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Life is a masterpiece of contradictions and complexities, woven with intricate threads that shape
our experiences. As you embark on your therapeutic journey, it's essential to understand and embrace a powerful concept called dialectics, or both/and thinking. This way of approaching life and its challenges can help you find balance, emotional well-being, and personal growth. Let's explore how you can integrate this way of thinking into your life. What is Dialectics? ● Dialectics is the art of holding opposing ideas and feelings at the same time. It recognizes that life is rarely black or white; instead, it's filled with shades of gray. By accepting that multiple perspectives and emotions can coexist, dialectics opens the door to greater understanding and growth. ● By acknowledging that opposing ideas and feelings can coexist, we open ourselves to greater understanding and compassion. Let's allow the power of dialectics to inspire us to new heights of self-discovery and connection with those around us. Implementing Dialectics 1. Embrace the beauty of uncertainty. a. If you grapple with anxiety and feel overwhelmed when making decisions, dialectics offers a compassionate perspective. It encourages you to acknowledge that uncertainty is a natural aspect of life. Rather than perceiving it as something to be feared, embrace the discomfort of uncertainty and recognize the potential for personal growth when you step outside your comfort zone. By holding space for both the unease and the opportunity, you can approach decision-making with self- compassion and a gentle curiosity about the possibilities. 2. Honor different perspectives. a. In a disagreement with a loved one, dialectics invites you to consider the validity of both your perspective and theirs. Rather than clinging to the idea of being right, try to understand where the other person is coming from. By practicing active listening and empathy, you can create space for both viewpoints, fostering healthier communication and connection. 3. Embrace your complexity. a. As you navigate the therapeutic process, you may experience a mix of emotions, such as sadness and joy. Dialectics reminds you that it's possible to hold both emotions simultaneously. By allowing yourself to embrace the complexity of your experience, you can find moments of joy and hope amidst the challenges and setbacks. 4. Embrace the messiness of emotions. a. If you struggle with depression, there may be times when you experience both sadness and glimpses of happiness. Dialectics encourages you to honor these contradictory emotions. Recognize that feeling some moments of happiness doesn't invalidate your difficulties. By embracing both sides, you can cultivate resilience and find moments of light even within the darkness. As you embark on your therapeutic journey, remember that dialectics can be a guiding light, helping you navigate the complexities of life. By embracing both/and thinking, you cultivate emotional resilience, foster stronger relationships, and unlock the doors to personal growth. Allow the power of dialectics to guide you toward a deeper understanding of yourself and those around you. Embrace the beauty of contradictions! Summertime is finally here! For many of us, the warm weather may provide a much needed respite from the low-energy moods that we may feel in the colder months. Since we only have the warmth for a few short months, it might be beneficial to take advantage of it while it's here, spending more time outdoors or exploring new parts of the city. Mindfulness is a core skill of Dialectical Behavior Therapy that can be used this summer to allow us to be more present and appreciative of the good energy that the warmth brings with it. Mindfulness can be used to ground us in the present moment, fully engage with our surroundings, or notice any sensations or feelings arising within us.
The great thing about mindfulness is that we often engage in it without knowing that we are doing it. The mindful experience is fully immersing ourselves into one task, without multitasking or judging it. For example, this might happen naturally while washing the dishes, doing the laundry, or cooking a meal. Now, we can name these everyday activities as mindful activities and then employ them when we are feeling stressed, anxious, or are lost in our negative thoughts. A great and simple way to practice mindfulness at any time is to engage our senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) because they can help to ground us in the here and now or fully experience a moment. Here are some ways that we can engage our five senses this summer in New York City:
Mindfulness can be done in many small ways throughout the day. Recognizing opportunities to practice being mindful is the first step in cultivating self-awareness. If we can draw on our mindfulness skills in times of peace, we can more easily apply mindfulness skills when we are experiencing overwhelming emotional or physical responses. Try connecting with your five senses this summer using these examples. As you get more comfortable with identifying opportunities to be mindful, make your own list of mindfulness activities or ways to engage your senses throughout the day! Burn-out, according to the World Health Organization, is a syndrome that results from chronic workplace stress. There are three dimensions of burn-out:
In other words, burn-out occurs when an individual is feeling overworked and overwhelmed by their workload. It is important to understand how to avoid burn-out in the workplace, so that you can continue to be productive while also prioritizing your mental health. Here are some tips that can help:
While these tips may appear to be simple, they can be tricky to enforce in your daily life. Remember that we all cope with stress differently, so be kind and patient with yourself when implementing these strategies. Your brain will thank you! Transitioning to sobriety from addiction can feel so daunting, yet freeing. The waves of emotions without the safety blanket of a substance can leave us feeling raw. Feeling unsure of what to do in your next steps to sobriety is a shared experience many have. Here are a few steps to check in with yourself to see how you can build up your recovery. You are not alone.
