New Office Space

Have to start here with some gratitude. As many of you know, The Work is really a mission of sorts for me- trying to put myself out of a job so to speak. So many have been so kind and encouraging about my work. Clients, colleagues, friends. It's really important to me to have a clearsighted and organized way of being a partner with people in eliminating suffering, having principles... preferably both.

Left doing inpatient full time in April, in favor of doing private practice full time. The folk above (and more) have responded by sending a lot of folk my way to do service with/for. As a result, my longtime office space with Brendan Thyne MA, and his dad Rick Thyne MFT (Patrick Thyne and Associates) became too small (time wise) to accommodate my clients.

Noting this because getting a new space wasn't just a task- it is a loss in a lot of ways. Brendan and Rick are relatives (of choice and affiliation)- and fantastic therapists. The space across the street from Pasadena City Hall has been beautiful, and I really enjoy the surroundings. Between losing the familial contact and the space, is a big deal.

That said though, have found a fantastic space to do The Work in. Am hoping that it will bring an energy and space that can be filled with whatever it is that people need. Want to send some appreciation specifically for Yvonne, my dad, Judy McGehee LMFT, Erika Gayoso/Michael Cardenas/Ted Aaselund and Elvia Cortes. Also appreciation to Jeff Boxer Esq, David Wolf, Ed Wilson PhD, Sue Stauffer, Barbara Waldman PhD, Barbara O'Connor MFT, Tricia Hill, of course Lali and Sadie. A special note for my clients though- you all continue to humble me deeply, and have been fantastic supporters of my work.

Here's a pic of the new space- near the end of the 110, the 134/210. New address is 547 S. Marengo Ave, Pasadena, 91101:

Preaching Prudence but Practicing Evasion

Just by virtue of having eyes and ears, we have emotional responses to everything. When we have experiences that create loss, damage, violate our sense of self or ethics (prompt an experience of feeling "less than" or being broken, also known as "shame"), frighten us or etc, we have to do something with how that feels. Just like falling off a bike and skinning our knee, we hurt in part because that's the healing process in action. Many therapists and others refer to these unresolved hurts as "issues".

If we don't have a means of healing/dealing with these, there are lots of unintended consequences. Not healing "hurts" (shame, fear, sadness, etc) causes "neurotic" behavior. "Acting out", drug use, manipulation, self-ful-ness, isolation, "codependent" behavior, "anxiety", avoidant behaviors, etc. Long term and in the wake of continued losses/traumas, these can turn into more serious problems- depression, relationship issues, "mental illnesses", addictions and etc.

Sometimes these other problems and behaviors are simply ways of surviving or "coping" with our feelings about things, sometimes they become problems in and of themselves. Exercise, church (etc), self-help books, "will", diet and nutrition, hobbies etc are all efforts that can be helpful in varying degrees, but for reasons too long for a blog post, they're insufficient and/or incomplete for this task. Some of these things sometimes turn into means of avoiding our feelings as well.

If we don't have a fairly organized (and effective) means of transforming or eradicating our experience in this way, as above, we create or perpetuate problems in our lives. Different therapists have different "tools" suggested to help resolve or diminish the intensity of these issues. My sense of this process though, goes something like this:

List the behaviors we use that put distance between us and how we feel. Some of these are external- but some are internal. Some examples are food, alcohol, work, spending, sex, focus on others, perfectionism (whether imposed on ourselves or others), TV, turning our feelings into anger, etc.

Diminish (or preferably, maybe necessarily) or stop those behaviors. There's many, many ways of making this happen- see my blog "Wanting to Stop" for some suggestions. As has been said in other blogs, "letting go" means little for something we are not fully letting ourselves "have" in the first place.

Give the feelings we're experiencing/left with as simple, and common a name as possible. I encourage mad, sad, glad (happy), afraid, ashamed, and/or hurt. And/or because we can certainly feel more than one at a time. Simple, because we often use euphemistic or complicated language as just another means to dissociate (separate) us from our feelings.

