Conversion Therapy Quotes

It’s interesting-most people think about therapy as something that involves going in and undoing what’s happened. But whatever your past experiences created in your brain, the associations exist and you can’t just delete them. You can’t get rid of the past. Therapy is more about building new associations, making new, healthier default pathways. It is almost as if therapy is taking your two-lane dirt road and building a four-lane freeway alongside it. The old road stays, but you don’t use it much anymore. Therapy is building a better alternative, a new default. And that takes repetition, and time, honestly, it works best if someone understands how the brain changes. This is why understanding how trauma impacts our health is essential for everyone.

Accepting a psychiatric diagnosis is like a religious conversion. It's an adjustment in cosmology, with all its accompanying high priests, sacred texts, and stories of religion. And I am, for better or worse, an instant convert.

It's not conversion 'therapy;' it's conversion brainwashing.

When you reach out and touch other human beings, it doesn't matter whether you call it therapy or teaching or poetry.

Terror doesn't change people from gay to straight. It just hurts innocent people.

The mind-body clash has disguised the truth that psychotherapy is physiology. When a person starts therapy, he isn't beginning a pale conversation; he is stepping into a somatic state of relatedness.

most couples don’t get any training in relationships, and often they don’t learn how to communicate with each other until they go to therapy, and that’s often too late.

When I look at my father, I can see that he doesn't get it, either, and right then and there, I realize that there's a big part of me that my parents will never get no matter how many therapy sessions we attend - even if we have a million and one conversations about who I am.

In the last twenty-five years, the borderline patient, who confronts the psychiatrist not with well-defined symptoms but with diffuse dissatisfactions, has become increasingly common. He does not suffer from debilitating fixations or phobias or from the conversion of repressed sexual energy into nervous ailments; instead he complains "of vague, diffuse dissatisfactions with life" and feels his "amorphous existence to be futile and purposeless." He describes "subtly experienced yet pervasive feelings of emptiness and depression," "violent oscillations of self-esteem," and "a general inability to get along." He gains "a sense of heightened self-esteem only by attaching himself to strong, admired figures whose acceptance he craves and by whom he needs to feel supported." Although he carries out his daily responsibilities and even achieves distinction, happiness eludes him, and life frequently strikes him as not worth living.

By failing to engage it in intellectually challenging activities, your brain will fail to grow new connections, and it will indeed become disorganized and ultimately dysfunctional. The converse is also true for both body and brain. If someone who has not been physically active for a sustained period starts a program of physical therapy and regular exercise, she can regain her muscle mass and tone within a matter of months. The same thing is true of your brain.

Lindsey wasn't sitting there with the two of them. And Lindsey wasn't exiled to Promise for at least a year. So I kept the Lindsey part of me quiet.

The purported insight achieved by the patient is not the product of a process of veridical self-discovery, but rather reflects the patient’s conversion to the therapist’s interpretation.

the conversion therapy failed. Because of course it failed. It’s not possible to change the fundamental being-ness of a person. You can only try to beat it down with shame and guilt. Or try to drown it in cruelty.

Therapy is more about building new associations, making new, healthier default pathways. It is almost as if therapy is taking your two-lane dirt road and building a four-lane freeway alongside it. The old road stays, but you don’t use it much anymore.

In hindsight, I see it was my decision not to let go. I didn't know how, though some days I focused completely on it: using therapy, distraction, exercise. Other days I left myself wildly grieve. Finn affects it all: every conversation I have, what I choose to wear, what books I read, what films and shows I watch. There's that Buddhist quote, (S)he who angers you owns you. She owned me. I allowed it. She controlled me. I knew this feeling of misery would pass, that what I needed was time, but I was impatient. Unfortunately, we must live through the present to get to the future, writes Hanif Kureishi in his novel Intimacy.

Speech therapy is an art that deserves to be more widely known. You cannot imagine the acrobatics your tongue mechanically performs in order to produce all the sounds of a language. Just now I am struggling with the letter l, a pitiful admission for an editor in chief who cannot even pronounce the name of his own magazine! On good days, between coughing fits, I muster enough energy and wind to be able to puff out one or two phonemes. On my birthday, Sandrine managed to get me to pronounce the whole alphabet more or less intelligibly. I could not have had a better present. It was as if those twenty-six letters and been wrenched from the void; my own hoarse voice seemed to emanate from a far-off country. The exhausting exercise left me feeling like a caveman discovering language for the first time. Sometimes the phone interrupts our work, and I take advantage of Sandrine's presence to be in touch with loved ones, to intercept and catch passing fragments of life, the way you catch a butterfly. My daughter, Celeste, tells me of her adventures with her pony. In five months she will be nine. My father tells me how hard it is to stay on his feet. He is fighting undaunted through his ninety-third year. These two are the outer links of the chain of love that surrounds and protects me. I often wonder about the effect of these one-way conversations on those at the other end of the line. I am overwhelmed by them. How dearly I would love to be able to respond with something other than silence to these tender calls. I know that some of them find it unbearable. Sweet Florence refuses to speak to me unless I first breathe noisily into the receiver that Sandrine holds glued to my ear. "Are you there, Jean-Do?" she asks anxiously over the air. And I have to admit that at times I do not know anymore.

There’s an anti-conversion therapy nonprofit called Born Perfect, and that’s what I would say about it. Every one of us is born perfect. Innocent like little Eden, my daughter. If something like that happened to you, it’s not your fault. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t needed, and it definitely wasn’t Christian.

therapy without “connectedness” is not very effective.

which is why many people experience seasonal depressive disorder. Vitamin D regulates the conversion of tryptophan into serotonin.

The original sense of the word 'therapist' in its Greek form therapuetes, was that of an attendant. A therapist, Laing maintained, should therefore be a specialist in attentiveness and awareness.

Working to restore our voice with members of our first family can be a terrific learning experience. We didn't choose these difficult folks, but, as adults, how we talk to them is up to us. Observing and changing our part in family conversations is one royal road to change. In other words, if you can learn to speak clearly and to respond in a new way with your difficult mother or sister, then other relationships will be a piece of cake.

If I could have done it myself, I would have already done it: pried open my ribs and etched the Word onto my heart’s beating chambers. But it seemed my ex-gay counselors were the only ones with enough skill and experience to wield the scalpel.

