There are some issues that we cannot simply talk ourselves out of. The part of our brain that thinks in verbal language and uses logic to solve problems is distinct from the area of our brain where we process emotions. This means that in order to move past deep-seated trauma and other difficult emotional wounds, we must intervene on the physical and emotional subcortical level as well as on the logical, neocortical level.
Brainspotting (BSP) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy both facilitate emotional processing and help us to see ourselves, others, and the world around us in a new light. Read on to learn more about both modalities and which one may be right for you.
Have you ever labeled yourself as the “black sheep” of your family, workplace, or somewhere where you’re “supposed” to naturally belong? The Black Unicorn highlights how intersectionality is an ongoing process that requires individuals to navigate and balance the multiple dimensions of their identity. Society often places marginalized individuals where they have to prove their worthiness, which can be a burdensome and exhausting experience. This expectation disregards the fullness of their experiences and reduces their identities to a single narrative, overshadowing their resilience, joy, and other aspects of their lives. This blog post, written by Susan Stork, located in Baltimore, Maryland, explores the four main qualities of a black unicorn and how we can harness our individuality into our superpower.
In 2021, Space between counseling posted a blog addressing the national shortage of couple therapists. Did anything change? Are there more couple therapists now? Since the pandemic hit, therapists, counselors, psychologists, and social workers have been seeking to address the concerns and needs of couples with relational concerns. But what happened? Why was the pandemic a catalyst for relational problems? It seems the pandemic, and subsequent shelter-in-place mandates, have served as a catalyst for relational issues and in some way forced couples to spend time with their emotions.
In this blog post, we explore some of the reasons for a shortage in couples therapists, reveal evidence based theoretical orientations for relationship counseling, advise clients on how to search for an ideal fit couples therapist, and provide resources and recommendations for those who are stuck on waiting lists to be seen.
Have you ever had a therapy session when you left feeling exhausted, emotionally drained, and unable to do much for the rest of the day? Has it made you wonder if the therapy isn’t working? In this blog post, written by our Graduate student intern, Sehar Palla, we explore what is therapy hangover, why it happens and some helpful post-therapy self-care strategies.
Dr. Stephen Porges has coined the term “neuroception”, which describes how our neural circuits distinguish whether stimuli are safe or dangerous. While this phenomemon is innate and serves to protect us, sometimes traumatic experiences result in faulty neuroception - which causes individuals to perceive a situation to be harmful, even if there is no presence of a threat. This post explores the implications of polyvagal theory, stress responses, and neuroception.
This post explores how the global pandemic may be impacting three types of couples in particular; engaged couples facing uncertain wedding plans, couples with health anxieties, and couples who are feeling “burnt out” as parents. This post will also describe ways to promote secure functioning amidst this seemingly chaotic and uncertain time.
The current pandemic is putting our relationships through strain that we may not have ever experienced before. This post explores the recent challenges faced by couples who are quarantining together during COVID-19, while weaving in the wisdom of Esther Perel, and provides practical tips for strengthening relationships during the pandemic.
The current isolation has done more than minimize the human interactions that we are accustomed to, it has inadvertently created a new set of norms for an entire nation. While the appearances of gloves and masks covering the hands and faces of others may be unsettling, COVID-19 may have unknowingly unsurfaced a variety of feelings within. It is not uncommon to feel confined, lonely, abandoned, afraid or even hyper-vigilant while sick. Perhaps you have experienced all these feelings and others simultaneously. As we navigate our way through this pandemic, remember to be gentle with yourself, you are human after all. This post aims to explore the different elements of “the new normal” during COVID-19, and provide readers with suggestions for coping skills and connection.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
The term “self-care” can cause a variety of reactions. Some people feel guilty because they struggle to prioritize self-care practices. Some may feel proud because they feel they are succeeding at it. Others may feel confused by the concept. Oftentimes when self-care is talked about, those with disabilities or different ways of caring for themselves are left out of the conversation. In this post we will discuss self-care from a disability lens as well as the concept of community care. These concepts are just two different ways that self-care can be explored while still allowing for individuals to get the care and support we all need.
