The Therapist Diaries

Hello and Welcome Back to The Therapist Diaries,  This weekend I was assisting in a training with a co-worker who I admire tremendously. I've known her for a few years, and her work fascinates me. She is a certified Geek Therapist and a Therapeutic Game Master... and in all honesty, I (someone who favors more traditional therapy) had no clue what that meant.  She explained that you can use strategies from your favorite video game to develop real-life coping mechanisms, analyze character archetypes from a beloved fantasy series to better understand your own identity, or apply world-building principles from tabletop gaming to envision and create a more fulfilling personal future. By linking therapeutic concepts to things that you already love, we create powerful and lasting connections for change. I was fascinated. So, I thought I’d do some more research and share my findings with you. Welcome to the heart of Geek Therapy . At its core, Geek Therapy is a strengths-based approach...

 Hello and Welcome Back to The Therapist Diaries, Impulsivity: When the Urge Feels Louder Than the Pause Impulsivity is something most of us recognize instantly, sometimes in ourselves, sometimes in others. It’s the text sent too quickly, the purchase we regret, the sharp words that tumble out before we’ve had time to breathe. I often tell clients that if you’re human, you’ve been impulsive. I certainly have. I’ve seen impulsivity show up in the therapy room in countless ways: clients who interrupt their own healing by ending relationships abruptly, people who make big life decisions in moments of emotional overwhelm, or those who when describing a recent argument say,  “I don’t know why I said that it just came out.” And while impulsivity often gets labeled as “poor self-control,” the truth is far more compassionate and complex. So, let's start here,  impulsivity is not a character flaw, it's a nervous system response. Why Impulsivity Happens At its core, impulsivit...

 Hello and Welcome Back to the Therapist Diaries,  Have you ever found yourself doing the very thing that pulls you away from what you want most? Maybe you procrastinate on something important, push away people who care about you, abandon goals right as they start to feel possible, or repeat patterns you promised yourself you were done with. If so, you’re not broken, and you’re not alone. This is often what we call self-sabotage , and it’s far more common (and understandable) than most people realize. As a therapist, I want to start with this: self-sabotage is not a character flaw . It is usually a learned survival strategy that once made sense, even if it no longer serves you now. Self-sabotage refers to behaviors, conscious or unconscious, that interfere with our goals, values, or well-being. These behaviors might look like: Procrastination or avoidance Perfectionism that keeps you stuck Negative self-talk or harsh inner criticism Pushing away people closest to us  Stay...

 Hello and Welcome Back to The Therapist Diaries,  As the holiday season approaches, many people find themselves pulled in different emotional directions. There’s excitement, connection, and celebration, but there can also be stress, overwhelm, and the pressure to make everything feel “just right.” If you’re noticing your shoulders creeping up toward your ears or your mind moving faster than you'd like, you’re not alone. This is a time of year when mindfulness can become a gentle anchor, something steady to return to when everything else feels a bit chaotic. This year is the first year that I'll be spending the Christmas holiday away from my parents and while I'm very excited for the plans I have made, a few days ago I suddenly found myself overwhelmed with the anticipation of juggling work, travel, cooking my first dinner, and the feeling that everything needed to be perfect. After having a good crying session and talking it through with my loved ones, I stopped and took a...

 Hello and Welcome Back to The Therapist Diaries,  Today, I'm stepping out of the office and lying down on my own therapy sofa because I want to talk about a topic that I've been struggling with recently and I think it's one a lot of people struggle with.  Making. Big. Decisions. I should start by prefacing that I am an extremely indecisive person- ironic because in contrast I'm also very stubborn and once my mind is made up there's no changing it- but before I can make any kind of decision my anxiety brain has to overthink it a gazillion times. I'm not even talking about big decisions when I say this, I'm saying that I can't even pick what I want for dinner or what music I want to listen to in the car. It's why my boyfriend is forced to watch the same comfort shows over and over again, and why he now knows the lyrics to Taylor Swift songs. So big decisions are a BIG problem for me.  Decisions such as changing careers, moving to a new city, or even c...

 Hello and Welcome Back to The Therapist Diaries,  In the United States, many of us have just wrapped up celebrations for Thanksgiving, a holiday where friends and family come together and enjoy each other's company. It's not, however, always as joyful as it seems. As many of you know, one of my gigs as a Trauma Therapist is to work for the Mobile Crisis Hotline. This week I went to assess a teenager at the hospital, and she said something which really struck me. She said, "I hate it when the house is full of people. I feel so lonely, and I hate it." At first, I thought she had misspoken. What does she mean she feels lonely when the house is full of people? Surely that makes her feel the opposite. I asked her to repeat herself and she said the same thing again. She hadn't misspoken the first time; I just hadn't  heard  her.  The truth is that loneliness is a complicated emotion, and it often shows up in ways that don’t seem to make sense. Many people come ...