Many of us go through our days attending to multiple stimuli simultaneously without giving any one thing our full and complete attention. We eat while watching TV and check our email while in the presence of our families. We think about our problems in the middle of a conversation or during an otherwise positive experience. We talk on the phone while driving and choose to distract ourselves from everyday tasks rather than attending to them. We escape the small moments rather than recognizing life is the small moments.

So part of you wanted to be kissing him and another part of you felt the intense worry that comes with being intimate with someone." "Right, but I wasn't worried about intimacy. I was worried about microbial exchange." "Well, your worry expressed itself as being about microbial exchange." I just groaned at the therapy bullshit. She asked me if I'd taken my Ativan. I told her I hadn't brought it to Davis's house. And then she asked me if I was taking the Lexapro every day, and I was, like, not every day. The conversation devolved into her telling me that medication only works if you take it, and that I had to treat my health problem with consistency and care, and me trying to explain that there is something intensely weird and upsetting about the notion that you can only become yourself by ingesting a medication that changes your self.

If you are reading this book, a clear betrayal has probably happened in your life. Chances are that you have also bonded with the person or persons who have let you down. Now here is the important part: You will never mend the wound without dealing with the betrayal bond. Like gravity, you may defy it for a while, but ultimately it will pull you back. You cannot walk away from it. Time will not heal it. Burying yourself in compulsive and addictive behaviors will bring no relief, just more pain. Being crazy will not make it better. No amount of therapy, long-term or short-term, will help without confronting it. Your ability to have a spiritual experience will be impaired. Any form of conversion or starting over only postpones the inevitable. And there is no credit for feeling sorry for yourself. You must acknowledge, understand and come to terms with the relationship.

Religious leaders liberate themselves from their history of repeated anti-queer actions every time there is a new debate on queer rights. They get a clean slate even thought their hands are muddied with a history of hatred against people like me. Why do we treat the voice of church leaders as thought they have the same level of understanding of pseudoscientific practices as medical professionals do? While all medical bodies oppose conversion therapy, call it unethical and support banning it, the churches are being treated as though their view could somehow disprove the findings of the medical professionals.

I looked at the sofa. I wanted to lie down on it and close my eyes. I wanted him to just do the therapy to me, suck it out of me while I slept. I wanted a complete overhaul. I wanted new limbs. I wanted a new neck to hold up a whole new head. I wanted to be hypnotized, brainwashed, monitored, imploded, reconstituted, turned invisible. turned inside out, and cured. I wanted my organs replaced with all new organs, no scars. I wanted him to hover over me and infuse the stew of me with clear insights and shiny bits. I wanted all this change to happen while I lay semi-dozing, in a state of beauty and receptivity, quietly thrumming, on the couch. But it wasn’t a lie-down kind of a couch. It was a forward-facing, upright, massive ship of a thing – a sofa for adults, for work, for serious conversation, maybe for reading John Steinbeck or drafting torts. There had never been a free association on this sofa in its entire life.

The words are ludicrous, but not if it's you they're talking about, not if it's you they're locking up. Not ludicrous at all for the ones who continue to be diagnosed as mentally ill. A mouthy girl in cow boy boots or a boy who drapes a scarf on his head to pretend his hair is long like a princess – well, they are targets for the Dr. Madisons of the world.

Anyway, how could therapy even work on me, when I was so far from sharing Svetlana’s therapist-like belief that people should be healthy and well-adjusted, that they should go to bed at the same time every night, even if they were reading or having an interesting conversation, or that it was great and life-affirming to go hiking with some guy, or to get married? Of course therapy worked for someone who believed those things.

Acornology Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree. Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their life with a purposeful energy; and since they were mid-life baby-boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called “Getting All You Can out of Your Shell” and “Who Would You Be Without Your Nutty Story?” There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being. One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped out of the blue by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And to make things worse, crouched beneath the mighty oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing up at the tree, he said, “We … are … that!” Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but they continued to engage him in conversation: “So tell us, how do we … become that tree?” “Well,” said he, pointing downward, “it has something to do with going into the ground … and cracking open the shell.” “Insane!” they responded. “Totally morbid! Why then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore.

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

Sometimes, when I’m teaching, when I interject a comment without anyone calling on me, without caring that I just spoke a moment before, or when I interrupt someone to redirect the conversation away from an eddy I personally find fruitless, I feel high on the knowledge that I can talk as much as I want to, as quickly as I want to, in any direction that I want to, without anyone overtly rolling her eyes at me or suggesting I go to speech therapy. I’m not saying this is good pedagogy. I am saying that its pleasures are deep. It’s

For the first three years, it’s fun being a pro football player’s girlfriend.   “Marlee, let me see your hand! Did Chris propose yet?” Amber asks.   I’m in year ten.   “Still naked.” I wiggle my fingers in front of her the same way I did last week and the week before that . . . and the week before that. #HeDidntPutARingOnIt   Sometimes, I like to hashtag my life. #CheaperThanTherapy   I sip my margarita. “When it happens, I promise to let you know.” Or, you know, keep asking every time you see me.   “Marlee.” Courtney sighs. She stands at the head of the table clutching a glitter-coated gavel. “We made exceptions for you to join the Lady Mustangs. Try to acknowledge that and save your little side conversation until we’ve finished.”   “Sorry, Court.” Every time I call her Court, she strains her Botoxed forehead and glares in my direction, so obviously, it’s the only thing I call her. Well, sometimes I call her bitch, but she doesn’t know about that.   “As I was saying, the annual Lady Mustangs Fashion Show is in three weeks. Everyone must attend the next meeting so we can discuss the outfits for you and your husbands.”   I catch her eye again. She raises her chin, and her fat-injected lips form an actual smile.   “Oh, I’m sorry. In your case, Marlee, you and your boyfriend.”   See? What a bitch.   “Thanks for the clarification, Court, but I understood.

In sensorimotor treatment, traumatized clients are taught to become aware of trauma-related tendencies of orientation and to redirect their attention away from the past and toward the present moment. Repeatedly "shifting the client's attention to the various things going on outside of the flow of conversation [evokes] experiences which are informative and emotionally meaningful" (Kurtz, 2004, p. 40). Redirecting orientation and attention from conversation to present-moment experience-that is, from external awareness to internal awareness, and from the past to the present⎯engages exploration and curiosity, and clients can discover things about themselves that they did not know previously (Kurtz, 2004).