Share those feelings, as much as possible with the person we're having the feelings about, as close to the time we experience them. It's also really important that we're actually allowing ourselves to have the feelings as we're expressing them. Of course this isn't always appropriate because of time or circumstance. Sometimes, it's not appropriate because of the person we're with. Be careful though not to "preach prudence when practicing evasion".

As has been said by many, "you can't heal what you can't feel". This process is assisted by doing it with a professional who has has both education and experience in doing so not just as a therapist, but hopefully as a person as well. We are trained in various means that facilitate some really important parts of this process that are sometimes not intuitive to our friends, families, loved ones. Am getting at a fairly simple list of ideas here- stop doing what we do to not feel, have an organized way of naming and letting go of or diminishing their intensity.

Who's To Blame?

Much of my time is spent here, and in my therapy/counseling practice, attempting to get folk to honor how they feel.  That's an oversimplification, but will leave it for brevity's sake.  This is a daunting task because of the intensity and availability of our distractions, but I keep trying anyway.

One of the things that oft keeps this from happening is that when someone "hurts" us (shames, takes something away, etc), we find ourselves (understandably) making sense out of why they'd do such a thing.  We think more about the person in question "doing their best", "having had a hard time" etc than we ever do simply saying "Ouch, that hurt...", or some variation on that theme.  It's safe to say that many of us, often don't honor how it affected us at all.  Working on problems of low self esteem, depression, addiction, abuse and more we don't want to "blame" anyone (nor should we), and oft go so far as to think our therapists are prompting us to "blame" that person, our parents, etc.

As for my sense of this, I think we could safely remove the word from our vocabulary entirely.  Maybe even replace it with considerations of "responsibility".  In terms of a solution, will offer something I hope is very simple: we're only blaming someone else for our feelings or problems, if we do nothing with our feelings about it.

Therapy is Not the Answer

This is sort of a PSA for clients and therapists alike.  Therapy is not the answer to our problems of relationships, depression, grief/loss, addiction, taking food from others, communication, our sense of broken-ness/low self worth/shame, loneliness, etc.  Therapy isn't just a way of being either.  It's probably a way of being that solves these problems, and can prevent many in the future as a result.  The only exception, if seen in a particular light, might be around issues of safety that require immediate intervention.

Therapy should be a space where we work through the feelings we're carrying with us that prevent us from coming to these answers on our own.  It's an activity that should prompt us to be without our defenses and distractions as much as is possible, with a guide that has done enough of their own work that we can be taught how to live gracefully with these feelings, let go of them/transform them, and provide us principles and ideas that will help us not make some of these mistakes in the future.

We certainly should be giving direction about how to handle some circumstances, communicate more effectively, learning parenting and relationship skills, symptom management, relapse prevention and etc.  There should be an organized body of material to assist with these things.  They will all be rendered useless though, in absence of a principled way of operating, and or in the presence of enough emotional intensity that the tools cannot be used or we cannot see "answers" clearly or the simple consequences of not having these feelings gracefully end up exacerbating problems.

So, a suggestion.  Learn some survival skills that lend themselves to our ability to get some new ways of operating.  Have enough support from family, friends, and professionals that will enable surviving the process.  Deal with the feelings that come up, then set about "solving" things.

Connected.

This will relate to you and psychology/therapy/counseling, I promise... just hang in there with me...

Some friends of mine have been really struggling with the BP oil... spill? (Wiki here)... it's so big, I scarcely know what to call it.  Have seen and heard some things I'll not reiterate- not because it wouldn't serve, but simply because we've been so inundated with the details of most of this news I'd be afraid that anything I'd have to say to describe such would be heartbreakingly insufficient.  The effects of this are catastrophic, to say the least.

Earlier too today, I was talking with a client about consciousness.  What is "I", how we know such things and etc, a lot of things rooted in Eastern thought, the ideas of Daniel Dennett (Dennett's Wiki), Stephen Pinker (Pinker's Wiki), and the like.  My client began to talk about having the awareness that we're all "one" (maybe that should be capitalized), and what that means in terms of how we experience our world.