Recovery brings connection, personal growth, passion for life, and safety within ourselves. You have made it this far. Now you can pause and take a deep breath, you are safe. You are taking the steps to allow yourself to heal. One day at a time! Taproot offers individual and group therapy for those questioning their use of substances, those wanting to get sober, and those maintaining their recovery. To the person that had a slip during Dry January:
2023 rolled around and you set your sights on not drinking for the month of January. Congrats! That’s a great intention to set to start off your new year. Perhaps you started off strong, noticing the incredible impact of no alcohol on your system. You wake up earlier, without a hangover, and head to the gym. You notice you don’t have to drink to have fun in social settings. As the days go on, you slowly start to see the stress build up as you go back to work, school, family life, etcetera. The January blues roll in, and the sun sets at 4:45 pm. On certain days, your fitness routine is swapped out for sitting at home to manage your stress. Then, you find alcohol in your fridge that you didn’t intend on thinking about this month, and you drink it. The day is long, you’re stressed and tired, and you go back to an old buddy that you relied on for so long. And the alcohol worked for coping! Until it didn’t, and perhaps you’re feeling guilt, shame, or frustration because you slipped up and drank. Pause. Deep breath. You are okay. Slips happen! Progress is absolutely not linear. Humans go to what is engrained and what “works”. Whether that’s alcohol, drugs, shopping, food, relationships, gambling, overworking, overexercising, the list goes on. So many of our coping skills, which take the pain away, actually detach us from our reality. Humans struggle with accepting and listening to the feelings we have, the feelings are uncomfortable, and they make us face a reality that we so desperately avoid. Instead of sitting in the emotions, riding the waves that come, and allowing them to pass – we avoid them. And of course we avoid, we aren’t given a guidebook on how to cope in a way that feels authentic and healthy. Yet we are still left with those thoughts, feelings, and quite often, behaviors that keep us in an old cycle of dysfunction and dysregulation. So, what do you do if you slip? Well, I’m here to say that you are not a bad person for slipping up and drinking. You continue on, reminding yourself of the initial intention you set when you were curious about Dry January. Perhaps you realign your intention, reminding yourself that your goal is to re-evaluate your relationship with alcohol. Maybe you want to decrease the number of days you drink, or the amount you drink in one sitting. Your goal of wellness is a fantastic goal. You don’t have to be perfect. You are already doing so much by acknowledging and increasing your awareness of the reality you are in. Perhaps you 6 months ago, or 2 years ago, would’ve never thought to evaluate your relationship with substances! Search inward for that compassion and love for trying your best. Enjoy that mocktail. Today is a new day. Red flags don't feel like red flags when they remind you of home. Somewhere along the
way you may have learned that chaos, self-abandonment, harm, and pain meant love. Probably this was picked up in your earliest relationships with your caregivers, whether this was subtle or acute, we developed an anxious-avoidant attachment style. This means that once you start feeling close to someone you may feel triggered, either that you will lose the other person or lose yourself. Fight or flight kicks in alongside intimacy and maladaptive protective measures follow suit. It causes an individual to connect part or whole of their self-worth in their partner and engage in behaviors such as obsessing, avoiding, ditching, and fighting. Moving towards safety in partnership takes a lot of work. You won’t get there in a day. In therapy, you, alongside your therapist, can identify old patterns that get you stuck, develop healthy coping mechanisms and find new ways of communicating your needs and boundaries. You will come to recognize you are worthy of love and worthy of being fully seen, not only by our partners but by yourself as well. Attachment styles start to form in the very first year of life. This is when we begin to learn: am I loved? Is someone there when I need them? Do people hear my cries? Am I worthy of attention and care, do I matter? The information we receive as infants may impact our relationships for the rest of our lives. Of course, as we grow so do our beliefs about self and our understanding of how the world responds to me, and what does that say about me. Every fight or argument may affirm, I am bad or I am too much. And we may be left with that all too familiar feeling of being hopelessly, excruciatingly, disconnected. Children are appropriately very egocentric. Unlike adults, children aren’t able to look at the bigger picture of a situation. So instead of understanding, mom is busy working and doesn’t have time for me, children think, mom isn’t paying attention to me, I must not be worthy of her attention. Additionally, children will do anything to preserve the relationship with their caregivers including making wild excuses for abuse and neglect. This is an adaptive feature of the mind that just goes to show how vital attachment is in childhood. In