Mia has already persevered through so much. One of our biggest fears when she was born was that she wouldn’t be able to talk or sing. My wife loves to sing, and she’s a world-class singer. Through speech therapy, Mia talks well and can hold a normal conversation with anyone. There isn’t an ounce of shyness in her bones! When Mia was four years old, she sang “God Bless America” on one of our Duckmen hunting DVDs. I’m sure most people who watched it thought, Hey, isn’t that cute? They’ve got a little girl singing on the DVD. But when she did it, there wasn’t a dry eye in my family. We knew that Mia was born without the ability to sing, and we realized the pain and suffering she endured to be able to sing. It was a huge moment for our family.

It must be said here, however, that among the activities that all LTTE members, both men and women, enjoyed most was reminiscing about events of the past. Watching them enjoying such conversations, one would think that they were the happiest people on earth because the interactions would be filled with laughter. They would discuss dead comrades, past battles, instances of near capture by the Lankan Military, receiving punishment from superiors, etc. But all of these subjects were discussed with a sense of humor. One SLMM member, who had noticed this without being able to understand the language, once commented that for a set of liberation fighters they did spend an awful lot of time talking and laughing. All of them indeed carried with them a great deal of painful memories and this, it seemed, was their therapy

God is formlessness (the Father), God is form (the Son), and God is the very life and love energy between those two (the Holy Spirit). The three do not cancel one another out; rather, they do exactly the opposite. God is relationship itself and known in relationship, which opens up a huge conversation with the world of science and physics and therapy too. What a wonderful surprise this is, yet it names everything correctly at the core—from atoms, to ecosystems, to families, to galaxies. The doctrine of the Trinity was made to order to defeat the dualistic mind and invite us into nondual, holistic consciousness. It replaced the argumentative principle of two with the dynamic principle of three. It leaves us inside the wonderfully open space of “not one, but not two either.” Sit stunned with that for a few minutes.

Each new human life retraces this ancient story. Young children are the very essence of human innocence. They run, play, and feel—and, as in Genesis, when they are naked they are not ashamed. Children provide a model for the assumption of healthy normality, and their innocence and vitality are part of why the assumption seems so obviously true. But that vision begins to fade as children acquire language and become more and more like the creatures adults see reflected every day in their mirrors. Adults unavoidably drag their children from the Garden with each word, conversation, or story they relate to them. We teach children to talk, think, compare, plan, and analyze. And as we do, their innocence falls away like petals from a flower, to be replaced by the thorns and stiff branches of fear, self-criticism, and pretense. We cannot prevent this gradual transformation, nor can we fully soften it. Our children must enter into the terrifying world of verbal knowledge. They must become like us.

As the other startups do at the end of their presentations, Shen offers to the batch the expertise of his team's members: "Kalvin and Randy are developers," he says, and as for himself, he knows how to stay motivated in the face of rejection. "I've gotten rejected thirty days in a row," he says, a reference to his putting himself through "Rejection Therapy," in which one must make unreasonable requests so that one is rejected by a different person, at least once, every single day- inuring one to the pain of rejection. (One example of Shen's first bid to be rejected: he asked a flight attendant if he could move up to first class for free. In another case, he saw an attractive woman on the train and decided he would ask her for her phone number, and when she would turn him down, he would have fulfilled the day's required quota of rejection. He sat near her, fell into a conversation, and when they got off the train and he asked for her number, she said, "Sure." He categorized this as "Failed Rejection.") "So if you need to get pumped up for your sales calls, talk to me. p121

In most respects, Barbara [Stanwyck] was a man's woman, although her home was lovely. Like me, she was an animal lover—she kept poodles. Her son, Dion, was in the service at this point—I never actually met him—and she was hopeful that the Army might help him. She had adopted Dion when she was married to Frank Fay, one of the most dreadful men in the history of show business. Fay was a drunk, an anti-Semite, and a wife-beater, and Barbara had had to endure all of that. I don't think she was going to an analyst at this point, but she did make regular visits to a man who gave her sodium pentothal. It wasn't like the LSD therapy that came later, which Cary Grant tried and got so much out of. Barbara had a lot of things going on in her head, but she didn't put it out there for conversation, let alone public consumption. When I was with her, it was all about us. There wasn't a lot about anybody else, not Frank Fay, or even Bob Taylor. She had a small scar on her chest, where someone had once put out a cigarette on her. I think it was Al Jolson, speaking of sons of bitches. Jolson had been crazy about her back in the New York days, when she was a young actress on Broadway. She would talk about him once in a while, mainly about what an asshole he had been.

A man approached me and asked if he could sit next to me on the dock. I shrugged my shoulders. Apparently, he had been at the bar the night before and was concerned by what he had witnessed. More importantly, this complete stranger took the time to say something. He remarked that I seemed lost. I simply nodded as the tears began to pour down my checks. It was the first time I had cried in many years. He spoke about how our lives are like the boats we could see on the water. That we all need to orient toward a point on the horizon or we will hopelessly drift. He suggested that it was time for me to realize that I was here for a purpose. I listened and felt a tender release of my pain. He continued to speak about finding a balance between risk and safety. Too much risk sets us back. Too much safety and we can’t progress forward. It is remarkable how one courageous conversation can save a life. I never found out who this man by the ocean was and never saw him again. However, he helped me to discover an inner compass that would eventually help me come back to my true north. With time, therapy helped me gain traction and create more stability. Although my path forward wasn’t completely straight and narrow, I slowly began to emerge with greater confidence and hope.

Should you operate upon your clients as objects, you risk reducing them to less than human. Following the culture of appropriation and mastery your clients become a kind of extension of yourself, of your ego. In the appropriation and objectification mode, your clients’ well-being and success in treatment reflect well upon you. You “did” something to them, you made them well. You acted upon them and can take the credit for successful therapy or treatment. Conversely, if your clients flounder or regress, that reflects poorly on you. On this side of things the culture of appropriation and mastery says that you are not doing enough. You are not exerting enough influence, technique or therapeutic force. What anxiety this can breed for some clinicians! DBT offers a framework and tools for a treatment that allows clients to retain their full humanity. Through the practice of mindfulness, you can learn to cultivate a fuller presence to the moments of your life, and even with your clients and your work with them. This presence potentiates an encounter between two irreducible human beings, meeting professionally, of course, and meeting humanly. The dialectical framework, which embraces contradictions and gives you a way of seeing that life is pregnant with creative tensions, allows for your discovery of your limits and possibilities, gives you a way of seeing the dynamic nature of reality that is anything but sitting still; shows you that your identity grows from relationship with others, including those you help, that you are an irreducible human being encountering other irreducible human beings who exert influence upon you, even as you exert your own upon them. Even without clinical contrivance.

