I first learned about the wheel of wellness recently from Laura at Keeping It Creative. It’s a concept that the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has developed based on the work of Margaret Swarbrick. So let’s have a look! Dimensions of wellness The wheel of wellness includes eight dimensions: Emotional: includes …
What Happened to Make You Anxious? by Jaime Castillo aims to help readers uncover and process the unresolved past little-t traumas that are fuelling their anxiety. It incorporates concepts from several therapeutic approaches, including internal family systems therapy (IFS) and the adaptive information processing model, which is the theoretical basis for eye movement desensitization and …
I’m not in therapy, but I do have a therapy journal filled with my favourite therapy concepts and tools (the notebook it lives in is from the lovely Candace at Revenge of Eve). In this post, I’ll share some of what it contains. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is probably the best fit for how …
You, Happier: The 7 Neuroscience Secrets of Feeling Good Based on Your Brain Type by psychiatrist Daniel G. Amen was interesting (of the raised eyebrow variety). I was vaguely aware that his first book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life was popular, but that was all I knew as background information before I started this …
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is schema therapy. Schema therapy was developed by Dr. Jeffrey Young in the 1990s. Kind of like dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), it’s based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), but developed to address the needs of people who weren’t …
Secret Keeper: The Joys and Struggles of Being a Therapist by Marcia Kostoff gives readers an inside look at what it’s like to be a therapist. The author is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, and she specializes in CBT and DBT. The book includes stories about the …
Boredom—it’s something we probably all experience at some time or another, but some people are more prone to it than others. Let’s start off our boredom discussion with a definition. While there is no single agreed-upon definition, I like this one: “Boredom represents a negative experience commonly arising in situations deemed deficient in meaning, interest, …
Journalling is a fantastic tool for working through thoughts and feelings. It’s great to get the raw stuff out, but it’s not always pretty. So how does it feel when you go back and look at old journal entries? I find it helpful to re-read recent journal entries, as in from the last week or …
How Do You Feel Looking Back at Old Journal Entries? Read More »
Overcoming Anticipatory Anxiety by Sally M. Winston and Martin N. Seif uses a cognitive behaviour therapy approach to help readers deal with chronic indecisiveness, avoidance, and catastrophic thinking. The book begins by explaining what anticipatory anxiety is—the expectation of distress and the push towards avoidance that occurs before you encounter the situation you fear in …
Inside Of Me by Wendy Shipman is a novella about dealing with depression. It’s a 2020 Christian Indie Award winner in the Personal Growth category. I recently reviewed Wendy’s more recent book, the memoir I Died So I Could Live. In the book’s preface, Wendy shares that writing this book was an important part of …