Self-care is something that is preached about in almost every corner of the internet, from brands preaching self-care in order to get you to buy their products to doctors preaching self-care to help you lower your high blood pressure. But is this view of self-care sustainable for everyone? For some people, what we often think about as self-care (bubble baths, yoga, or ice cream) won’t cut it. For individuals who are disabled or chronically ill, there can be some extra considerations to take into account when viewing one’s self-care.
Photo by Alina Kovalchuk via Unsplash
In her blog post, “The Spoon Theory,” Christine Miserandino describes what living with an autoimmune condition was like by using spoons as a physical representation of her daily energy. Everyone, no matter their health status, has a daily allowance of “spoons” that they need to use for all their daily activities. The number of spoons an individual has may vary and for spoonies (those with chronic illness of some kind), the number is often much less than the “average” healthy person.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash
For many chronic illnesses, fatigue or low energy can be a very debilitating symptom. All kind of activities impact one’s daily number of spoons, everything from going to work to brushing your teeth. An individual can start their day out with less spoons or lose spoons from many different factors, such as not getting enough sleep, making a meal, skipping a meal, getting a cold, taking a shower, or running errands. Oftentimes, if an individual uses too many spoons today, they will feel the effects and have less spoons available tomorrow. Sleep can be restorative for some, but for others sleep is not restful and does not help with spoons. This can impact an individual’s self-care in many ways.
For many, a large part of self-care is understanding and coming to terms with what you would like to do versus what you are able to do. Self-care might take the form of listening to what your body is telling you and not doing something you wanted to do because it would impact how you’re able to spend the rest of the day. Or self-care might be the opposite of that, doing something you don’t want to do because you know it is what is best for your body or mind.
The way you take care of yourself versus the way someone else takes care of themselves can look very different, and that is okay. For some people, taking care of themselves looks like eating vegetables and going to the gym. For others, it looks like doctors visits, feeding tubes and ports, and routine needles and tests. It might be the act of getting any calories in your body that you can or lying down in a cool dark room when needed. Some people’s self-care looks like getting out in the sun more often, seeing a therapist routinely, or practicing mindfulness.
There is no one right way to do self-care. We all have different needs an individual’s self-care is not less-than just because someone else is able to do “more” or their care is more performative or obvious. Taking your medication, getting enough rest, and doing what you can is just as important as exercise, vegetables, and mindfulness. The important part is to keep doing your best to care for yourself, the best way you know how. Your self-care and health are important, no matter what that looks like.
“Shouting ‘self-care’ at people who actually need ‘community care’ is how we fail people.
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For many, self-care is not enough. This is where the concept of community care comes in. Where self-care is about the individual and their own individual needs, community care focuses on the community as a collective. Community care relies more on interdependence rather than independence. For many, independence is not the ultimate goal. There are few people who are truly independent, as most of us rely on others in our lives in some way. Self-care is not always enough and can at times seem more like a band-aid for a much larger problem
Community care recognizes the way in which human beings are social creatures who crave a sense of togetherness. Minimizing social isolation and turning to others for support can be a critical ingredient in mental health. Community care involves a commitment to reduce both individual and community harm simply through being together and supporting each other. This support includes whatever the individual might need and can range from basic needs to psychological needs to spiritual needs.
One of the main components of community care is the way in which individuals complete interpersonal acts of compassion. Interpersonal acts of compassion can take many different forms, both informal and structured. In its informal form, this can look like bringing dinner to a sick friend, being a shoulder for support, attending a local fundraiser, carpooling with a neighbor, or advocating for your community in whatever way you can. Formal interpersonal acts of compassion can take the form of support groups, communal homes, or even community-based nonprofits. Community care and interpersonal compassion propose a commitment to giving what you can, based on your own strengths. When you are in the position to give more than you need to receive, you do so. It goes back to the idea that you have trust in your community and the knowledge that the system of support is reciprocal.