REPROGRAMMING MY BIOCHEMISTRY A common attitude is that taking substances other than food, such as supplements and medications, should be a last resort, something one takes only to address overt problems. Terry and I believe strongly that this is a bad strategy, particularly as one approaches middle age and beyond. Our philosophy is to embrace the unique opportunity we have at this time and place to expand our longevity and human potential. In keeping with this health philosophy, I am very active in reprogramming my biochemistry. Overall, I am quite satisfied with the dozens of blood levels I routinely test. My biochemical profile has steadily improved during the years that I have done this. For boosting antioxidant levels and for general health, I take a comprehensive vitamin-and-mineral combination, alpha lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10, grapeseed extract, resveratrol, bilberry extract, lycopene, silymarin (milk thistle), conjugated linoleic acid, lecithin, evening primrose oil (omega-6 essential fatty acids), n-acetyl-cysteine, ginger, garlic, l-carnitine, pyridoxal-5-phosphate, and echinacea. I also take Chinese herbs prescribed by Dr. Glenn Rothfeld. For reducing insulin resistance and overcoming my type 2 diabetes, I take chromium, metformin (a powerful anti-aging medication that decreases insulin resistance and which we recommend everyone over 50 consider taking), and gymnema sylvestra. To improve LDL and HDL cholesterol levels, I take policosanol, gugulipid, plant sterols, niacin, oat bran, grapefruit powder, psyllium, lecithin, and Lipitor. To improve blood vessel health, I take arginine, trimethylglycine, and choline. To decrease blood viscosity, I take a daily baby aspirin and lumbrokinase, a natural anti-fibrinolytic agent. Although my CRP (the screening test for inflammation in the body) is very low, I reduce inflammation by taking EPA/DHA (omega-3 essential fatty acids) and curcumin. I have dramatically reduced my homocysteine level by taking folic acid, B6, and trimethylglycine (TMG), and intrinsic factor to improve methylation. I have a B12 shot once a week and take a daily B12 sublingual. Several of my intravenous therapies improve my body’s detoxification: weekly EDTA (for chelating heavy metals, a major source of aging) and monthly DMPS (to chelate mercury). I also take n-acetyl-l-carnitine orally. I take weekly intravenous vitamins and alpha lipoic acid to boost antioxidants. I do a weekly glutathione IV to boost liver health. Perhaps the most important intravenous therapy I do is a weekly phosphatidylcholine (PtC) IV, which rejuvenates all of the body’s tissues by restoring youthful cell membranes. I also take PtC orally each day, and I supplement my hormone levels with DHEA and testosterone. I take I-3-C (indole-3-carbinol), chrysin, nettle, ginger, and herbs to reduce conversion of testosterone into estrogen. I take a saw palmetto complex for prostate health. For stress management, I take l-theonine (the calming substance in green tea), beta sitosterol, phosphatidylserine, and green tea supplements, in addition to drinking 8 to 10 cups of green tea itself. At bedtime, to aid with sleep, I take GABA (a gentle, calming neuro-transmitter) and sublingual melatonin. For brain health, I take acetyl-l-carnitine, vinpocetine, phosphatidylserine, ginkgo biloba, glycerylphosphorylcholine, nextrutine, and quercetin. For eye health, I take lutein and bilberry extract. For skin health, I use an antioxidant skin cream on my face, neck, and hands each day. For digestive health, I take betaine HCL, pepsin, gentian root, peppermint, acidophilus bifodobacter, fructooligosaccharides, fish proteins, l-glutamine, and n-acetyl-d-glucosamine. To inhibit the creation of advanced glycosylated end products (AGEs), a key aging process, I take n-acetyl-carnitine, carnosine, alpha lipoic acid, and quercetin. MAINTAINING A POSITIVE “HEALTH SLOPE” Most important,

• No matter how open we as a society are about formerly private matters, the stigma around our emotional struggles remains formidable. We will talk about almost anyone about our physical health, even our sex lives, but bring depression, anxiety or grief , and the expression on the other person would probably be "get me out of this conversation" • We can distract our feelings with too much wine, food or surfing the internet, • Therapy is far from one-sided; it happens in a parallel process. Everyday patients are opening up questions that we have to think about for ourselves, • "The only way out is through" the only way to get out of the tunnel is to go through, not around it • Study after study shows that the most important factor in the success of your treatment is your relationship with the therapist, your experience of "feeling felt" • Attachment styles are formed early in childhood based on our interactions with our caregivers. Attachment styles are significant because they play out in peoples relationships too, influencing the kind of partners they pick, (stable or less stable), how they behave in a relationship (needy, distant, or volatile) and how the relationship tend to end (wistfully, amiably, or with an explosion) • The presenting problem, the issue somebody comes with, is often just one aspect of a larger problem, if not a red herring entirely. • "Help me understand more about the relationship" Here, here's trying to establish what’s known as a therapeutic alliance, trust that has to develop before any work can get done. • In early sessions is always more important for patients to feel understood than it is for them to gain any insight or make changes. • We can complain for free with a friend or family member, People make faulty narratives to make themselves feel better or look better in the moment, even thought it makes them feel worse over time, and that sometimes they need somebody else to read between the lines. • Here-and-now, it is when we work on what’s happening in the room, rather than focusing on patient's stories. • She didn't call him on his bullshit, which this makes patients feel unsafe, like children's whose parent's don’t hold them accountable • What is this going to feel like to the person I’m speaking to? • Neuroscientists discovered that humans have brain cells called mirror neurons, that cause them to mimic others, and when people are in a heightened state of emotion, a soothing voice can calm their nervous system and help them stay present • Don’t judge your feelings; notice them. Use them as your map. Don’t be afraid of the truth. • The things we protest against the most are often the very things we need to look at • How easy it is, I thought, to break someone’s heart, even when you take great care not to. • The purpose on inquiring about people's parent s is not to join them in blaming, judging or criticizing their parents. In fact it is not about their parents at all. It is solely about understanding how their early experiences informed who they are as adults so that they can separate the past from the present (and not wear psychological clothing that no longer fits) • But personality disorders lie on a spectrum. People with borderline personality disorder are terrified of abandonment, but for some that might mean feeling anxious when their partners don’t respond to texts right away; for others that may mean choosing to stay in volatile, dysfunctional relationships rather than being alone. • In therapy we aim for self compassion (am I a human?) versus self esteem (Am I good or bad: a judgment) • The techniques we use are a bit like the type of brain surgery in which the patient remains awake throughout the procedure, as the surgeons operate, they keep checking in with the patient: can you feel this? can you say this words? They are constantly calibrating how close they are to sensitive regions of the brain, and if they hit one, they back up so as not to damage it.

