According to Dr. Jeffery Young, Some of the problems that can emerge as a result of being raised in the unpredictable family environment include the following emotional and social impact: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the challenges to working with children in a clinical setting is that they are rarely strong enough to overcome the environmental press created by the family dynamics they are being raised within. In society today their is a movement away from accountability in general, and many times when a child therapist wants to address the environment that children are being raised within, the parents scream “FOUL BALL” and claim that they are being blamed for the bad behavior of their children. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things that are very common in family communication is that people operate in a rather mindless way.  Frequently we are unaware of what our silent messages are really communicating.

One time a client spent considerable time trying to convince me that she wasn’t communicating anything to her husband or children when she refused to speak with them or would behave sulkily.  Of course through a discussion of this she finally came to realize that these silent communications were often louder and clearer than the verbal things she might say.

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A lot of people that are really introverted have intensely close good friends; they’re just few in numbers. What I would suggest, if you may find yourself possibly facing the holidays alone, is that that you reach out and make a phone call. Talk to these close contacts and see what they are doing. Maybe you’d find that you’d be welcome to share in these holiday events with them.

It’s the unusual person that isn’t connected to someone or several people. The problem is that people that are feeling isolated and alone, and this is part of the depression, they tell themselves that they don’t have anybody in their life. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things that you’re going to find is that a lot of times people hit the holiday season disenfranchised from other folks. This is particularly true for people that spend a lot of their time online; gamers on interactive sites and people that interact on peer networks and do a lot of their visiting with others on-line.

What they may find over the holidays is that a lot of their peers that they interact with on-line are not available during the holiday season and off-line and they realize that they are not as connected with people as they normally think they are and loneliness and feelings of isolation can kick in. A lot of times these people can find themselves feeling depressed, anxious and a lot of times just really lonely over the holidays. Read the rest of this entry »