Community care can also be used to navigate and deal with the burden of oppression. For many, self-care only offers temporary relief to the struggles they face in their daily life. Many of these struggles are based in deep-rooted structural issues, which traditional self-care cannot help. Taking medication and getting outside are great and important, but they don’t alleviate the burden of oppression. Self-care often operates on the underlying principle that if you want to feel better, you need to do the work yourself. For those who are disabled or already face daily oppression, this can become an additional stressor that can seem overwhelming. While community care isn’t enough on its own to solve structural oppression, it allows for collaboration and support between individuals who would otherwise be left alone to deal with the burdens in their life. Community care is the way that individuals come together to try and survive a system that is working against them.
There are a few ways that self-care and community care can overlap. Oftentimes, self-care is an important aspect in being able to take part in community care. For some individuals, self-care isn’t possible without the support of others in their lives. When an individual takes care of their own needs (such as sleep or medication) they may be better able to help out their community. Self-care and community care are always going to be ongoing. They aren’t something you do once and are done with, but instead are the culmination of the small things we do every day. These small things are going to be what add up to make a real difference.
Abby works with individuals at Space Between Counseling Services. She is particularly passionate about working with those in the LGBTQ+ community, college students, current or former sex workers, and those in times of life transition. As a counselor, Abby feels her role is to assist and support her clients in their own growth and identity self-exploration. While Abby does bring a person-centered approach and mindfulness into almost all of her sessions, she does not believe therapy is one-size-fits-all. This means she always takes into account each person’s individual situation and preferences to make sure your time together is focused on your unique needs and goals.
When she isn’t in the office, Abby spends her time cooking and baking while catching up on her favorite shows. She is currently obsessed with Lucifer, The L Word: Generation Q, and Brooklyn 99. Abby is currently accepting new clients for Monday mornings and Thursday afternoons and evenings in our Midtown Mt. Vernon office.
Acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT, helps individuals create a rich, full, and meaningful life, while accepting the pain that inevitably accompanies it. Through the utilization of mindfulness techniques and goal-directed or values-based behavior, clients can learn to reduce the influence and impact of painful thoughts and feelings and take steps that enrich their quality of life rather than diminish it.
In her latest post on the Space Between Counseling Services Blog, Emily Rose Barr, LGPC, helps readers to explore what often leads us to feel stuck; the six core therapeutic processes of ACT; who ACT is most helpful for; and how you can begin implementing strategies from ACT in your own life.
Why would you and your partner want to do a “Coupleship in Review”? This series of check-in questions is designed to help you invite structure, flow, intimacy, play and secure connection into the future of your relationship. Just being together and enjoying each other is great, but once again Space Between Counseling Services has an invitation for you that will help make your relationship stronger in the years to come.
“Secure Functioning” is being in a relationship that is fully collaborative, fully mutual, + based on justice, fairness, and sensitivity.
— Dr. Stan Tatkin
For many millennials and older gen-z-ers, their 20s and 30s are not the time of fun and freedom that they expected. This period of life can be characterized by feelings of self-doubt, anxiety, uncertainty, and confusion over one’s direction and purpose in life. Going through a quarter life crisis may be a commonplace occurrence, but it doesn’t have to be something you go through alone or without support.
Self-compassion gets a lot of buzz, and for good reason. The term refers to showing yourself the same care and kindness you’d show a close friend. If you find you’re often critical of your faults, have difficulty separating yourself from your negative thoughts when they arise, or feel like you’re alone in your struggles, practicing self-compassion can help.
When many people think of intelligence, an IQ test is the first thing that comes to mind. Answering a list of questions meant to assign a score to an individual’s memory, math, and reading comprehension abilities. But there are many ways that intelligence can be looked at besides just being able to generate correct answers on a test. Everyone’s brains work differently and there are so many different types of thinking that even one individual may use.
This blog post was inspired by an article Exploring the Matrix of Your Brain by Aurora Holtzman. In her post, Aurora discusses how learning to befriend our own brains and figuring out how to work with our individual strengths. Once we learn how we work, we enable ourselves to stop working harder and start working smarter. This can mean doing better in school or work, improving the quality of relationships, or simply having a better idea of what works best for you individually.
