Child, Teen and Adult Psychotherapy Services in San Diego
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What if we all talked to ourselves like we did our kids?

10/30/2020

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For so many parents, it is so hard to cultivate a mindset of positivity towards ourselves. Particularly for those of us who are super perfectionistic and are truly trying to achieve that super-parent life that we seem to believe everyone else is living. You know, doing all the things, all the time. It’s easy to feel like we are failing when our standards are unrealistic. 

I find that the pandemic has exacerbated this situation for so many of us and while in the beginning, I think it felt acceptable to release expectations and let our lives be a bit different - you know, messier, or less grinding towards goals - now, 7 months and counting, I think many of us have ramped up those expectations again. 

I think it is important to always keep in mind the fact that being hard on ourselves is the least productive thing we can do. You see, when we are hard on ourselves about everything and truly feel like if we are not perfectly doing everything that we are failing, we end up adding unneeded guilt and shame to our lives. These feelings not only take a toll on how we are feeling but they also add in a lot of emotional labor to engage in. We either spend time avoiding those feelings, projecting them onto others, or trying to heal them. 

I would suggest that our time is better used by spending it on working on the way we talk to ourselves. Rather than demanding more of ourselves all the time and being relentless in our guilt when we screw up, what if we talked to ourselves the way we would talk to a small child, baby, or even kitten or puppy?  Most of us, particularly parents will be kinder to others than ourselves and using a dose of self-compassion can be infinitely more helpful than anything else in terms of helping us feel calm, grounded, and confident that we can do hard things. 

Here are some ideas for putting this into practice…
“I see that you are struggling with that, let’s take a break and come back to it.” 
“It’s okay to be sad, overwhelmed, angry (etc.)” 
“What can we do to make this situation better”
“You can do this” 
“Eventually, things will be okay” 
“This feeling is temporary” 


The more we can approach ourselves with loving, kindness the better we will feel. And guess what, then we can also approach our loved ones with even more loving kindness as well. Plus we are then modeling for them how to manage their emotions a bit more effectively! 

At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients.  If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy via video sessions, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. 
 
As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio.  
 
To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: 
http://eepurl.com/dsgLNL.
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Why I choose to believe in people, even when it’s hard

10/9/2020

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The world just seems like a tough place to be a person these days. Or at least our country does. Things are so divided and people really seem to believe that anyone not on “their team” is the true enemy and some sort of bad person. While I could probably go on and on a bit about the social psychology behind this (in group/out group bias anyone? Black and white thinking anyone?) OR about how this is all encouraged by social media, I think it might be more helpful to share a bit about how I try to make sense of things to help myself cope when things feel challenging. 

For me, the key is this… Even when the world feels like an awful place, I believe that people are doing the best they can in their situation. I try hard to remember that people are just people and that most people are genuinely trying to do the right thing, whatever they think that might be. 

The follow up is this… the best they can does not always look like the best that you think they should have been able to do or the best you believe you would have been able to do in their position. 

Sometimes the best you can do on one day is not the best you would be able to do on another day. As people, our performance, decision making, and general abilities are not always consistent from moment to moment. And for me, this is an important principle to think about more in reality and less theoretically. 

For example, when you hear a story about someone on paper making a mistake, it is easy to theoretically think, “well they should have done this.” Or it’s easy for a sports fan to be a critic of the plays called and the mistakes made that led to their team losing the game. However, it is a much different thing to be the person out there making those mistakes or decisions under pressure and with a million other variables that are going to impact performance. While I would most likely not be willing to bet that even a top performing player will always come through in the end when it counts, I would bet anything that they would try their best because they are working for something of significant value to them. 

The thing is that I also believe that people generally try their best to do the right thing… we just might not agree about what “right” means. Sports are easy examples because the goals are obvious - to win as much as possible. Life is generally more complicated than that. Our values and personal goals are not always so easy to communicate, identify, or even in our own awareness. Here’s what I have come to also believe given my line of work, there is always a reason why people do things the way they do. Plus, we are more alike than we are different. 