IN some ways, the relentless electronic interconnectivity of our lives serves to highlight therapy’s singular virtues. We are more appreciative of the strange, private dialogue that is the heart of therapy. There are precious few times and spaces left in our society in which people quietly speak to one another in a sustained, intimate conversation. The therapist’s office is one of the last safe places. Secrets, reflections, fears or confusion never leave the room. And it is also a refuge. My patients often arrive early just to sit in the waiting room — an unusual interlude of quiet. Then there’s the session itself. In some ways therapy is, more than ever, the ultimate luxury: To be the focus of a thoughtful person who is listening, caring and helping to make sense of life’s chaos is something that the Internet can never provide. Anna Fels is a psychiatrist and faculty member at Weill Cornell Medical College.

So Amira Kashyap, what’s your story?” he asked as he set the big display stopwatch to a designated period of 59 minutes and 59 seconds. The perfectly tranquil way in which he asked me the question made me slightly nervous, even though I had spent the last few years of my life having imaginary conversations with an imaginary therapist. There were a lot of things I wished to tell him. From wanting to tell him about my first triggers to the very thought of me standing in front of a mirror haunting the living daylights out of me.These were just a couple out of the many thoughts in the archives of my brain. However, my mind went completely blank. I stammered and hesitated and managed to utter a total of seven words.“I don’t know where to start.” “Just say the first thing that crosses your mind,” he said. “I’m scared of food,” I blurted.

There were years of therapy, some trial and error with antidepressants.

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.”  ― William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, 1778-1830

In the classroom, conversations carry more than the details of a subject; teachers are there to help students learn how to ask questions and be dissatisfied with east answers. More than this, conversations with a good teacher communicate that learning isn't all about the answers. It's about what the answers mean. Conversations help students build narratives - whether about gun control or the Civil War - that will allow them to learn and remember in a way that has meaning for them. Without these narratives, you can learn a new fact but not know what to do with it, how to make sense of it. In therapy, conversations explore the meanings of the relationships that animate our lives. It attends to pauses, hesitations, associations, the things that are said through silence. It commits to a kind of conversation that doesn't give "advice" but helps people discover what they have hidden from themselves so they can find their inner compass.

In order to develop novel therapies aimed to reverse this early programming in patients, we needed to know how our earliest experiences alter specific neural circuits in our brains that underlie our response to a variety of stressful situations.

In his book-length review of the executive functions, Dr. Russell Barkley (2012) explored the reasons that these skills evolved in humans in the first place. He makes the compelling case that it was the selection pressures associated with humans living in larger groups of genetically unrelated individuals, which made it selectively advantageous to have good self-regulation skills. That is, these abilities became more important to survival as humans became more interdependent with and reliant on dealings with people who were not family. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and executive dysfunction continue to have effects on the myriad relationships and social interactions in daily life. These connections include romantic and committed relationships/marriage, relationships with parents, siblings, children, and other relatives, friendships, and interactions with employers, coworkers, and customers. The executive functions in relationships also figure in the capacity for empathy and tracking social debt, that is, the balance of favors you owe others and favors owed to you. The ability to effectively organize behavior across time in goal-directed activities gains you “social collateral.” That is, the more you deliver on promises and projects, the more that you will be sought out by others and maintain bonds with them. Some of the common manifestations of ADHD and executive dysfunction that may create problems in relationships include: • Distractibility during conversations • Forgetfulness about matters relevant to another person • Verbal impulsivity—talking over someone else • Verbal impulsivity—saying the “wrong thing” • Breaking promises (acts of commission, e.g., making an expensive purchase despite agreeing to stay within a household budget) • Poor follow-through on promises (acts of omission, e.g., forget to pick up dry cleaning) • Disregarding the effects of one’s behavior on others (e.g., building up excessive debt on a shared credit card account) • Poor frustration tolerance, anger (e.g., overreacting to children’s behavior) • Lying to cover up mistakes • Impulsive behaviors that reduce trust (e.g., romantic infidelity)

It's never too early to start lecture kids about race and racism. The following pointers will assist you in getting the conversation started. Sara D. Lee, MSW, LCSW, shares her tips for talking about race with our youngsters. Inspect her website Pacific Burnout Therapy or on Facebook. Conversations about race are always happening around us. Always. Of media, and each person participates in the least times. A bit like during a painting, where the filled and blank spaces close to doing the whole work, both what's said and what's left unsaid matter. For instance, I adore Mr. Rodgers. Still, the absence of 1 or more celebrated paternal figures of color in children's media is an example of racism shaping the children's conversation on race. An Asian-American, Latinx, Native-American, or African-American father figure could have filled that role if it didn't require a singular blend of access and privilege that our society exclusively extends to the White race.

Its not that people want to get hurt again. Its that they want to master a situation where they felt helpless. "Repetition compulsion" Maybe this time, the unconscious imagines, I can go back and heal that wound from long ago, by engaging with somebody familiar- but new. The truth is that they reopen the wounds and feel even more inadequate and unlovable." "He may be resistant to acknowledging it now, but I welcome his resistance because resistance is a clue to where the crux of the work lies; it signals what a therapist needs to pay attention to." "Conversion disorder: this is a condition in which a person's anxiety is "converted" into a neurologic conditions such as paralysis, balance issues, incontinence, deafness, tremors, or seizures." "People with conversion disorder aren't faking it- that’s called factitious disorder. People with factitious disorder have a need to be thought of as sick and intentionally go to great lengths to appear ill." "Interestingly, conversion disorder tends to be more prevalent in cultures with strict rules and few opportunities for emotional expression." "Ultracrepidarianism, which means "the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge or competence" "Every decision they make is based on two things: fear and love. Therapy strives to teach you how to tell the two apart." "if you are talking that much, you cant be listening" and its variant, you have two ears and one mouth; there's a reason for that ratio)" "To feel better now, anytime, anywhere, within seconds" Why are we essentially outsourcing the thing that defines uses people? Was it that people couldn’t tolerate being alone or that they couldn’t tolerate being with other people?" "The four ultimate concerns are death, isolation, freedom, and meaningless" "Flooded: meaning one person is in overdrive, and when people feel flooded is best to wait a beat. The person needs a few minutes for his nervous system to reset before he can take anything in." "Developmental stage models: Freud, Jung, Erikson, Piaget and Maslow