This made me bring up another great thinker, a gentleman named Chuck Chamberlain who wrote a book called "A New Pair of Glasses".  In it, he asserted what I think is a fundamental truth (paraphrasing), that our real problem as humans is seeing ourselves as separate from "God" (the "universe", physics, whatever one prefers).  Ignoring this is far from inconsequential.  Our view, true or not, that we are somehow separate from others is part of what enables us to lie, cheat, steal, things much worse.  Even make oil spills.

As I'm alluding to above, whether we are all "one" or not, it's arguably true that we indeed operate (behave) this way.  We certainly see the consequences, but as with many things, we don't really see the etiology of them.  The Horizon spill is only the most immediate example.

Had we been behaving since the industrial age as if we are all connected, including the flora and fauna we are surrounded by (or more tragically accurate, that we are surrounding...), our world would look much different.  As promised, bringing this full-circle to the soul of this little corner of the web, the application of the idea that we are all connected has deep-reaching utility in psychology/therapy/counseling.  My world, and I hope the world of my clients have likely been improved greatly by finding ways to operate on this premise.

As noted earlier, it's pretty easy to see the negative consequences of operating as if all humans, animals, plants, etc are different, whether this is true or not.  There's pretty amazing benefits to operating as if we are indeed one in the same.  Behaving this way allows me to be as gentle a person as I intend.  It's a great method for being more considerate/thoughtful.  This may be true, because it's an idea that lends itself to increasing empathy.  It's a great way to diminish selfishness/self-ful-ness.  So many people are speaking in the "human potential movement" (*ahem* I struggle with these kinds of euphemisms and etc, but for the sake of simplicity...), behaving as if we are all one is fantastic mindfulness training.  We could certainly use a softer, warmer world (among some of the other ideas above), and this is a great way to help turn some of those problems around.

Again, I find that there's too many positive things to gain from such an idea to write here.  What prompts this though, is my own deep sense of sadness for the creatures upon whose lives we've so encroached because of not just our desire for a certain way of life, but because we avoid the emotional consequences of such a life in part, maybe because of the misperception that we are separate from these creatures, making it much easier for us to operate the same way every day, regardless of the consequences they have to endure.  Much as it's important for us to clean up the spill, have clean means of energy and etc- all of these things are rooted in a philosophy of separateness, that if we sit with a minute, we might realize how much less of our own hurts, sadness, fears, shame and etc might have been avoided had we or the person who stepped on our toes behaved as if this encroachment was really upon themselves.

Transformation.

So, we can't heal what we can't feel.  If we're really trying to transform "depression" (not a feeling, but a diagnosis), "anxiety" (another non-feeling), grief and loss, abuse, abandonment and neglect etc- we have to "let go of some old ideas" about how we perceive and experience these circumstances, and the attendant e-motions (emotions, energy in motion).

Some of these ideas we have to let go of are:

1.  That we can turn our feelings on/off. 
Stimulus/response (to steal loosely from Gary Larsen and others).  All we perceive has a stimulus and response attached to it.  It both amazes and saddens me that despite such a fundamental law of physics we behave as if we can somehow do something (or not) that will allow us to not have a response to a stimulus about what someone says or does.  Some basic "untruths": "I need to not take _____ personally, give _____ power over me/allow them to 'get to me', it's water under the bridge, it's all in the past..." etc ad nauseum.

2.  That we can decide how intense a feeling we are having/going to have.
Back to physics- we can't decide or influence how much of a stimulus we take in.  Save with the use of drugs or alcohol, even despite attention- we experience what we experience.

3.  That we can decide what type of feelings we're going to have in response to some experience.
Sometimes we feel sad about something, only to have a similar experience later and feel hurt instead.  If this were true- why couldn't we simply "decide" to feel joyful, grateful, happy, etc about a thing?