While this lens can be challenging at times, particularly in our current climate socially and politically, I find that this lens helps me make sense of things and helps me keep more of an open mind and a kind, compassionate hard with everyone even when we don’t necessarily agree about things. To help me with this, I try to ask myself what is the most generous or compassionate interpretation of this situation?  Especially with the people I am closest to, I find that this is the lens that helps me understand them but also how we can connect and understand each other better. It's way better than creating a narrative in my head about how I am right and everyone else is wrong. And when I say it is better, I mean that it is better for me, my peace of mind, but also for my relationships.


While we all face the upcoming turmoil that seems anticipated for the coming election season in addition to the unrest already at play in our world, I hope this is a helpful reflection for some of our readers! 
​At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients.  If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy via video sessions, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. 
 
As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio.  
 
To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: 
http://eepurl.com/dsgLNL.
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How do we know when enough is enough?

8/28/2020

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As a recovering perfectionist, it can be tough for me to assess when I think I am meeting my own goals and when enough is enough in my life. This is something that I have learned to balance and work through during normal life but I have noticed that this has been a much bigger challenge during the Covid19 pandemic. I have noticed this for myself as well as almost across the board for my clients who also struggle with perfectionism. 

While we can always theoretically, in our heads, understand that yes, we are living in a pandemic and that it is REALLY HARD; it seems to be a whole other thing to figure out what is actually realistic to expect of ourselves or even others right now. 

There also seems to be a competing push-pull kind of dynamic within me lately where there is part of me that is like, let’s take this opportunity to relax and just slow our lives down and enjoy the simpler things. Then there is a whole other side that is like, “that is total BS and I want to do ALL the things and if ALL the things aren’t possible, I want to at least do everything that I am ABLE to do right now. I want to bake, and garden, and decorate my house, and work on work projects, and home projects, and accomplish every health goal I have ever had - oh and spend as much quality time with my family as possible!” 

Wait, does that side sound a bit unhinged and out of touch with reality?  It certainly does when you write it out and consider just how much stress many of us are enduring right now given the state of our world. It seems obvious in this moment that it is unrealistic to expect that much of myself given the fact that life is so much simpler but also more complicated these days. 

Decisions have become exponentially more complicated due to all the variables we need to consider. When doing something, we have to now consider our safety and possible risk in addition to all the variables we used to consider like time, resources, finances, desires and interest in doing things. Our cost/benefit analyses of situations have gotten more complicated along with our decisions.  

After over 5 months of living like this, I think most of us are worn out from how tiring and overwhelming this new reality is… I think that part of why we want to accomplish ALL of the things is so that we can live more in a space of doing rather than being. The truth is, it’s hard to just BE right now because to do that we likely need to feel a lot of the feelings that doing helps us avoid. It’s really painful to grieve our lives in such a dramatic way and sit with the pain of knowing that this situation does not seem to be getting any better anytime soon and is so dramatically impacting so many people much more seriously than many of us. 

The sadness, grief, and feelings of despair can be overwhelming for many of us. And for some of us, we respond by making dramatic to-do lists of all the things we should do. I think that as long as we are being kind, compassionate, and realistic with ourselves and our expectations and can hold space for the fact that that just might be unrealistic and need to be revised, this might be an okay strategy to get through this time. If we are struggling with being kind to ourselves and changing up our plans when we need to, we might need to take some time to lean into those feelings and let them have some space for a minute so that we can figure out what is going on and what we need to get through this. 

Even more so lately, life seems to be a delicate balance between finding motivation and energy for the future and our goals but also letting ourselves enjoy the moments we do have now and resting or finding something to do that is rejuvenating to our spirits and emotions. Just like everything else, this is more complicated than it used to be as there are more variables to consider. It is however, a worthwhile and important process to engage in to help us cope as best we can with a very difficult and uncertain future. 

If you or your loved ones need more support during this time, we are accepting new clients at Thrive via telehealth and work with clients of all ages!  Contact us today for more information about individual or group therapy sessions!

​At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients.  If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy via video sessions, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. 
 
As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio.  
 
To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: 
http://eepurl.com/dsgLNL.
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Feelings, who needs them?

5/1/2019

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By: Dr. Erica Wollerman 

As a therapist who specializes in parenting and working with kids and teens, emotions and how we handle them is a big topic in my office. One of the common focuses of my work is about helping people understand themselves better, including understanding their emotions. As a therapist, it often may feel obvious to me that this is really important work but I realize that many parents I work with may not realize just how important our relationship with our own emotions is. So, I thought I would share more about why I am so intent on validating emotions, even the ones that seem illogical or frustrating to others. 
 