Well, good. I figured you were, but…” He turned down our street and glanced at me. “Wait, there’s another guy, isn’t there?” He grinned. “Ugh, Dad. I’m not talking boys with you.” “What’s his name?” I feigned a scowl. “Does he go to Sutton?” I rolled my eyes. “Where’d you meet?” A smile cracked. We pulled into the driveway. “What’s he do?” I sighed then rattled off his answers. “Cade. He’s a therapy dog handler who volunteers at the hospital where I did my internship, and he works at the university rec center.” Dad let out a low, long whistle. “I approve.” I rolled my eyes again. “If you tell Mom, I’ll deny everything and tell her I’ve started dating girls.” “Your life choices don’t change how I feel about you, though your mom may be slow to come around.” “I’m not a lesbian, Dad.” “I’d love you even if you were.” “Dad.” I covered my face with my hands. “This conversation is so over.” He chuckled. “C’mon, short stack. Later, you can show me a picture of this young man or special lady in your life, that’s your choice.” I groaned. “That was meant to deter this conversation.” With another laugh, he hopped out, grabbed my suitcase from the back and unlocked the front door.

WRITE YOURSELF OUT OF THE WRONG PLACE! WRITING IS SPIRITUAL THERAPY✏ #HOPENATION

And the transformation in our social world, in terms of technology-based communication rather than face-to-face conversation, is huge. In texts, tweets, and e-mails we are missing the vital physical, nonverbal communication that has shaped our social worlds through the ages. We

Walk Like a Man” often indicates that The Sopranos’s true interest isn’t gangsterism, but psychotherapy, and psychology’s determination to unpack, define, and fix the roots of human unhappiness despite evidence that it’s not possible to do such a thing, because people are just too complicated, and therapy’s methods too reductive (despite their insistence on respecting the mysteries of the personality).

Hence, Bruch, like Bateman and Fonagy, stressed the necessity of tailoring interventions to the patients’ way of psychological functioning (Skårderud and Fonagy 2012). In her posthumously published book Conversations with Anorexics (1988: 8), she writes: The therapeutic task is to help the anorexic patient in her search for autonomy and self-directed identity by evoking awareness of impulses, feelings, and needs that originate within herself. The therapeutic focus needs to be on her failure in self-experience, on her defective tools and concepts for organizing and expressing needs, and on her bewilderment when dealing with others. Therapy represents an attempt to repair the conceptual defects and distortions, the deep-seated sense of dissatisfaction and helplessness, and the conviction that her own self is empty and incomplete and that therefore she is condemned to compliance out of helplessness. Again, she called this a naïve stance.

Freud had a point. He was, after all, a genius. You can tell that because people still hate him. But there are disadvantages to the detached and somewhat distant approach recommended by Freud. Many of those who seek therapy desire and need a closer, more personal relationship (although that also has its dangers). This is in part why I have opted in my practice for the conversation, instead of the Freudian method—as have most clinical psychologists.

Interrupting Them During the Talk Sometimes, a partner is only looking for a means to vent out their frustration or grief. They aren’t seeking answers and if you happen to offer just that by interrupting them in between, it will make them feel foolish. They too know what they should do, they just want your support, not your opinion or advice. Interruption can also be a barrier to future conversations where the partner feels that they are not given the chance to fully express themselves.

Yes, I am a thirty-five-year-old woman, and yet I can only find comfort in having imaginary conversations with stuffed animals.

The next Thursday she and Mike went to therapy even though there was nothing left to therapize. They went so they could talk calmly, so they could get through a conversation without anyone calling anyone else a Bunny fucker, so that Rhonda could help them work out logistics. Rhonda tried to appear neutral, but it was clear she was on Jane's side. Jane had won therapy. It was a consolation prize. Rhonda helped them figure out what the terms of their separation would be and asked if they wanted to file for legal separation. "Yes," Jane said. "I think we should talk about that," Mike said. "Yeah?" Jane said. "I think the ship has sailed on talking. Or the penis has sailed if you know what I mean.

Levers of Change and Tipping Points Classically, change takes place through compulsion, manipulation, persuasion, or through some combination thereof. In this book I have directed attention to deliberate and open attempts at mind change. I have also stressed the classic forms of persuasion: talk, teaching, therapy, and the creation and dissemination of new ideas and products. We must recognize, however, that in the future, these low-tech agents may well be supplanted by new forms of intervention: some will be biological, involving transformation of genes or brain tissue; some will be computational, entailing the use of new software and new hardware; and some will represent increasingly intricate amalgams of the biological and the computational realms. Perhaps the greatest challenge is to determine when the desired content has in fact been conveyed and whether it has actually been consolidated. Alas, there are no formulas for this step: each case of mind changing is distinctive. It is helpful to bear in mind that most mind change is gradual, occurring over significant periods of time; that awareness of the mind change is often fleeting, and the mind change may occur prior to consciousness thereof; that individuals have a pronounced tendency to slip back to earlier ways of thinking; but that when a mind change has become truly consolidated, it is likely to become as entrenched as its predecessor. Every example of mind changing has its unique facets. But in general, such a shift of mind is likely to coalesce when we employ the seven levers of mind change: specifically, when reason (often buttressed with research ), reinforcement through multiple forms of representation, real world events, resonance, and resources all push in one direction—and resistances can be identified and successfully countered. Conversely, mind changing is unlikely to occur—or to consolidate—when resistances are strong and most of the other points of leverage are not in place.

Oprah: What if you don’t have the resources to get a therapist? Dr. Perry: Great question. Most people who experience adversity and trauma do not have access to therapy, let alone a clinical team like I just described. But what we’re learning is that having access to a number of invested, caring people is actually a better predictor of good outcomes following trauma than having access to a therapist.

When all three parties were satisfied with the digestion of the medication, they left me alone to rest. To them, I may have seemed in stable condition, but in reality I perceived myself as an object, an inanimate object, a hollow revolving cylinder undergoing imminent changes due in-part to rising atmospheric pressure while hopped up on god knows what, fading to coma-like sleep and becoming more and more inaccessible to any further rational thinking.

