Category: Psychology and Relationships
These are very personal questions: What is spiritual to you? When and where do you feel spiritual? How do these spiritual feelings get blocked or expanded?
We can carry these questions throughout our lives. Spiritual practice aims to refine and deepen our understanding of them.
I will focus on three specific spiritual practices: psychological relationships, meditation, and psychedelic plant medicines, including cannabis.
Spiritual practice is about psychological relationships because if our spiritual practice doesn’t improve our relationships with others, what’s the point?
The practice of psychological relationships with others and with one’s inner life is a personal experience with spiritual meaning. This involves experiences of vulnerability, hurt, and confusion that teach us the depth of human love and kindness.
Spiritual practice is not only personal but also universal and objective. We need to look at our minds as they are, our human instincts as they are, and our relationship with the natural world. We are born, go through all the developmental stages, and then die. Life is both precious and painful. We cannot change most of life, but we can learn to connect with it gracefully, little by little.
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Mother and Daughter Counseling, Love and Differentiation
A mother needs enough distance from her to daughter to see what she needs as an individual and enough emotional connection that her daughter feels seen and heard. Then the daughter can mature in her own unique way and the mother feels more satisfied with her role as a mother. This is the purpose of mother…
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Toxic Mother, “Good Enough Mother”, Perfect Mother
We hear the word toxic used to describe relationships and various personalities that are harmful; such as, toxic parents, toxic coworkers, toxic groups or toxic families. The toxic mother means not enough nurturing, not enough selfless love and not enough emotional and physical safety. A toxic mother is harmful. Spectrum of maturity It is more…
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Depression Clinics and the Success of Ketamine
Major Depression is now being treated with ketamine. Under a doctor’s supervision and in the correct dosage it is an effective treatment for depression. The success is significant, especially compared to the current treatment with antidepressants. Previously it has been used in higher dosages as an anesthetic and then also for recreational use. What…
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Understanding Depression, An Aerial Perspective
Depression is an individual problem that is linked to a cultural problem. A cultural problem because anti-depressant medications are the third most prescribed drug in the United States. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/drug-use-therapeutic.htm That indicates to me a type of epidemic. To make it even worse, the depressive disorder is an epidemic that has become a normalized state…
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I Need Help, Who Doesn’t?
“I need help” means a lot To admit that I need help is huge. It means I am ready to surrender something: resistance to change, false pride, coping mechanisms that no longer work, skewed perceptions of myself and reality, and the resistance to our inherent vulnerability as people. The first step is admitting I need help,…
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Multiple Personality Disorder and the Lost Self
How Does Multiple Personality Disorder Develop? “Going somewhere” in the mind is a natural defense for a child when they sense danger. When a child is severely harmed their “self” often dissociates, “goes somewhere,” for protection. The self hides in the unconscious and other parts of the personality take over when there is no self…
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The Purpose of Hair Pulling Disorder
“I’m so frustrated, I could pull my hair out!!!” Feeling unbearable frustration and anger. Feeling so overwhelmed that pulling hair feels satisfying and grounding. Hair pulling creates a distraction until there is a better understanding and experience of the under-lying feelings. When feeling angry or frustrated, having stability or a sense of control can seem…
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Suicidal Ideation and Ego Death
Suicidal ideations are ideas, ideas about killing oneself that are mixed with overwhelming emotional pain. I have talked with many people over the years concerning suicide and found it was an opportunity to examine the unexamined. In our conversations we looked at where these ideas were coming from and how they were mixed up with…
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Silent Treatment Abuse or Shunning
“Silent Treatment Abuse” is the ancient practice of shunning using modern terminology to describe how it appears in our present relationships. It can be most confusing and frustrating because it feels like there is nothing that can be done about it. Many people have experienced abandonment, helplessness and loss when they have been shunned by…
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Relationships and the Marriage and Family Therapist
The Role of a Marriage and Family Therapist The focus of a marriage and family therapist or MFT in family counseling, couples counseling, or individual work is on relationship. It is the relationship one has with others and the relationship one has with the inner life of thoughts, feelings, sensations, intuitions, dreams, visions, fantasies and…