There's more, but these are a fairly good starting list.  If we're going to transform our feelings (or help others to do so), we have to change our philosophy, our relationship to our emotional condition.  Some of the most frequent problems I run into both personally and professionally around this are around the kinds of beliefs above.

Beyond this, we do things that prevent us from being fully in touch with our emotions.  As Sheldon Kopp has famously (or not so famously) said, paraphrasing: "When we stop trying to overcome anxiety, avoid depression etc, we can experience how sad and scared and hurt we sometimes truly feel."  I would argue that one of our most basic problems as humans is that we do things that put distance between us and us, us and others, us and the "universe" or "God" as we MISunderstand he/she/them and/or it.  The list of the things that we do that result in these effects, is the list of things we have to stop doing to have access to how we feel, and transform it.

On a professional level, I have been struggling deeply with how far away we've gotten from doing "depth work", processing, "uncovering, discovering, discarding", "naming it, claiming it, and dumping it" (or whatever euphemism one prefers) for dealing with the likes of grief, loss, addiction, depression, anxiety, relationship problems and etc.  "Outcome measures", insurance companies etc do not support this process.  There are sociopolitical (or as I prefer, "sociopolytrickal" as in "many tricks") forces that diminish both focus and support on these types of services.  The hows and whys of this are beyond the scope of what I'm getting at here.

My tactic for dealing with issues are (hopefully) pretty simple and direct.

1.  Take the list of things we do that put distance between us and us/others/the "universe" and/or "God" if one prefers, and stop doing those things.  If it's hard to stop doing them, try doing these things. 

2.  Take steps to survive not doing those things.  This may take therapy, a support group, a church, support group, or whatever.

3.  What will most definitely take therapy: process what comes up.

Even if one does need medical intervention with psychopharmaceuticals, has a medical condition that might prompt difficult feelings/behaviors etc, getting therapy can only support this process, and arguably in some cases, is insufficient without it.  These three simple ideas above support all the ideas about "processing" (like the "uncover, discover, discard" etc above).  Hopefully we will get past the era of simply thinking that we all only need to act better, or otherwise "get over it".

Lastly, need to make mention that this is of course not this simple, and would encourage more work around these things to be "happy", free of depression, anxiety, addiction, etc.  A "resource group" of supportive people is necessary.  An organized set of principles to deal with new issues is significant.  Would also say that it's important to have principles that allow us to grow as people- doing the work to transform and/or let go of these issues are the bare essentials for us to get to these things... and are totally possible.

Shame, "Self-Esteem", and Buddhism

Been thinking a lot about how most of us, when we were kids, didn't have a lot of compunction about playing with other kids, meeting new people we liked and such. Maybe when we were very little we might have been "shy", but in this case I think we're talking about caution, fearfulness, as opposed to lack of a sense of self esteem.

When I was a kid, it was easy for me to go down the street and ask about a kid there I thought was my age that I could play with, to try new things... I think because we're actually born with a sense of self esteem or self worth, and that sense of worth gets taken away. That sense of our value, how we are connected to others, self esteem or self worth, gets replaced by shame- feeling "less than", insufficient, unlovable, broken and defective as human beings.

This sense of self esteem is diminished or removed a lot of ways. Verbal abuse- actually being shamed by others, made fun of, called names, diminished for mistakes or lack of knowledge of a thing, literally being told one is somehow bad, not going to amount to anything, being compared against others, being yelled at or threatened.

Physical abuse. The predominant message a person gets when struck by another person out of anger, an effort to discipline, etc. is that they are somehow flawed. Being treated gently shows someone their worth. It takes effort... attention, patience, softness- the opposite of which takes little effort. Of course, this is often coupled with verbal abuse, sometimes sexual abuse.

Sexual abuse. When this happens to someone, they often get the message that this is their only value, their only utility as a person. It's also extremely common, in order for the abuser to be able to continue the act, that they diminish the victim as a person. Taking away their power, their human-ness, their self worth, makes it easier to continue violating them. The act itself literally causes shame- it instills something in the person that they have to hide, something that makes them feel less human, separates them from others.

