By:  Suzanne Maiden, M.A., LPC 

I was channel surfing this Sunday morning while drinking coffee and munching on Cracklin’ Oat Bran cereal.  I stopped at a channel to watch Joel Osteen preach.  I confess, he fascinates me.  His ministry is gargantuan.  I don’t know much more about him than what wikipedia reports.  You know, he is a Texan and the son of a former Baptist preacher.  He’s written a lot of books.  I guess he’s rich.  

He smiles throughout his sermon.  He blinks a lot too – I couldn’t determine if he has dry eyes, or the bright lights bother him, or maybe he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, or maybe he is naturally introverted (Jungian definition, not layperson… see my previous post.)  I’m not sure.  But regardless of his excessive blinking of undetermined cause, I like Mr. Osteen.

I like to watch cheery Joel Osteen’s crooked-toothed-big smile as he preaches positive messages while excessively blinking.  I like to believe that good triumphs over evil.  I like to believe that each of us deserve’s God’s blessings.  I’m not interested in listening to anyone proselytizing to me why the world is going-to-hell-in-a-hand-basket and why I’m going there too.  If I want negative messages, I can just watch the news for a minute and I feel overwhelmingly depressed for hours.  I think Mr. Osteen is brave to not change his style because critics slam him for not quoting more scripture.  In 2006, Barbara Walters named him one of the year’s “Ten Most Fascinating People.”

I find him fascinating too.  I understand why people gravitate towards him and his ministry.  He is a welcome respite from everyday difficulties.  Life is hard.  It’s comforting reassurance to hear someone say that everything is going to be okay.  Maybe I’m a simpleton because I like optimistic messages.  Thank you, Mr. Osteen for being a deliverer of hope.  

by:  Suzanne Maiden, M.A., LPC

Have you ever heard of Brendon Burchard?  I hadn’t - now he’s my new BFF.  Well, he doesn’t know we’re buddies, yet.  I want to share his video with you.  I honestly don’t have any connection with him and therefore no intentional gain from promoting his work.

If you’re interested in launching yourself as an expert in your field, and make money – watch Brendon Burchard’s FREE video.  And, his personal story is very moving when he shares his ’turning point’ at the age of 19-years with a dramatic life-changing event.  He sure seems like the real deal.  Maybe you’ve already heard of him, and I’m the last one to know. 

I believe in passing-it-on so we can ALL live to our highest potential.  Make your life count!

By:  Suzanne Maiden, M.A., LPC

I recently saw Leonardo diCaprio’s latest movie, Inception.  Although this movie does not feed the audience the plot, e.g., you really have to pay attention, it was worth the energy.  Whoever wrote the screen play knows a thing or two about dreams.  Someone did their homework.

As a practicing psychotherapist, I encourage patients to share their dream content.  And, I am the first therapist in the country (I’m pretty sure…) to be federally funded to facilitate Dream Analysis groups with convicted felons - people in recovery from substance abuse.  It’s cooler than cool.  I love what I do.  I get shivers and my arm hairs stand at attention when someone presents their dream and they have an ‘ah-ha’ moment.  Because I know that the dream spotlights critical information for that person.  I couldn’t make this stuff up.     

Two thoughts that I want to share regarding the movie Inception.  First, it accurately portrayed the concept of projection.  For example, when we dream of someone – it seldom is that person.  Our psyche uses their image to underscore that inner part of ourself.  It’s called a projection.  Inception beautifully illustrated this when the main character, played by Leonardo diCaprio, was teaching a young intern, played by Ellen Page, about dreams.  The intern was observing her own dream and saw many other people – she assumed the people were separate people vs. split-off pieces of herself.  diCaprio’s character explained: ”It’s just a projection – all of those other people are YOU… Those are your projections.” 

Second, the movie showed how extensive our defense mechanisms are and how difficult it is to break through them.  Each of us has layers and layers of Ego defenses we created to protect us.  Psyche is very smart and seeks survival.  When we are emotionally wounded, psyche creates a type of scar – an emotional ‘thickening’.  Defense mechanisms aren’t bad – they serve an important role in helping us survive pain-filled emotional trauma.  However, just like too much physical scar tissue can make an area inflexible, emotional ‘scar tissue’ can too.  When we become too rigid, we break under stress vs. sway with it.  Inception illustrated this when the characters tried to break into another’s unconscious via a dream – and encountered an enormous, impenetrable, complete with armed guards structure.  This fortress is a perfect metaphor for our highly guarded Ego defenses.  