My understanding of people and the world centers on the belief that most people really crave understanding. Understanding both of themselves but also from their loved ones. We all want to know that we are both good enough but also that we are not “crazy” or experiencing something others have not or do not. “Is this normal?” and “I’m not crazy, am I?” are common questions when it comes to how we relate emotionally to the world. 
 
Interestingly, our culture seems to work against us in terms of how we relate to our emotions… we get the message that some emotions are “good” and some are “bad,” which means they should essentially be avoided, hidden, or just not talked about. We tend to internalize these ideas and come up with a lot of strategies to avoid our more unpleasant emotions. We might make a lot of jokes, just avoid emotional conversations, find something else to channel our feelings into, or just pretend nothing is bothering us. Unfortunately, while these strategies may seem to work in the short term, they usually stop working when our emotional cup becomes too full usually because of some challenging life event. Divorce, a big move, loss of a loved one, birth of a child, losing or changing jobs, etc. can all be big triggers for experiencing a lot of previously avoided emotion. 
 
This is why therapy can be very uncomfortable for people. In therapy, we often ask people to not just identify their feelings, but to share them and learn how to both express and experience them. This is tough for most people, especially the most practiced avoiders! However, the more we can look at our emotions as helpful cues to our environment, rather than judge them as good or bad, the better we are going to be able to respond and cope with unpleasant situations and feelings. 
 
The first step in learning how to manage our emotions is simply to accept we have them. As a therapist, this is why it is so important to me that I validate another person’s experience and emotions. I might say something like: “Yes, it makes sense to feel the way you are feeling. I might feel that way too.” This helps us remember that our emotions are a very human part of us and we all have them. They are not some strange, foreign part of us to be scared of, they are a part of us to learn to embrace.  
 
And as a parent consultant, this is why it is important to me that we, as parents, learn to validate our child’s experience. By validating their experience and saying, I see you and your feelings and they are not only okay with me, but understandable, we communicate to them that they are seen and heard and not alone.  Validation and understanding of emotions can help prevent a situation from escalating, help our kids learn how to experience their emotions rather than engage in unhealthy distraction and coping behaviors, and can help them have a healthy relationship with others. 
 
Here are some ways to help you work more emotional understanding into either your relationship with yourself or your child(ren): 
  1. Notice: the first step is to notice your emotions and/or those of your child. Just observe what emotions are coming up. Sometimes having a list of feeling words can be helpful if this is an area that is really uncomfortable for you.
  2. Identify and Express: Identify the feeling that you or your child is having and express it. Example: “I am feeling sad, I think it may be because we have not spent as much time together as usual.” 
  3. Be curious:If you are experiencing an emotion or your child shares an emotion with you, just be curious about it. If they say, I feel jealous rather than judging jealousy as a bad feeling or offering advice, simply ask for more information. “Oh really, jealous huh. What do you think is going on?  What does that feel like for you?”
 
Notice that these questions are just geared to help you notice, express, and communicate about feelings. Often, when feelings are “heard,” they dissipate more quickly than if they are resisted, suppressed, or avoided. When we avoid them, they usually get louder to be heard. So, just by listening more intently to ourselves and our children and using curious observation and questions, we can often defuse difficult emotional situations. 
At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients.  If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. 
 
As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio.  
 
To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.
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The Problem with Positive Thinking - Benefits of a Positive Mindset (Part 3)

7/2/2018

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By: Dr. Erica Wollerman 

So, as you probably noticed in my first blog in this series, I have a lot of concerns with positive thinking and its’ attempts to tell us not to feel our unpleasant emotions or think our unpleasant thoughts. However, there are parts of “positive thinking” that I think are truly helpful and worth mentioning here and are traits of someone with resilience and more of a positive mindset. Check out the first two blogs in this series here and here! 
 