The media. There's a lot of images in our society, a lot of messages that we get about our worth. Television, magazines, movies, other people, all bombard us with a message about what we "need" to do, have, look like. We are given the sense that unless we're attached to some product, some lifestyle, some particular achievement, we are somehow not successful. This is not simply a message about how far we've gone in life, it's a message about our being-ness, our human-ness.

We do a lot of work to "get" self esteem- take care of ourselves physically, our appearance, do esteemable acts, visualization, affirmations and etc. Those of us that have done these things often haven't been able to maintain our self worth despite such efforts. These ideas help us feel better in the moment, but long term, we often still experience a deep sense of shame.

Some have said that a central idea in Buddhism is that at the center of each human being is the fear we don't exist. This lends itself to the idea that we are constantly reaching outside of ourselves for things, naming and labeling them, attaching ourselves to them, trying to obtain them. In doing so, being attached to a thing (person, etc), we can fear less that we don't exist. So we go about our lives in a way that diminishes our personhood, our being-ness, our selves being "enough" simply as we are.

The answer to this is not simply adding things to our lives, behaviors, personhood. Shame, low self worth and etc is something we have to give away. We have had experiences that diminished our self esteem- abuse, abandonment, exposure or humiliation, being diminished or demeaned verbally- those are the things that make us feel less of ourselves. Until we find a way to "let go" of those feelings, to give them away, to make space for our self esteem, we will be unable to experience it no matter how many "creative visualizations", affirmations and etc. that we do.

You Can't Heal What You Can't Feel

We constantly "do" things- behaviors and thinking, that put distance between us and us, us and "others", us and 'god' or the 'universe' as we MISunderstand s/he/them and/or it.  Food, sex, TV, gambling, relationships, rationalizing, avoiding, intellectualizing, alcohol, money, property, prestige, drugs, toys/devices (cell phones, computers, etc), fixing other people, "acting out" etc.  Overstating, when it comes to distance between us and us, we're talking about putting distance between us and our emotional condition.  Simply using a lot of words (Lao Tzu has famously said, paraphrasing, that "many words lead one nowhere") and even certain types of words can put distance between us and our feelings.

To simplify getting in touch with and processing our feelings about things, I encourage using what are sometimes referred to as the "Six Basic Feelings".  These are mad, sad, glad, afraid, ashamed, and/or hurt.  Certainly, we can have one or more of them at any given time, even about the same issue.  I really resist other words if at all possible, for reasons too long to go into here.

If we're engaged in the aforementioned behaviors, we are often mood-altering, and/or simply less or unable to be in touch with our emotional condition (and as a result, others and the rest of the "universe").  If our feelings are indicators of possible realities, if these are altered or stunted, we may not have all the information about a given circumstance.  The idea we're going for is to talk about them in a way that transforms them, and or helps us clarify different circumstances.

So, my suggestion to get in touch with and begin transforming these is this: know the things we do that are mood-altering, let go of those behaviors (a whole other note all together), and as our feelings come up, say the facts of the circumstance, and one or more of the six basic feelings.  For instance, "When my mom (or whoever) said/did/didn't say/didn't do __________, I felt __________."  That's all.  Trying to avoid inferences, interpretations, assessments, judgments, manipulation, controlling, etc., certainly avoiding behaviors we do that ignore or diminish our ability to be in touch with how we feel.

It's been said too that we can't heal what we can't feel.  So the process I'm encouraging is identifying what we do to not feel, letting go of those so that we can feel all of our feelings ("all" meaning each one, in all circumstances, and with 100% of the intensity we're experiencing them...), naming them simply, communicating them in a way that helps us stay in touch with/get help/transform them, then finding ways to live our lives gracefully through what comes up as we process them.  This is a process I encourage with therapists, relationships, as many places as is possible.


It's really important to point out that I'm not advocating for this process to change anyone else's behavior or perspective.  This is not an idea about right and wrong, certainly not about comparing the relevance of our feelings to others.  It's simply a way of getting in touch with what we feel, so that we can change it.  We often say to one another that we should "let go" of things- but you can't let go of feelings you don't totally have.

