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Looking for a blog rich with information on codependency, trauma, and self-esteem? Search this archive of more than 150 original posts.
Feeling lonely in Athens? 6 Tips for College Freshmen Dealing with Homesickness
So, you’ve made it. You’re here. Your dorm room is set up, your class schedule is printed, and your parents finally drove away from the parking lot after what felt like an emotional negotiation. But somewhere between unpacking your third box of clothes and introducing yourself to your roommate (who you’re pretty sure has been awake for 36 hours straight), it hits you: This isn’t home. And suddenly, the comfort of your childhood bedroom feels a million miles away. First, take a breath. What you’re feeling has a name: homesickness. And it’s completely normal. Studies suggest that 50% or more of college freshmen experience some degree of...
Read MoreLPC, LMFT, PhD and more: Decoding credentials to find a good therapist in Athens
Finding a therapist can feel like a struggle. There’s insurance to sort out, maybe, or trying to find someone nearby that won’t cost you a two-hour commute getting out to their office. Some therapists only do telehealth and you want to meet in person. Or some are booking two months out and you need to be seen quickly. It can be quite a puzzle. As someone who has done quite a bit of her own therapy, I sympathize. I’ve been through the process myself many times! So, I’m writing this for you, to help simplify the process and help you understand your options a little bit better. This post is designed to help you find a good therapist in Athens, GA (or wherever...
Read MoreSix Tips to Help Parents Survive During Back-to-School Season
Let’s face it, back-to-school season brings stress. Supply shopping in particular can feel like a rather unfriendly scavenger hunt. I can remember my mother juggling shopping lists for three children, all attending three different schools, while standing in the middle of an aisle at Office Max. “The science folder must be green,” I mused as I looked at the creased list in her hands. But the shelves had only a kind of bluish-green teal color folder, not the bright grass green I was envisioning. Would it be green enough? And what if the teacher decided it was not? And would it stand out in the pile of all other uniformly hued and proper folders? But...
Read MoreADHD diagnosis in women and girls: why is it so hard to get treatment?
NB: If you’re a client or you’re thinking of working with me (I see folks in Athens, Georgia for therapy), consider whether you want to read on, as I talk some about my own life experiences here. If you think it might be a distraction to your work in therapy, please refrain. — It was two months into the pandemic and I was doomscrolling. And then a Reddit post about time blindness captured my attention. Yes, it was posts on Reddit that led me, a mental health professional, to figuring out I had ADHD. (Thank you, Reddit.) After reading posts on rejection sensitive dysphoria and time blindness that moved me to tears, I booked an appointment for an...
Read MoreWhat makes a people pleaser?
Wondering what makes a people pleaser? Let’s take a quick inventory. Buried under an endless to-do list? Check! Feel guilty saying no? Check! Worried what others think? Check! People pleasing doesn’t have to be a life sentence. But, it is a very common problem. So you might be wondering: what makes a people pleaser? First, let’s make sure we’re talking about the same group of people. Take a minute to briefly review some common traits of people pleasing (aka, codependency, anxious attachment, nice girls/nice guys). Then we’ll shift to exploring what causes people pleasing. Check your knowledge Typically, people pleasers are… + afraid...
Read MoreA poem about therapy
Reclamation I spent the first four decades of my life At the mercy of my left hemisphere Bookended between two PhDs Hemmed in by syllabi Awards and expectations Nourished in a deep nest that loved learning I swam in books and libraries I learned from my betters And just now in the last few years Like so many strands of thread snipped and coming undone From the stitching across my life I find a new loom A new canvas A new way of being The wisdom that has always been there In my marrow The girl with too many words Found out she had just the right number after all Pouring them out an hour at a time Over and over again In a sacred, a most sacred, and loving...
Read MorePeople pleasing, attachment, and writing a book: a car ramble
Here’s what happens when I have time in the car to myself to think. If you’d like to learn a little bit more about attachment and people pleasing, take a listen. The first 30 seconds is me laughing at myself for setting rigid goals about word count for the book I’m writing. See full transcript below. NB: I was driving home from a training on parts work, so my brain was a little scrambled. https://labyrinth1.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/car_ramble.mp3 I think about the goal I had/have for 50,000 words, that feels like a very left-shifted goal. Words, how many of them, vs have you told the things you need to tell? So I’m just thinking...
Read MoreWhite therapists, talk to your white clients about race.
