Therapy Chicago
If you read my last blog post titled, “What is traumatic grief and how can I cope with it?” referencing the article from Funeral Basics titled, “7 Tips for coping with traumatic grief” highlighting Dr. Wolfelt’s grief counseling techniques, you may be wondering what the additional 5 coping mechanisms are. Below highlights Dr. Wolfelt’s remaining coping mechanisms. Don’t run or be scared of your feelings. It is encouraged to take a mindfulness stance when experiencing your…
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I work with many clients who have experienced grief in their life. Whether it is a loss of a family member, loss of an event in their life, loss of a relationship, or maybe a loss of someone they cared about who unfortunately passed away in a traumatic way. My job as my clients’ clinician is to help identify terms for them, such as traumatic loss, with the hopes that identifying terms, the client and I can…
Read MoreBridgette W. Gottwald, LPC, NCC Here we are still talking about that negative thought loop and thinking errors that we refer to as cognitive distortions. Remember my last blog post that included examples of ten common cognitive distortions? I left off discussing magnifying or minimizing, and here’s part two and the continued list of cognitive distortions. Mental filter With a mental filter, negative events are focused on and positive events are disregarded or filtered out. We have…
Read MoreBridgette W. Gottwald, LPC, NCC Next time you are experiencing negative thinking, take a moment to check your thoughts, notice, and make some observations. More often than not, you will find that your brain is full of negativity. There is a huge correlation between what we think and feel, and when are struggling or feeling unhappy, our thoughts can be rather dramatic or absolute – such as “I can’t do anything right” or “no one likes me.”…
Read MoreBy Eve Brownstone, LCPC These images came to me in meditation. I call them Guardians at the Gate. In meditation, these strong bird-like figures were perched on the gate of a medieval castle. I saw them protecting me and humanity from the Invaders at the Gate: Coronavirus. Invaders at the Gate I spent time painting first the Guardians at the Gate and the Invaders at the Gate. Then I dialogued with these images. I asked what…
Read MoreI work with many clients who have been discussing in recent sessions feeling a sense of lower self-esteem related to putting on some extra pounds since March related to the pandemic. At this point in time, it has been about 5 months since our lives have been adjusting to the chaos of the pandemic, and gaining a few extra pounds has been quite common for many of my clients and myself included! I recently read an article…
Read MoreMegan Mulroy, LPC The other day I was speaking with a friend who was going through some pretty heavy feelings and experiencing a very distressing depressed mood. After describing what was going on for her, she looked at me and said something to the affect of, “It must be nice to know how to handle this all.” I almost laughed! I was currently going through some of my own stuff, unbeknownst to her. In reality, I was…
Read MoreKaitlin Broderick LCPC For the majority of people, our childhood and how we were raised have a direct impact on our relationship with money as adults. Beliefs about money that we learned in childhood such as “there is never enough” or “you need to value everything you own” can follow us into adulthood and can induce feelings of guilt about throwing things out that we no longer have use for. What some people don’t realize is that…
Read MoreOvertime, society has developed the mindset that anger is something that is bad and should be avoided. This mindset can lead many individuals to believe they have an anger or anger management problem leading to feelings of shame and anxiety. Contrary to what we may believe, anger is not actually a problem and viewing it as such can actually make things worse. Anger, like any emotion, is part of the human experience and is just as valid…
Read MoreAs we are at home more often lately and working from home, I have noticed my anxiety increase along with some of my clients. I struggle with anxiety and not being able to see friends and have to plan outings such as grocery shopping has increased my anxiety. So what is triggering your anxiety lately? Continue reading to find common triggers for peoples triggers. Health Issues I think right now we are seeing a lot of anxiety…
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