Honoring What Is.

Laughing to myself a little now because, though I intended to write about honoring our feelings and "sense" (perception?) of things, was quickly reminded of how hard it is to know how we feel in the first place.

That aside, the idea of "honoring" our feelings has come up a lot lately.  Am assuming we're in a place to know how we feel to begin with.  Don't run with this idea and think honoring our feelings is in conflict with my earlier suggestions that our feelings aren't necessarily facts.  Paraphrasing one of my "heroes" (though he'd certainly admonish me for having any heroes in the first place, particularly him...), Sheldon Kopp has noted along with so many others (Tolstoy, Jung...) how curious it is that we spend so much time and energy actively not honoring our experience of things.  In favor of doing so we dismiss our feelings, compare our insides to others' outsides, diminish the importance of our feelings (sometimes by comparing ours to what others have been through), distract ourselves (food, buying, drugs, sex, alcohol, TV...) and etc.

The consequences of not honoring our feelings are huge.  It can cause depression, acting angry (as opposed to being angry), addictions, irritability, not acting as the person we'd like to be, allowing people to violate our boundaries, is a huge factor in a lack of self esteem and more.  It can cause us to not trust our own eyes and ears when we maybe ought to.  It can keep us in relationships that are not healthy for us.

Honoring them is arguably as difficult as not honoring them.  It's likely one of the primary reasons we don't honor them.  For many of us, it's not even an idea we've really considered.  Much could (and will, eventually) be written just about how to have our feelings in the first place.  Once we do have them though- honoring them and doing so gracefully is a very difficult challenge.

From my sense of things, "feelings" are called that for a reason.  It's so tragic that we behave in a way that indicates we often think we ought to do everything possible with them besides simply having them.  They're called feelings because we're supposed to feel them.  They give us messages about our environment and allow us to heal.  Feeling them and not "folding, spindling, or mutilating" them is the first step.  Once we have them, giving them a name is useful- I always begin with encouraging mad, sad, glad, afraid, ashamed, and/or hurt.

Am also a huge fan of treating them gently once we have them and have named them, whether they "make sense" or not.  Not being gentle with them exacerbates them, or simply prompts us to change or otherwise avoid/ignore them.

Once having them, naming, and being gentle with them, we've begun to honor them.  If we know we have them, know what they are, and are experiencing them without trying to do something unkind with them (make other people see/think differently, harming ourselves, avoiding them with some of the behaviors above and more), we can process them based on what they are.  Crying when we're sad or hurt, are pretty clear ways to honor our feelings.  Telling other people what is happening for us when we feel ashamed (some say "guilty", or less than, broken, etc...) honors our experience.  Telling other people how we feel honors them.  Asking people to be with us when we're scared or feel broken is a great way to honor our experience of things.  Being mad instead of acting mad (a subject for a whole other missive) is a way to honor it.

We don't honor our feelings in relationships either.  We're loyal to people that are disloyal to us.  We treat ourselves more poorly than other people often do, but when we do get treated poorly by others, we oft treat them more gently than we do ourselves, or ignore it wholesale.  Though we may get our feelings hurt about something, we keep it secret.  Sometimes we are sad or hurt or ashamed or angered by something, but keep it from the other person as not to hurt their feelings, but are often taking from them the chance to do or see something different.

Sort of wishing I hadn't begun writing about this particular thing.  Honoring our feelings is dependent on so many things- not doing things to get in the way of feeling them, having simple names for them, having them gracefully, treating them gently, not thinking or communicating about them as facts, processing them.  So much might be written about any of those ideas.  It's come up so often recently, and is such an important idea though, am compelled to put at least something out there about it.

Space.

So many of us are looking for self esteem, happiness, "God" (if one believes in such), good relationships and etc.  These ideas come up a lot in my work, from all kinds of people, all different kinds of age groups and backgrounds.  They're understandable, and common efforts, much of what make our lives worth living.