fact, that fear of abandonment stems back to a primal part of our brain. In adulthood that fear of abandonment can feel like excruciating death and that’s because at one point it did mean death. When we are small, being abandoned by our caregivers does mean we could die. We are helpless and completely depend on adults to survive. That intense fear of being abandoned is stored in our bodies and can get activated as adults. Attachment wounds or relational trauma? Can we recognize that not having what you need in early childhood is a complex trauma? Living every day not knowing how you will get your needs met does wreckage to the body especially during development. Insecurity takes a toll on the nervous system. Overactive fight or flight kicks in and you begin to develop on survival mode. Excessive and constant flow of cortisol through the body in childhood has been linked to several medical issues in adult hood such as autoimmune disorders, heart disease, diabetes, IBS, asthma and more. All of this is to say, this matters. We live in a culture that dismisses people as being needy, over-emotional, dramatic etc. And I am here to say the big reactions are warranted and that I see you. In fact, can we thank these big reactions for telling us where to look, for being our clue that something deeper is going on? Can we start in the place where it all went awry? By seeing ourselves for the very first time by saying, “you are not broken, thank you for telling me”. When we say this we open worlds and close loops.It’s time to put an end to the narrative that something is wrong within yourself and you just need to get over it – you were never meant to bear the burden of the world’s limitations, you were never meant to shrink yourself and self-abandon in order to receive love and care. Yes we have a responsibility for our healing today but no you didn’t get here by yourself. The first step in untangling all of this attachment work is just in seeing and acknowledging ourselves. Your little one thanks you. We all have heard about the benefits of mindfulness exercises as part of adult therapeutic practice. But, we aren’t quite aware that mindfulness practices are highly effective with children as well! A child-friendly explanation of mindfulness would be- paying attention to what is happening in the present moment. Studies have shown that integrating mindfulness or meditation exercises into a child’s routine can prove to have copious benefits.
First and foremost, children can use mindfulness to deal with the stressors of their life. (Yes, children most definitely experience stressors in their lives, although they may be different than adult stressors). Along with this, they learn important skills such as being present in the moment, self-compassion and openness. Practicing mindfulness also leads to improved concentration and self-control. As children learn primarily by observation, parents and caregivers are a significant source for modeling these practices to children! These activities need not necessarily be something lengthy or fancy. It can be as simple as taking a walk, having a calming uninterrupted playtime with the child or reading/ drawing together. Remember that the purpose of the exercise is to be fully present in the current moment! A simple mindfulness activity for children is a body scan. Ask the child to lie down in a comfortable position. Introduce deep breathing and then ask the child to pay attention to different parts of the body from their head to their toes. Ask them to notice all the sensations they experience including temperature, texture and weight. This exercise helps children be more mindful of what’s happening in their physical bodies. Lastly, another simple activity is the 4 square breathing exercise. Ask the child to sit in a comfortable position. Ask the child to imagine a square in front of them. Now trace along the height of the square while taking a deep breath through your nose for 4 seconds. Now, trace along the width of the square while holding the breath for another 4 seconds. Exhale through the mouth as your trace along the height of the square and then hold the breath for 4 seconds as you complete the square. Repeat this deep inhalation, hold, exhalation and hold for four or five more times. This helps the child practice deep breathing to calm their mind and body. Weighing the Pros and Cons: A Helpful Distress Tolerance Skill By: Alyssa Pammer Clinical Trainee9/14/2022
Pros and Cons can function as a beneficial distress tolerance skill in DBT. As with other distress
tolerance skills, Pros and Cons are often used in crisis situations. It can aid in helping us avoid acting impulsively while weighing the pros and cons of the impulsive decision at hand. Instead of acting impulsively, making the pros and cons list can help us act skillfully. It shows us that better results pan out by making a skillful decision with our pain, rather than an impulsive decision with our pain. It’s most common to use pros and cons when we have to participate in something that we really don’t want to do. The most common way to use the pros and cons skill is to make a pros and cons list. Most people, at one point in their life, have made a pros and cons list about a decision. In DBT, we can make a pros and cons list of our impulsive decisions and maladaptive behaviors. In order to make this list, we can pick a maladaptive or impulsive behavior that we typically