1. Focusing more on gratitude
In my eyes, focusing on gratitude and intentionally seeking ways to show or experience gratitude is so important. We can often become habitual problem finders who just focus on problems or challenges, rather than all we do have to feel grateful for. In contrast to positive thinking though, I mention gratitude more as a daily practice or habit and not a response to feeling something unpleasant. Generally trying to cultivate a mindset of gratitude looks like noticing things you are grateful for at the end of a day or week – NOT trying to focus on gratitude in moments where you are really upset or struggling. That would be just like the whole, “think positive” suggestion and likely only make you feel worse. 
 
2. Confidence that you can manage difficult situations, experiences, struggles
I believe that having a positive mindset about your life could include the confidence that you are going to be okay. That yes, life has its’ struggles, but they really do make us stronger and lead us in new and different directions which can be exciting and scary. In order to have this perspective, you have to not only remember struggles you have had, but remember that you got through them and that there were lessons learned along the way. This part of having a positive mindset involves allowing yourself to remember and process your challenges, not to feel worse about them, but to see what you have endured and how resilient you are. Yes, difficult things are going to happen. But yes, you can get through it. 
 
3. Cultivating memories of pleasant moments, experiences, even during times of struggle
This is so incredibly difficult, but so important. We need to remember that all emotions are temporary, the pleasant and the unpleasant. As such, even when we are in deep pain and struggle, we need to have the deeper knowledge that we will not always feel this way. 
 
For example, when you are grieving a loss, perhaps of a relationship, pet, loved one, life path, etc. it is important to know that grief marks the importance of that relationship in your life. That when we love, because everything is temporary, we will know loss and need to feel that loss because our feelings and grief honors the relationship or experience. 
 
Hopefully this blog rounds out our series on Positive Thinking!  While I am not a positive thinking proponent, there are definitely some assets of learning to cultivate a positive mindset and work on becoming a realistic thinker. 
 
At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients.  If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. 
 
As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio.  
 
To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.
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Why Burying Our Feelings Doesn't Work

9/18/2017

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By: Dr. Erica Wollerman 

This blog post was inspired by one of my favorite cartoons that depicts a person burying a “bad” feeling, walking away feeling like it is gone forever, while the roots are clearly growing under the surface. I think the urge to try and bury our uncomfortable feelings is totally understandable because well, they are uncomfortable!  Plus, in our culture, we are not really taught very much about our feelings which leaves many of us at a loss as to what to do with the particularly tough ones… feelings like jealousy, anger, shame, betrayal, anxiety, depression, grief to name a few of the toughies.  Not only are we often not taught about how to deal with them, we are often given examples of people coping in unhealthy ways such as through substance use, avoidance, and just plain denial and repression.
 
Unfortunately, as I explain to my clients at my office, there really is no “easy” way out of tough feelings. We need to wade through them, experience them, and figure out how to let them go in order to learn what we need to from those feelings. For example, if we feel unsettled in a friendship it is worthwhile to sit with that feeling to figure it out a bit… perhaps we are feeling taken advantage of, unappreciated, or perhaps disconnected. If we can take the time to sit with that feeling and learn what it is trying to tell us, we can then use that information to connect with our friend, communicate our feelings, and get some feedback from them too. Ideally, then, some of the challenges in the relationship could be openly talked about and worked on so that things go a bit smoother! 
 
While this example is a bit more innocent, some feelings when left to linger and fester, can be very destructive. These are feelings like anger, shame, depression, and even anxiety. If we are not able to sift through these feelings to figure out what is underneath them and leading to them, they often grow and attach to situations and people that are unrelated to the initial feeling. For example, if someone was verbally abused as a young child and told that they are worthless, terrible, and other kinds of awful things; while they might not continue to have feelings they relate to that situation, they are likely to have other symptoms such as extreme anger, shame and feelings of worthlessness and depression, possibly even suicidal thoughts, or debilitating anxiety around other people. These feelings can play out in so many ways, particularly in our relationships, to where this person might act out in their relationships and treat other people poorly OR they might become the opposite and feel that everything is their fault and tie themselves in knots trying to please their partner or friends. The hardest part about this is that people often have no idea that their behavior or feelings currently could have so much to do with buried emotions related to past experiences in their lives. So the patterns unfortunately continue to be unresolved, their symptoms continue, and it can be very discouraging.
 