If you’re interested in mind-bender plot with fast action and dream analysis 101 - see Inception. 

By:  Suzanne Maiden, M.A., LPC 

Years before I became a therapist, I began my own therapeutic journey.  My first therapist, Ed, said something so profound I never forgot.  I was depressed and felt hopeless.  I thought about suicide.  I didn’t have a plan or anything, but it surely seemed as a possible option at the time.  Although I felt deep shame about my suicidal fantasies, I knew I needed help, and confessed to him.  I asked if my thoughts were normal – did everyone think about suicide at some point?  Was I crazy?  Ed calmly answered, “Suzanne, if someone has never thought about suicide – they are not paying attention.  Life is hard!” 

I sighed with relief.  I was, at least in that moment, normal.   Well, whatever defines normal - and that’s a whole other blog post.  Ed validated my suicidal thoughts and feelings as being within the normal spectrum of human emotions.  Today, as a practicing psychotherapist, the majority of my patients, at some point, express some suicidal ideation.  That’s the psycho-babble clinical jargon for suicidal thoughts.   According to Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung, when someone feels suicidal – they have the right idea!  Yes!  Jung used to tell his patients, in his thick Swiss accent, “Thank God!  You understand now that something needs to die!”  Jung meant that something needs to die psychologically for the patient - not physically.  Suicidal feelings signal something very big within us needs addressed and resolved – not physically killed.  A popular saying by therapists who assist suicidal patients is, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”  According to SAVE – Suicide Awareness Voices of Education:

• Suicides take the lives of almost 30,000 Americans each year
• Over half of all suicides are completed with a firearm
• For young people, 15-24, suicide is the third leading cause of death
• The highest risk factor for suicide is depression
• 80% of people who seek treatment for depression are treated SUCESSFULLY!

If you or someone you know struggles with suicidal thoughts, please seek immediate medical attention at your local emergency room, call 911, or call: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).  There is HELP.  There is HOPE.  There is HEALING.  

By:  Suzanne Maiden, M.A., LPC

Only the bravest of the brave go to and stay in therapy – the psychological kind.  THERAPY IS HARD WORK for the patient.  Therapy (you know, the counseling kind), requires an enormous emotional and financial commitment.  Then there is that pesky time factor, ideally, the patient should attend 1 session per week – more if they’re in crisis.  Who willingly adds three extra hours of work to their week?  How is it three hours?  Well, on average, the commute alone is about a two hour roundtrip, add in the therapeutic hour – which is actually 50 minutes – and 3 hours are gone!  Therapy is expensive.  Many providers are moving towards private pay because dealing with insurance companies is ridiculously time consuming and not cost-effective for the therapist.  Depending on where you live and the providers credentials, therapy rates may vary from $75.00 – $350.00/hour.  Ouch!   

The emotional expense for the patient is initially pricey.  At first, therapy may seem like a high-cost-low-yield investment.  One of the biggest surprises for the client – therapy doesn’t always feel good right away.  Immediate relief is no guarantee.  Why then, would anyone in their right mind engage in this?  Yes, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Well it they were in their right mind, they wouldn’t need therapy…’  Not so.  I’ve NEVER, never ever, met anyone who could not benefit from some therapy.  I stay in therapy.  We all need a good therapist.  Why?  Because we are all wounded.  Life is hard.  We all have an innate need to be deeply understood.  We all have an innate need to be heard and witnessed and loved.

After several multiple sessions, and depending on their level of functioning, the patient begins to heal.  How?  Because a competent therapist helps the patient identify wounds and traumatic events which contribute towards current dysfunctional behaviors.  This is a process.  It cannot be rushed.  Patients often ask: “I’ve been coming here for 6 weeks?  How come I don’t feel any better?  I actually feel worse!”  Why?  Because it takes years for our psyche to create and maintain defense mechanisms – the emotional blocks we create to avoid feeling pain.  Therapy is like a gentle exfoliation of ‘dead’ or necrotic emotional tissue.  It is hard for the patient to let go of the very structures that have been their emotional glue.  It hurts.  Therefore, the therapist’s role is to facilitate a balance between challenging the patient vs. allowing them freedom to go at their own pace.  A good therapist is constantly negotiating this holding the tensions-of-the-opposites.  Therapy is more like a marathon vs. a sprint. 

Therapy is hard work for the patient – but it is the best investment anyone can make in themselves.  The final dividends are richly fulfilling and yield increased emotional well-being.