This video is for white therapists who are worried about following their client’s lead in session and refraining from talking about race in session because they are fearful about… therapeutic rupture or alienating their clients, betraying their training or theoretical orientation to practice in a client-centered way, or being unethical by imposing an agenda on their clients. Don’t have time to read this post? Here’s the gist: There are guidelines in every ethics code for psychologists, social workers, licensed professional counselors and marriage and family therapists about addressing racism and white privilege in session– even if it is...
Read MoreA therapist coping with coronavirus in Austin, Texas
This is a very strange season. Outside, the world is bursting with blooms and spring is here. And yet. And yet we have traded the usual springtime festivities for hunkering down and social distancing. Austin is a ghost town, as well it should be. The few times I have had reason to leave my house lately have been ordinary and jarring both at the same time. Grief catches me by the heel in small, unexpected ways. I cried at the lack of Austin traffic as I sped down I-35. It felt like I was making the commute I would have made back in 2000. I felt like I was outside of time, outside of the chronology of my own life. We are all in the soup together We all feel untethered at...
Read MoreInsecure attachment makes so much sense.
It’s easy to understand how insecure attachment gets a bad rap. There’s loads of research studies talking about the early negative and often lifelong impact of these relational styles. It impacts our social relationships, academic performance, rates of mental illness, and, to add salt to the wound, success rates in therapy. (Let’s appreciate the unfortunate irony of that last one for a moment.) So I’m not surprised that when you type ‘insecure attachment’ into google, the most commonly seen autocomplete threads say something like ‘do I have it’ and then ‘treatment’ … I get it. It’s a long list of consequences to something that gets...
Read MoreA common, hidden cause of depression and anxiety and burn out that 75% of us are doing: living left-shifted.
When we’re feeling miserable, it’s natural to go looking for a series of signs and symptoms. We want to explain things and get strategies to hoist us out of our pain. Most articles out there are going to explain symptoms of a toxic relationship, or the impact of your genetics and family history on your proneness to depression, or burn out, or stress. And that’s all very important context. But today, I want to write about a not-much-talked about source of some of our misery. Our brains… and more specifically, the way that our left hemisphere processes information. Now, before your eyes glaze over and you go off to read something more interesting, give me 30...
Read MoreWhat is secure attachment?
So, whether you’re in the field of psychology practicing as a therapist or just a person who’ve been reading books and hearing in podcasts about secure attachment, today I want to talk to you about what secure attachment is and how it impacts our lives from “the cradle to grave”– which is a quote from John Bowlby who is actually the father of attachment theory. So, when I talk about attachment and attachment theory, I want to be sure to be clear that this is different from attachment parenting which is a certain way of thinking about how to raise about children that draws some from attachment theory, but it’s a separate thing– so I want...
Read MoreWhat is EMDR therapy?
Today I want to talk to you about EMDR therapy, also known as eye movement desensitization reprocessing. So, what is EMDR and how does it work? EMDR was developed about 30 years ago by a psychologist, Francine Shapiro, totally by accident. She noticed as she was walking through a park that she was thinking about something distressing, and when she moved her eyes back and forth as she was thinking about the memory, she noticed her distress was lessening and she thought, “That’s interesting. Maybe I should leave this PhD program I’m in and go to pursue a PhD in psychology and study this further.” And that’s exactly what she...
Read MoreWhat causes people pleasing?
What causes people pleasing? I’m Ann Stoneson, I’m a therapist in private practice in Athens, Georgia. Today, I want to talk a little bit about the origin of people-pleasing. Most people when you ask them “Do you know what a people pleaser is?”— they can give you a pretty clear answer. It’s folks who have a hard time saying no and setting limits, they’re usually chronically oversubscribed, they really hate conflict and they worry a lot about what other people think of them. I really want to talk about where this problem comes from, because while people have talked a lot about this there are a number of key factors that work together to conspire to...
Read MoreAnxious Attachment Quiz: People pleasing vs codependency vs anxious attachment
Are you wondering if you have anxious attachment? Here’s a quick, extremely informal and homemade way to assess if your relationship style might lean toward anxious attachment (aka, preoccupied attachment or ambivalent attachment). This isn’t a formal assessment! You’d need to sit down with a mental health professional to discuss these matters in depth to know for certain—or have them administer an AAI (Adult Attachment Interview). A Very Not-Official Anxious Attachment Quiz Review the following items, making a note of each one that describes you well: I often end up in relationships where I seem more invested than the other person. In romantic relationships,...
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