This is often a time when people make their way into therapy looking for solutions and though it is not always the most pleasant of experiences, it is crucial to our growth and ability to move forward to spend some time learning about our emotions, finding ways to cope with them differently, and connecting the dots between our experiences, unresolved emotions, and present life situations. Spending some time unraveling these apparent “bad” feelings is one of my favorite things to do as a therapist, not because it is “fun,” but because it really produces growth and change for my clients.
 
So, next time you are experiencing an uncomfortable feeling, try to allow yourself to experience it for a moment and invite the feeling into your heart for a bit. If you can imagine the emotion as a wave, let it come and then let it go. Try to find a name for it and try to see what created this riptide in your life. Then you can release it and hopefully find some solutions or lessons from the experience.
 
If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy with one of us, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n. 

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Thrive Team's 5 Favorite Parenting Tips

9/3/2017

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We at Thrive thought it would be fun to share a joint blog from our team of therapists where we each share one of our favorite parenting tips. Since we all have different perspectives, this is a great way to get to know each of us as a therapist. Hope you like it and find our ideas helpful! 
 
Lindsey Brady, LMFT - How to support your child through tough feelings
 
In practice, I often work with children who experience difficulty with self-regulation, anger, and tantrum behaviors.  A big part of what I do is help parents to understand developmental levels and how to support their kids through the “tough stuff.”  Often, as parents, we expect our children to be respectful and behave appropriately and it’s easy to forget that kids often don’t understand or know how to manage their emotions.  It’s important to teach children that ALL feelings are okay, even the ones that seem socially unacceptable, like anger or jealousy, and that all feelings pass with time.   Encourage your kids to do something with their feelings if they need to.  Invite them to be still or to share, cry, or communicate.  If a child is unable to regulate and engages in inappropriate behaviors, parents can lovingly disengage and remind themselves that the behavior is not a reflection of their parenting or their child’s lack of respect, but more a lack of skill in dealing with the emotion or situation.  Stepping back in the moment and addressing it when everyone is calm enables the child to be in an emotional space to learn and allows the parent space to explain and correct in a calm and loving way.
 
Maria Fowlks, PsyD - Validate your child’s feelings
 
Validating your child’s emotions helps them feel heard and understood, and it lets them know their feelings matter. When you do this, you are sending the message you love and accept them regardless of how they think and feel. It is important to honor and validate the big and small things, because what may seem small to you is likely very big to them. It shows them you care and think their feelings are important. It teaches them that ALL feelings are valid.
 
Jennifer Gonzalez, LMFT - Provide your child with options
 
I am almost sure that you have heard “children like to have options” before.  I agree with this statement completely.  Children and adolescents like to feel like they are in control and hold power, and who doesn’t?
 
Well, I would like to offer you an extension of that.  Giorgio Nardone creator of Brief Strategic Therapy designed an intervention called “illusion of alternatives” which is exactly what it says; it gives the illusion that the person has an alternative.  This intervention is a real elegant way in which you offer the possibility of a option: The first option is very frightening and almost impossible for the person to complete and the second option is one that is less threatening and easier to put into practice.  
 
Translating this into child and adolescent terms: the first option should be one that is boring, tedious, and annoying to them.  The second option (the one that you really want them to choose) should be doable, easy and in many ways more appealing.  For example you may say: “Would you rather vacuum the entire house or take out the trash?” or for adolescents “Would you rather do the dishes and put them away or vacuum the living room.”
 
Angela Bianco, ASW -  Helping parents shift from being reactive to proactive in parenting
 
Taking time to reflect on your parenting and interactions with your child is crucial in learning to shift from being reactive to proactive in parenting. Unfortunately, because our lives are so busy, parents are more likely to operate from a reactive state of mind instead of working from a clear set of principles and strategies. Instead of just reacting, try asking yourself the following questions: Why did he act this way? What's the lesson? How can I best teach it?  Use these questions and your overarching parenting principles you want to use to guide your parenting as a guide for how to intervene and teach your child.
 