By: Suzanne Maiden, M.A., LPC

I was invited to speak to a group this past week.  I spoke about SIB, Self-Injurious Behavior, aka, ‘cutting’.  I gave the attendees my four-page handout citing facts and stats regarding definitions, gender and racial differences, typical age groups, and various scientific theories.  I enjoy presenting and sharing my knowledge.

Then, a middle-aged man with a wave of steel-colored hair looked up over his metal-frame glasses and asked:  “You said you have fairly good success with helping cutters.  What do you attribute that to?”  I readily responded:  “Therapeutic brilliance never cures the client.  But love does.” 

Out of all the data I presented to this educated group, and all of my care in looking professional, speaking well, and emulating speakers that I’ve admired – this statement alone seemed to win their confidence in me.  I saw people nod.  This moment of my pure authenticity resonated as their truth.  What qualities does a good therapist possess?  Yes, the obvious is needed.  A good therapist needs to have a solid theoretical framework, based on data and research, from which they operate.  Most therapists that I know, are eclectic and integrate a variety of techniques such as experiential with humanistic, and dose of cognitive-behavioral therapy to assist their clients.  This is good.  This works.  But, in my experience, when the client experiences genuine lovingness from the therapist – this hastens the healing process.  Carl Rogers referred to this as ‘unconditional positive regard.’  

When we feel safe, contained, valued, deeply understood and loved by the therapist – we are able to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and emotionally exposed, knowing that whatever we bring into the therapeutic setting is OK.  This is what helps us heal.  Love.                

Relationships are like bank accounts.  Like bank accounts, in relationships you make deposits, withdrawals, and check your balance.  Friends and lovers and couples would be healthier if they applied this principle to their relationships.  It’s not hard.  It’s like banking.  Sometimes money goes in, and sometimes it goes out, and sometimes things are just status quo, you know, balanced.  In relationships emotional energy is the currency. 

Relationships require emotional energy.  The energy is seldom in perfect balance.  Sometimes one person is ’extra expensive’ - requiring a lot of emotional currency.  Perhaps a friend or lover or significant other needs to make hefty withdrawals – maybe they are in crisis, or depressed (from either neuro-chemical or situational causes), or just plain life happens and they need to withdrawal some emotional currency – the energy from the relationship you’ve built.  What does that look like?  Oftentimes, patience. 

 Sometimes the person in need of emotional currency needs to verbalize their conflict, or maybe they need to emotionally isolate.  One may choose to give the emotional currency or state feel like the joint account has  ’insufficient funds’.  The later is a tough one.

When one person repeatedly makes deposits to the relationship and the other makes withdrawals, the account becomes drained.  For a healthy emotional account, both people must contribute to joint deposits.  A healthy balance allows both partners to make deposits and withdrawals.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

By:  Suzanne Maiden, M.A.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the Today Show with Dr. Nancy Snyderman and the Editor in Chief, Ann Shoket, of Seventeen Magazine, discuss cutting behaviors in young women.  ‘Cutting’ is the layperson word for Self -Injurious Behaviors (SIB).  Why would I be happy to hear this touchy topic be talked about on mainstream T.V?  Because cutters and why they cut are grossly misunderstood.  I wrote my graduate thesis on SIB.   Many medical personnel and mental health professionals find cutters’ behaviors troubling, treatment-resistant, and plain disgusting.  As a practicing Family Therapist I have successfully treated many cutters.  I appreciate your bringing awareness to this issue.  I would like to offer just a bit more insight based on my experience.

Katie Stewart bravely shared her painfully private struggle with the Today Show .  In many ways, she represents the various women with whom I have worked – bright, beautiful, and the seemingly a “great kid”.   Unless one would see their scars, cutters do not fit an easily identifiable profile.  Outwardly, they present as very together.  Inwardly, they battle demons.  Most want to quit.  Many report extreme shame and guilt over their irresistible urge to self-injure and go to great lengths to hide their scars.  But why?  Why does anyone self-injure?  There are multiple hypothesis as to why people self injure to include:  1) non-validating environment, 2) poor attachment in childhood, 3) addicted to their own opiate release system, and 4) history of sexual abuse. 

The data strongly support the positive correlation between sexual abuse and future SIB.  Not every person who has been sexually abused will end up self-injuring.  Conversely, not every person who engages in self-injury has a positive history for sexual abuse.  However, in my personal experience, the majority of my clients who self-injure do report a positive history of prior sexual abuse. 

