If you’re like most people I know, you either fantasize about being rescued- or you identify with being the rescuer. If you look at the history of movies, in traditional heteronormative gender dynamics, the rescuer is the heroic man, rescuing the...
I mostly steer clear of writing about my daughter or our relationship. Because…boundaries. Just because I’ve chosen to put a lot of my vulnerability out there publicly doesn’t mean she has to be part of that. I worry about an entire generation of Mommy bloggers...
Unlike many of my trauma survivor clients, for whom holidays were often a nightmare, I am one of those people who grew up with a family who knew how to do wonderful holidays. At home in Winter Park, Florida, the holiday season was filled with advent calendars and...
After my divorce from the father of my now 18-year old daughter, I hoped to find a relationship with someone who was willing to go the distance with me. I’d met people who claimed to be up for personal or spiritual growth, but when the rubber met the road and we...
For those of you seeking to write a memoir or learn self-help tools to deepen your Internal Family Systems practice, either as an adjunct to your IFS practice or because you can’t afford or can’t find an IFS therapist, my health equity parts want to share some...
In my last blog, How Can You Tell If You Or Your Partner Are Projecting?, we discussed the telltale signs of the defense mechanism of “projection,” when someone projects their own feelings onto others or shifts blame from themselves onto someone else. We also...
If you’re trying to love someone with a significant trauma history, you’ve probably noticed that it’s not always easy on you- the relatively safe attachment figure. It’s nobody’s fault. Trauma begets trauma, and all trauma deserves our compassion. But it is helpful...
While few people name the pattern, we’ve all seen couples where one person overfunctions, and the other person underfunctions. What do we mean by “functioning?” Dr. Will Meek defined it as “our ability to manage life (make decisions, manage time and stress, etc);...