCPC “Where will you visit first once the pandemic is over?” Many of us have asked this question and been asked this question over the past few months. So many of us are yearning to get back into the universal hobby of traveling. One of the major benefits of travelling, and what compels so many of us to venture out into the world, is that it allows us to see how other people live. On…
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