What’s sexual abuse have to do with self-injury?  The cutters who do have a positive history for sexual abuse frequently report that self-injury is the only way they know to access their pain – or express it.  Ironically, many self-injurers do not feel pain while actively self-injuring.  Why?  Because sexual abuse survivors tend to be very adept at the ability to dissociate.  That is, when sexual abuse occurs, the victim often mentally “checks out”.  This ability helps the victim endure the abuse when they cannot physically escape.  Many cutters report they are in a dissociative state when they self-injure and many do not realize the extent of tissue trauma until they “come back” mentally. 

Cutters are often the modern day lepers of emergency rooms and therapists’ office.  Nobody wants to deal with them and their self destructive acts.  However, their wounds are the physical manifestation of their internal suffering.  If they knew how to access their pain in a healthier way – many would.  Thank you TODAY Show and Seventeen Magazine for bringing this dark phenomenon into the light.          

OK, I’ve gotten on board with the whole new text era.  Initially, I did not understand why people texted.  I witnessed many young people’s fingers frantically flying across doll-house sized key pads and thought:  Why?  Why not use the same cell phone and call the person?  Like, why not just have a real conversation?

Then, I started texting.  I get it now!  Texting is convenient when a phone call is  impractical.  You can text anytime -  day or middle of the night, not so with a phone call.  Texting is a great way to send a quick message without having an extended phone conversation.  And, for whatever cheap thrill I derive, it’s just fun.  Texting is like getting a cool letter in the mail, or an anticipated email or post on facebook.

Now, the bad side.  Texting, while fun, can be hazardous to relationships.  Because there is a LOT of room for misinterpretation.  Subtle nuances don’t come across clearly.  Typos and abbreviations can lead to general confusion for the recipient.  While texting is fun and sometimes necessary, it can create more communication problems.          

I guess we’ve each done it at different times.  We laugh at someone verses with them.  This seems to happen more in group settings than individual because groups often give us psychological insulation – we feel protected within the parameters of the group.  We may say or do things we would not engage in as an individual.  In psychology, we label this phenomenon as ‘group think’ – sort of like ‘monkey see, monkey do’ type mentality. 

Groups, predictably, psychologically collapse to the lowest denominator of the group member – this is certainly true in family systems.  The most neurotic family member calls the shots for the entire family.  The family acquieses to the needs of the sickest family member.  Groups frequently mimic familial dynamics.

It fascinates me when a group will bully or slam or make fun of or criticize or laugh at another.  This is an example of when the group slips to the lowest denominator of the dominant and twisted person.  I feel ashamed when I’m with a group and this occurs.  I do recognize the distinction between teasing verses unkindness or cruelty.  I have gotten into heated arguments when I’ve been in this situation – when someone is intentionally and cruelly critiquing another.  I give credit to my mother. 

My mother is innately kind.  My first lesson in not participating in the group think and laughing at others was when I was in third grade.  We lived in Stow, OH.  A girl in my class Bonita, was larger than the rest of us and mentally impaired.  Chronologically, Bonita belonged in 5th grade, but her mental lethargy required her to be placed with my third grade class.  Bonita loved physical affection.  She ran up to anyone and tried to kiss them.  Well, this caused quite the stir on our playground.  Everybody ran away when Bonita approached with her body crushing hugs and drowning wet kisses.  Children laughed and sneered and made fun of Bonita.  I felt great compassion for her.  Most of the time, I allowed her to kiss me on the cheek, and agreed to push her on the swing.  The other kids made fun of me for befriending Bonita.  I didn’t care.  I even tried to physically defend her against the class bullies.  This was difficult for me because although I was tall, I was very skinny and didn’t have any physical strength to back up my verbal threats.  Most of the time, I got the bullies to leave Bonita alone.  I couldn’t stand anyone hurting her either physically or emotionally.

Several years later, we lived in Williamsville, NY.  My mother was driving and we came to a 4-way stop sign.  I impulsively stuck my tongue out at the opposite car.  I was about 11 years-old, and I cannot remember why I did such a thing.  My mother turned and slapped me hard across my face.  I was shocked.  She told me that I had no idea who could be in that car and they may interpret my behavior as cruel mockery.  Between Bonita and my mother’s hard slap, I got it. 

I am extremely sensitive to laughing or mocking or making fun of another.  I don’t do it.  Laughing at others with intentional malice is cruel.  It’s a small person who engages in the behavior.  I am so glad I have surrounded myself with the kindest of friends.