by April R. McDowell, Ph.D., LGMFT Deciding to start therapy, whether it’s individual, couple, or family therapy, is often a big decision! Many factors are taken into consideration before taking this step, not the least of which is cost. Even though many people realize its value and the significant investment that it represents for themselves […]
Love, Age 6
This morning one of my six year-old daughters confided in me that she is having a problem at school. When I asked her about it, she said that one of her friends, Sam, isn’t talking to her anymore. In fact, he got in trouble yesterday because he put his fingers in his ears and stuck […]
Pain as a Gift?
It’s about midnight, and I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about pain. Today a person I know poured out her pain to me, and it was raw and real and I could feel it, see it. In that moment I felt like she invited me into it, and I accepted, and it hurt. I feel […]
Healing Relationship Wounds
I see a great many couples in my private practice. Lately, there seems to be a theme: couples who have been together or married for many years, who have “grown apart”. This feeling is usually expressed by one partner, while the other is caught somewhat off-guard, not realizing things have gotten as bad as they […]
I’m Frustrated (or, Why MFTs Rock Yet No One Seems To Know It)
Right now I’m at the AAMFT Annual Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. The conference itself hasn’t started yet, but as President-Elect of the Mid-Atlantic Division of AAMFT (http://www.madmft.org), I just finished attending Leadership Day, which is a day set aside for – you guessed it – leaders in the AAMFT divisions. The purpose of Leadership […]
Is Your Relationship Helped or Harmed by Social Technology?
This is a topic close to my heart, as I am married to a techie geek. I’m not insulting him – he would probably take it as a compliment, actually. And well he should. Were it not for my husband’s tech prowess, I’d still be rolling paper into our old dot-matrix printer and trying to […]
Do You Ever Have A Day…
When you are just in a BAD mood? I mean, a really really foul mood. That’s me today. Surprised? I have no idea why. Therapists are people too, and we make mistakes, snap at our spouses, and sometimes willingly sink into a temporary pit to wallow in our own gloriously foul moods. The only difference […]
Time
Along with our health, time really is our most precious commodity. Whatever we spend our time on is a good indicator of our priorities. And if you’re like me, there’s never enough of it. I wear so many hats: wife, mother, sister, friend, therapist, supervisor, colleague…and each role comes with its own expectation of time […]