engage in. First, we would make a pros and cons list of specifically engaging in the behavior. We may ask ourselves, what good can come out of engaging in the behavior, and what negative consequences can result as a part of engaging in the behavior? Then, we would make an additional pros and cons list. This list will be for the same behavior, but we would evaluate the pros and cons of not participating in the impulsive behavior. While making the list, we can also consider both the short and long-term consequences of engaging vs. not engaging in impulsive behavior. A way to do this on this list would be to signify “ST” for short term, and “LT” for long term next to specific statements on the list. This shows us that our behaviors can provide short-term relief, but may cause long-term conflict. By labeling behaviors as short-term or long-term, we can also identify maladaptive patterns within our behaviors, and learn to challenge them. Once we identify these patterns, we can skillfully find ways to integrate new coping strategies in replacement of maladaptive and impulsive behaviors. Pros and cons lists are often created before a behavior occurs, likely in therapy with a DBT therapist. The list can then be used in a moment of distress, when there is an impulsive urge to act upon a behavior. We can refer to the list that we made in a time of clear-minded thinking, instead of using an emotional mind to make a decision. Play-Therapy for Children Written by: Maitreyee Sathe, Clinical Trainee specializing in play therapy8/29/2022
Just as adults tend to talk about their feelings and emotions, children act them out in play! Play is
a child’s natural way of communication. Children use toys to express themselves including their needs, wishes and wants. They use toys as a medium to make sense of their life experiences. For children, what seems unmanageable in reality, becomes manageable in play! Children externalize their emotions and thoughts with the help of toys and hence experience a sense of relief through play. Play therapy is an evidence based approach with solid research to support its effectiveness for many populations and concerns. Children experiencing social, emotional or behavioral difficulties use the playroom as a safe space to comprehend their struggles, express their emotions and explore possible solutions. The children use the toys in the playroom as a form of communication with the clinician. These toys include real life and nurturing toys such as doll family, doll house, puppets, cars, money, medical kit, food; Aggressive toys such as toy soldiers, plastic guns, animals and aggressive puppets; and finally expressive toys such as sandtray, paint, clay, musical instruments and, dress up clothes. Play therapy helps children to facilitate communication, enhance social relationships, foster emotional wellness and increase personal strengths. The clinician in the playroom strives to provide the child with a warm, safe and supporting environment. The clinician provides the child with unconditional positive regard while building a friendly and warm relationship. The clinician maintains a deep respect for the child’s ability to solve his/her problems and gives the child the opportunity to do so. A collaborative approach is taken with an aim to empower both the child and the caregiver and the clinician conducts regular sessions with parents and guardians to monitor the child’s progress. Contact office@taproottherapynyc.com to know more/ schedule an appointment! Emotions come in waves. There are times when feelings can be overwhelming. During a stressful day, when you are feeling elevated, utilize the DBT skill STOP. Stopping involves taking a step back, observing what is happening, and choosing to proceed mindfully. It is easier said than done, stepping back involves taking a break from what you are doing, or pausing.
When you hit pause, take the time to observe. Observing involves sitting with our emotions and understanding the sensations in our body. In a way when we observe, we think of ourselves as a fly on the wall. Instead of passing a judgment about what is going on, the goal is to see the situation clearly and look at the facts. Observing also includes steering away from subjective assessment. It involves taking the facts of a situation and bearing your emotions in mind. The last step is proceeding mindfully. Proceeding mindfully involves taking what is observed, keeping your goals in mind and bridging the gap between your rational mind and emotional mind, in other words it is activating your wise mind. When your wise mind is activated, think about what you would like to get from the situation at hand and whether the emotions that you feel fit the circumstances. When you utilize the STOP skill, think about the outcome of your actions and your goals. You can ask yourself, what would I like to get from this situation? What are my goals? What can I do that could make this situation better or worse? In other words, proceeding mindfully involves emotional regulation, staying calm and collected when you have gathered all the information internally and externally about how it can impact your goals. |
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Taproot Therapy, LCSW, PLLC
Office@taproottherapynyc.com 285 Lexington Avenue Suite 2A New York, NY 10016 141 E 35th Street Suite J New York, NY 10016 |
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