We do a lot of... interesting... things to get these. We "socially engineer", we try to bolster our sense of self with our egos, we do all the prescribed things that religions or spiritual traditions or philosophies (or therapists) encourage us to do to get a sense of "spirit" or "God", we buy things, try to get him or her to be interested in us.  We use drugs, alcohol, money, property, prestige.  We even use a lot of methods we've gotten from other therapists or self-help books (or programs) to get these things as well.

More and more, I think that these things, if we're to have them at all, are far less about "getting" them than they are about making space for them.  If we've been told all our lives that we'll never amount to anything or have had things happen to us that have made us feel "less than" or broken or defective, no amount of the above ideas (and more) will be sufficient to bring us self esteem or happiness.  The ideas I'm suggesting about "God" or relationships etc are much the same- we have to make space for these things, that are usually occupied by some loss, hurt, anxieties and etc.

The how and why of this is beyond the scope of a blog, but it's certainly an idea worth pondering.  Overstating, learning how to let go of hurts, losses, shame, ego- these will go much further in bringing us healthy relationships, a healthy relationship with ourselves, a sense of connectedness to "God" or others or the "universe", than any amount of money or anything else will ever provide.

Radio Interview

Next Thursday (May 6th) at 1130 AM, Judy McGehee MA, MFT (www.mcgeheepartners.org), Tom Aaselund MFT, and myself will be discussing... whatever comes up... about psychology, therapy and etc for what I think is half an hour.  It will be on the "Project Get Well America" show with Dr. Mark.  It's live streamed and podcasted.  The link for the show is here.  If there's any more details, will let you know.

Communication With Adolescents? Communication With Everybody.

Got to do a talk with the aforementioned Judy McGehee MA, LMFT (www.mcgeheepartners.org) tonight at the "Parent Summit" organized by the Glendora School District. There were breakout sessions with different professionals and agencies providing talks on different topics. Dr. Mary Suzuki (wife of Dr. Dan Suzuki) began the session with Captain Rob Castro of Glendora PD, who discussed a previous summit focusing on adolescents and use of pharmaceuticals (illicitly).

Judy and I did a talk entitled "How to Talk so Your Kids Will Listen, How to Listen so Your Kids Will Talk". As we discussed in our PowerPoint presentation, it became pretty clear that this was a misnomer- not only because it has more to do with relationships with kids, and further, much of the skills we discussed were relevant for most relationships in general.

During her talk, Judy identified the importance of being interested in your kids, not letting technology like cell phones and iPods get in the way of communication, ideas about developmental stages, roadblocks to communication and more. The parents and professionals who attended asked her a lot of questions about different types of age-appropriate communication, problem-solving specific issues and etc.

My talk endeavored a practical approach that highlighted suggestions to put me out of a job (one of my personal goals), principled ideas for use in communication, and some adolescent/child specific tools. We also discussed problem-solving issues like when/when not to intervene between siblings, children (who were sometimes adults in the examples) "stonewalling", giving short and/or avoidant responses, even what might be described as resentful feelings prompting one or another to not talk all together. The details of these are of course beyond a blog.

That said though, will copy/paste some of the suggestions I had here. Any questions, ideas, encouragements etc are welcome. Again, would offer that many of these are useful in communicating with all types of people, in all different types of relationships. Here's the abbreviated list:

