Sweet Sweet Chain, Part 1: On the Difficulty Making Change

LET’S GET TECHNICAL..

Dear Reader, are you in the mood for some psychology and neuroscience? No, not yet? You want a joke before we dive in? Ok, here you go…

Q: How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: One, but the lightbulb has to want to change.

Ha!

Sweet Sweet Chain, Part 2: Should Therapists Self-Disclose Vulnerable Information?

LET’S GET KINDA PERSONAL…

This is the point in the blog post where I could potentially share my painful pattern with you. It is the point where, if I so chose, I could be vulnerable with you. Some people argue that therapists shouldn’t divulge too much personal information; that self-disclosure interferes with clients’ processes, that a “blank slate” gives space for clients’ projections and transferences. Fair enough. And yet. Something feels inhuman about that particular philosophy.

Sweet Sweet Chain, Part 3: About Attachment Theory (and my painful pattern)

ON A VERY COMMON (AND PAINFUL) RELATIONAL PATTERN…

Let me tell you about John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth’s (1991) Attachment Theory. According to Attachment Theory our earliest relationships, the one with our parents or primary caretakers, teaches us how to be in relationship with other people throughout our lives. It is our first relationship that sets the standard for how relationships look, what we can expect, and how we should behave.

Sweet Sweet Chain, Part 4: So...What's the Verdict? Can we Evolve?

DO WE HAVE AGENCY?

And so going back to that original question from part one: what is that menacing force that sucks us into doing or feeling what we have decided time and again we don’t want to do or feel? Have we any agency over our own brains and bodies? One answer is: no, we have no agency. Our brain chemistry, our genetic makeup, our experiences in our families, our experiences in our societies, all of these are elements outside of our control...

Sweet Sweet Chain, Part 5: A Comic Strip, My Healing Process, and an Ending

ON MY PROCESS OF HEALING AND CHANGE…

One windy morning, stuck in traffic, I see a bird. The bird attempts to fly but the wind is blowing in the opposite direction so the bird remains suspended in the same spot flapping its wings but going nowhere. I imagine that there is a chain locked around the bird’s neck, the chain attached to an anvil in the dirt, that is restricting this bird from soaring, that is stopping the bird from reaching the heights it could reach without the chain.