Erica Wollerman, PsyD – Knowing when to let your kid fail
 
As many of you who read the Thrive blog know, I am passionate in my belief that as parents, one of the best things we can do is to allow your child to fail at times. I believe strongly in the importance of teaching kids that failure is okay because it means you are trying new things and leaving your comfort zone. The other great thing about allowing your kids to fail is that you can then coach them through the failure. Teaching them how to fix things after mistakes, how to manage their feelings about the failure, and that it is okay to fall down only helps build grit and resiliency in all of us. As parents, this is a great gift you can give your children that will help them be more successful and resourceful in the future!  
 
We hope you enjoyed our first group blog!  There will hopefully be many more to come in the future so that we can continue sharing our many different experiences and thoughts with you!
 
If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy with one of us, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n. 
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5 Ways Your Child Uses Behavior to Communicate

8/14/2017

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By: Lindsey Brady, LMFT

As a Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in children and teens, families often come to see me wanting help with specific behaviors that are happening in the home, at school, or in the community.  Without the verbal understanding that adults have, children often resort to tantrums, crying, screaming, and yelling much to the frustration of most parents.  It is important to remember that this behavior often serves a purpose for the child.   It can communicate things that children are either unable to say or things they may not even be aware of on a conscious level.  These are the five common needs that are communicated through behavior:
 
1. The need to connect -  Listen, I get it!  Life gets busy and responsibilities get in the way.  Not to mention, dealing with negative behaviors doesn’t make it easy to slow down and connect, but this is a fundamental need that children have on a daily basis.   Find at least 30 minutes each day to dedicate to your child.  Family game nights, art activities, family outings, etc. all allow face-to-face time with each other to improve positive connections and positive relationships.  Children are more willing to comply and behave in appropriate ways once they feel connected!  And once they feel connected, they will be less likely to engage in negative behaviors.

2. The need for autonomy – This is a tough one for all parents.  Children have a need to make their own decisions, which includes making their own mistakes.  It’s hard to sit back and watch, knowing that your child may fail, but it’s vital that they be allowed to try.  This develops courage, sense of self, and creates a supportive, loving relationship between parent and child.

3. The need to differentiate – Children are naturally curious and have a need to explore different opinions, beliefs, and values.  Being free to be curious and create an identity without shame fosters loving, healthy relationships.  This is a difficult need to balance, especially when teaching right and wrong is one of our duties as a parent.  It is important to examine our own values and if there may be any motives behind wanting a child to be a certain way.  This can allow parents to release expectations and allow children the space they need to grow into healthy, independent individuals.

4. The need for emotional comfort – Children have big emotions and equally big reactions.  It is important to remember that young children are not able to regulate themselves and sometimes need extra support.  Explain to children that ALL feelings are always okay and that they don’t need to hide them or suppress them.  I like to teach children that feelings are like waves, if you don’t fight them - they pass.  If you do fight them, they can pull you under.  Extra hugs, love, and kindness help children to overcome and learn to self-soothe.   If behavior is inappropriate, it’s okay to lovingly disengage until children calm down and then provide love and support and offer suggestions for how to handle feelings differently next time.

5. The need to feel respected and valued -  When children are non-compliant and refusing to follow instructions, it is easy for parents to react with anger.  The number one way that children learn from us is through modeling.  If we model respectful and kind behavior, our children will respond and learn in the same manner.   Remaining calm through challenges is not always easy, so don’t be afraid to take a break and address things later if you need to.  
 
Next time your child is engaging in a behavior remember that they might be communicating a need and being aware of this is the first step towards helping your child to engage in more positive behaviors.
 
If you’d like to speak with someone regarding how to better understand and modify a child’s behavior, you can reach a Thrive Therapist at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.  

As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome. Contact us regarding any issues around child, teen psychotherapy and adult San Diego psychologist at Thrive Therapy Studio.  
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The impact of dramatic language on our emotional experience

7/24/2017

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By: Dr. Erica Wollerman

I recently was reading an article written by a woman who has been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and she was reflecting on the #soOCD trend on Twitter and how reading about how others view their slight compulsions or desire for things to be a certain way as being “#soOCD.” It was a great article and summed up so eloquently something that I see quite often in my office. People often comment that they are depressed when they are actually just sad or having a bad day; say they are anorexic after skipping a meal or bulimic because they ate too much once; say they “are so ADD” because they weren’t focused for a brief moment at work; and the list goes on.
 