No, these individuals have had their fill. They depleted the resources of communication amongst themselves. It no longer offered excitation. They wanted a tryst, a midnight rendezvous, to be tongue-tied for an evening, not having to worry about puritanical appearances, acceptable behavior, placing place settings and feeding their children with cherubic faces. Trading paradisiacal palisades of their guarded community, the spiritless suburbia for subterranean devilry. These were philistines, not patrons of the arts. They merely wanted escapism. A stranger to fill their heads. A morally corrupt stand-up comic delivering the goods: immorality, immodesty, and obscenity. Food for thought, nutritive to their stale lives. Perhaps something they could even discuss behind locked doors, back in the privacy of their safe, secure homes.

This isn’t to suggest that therapy isn’t helpful, but therapy without “connectedness” is not very effective.

For the next two years, he spent every Saturday pushing the mower up and down the vast, tranquil green lawns, so that it felt like he was slowly unravelling his own life, unwinding it and going back to the beginning. It was like having therapy, he said, except that I got very sweaty, and lunch was included. Those lunches – elaborate, fragrant meals eaten in the formal dining room of the house – were an education in themselves: his employees were highly cultured, well-travelled men, collectors of art and antiques, versed in several languages. It took him a long time to piece together the nature of their relationship, two grown men living in luxury together without a woman in sight. For a long time he was simply too stunned by his change of circumstances even to wonder about it, but then, gradually, he started to notice the way they sat side by side on the sofa drinking their post-prandial coffee, the way one of them would rest their hand on the other’s arm while making a point in conversation, and then – they’d got to know him better by this time – the way they kissed each other quickly on the lips when one or other of them left to drive him home at the day’s end. It wasn’t just the first time he’d seen homosexuality: it was the first time he’d seen love.

For the next two years, he spent every Saturday pushing the mower up and down the vast, tranquil green lawns, so that it felt like he was slowly unravelling his own life, unwinding it and going back to the beginning. It was like having therapy, he said, except that I got very sweaty, and lunch was included. Those lunches – elaborate, fragrant meals eaten in the formal dining room of the house – were an education in themselves: his employers were highly cultured, well-travelled men, collectors of art and antiques, versed in several languages. It took him a long time to piece together the nature of their relationship, two grown men living in luxury together without a woman in sight. For a long time he was simply too stunned by his change of circumstances even to wonder about it, but then, gradually, he started to notice the way they sat side by side on the sofa drinking their post-prandial coffee, the way one of them would rest their hand on the other’s arm while making a point in conversation, and then – they’d got to know him better by this time – the way they kissed each other quickly on the lips when one or other of them left to drive him home at the day’s end. It wasn’t just the first time he’d seen homosexuality: it was the first time he’d seen love.

Under the influence of both Hubbard and Huxley, whose primary interest was in the revelatory import of pschedelics, Osmond abandoned the psychotomimetic model. It was Hubbard who first proposed to him that the mystical experience many subjects had on a single high dose of mescaline or LSD might itself be harnessed as a mode of therapy and that the experience was more important than the chemical. The psychedelic experience could, like the conversion experience, forcibly show people a new, more encompassing perspective on their lives that would help them to change.

Conversations with her father always sounded like all the therapy sessions they could never afford. He was always running from something she could never quite catch in any other man after him.

Sand tray can be an embodied conversation between our inner world and outer awareness, held and witnessed by another. Because of the tactile experiences of the sand and minatures and the symbolic nature of the figures, we have the opportunity to make contact with implicit memories that have no words. We follow our body's guidance in arranging the sand and allowing the minatures to choose us. It is a right-centric process that allows us to let go of meaning-making in favor of following our felt sense and behavioral impulse. Meaning may arrive later, but we at least begin, as best we can, without expectation to give our inner world the most freedom we can.

Conversations with her father always sounded like all the therapy sessions they could never quite afford. He was always running from something she could never quite catch in any other man after him.

Displacement (shifting a feeling toward one person onto a safer alternative) is considered a neurotic defense, neither primitive nor mature. A person who was yelled at by her boss but could get fired if she yelled back might come home and yell at her dog. Or a woman who felt angry at her mother after a phone conversation might displace that anger onto her son.

Conversely, a person with low emotional sensitivity can sometimes have a really hard time intuitively understanding what another person is feeling. This person may need to have a lot more explaining and more direct and specific requests in order to be emotionally supportive and responsive. Low emotional sensitivity can leave a spouse or partner feeling misunderstood or even lead to falsely (but understandably) believing that the other person doesn’t care about him or her.

It is important to note that destructive engagement does not necessarily start this way. It is so named because this is where the conversation ends up. In fact, one or both partners may start out reasonably calm and emotionally regulated, with clear awareness of their good intentions, their commitment, and their love for one another. But without the ability to stay regulated in a difficult situation, if the conflict cannot easily be resolved, one partner (and soon after, the other) will become increasingly upset and cross the line into ineffective behavior, or stop describing what he or she wants accurately, stop listening with empathy, and so forth. Sometimes the damage is minor, sometimes it is major.

For example, when you’re co-dependent on your partner you resent them, but when you leave your partner, you feel anxious and bereft.