• Don't yell.
• Don’t be critical and/or judgmental.
• Don’t try to change others’ mind or behavior.
• Don’t interrupt.
• Don’t only have feelings of fear or anger, or not have feelings at all.
• Be graceful with the feelings you do have.
• Don’t interrogate. *only be a parent* (meaning, resist the temptation to be a police officer, financial adviser, career counselor, etc)
• Don’t interrupt.
• Don’t say one thing, then do another.
• If someone says something you don’t understand, ask them to explain it.
• If someone starts yelling, speak quietly.
• Avoid power struggles.
(Here is where some of the adolescent specific ideas began)
• It might be a good answer to them.
• Don’t be afraid of technology. Learn to text. Email.
• Ask their opinion.
• Tell them you love them, and what you like about them.
• Learn their language. You don’t have to use it. (www.urbandictionary.com)
• Use the “rule of five”, particularly in crisis. Five words a sentence, five letters a word.
• Find a way to be interested in them- what they think, what they like and care about, and why.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list. It also doesn't address some of the principles that might otherwise be employed, doesn't give some answers in context, and doesn't explain why some of these tools might be important. Those ideas, as a rule, have to be discussed, processed. They also don't address specifics about working through problems or issues. Most of these things are best done with a professional, over time. Hope some of these can be helpful.

Speaking of Service...

My friend and colleague Judy McGehee MA, LMFT (www.mcgeheepartners.org) along with Ted Aaselund LMFT have been providing clinical supervision (completing hours for graduation and/or eventual licensure) for a great group of interns and trainees at Judy's office in Glendora, California.  They have been providing sometimes up to 40 hours of services to local schools with these Masters level folk to students and families who might not get these services at all otherwise.

I have been truly humbled by the work of these people, and lucky to get to participate in part of the supervision.  We have been discussing the obvious concerns about professional standards, law and ethics concerns, types of interventions, philosophy, differential diagnosis, addiction, depression, abuse and etc.  What has been so remarkable though is the intensity of the losses and difficulties these students and families have had, but equally, the grace and commitment of the interns and Judy insuring that these folk get taken care of.

It appears now that eventually, on top of the individual services that are being provided to the educational institutions, students, and families, there may be an opportunity for a multi-family group therapy at low cost for these individuals.  This is such a great service, but sadly, there is no funding available for this to happen (space may be made available at a school).  Of course I can't discuss the details but, there have been some huge losses for these families that they are getting little support for treating from a public standpoint, the responsibility of both the service and the internship being largely on the shoulders of Judy and the interns, a little on Ted and I (as we didn't take this on from the beginning).  The families served aren't just getting low-level services- they are getting truly insightful, wise, professional services thanks to the good heartedness of the people involved.

Providing clinical supervision is such an important part of what I'm lucky enough to get to do.  It means much to me that I'm in a place where I'm not just empowered to help people, but that I am empowered to help people, who can further be of service to others.  What I do, I hope, matters a great deal, and the opportunity to share some of that with other people who might further use some of that to help yet other people is amazing.

Love and Service.

Thanks for dropping by my blog page.  As the introduction notes, I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Licensed Psychiatric Technician, and Masters level Addictions Counselor in Pasadena, California.  Though I’ve been doing some private practice for many years in addition to the twenty-six I’ve been doing inpatient work, I’ve now gone out on my own, to do just private practice.

            Providing treatment is my life’s work.  Having not just survived, but also (somewhat) gracefully dealt with some suffering of my own, I have been given not just some answers- but with those answers, also responsibility to others.  Holding on to those responsibilities is not only bad for other people, it would be unhealthy for me too.  So, very early, I started being of service.

            Having worked inpatient for so many years, I’ve been lucky (and saddened) to take care of most every type of human suffering possible.  Most of my work has been with adults and adolescents.  Depression, loss, grief, addiction, trauma, abuse, stress, mental illness (for lack of a more graceful term), relationships, desires (and need) for personal growth or “life coaching”, chronic pain, medical illnesses, family problems, couples problems and more have all been tragically present and have arguably increased over the years I’ve provided service.  There is much work to be done about all of these things and more.  It seems now that the most effective way to care for these problems is for me to see individuals, families, and couples privately.

            It was suggested by someone I consider wise that I find a way to make myself available to people when they are not able to be around me.  Aside from writing a book, providing materials from talks I do in the community, I am starting a blog.  There is much work to be done, and many answers are possible that can improve the quality of all our lives, if we’re willing to live by some principles and do some work.  My hope is that I can take you along with me as I do so, by way of communicating here.

            And so to it.