Sadly, we all use such dramatic language to describe things in our lives and since one of my main beliefs about being a person is that the language we use MATTERS, this matters too. When we describe our slight hunger as being just starving or our slight nervousness as a panic attack, we are trivializing the experience of people who really are starving or experiencing panic attacks. We are also hyping up our own experience and magnifying our emotions needlessly. We are using very serious words to describe situations that don’t match up in severity. What this leads me to think about then is, what happens when we are actually depressed?  How will we describe that in a way that is genuine, authentic, and matches the experience when we have already used our arsenal of big, serious words? 
 
You might be wondering why this matters to me so much and it has a lot to do with my experience working with people in managing their emotions. With kids, we talk about needing to “name it to tame it.” What this means is that we need to find a word to describe accurately our feeling or experience so we can then understand, process, and move on with learning from the experience. Without being able to do that accurately, I believe that we might be more at risk for difficulties managing our emotions.
 
I would encourage all of us to strive to follow one of the tenets of the Four Agreements and to be “impeccable with our word.” By seeking to describe our experience as accurately as possible, we are going to not only understand our own emotions better but we also will avoid being insensitive and minimizing of others’ experiences.
 
If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy with one of us, please reach out to us either via email at ewollerman.psyd@gmail.com or phone at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.


As always, thanks for reading  and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child, teen psychotherapy and adult psychotherapy services at Thrive Therapy Studio. Contact us for San Diego psychologist services.  

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3 Ways Therapy Can Help Your Child/Teen During Divorce

7/16/2017

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By: Dr. Erica Wollerman 

At our office, we frequently work with children and teens whose families are going through a divorce. While we do not engage in any sort of custody recommendations and tend to stay out of court at our office, there are many other ways that therapy and services at Thrive could be helpful.
 
1.  Providing your child/teen with a neutral place to talk:
During a divorce, kids go through so many different emotions and experiences that can be really hard for them to talk to their parents about. As close as they might be to their parents, some feelings they are having will lead them to feel as though they are betraying one parent or the other. With a therapist, we can help them talk about and sort through those feelings in a  safe space where they know no one else will hear about. This is actually a big part of the reason why we do not engage in custody recommendations… if parents and kids know that we are going to be sharing our opinions with anyone outside of the child’s sessions, it prevents the kids from sharing openly and feeling safe.
 
2.  Giving your child/teen time to talk things through:
Often, during a divorce or separation, parents can become overwhelmed with their own experience and emotions. While this is totally understandable, at times the kids will feel lost and alone. Coming to therapy and having a therapist that they trust who spends about an hour a week just focusing on them and their experience and listening to what they want to talk about, can be enormously helpful in helping the child or teen process their experience and emotions around the divorce.  
 
3.  Providing the possibility of co-parenting sessions:
At Thrive, we are big believers in involving the whole family in treatment when we believe it will be helpful to the child or teen. In situations of divorce or separation, your child or teen’s therapist can be enormously helpful in supporting parents through the process with co-parenting sessions. Sometimes these sessions will need to be with a separate therapist than your child or teen’s, but co-parenting sessions are always helpful. Research has shown that it is not divorce itself that is harmful to children and teens’ emotionally, but the conflict that at times persists for quite some time after the separation or divorce. Co-parenting sessions can help parents learn how to work together as separate parents to benefit their child/teen and ideally, reduce overall conflict following a separation or divorce.
 
These are just three of the ways that therapy can be helpful when going through a divorce or separation. At Thrive, we know that parents are all doing their best to get through tough situations that arise in their families. We are here to support the whole family and love working with children, teens, and adults particularly during times of crisis like a separation or divorce.
 
If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy with one of us, please reach out to us either via email at ewollerman.psyd@gmail.com or phone at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n. 

As always, thanks for reading  and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around finding a therapist for teens and Family Therapy San Diego at Thrive Therapy Studio.  
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Thrive Therapy Studio
5230 Carroll Canyon Rd. Ste 110
​San Diego, CA 92121
"Watch your thoughts, 
They become words. 
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They become actions. 
Watch your actions, 
They become habits. 
Watch your habits, 
They become character; 

It becomes your destiny."

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Thrive Therapy Studio Therapists Offer Child, Teen, Adult, Marriage and Family Psychotherapy Counseling Services in San Diego, California.

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