Around the center leader Muktesh Thomas Forsberg and Jivan Kavya Eva Wells at the Osho meditation Center in Stockholm have gathered people, who systematically have used their positions at the center for power abuses. By using lies and vicious gossip as a means of expressing aggressiveness  ,these people have systematically committed abuse of power and trying to dominate people.These people express envy, condemnation and domination through lies and gross slenderness. It is really the ego that wants to condemn and control.  But these women think that they are aware, but they are really just ignorant, which is the blindness of the ego.When I visited the center, which I had not visited for almost 15 years, I was met by the therapist Moa Bergmark, who told me: "You know that this is a dysfunctional group. But when I began to confront the lies and vicious rumors about me and the dysfunctional structure of the center, Moa Bergmark was suddenly very quiet. This made it obvious that Bergmark was actually a part of the collective unconscious of the dysfunctional group. When Teresa, the center leader who was appointed by Osho himself, invited me to work with therapy- and meditation courses together with her, I felt joy and support  from Teresa. But when Teresa left the center and Muktesh Thomas Forsberg became the center leader, the joy and support disappeared, and I felt that he was just trying to control me.Anutosh Malin William-Olsson, one of the current gossip mongers at the Osho center in Stockholm heard a private conversation between me and my friend Eric Rolf, former consultant to John Lennon, during the eighties, which she had nothing to do with and which she did not understand, but she used this  to spread a lie and a gross negative slender negative rumors about me. Pradeepa Eva Tallqvist, one of the other gossip mongers said: "Giten has suchan integrity" and I thought: "Do these people have any integrity at all." Anubhuti Cecelia Lind commented on two of my students by saying in a  negative way: "Here come the disciples of Giten." Premleena Lena Wettergran told Vanya Pernilla Mårtens that she had done a course with me and said: "It is good that we have someone like Giten in Sweden", which Vanya also turned into something negative and said that I was nothing compared to the visiting therapists. It was Premleena who told me this, but when Premleena got entangled in the involved the dysfunctional structure and the collective unconscious of the center she did not even say hello to me any longer. The center leader Muktesh also joined in with the old woman and confirmed the gross and negative slender by saying: "Giten is so stubborn." My former girlfriend Marga told me that Anna Ganga Hoffman was spreading lies and gross slenderabout me at the Osho center in Stockholm. Marga had been sitting together with Hoffman and the other gossip mongers at the center,and when Hoffman realized that Marga was sitting there, she wanted Marga to confirm  her lies. Marga knew that these were just vicious lies, but she remained quiet because she did not have the courage to confront Hoffman and the gossip mongers at the Osho center in Stockholm  about their sick lies and gross slender. Prem Pathik in Nepal commented: "This must be a few people, who are really not living their lives as they like. These women who are searching  for a deeper space can never know you." It was also these people that my friend, Eric Rolf ,former consultant to John Lennon, met at the Osho center  in Stockholm, and she commented:  "I have been around, but these people just wanted to  control me. I did not enjoy it so much." I wrote a letter to Osho himself about the situation and the reply I receivws was: "humor is the highest state of consciousness.

Claire blew out a breath, not even realizing she’d been holding it. “Yes. It gets easier. With time, with therapy, with love.” She sought out a soothing memory to combat the horrific memories the conversation had brought to the fore. She thought about Connor. His kind eyes, the way she felt in his arms. “But you have to let people in. I mean, I think. I’m not that great at it.

Conversely, the elimination of irrational fears causes self-esteem to rise. This is one of the basic tasks of therapy.

In Gethsemane, Jesus experienced the pains of a person dying of cancer. He experienced what it is like to be a queer kid who is constantly bullied. He experienced the birthing pains of every mother who ever lived or would live. He experienced the embarrassment of a gay boy having an erection at the sight of his school crush in the locker room. He experienced conversion therapy. He experienced rejection. He experienced the brutal physical and psychological attacks that trans women endure. He experienced the acid poured on a woman’s face for her defiance to the patriarchs. He experienced the fear, grief, and sorrow of every parent who has buried their child. He experienced sex slavery. He experienced his first period. He experienced menstruation, not simply from a vagina but from every pore of his body. He experienced rape. He experienced catcalls. He experienced hunger. He experienced disease. He experienced an ectopic pregnancy. He experienced an abortion. He experienced a miscarriage and stillbirth. He experienced the Holocaust. He experienced war – both the killing and being killed. He experienced internment camps. He experienced depression, anxiety, and suicide. He experienced sleeping on the street with the homeless. He experienced the slave master’s whip on his back and the noose around his neck. He knew the fear of every black mother who kissed her son before he left the house, praying he would return home safely. He experienced the effects of unrighteous dominion, corrupt politicians, and all manner of injustice. He experienced the migrant mother with no food or diapers for her baby as she desperately walked north in search of a better life. He experienced having his child taken away from him at the border due to “legal complications.” He experienced it all – every death, every cut, every tear, every pain, every sorrow, every bit of suffering imaginable and beyond imagination. He experienced an onslaught of suffering, which was so great that it took a god to bear it. He experienced death and came through the other side to show us the way.

Every time the beast returns, I have to fight it slightly differently. The wars are shorter now, and often, the old tools work well. Counting colours and curiosity and conversations with my child-self muzzle the beast and shove it back in its hovel. Sometimes the beast requires new weapons—new forms of IFS or CBT, new mantras, new boundaries. Sometimes the beast bites chunks out of me and gives a relationship a decent thrashing before I can get it in check again. Sometimes I fall into familiar pits of catastrophizing or dissociation, sometimes I find new unpleasant swamps to wade through. Each episode is its own odyssey through past, present, and future, requiring new bursts of courage and new therapy sessions. But there are two main differences now: I have hope, and I have agency.

Big Hug's Y'all!!

Once upon a time, in a not-so-far-away land, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree. Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their business with purposeful energy; and since they were midlife, baby-boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called “Getting All You Can out of Your Shell.” There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their original fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being. One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped “out of the blue” by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And crouched beneath the oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing upward at the tree, he said, “We… are… that!” Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but one of them continued to engage him in conversation: “So tell us, how would we become that tree?” “Well,” he said, pointing downward, “it has something to do with going into the ground …and cracking open the shell.” “Insane,” they responded. “Totally morbid! Why, then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore.” 3

All Sam can think about is that conversation he had with his mom when they were applying to Castleton all those months ago. She was on her laptop surrounded by a printout of the application and a pile of folders labeled with tabs like Sam–Therapy, typing away. "What about..." He really didn't want to ask her. But he had to know the answer. "What about...my issues?" he finally said. His mom seemed to like the word issues better than autism or disability. She almost never said the last two.

Conversely, after a recent date with a guy who seemed to possess many of the qualities she said she wanted in a partner, she came to therapy and reported: “It’s too bad, but there just wasn’t any chemistry.” To her unconscious, his emotional stability felt too foreign.

Nothing about therapy gets easier. You just learn to accept those hard conversations are worth it when your feelings become more manageable.

When you share your feelings, skip over the emotion that first comes to you, your go-to emotion, and lead with others. ... More specifically, if you are used to leading with big, powerful feelings, like anger, or indignation, soften up - reach for and lead with your vulnerability. Find the hurt. Conversely, if you lead with small, timid, insecure feelings, find your power. Where is your anger, the part of you that says "Enough"? Here's the principle: Changing your stance changes the dance between you.

I hope my readers feel inspired to embrace their LGBTQ+ loved ones even tighter and become their champion, even if that loved one is themself—especially if that loved one is themself,