Infographic by: Aurora Holtzman
Standard linear thinking is when someone thinks about point A, which then leads them to point B, then to point C, and so on. When you think of linear thinking, you might think of doing a long math problem in elementary school. The teacher always wants you to write out every step of the math problem in order. In doing this, you had to think about how each step got me to the next one, taking your thoughts in a straight line.
Skip thinking is when someone goes straight from point A to point C. This would be like skipping straight from the first step of your math problem to the last step. Not everyone thinks like this, but to some people it just makes sense. Some individuals may think in mostly these ways or think in these ways depending on the specific situation. But what about when our brain makes even more complex connections? The brain and our thinking style don’t always go in a straight line, even if that line does skip over some points. These unique ways of thinking have been termed matrix thinking.
Matrix thinking is what happens when someone’s brain goes from point A, to point F, to point R, then back to point C. There are infinite possibilities of different ways that an individual’s brain can work in this style of thinking. Matrix thinkers are constantly absorbing information from the world around them and synthesizing it into their current thought process. Matrix thinkers often make connections between ideas that to others seem completely unrelated, but to that individual the connection makes perfect sense. When you think of matrix thinking, you might think about your coworker whose desk is always a complete disaster, yet to them everything has a place and their system makes perfect sense. Matrix thinkers find patterns and creative ways of relating concepts together that other thinkers just don’t see. Within the article, Aurora discusses some different examples of matrix thinking that individuals use.
The Mind Map is a giant 3-dimensional map that is constantly connecting seemingly unconnected things. Drawing lines between things within your mind map can be a way to make connections. Venn Diagram thinking is when your brain finds the overlap in relationships to everything. There are so many ways to group and categorize things and so to some people it makes sense that parts of these categories need to overlap. Sometimes individuals will seem to talk all over the place, when in reality they are talking in a Spiral where they come back to the point every time the spiral makes its way back around. Puzzle thinking can take many different forms. Sometimes the puzzle has big pieces that are easy to put together, while other times it may take time to learn the ways in which the pieces fit. Sometimes even after the puzzle has been put together, it may feel like there is a piece or two that is missing.
Below is an excerpt of 4 more types of matrix thinking discussed by Aurora:
“Tree - When I think of my multi potentiality, I tend to think of a tree. The roots dig deep to form my foundation, but when I get too many things going at once it’s like wild branches that need pruning. When I was working full time in my day job I over pruned and didn’t have any time for the enriching stuff and when I first branched out on my own (see what I did there?) I went in way too many directions at once. This year I am focusing on pruning and strengthening just a few branches at a time.
Spider Web - I see the spider web as sort of a combination of the spiral and the mind map. It’s another way to visualize making constant connections. Like real spider webs, they are never quite as neat and tidy as you might find in a symbol or graphic but can get quite messy.
3D Chess Board - When I brought this idea up to a friend and parent, she shared the idea of a 3d chess board. Not only are you navigating and strategizing on one flat plane/dimension, there are multiple plains to navigate and strategize on all at once.
Maze - One final image that came to mind is a maze where you follow one path and may come to a dead end and have to back track to find your way back.”
As you read about matrix thinking, you may find yourself thinking, “None of these examples by themselves seem to explain how I feel my own brain works!” However, it’s important to remember that you don’t need to fit into just one matrix.
Knowing your style(s) of thinking may be particularly helpful when you’re trying to explain an idea to someone else but they just aren’t getting it. It may be easier to put your ideas into words when you have a better understanding of how my brain as a whole is working. Knowing your own brain and the way you think can be helpful at school, work, and in interpersonal relationships. Understanding how you think is just another step in better understanding yourself as a whole.
One final takeaway that highlights importance of understanding matrix thinking is that knowing how your brain works can help you to think using your strengths. Depending on your style of matrix thinking, your strengths may be more related to creativity, problem solving, or communication. Understanding your specific strengths can help you to maximize your thinking power.
So now that you’ve gotten all the way to the end, are any of these styles of matrix thinking familiar to you? Can you see yourself and how you think in any of them?
