When I redesigned this web site a few months ago, one of the prime motivators for me was to include a blog. And yet, when I look at my productivity over the weeks and months since it’s been in place, I find it lacking. So here I admit that writing is a struggle for me. It’s odd since I spend my days immersed in language. But I find the spoken word and the written word to be totally different forms, and I much prefer speaking to writing.

My lack of output is not for a lack of time or intention. I guess if I had to be perfectly honest, there’s a big dose of fear about “failure”. I just don’t have a lot of confidence about myself as a writer. The “not good enough” thought arises with more frequency than I would like to admit. The fact that the thought arises isn’t necessarily the problem; the fact that I listen to it, believe what it says, and allow it to alter my behavior is the problem.

Enough with all of that! With today’s post I will recommit to writing something for this blog as I had originally intended: one post per week. If I fail, then it will be more grist for the mill, but if I succeed, then perhaps everyone wins.

Wish me luck!

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the annual American Mental Health Counselors Conference that was held in Boston this year and the keynote speaker was Barbara Fredrickson, PhD. She is a Professor of Psychology and principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory (a.k.a. PEP Lab) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She wrote the book Positivity and on the Positivity website (www.positivityratio.com) she writes:

“We all know negativity; it looms large and is easy to spot. Negativity pervades your self-talk and your judgments. It bleeds into exchanges with your kids and your colleagues, eroding goodwill. Making matters worse, negativity breeds health-damaging negative emotions – like anger, contempt, and depression – which seep into your entire body. You can feel the simmering bitterness eating away at your stomach, raising your blood pressure, and turning your shoulder and neck muscles to stone.

But what about positivity?
 Can it transform our lives?
 And what is positivity, anyway?

For more than twenty years, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson has researched these questions. What she discovered and teaches has made her a luminary in psychology and beyond. Now, in Positivity, she shares how experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio to negative emotions leads people to achieve what they once could only imagine. Far from frivolous, tapping into one’s own unique sources of positivity is a wise and healthy investment in the future.”

Her point was simple. Positive emotions, even brief moments of low grade positivity, can have a significant impact on well being and mental health. And according to Barbara, one of the primary ways to achieve positivity is meditation!

On the Positivityratio web site, there is an online tool that allows you to assess your own positivity ratio. I think the book, and the web site, are worth checking out.

A fascinating video about time.  Check it out.

I’m pleased to announce on this blog page the expansion of my private practice as of June 1, 2010.  For the last eight years I had been splitting my time between this practice and a part time psychotherapist position at Fenway Health in the Behavioral Health Department.  My last day at Fenway was this past Friday and my full time practice begins in earnest Tuesday!

It has been a long time coming—this full time private practice—and so many people have been helpful in getting me to this point.  I can’t highlight everyone, but I would like to call out just a few.  To Walter Hildner, my friend and colleague, who first rented me office space in this same building, and to Dave Shannon, another friend and colleague, who inspired me by leading the way into his own full time private practice and who held my hand with gentle guidance and direction.

My hope and prayer is that I may continue to serve all my clients in this practice towards reaching their goals to end suffering and to improve the quality of their lives.

In the March 15 issue of Newsweek, Sharon Begley wrote an article titled “This Won’t Hurt A Bit; How we can save billions by cutting out unnecessary procedures that kill tens of thousands a year”.  In the article, Begley references the overuse of expensive—and potentially damaging—X-rays and MRI’s for lower back pain.  She writes:

“about 80 percent of adults over 40 have a bulge or other deformation in their lower back that makes surgeons think “operate”—but no pain.  So when such an “abnormality” shows up on a CT or MRI, attributing a patient’s pain to it is probably nonsense.  In fact, the vast majority of lower back pain is caused by muscle sprains and strains that don’t show up on scans, and for which surgery is no more effective (and is more dangerous) than over-the-counter pain meds, time, rest, and exercise”.

She continues by stating the fact that most lower back pain resolves itself in six weeks.

I chose this article to reference in today’s blog entry because I know something about lower back pain.  My first experience with lower back pain was when I was thirteen years old.  It was my Bar Mitzvah, a big, elaborate event in my honor that was no small source of stress for me.  Apparently, it was the first time my body decided to somaticize the stress, but it wouldn’t be the last by far.  Throughout the years, my body has found ingenious ways to bring to my attention something that I wasn’t dealing with very well on an emotional or psychological level.  But it took a long time to figure out that that’s what was happening to me.

John Sarno, MD, author of “Healing Back Pain” helped elucidate for me the concepts of somaticized back pain and how to address it and I’ve tried to apply those insights with my clients.  Many of my clients present with chronic somatic symptoms that I suspect have an underlying psychological or emotional component.  It’s not always easy to look at that pain as a message from the unconscious inviting oneself to look more deeply within.  But as I often suggest to my clients, which pain would you prefer, the physical discomfort of back pain, or the emotional pain that lies just beneath and which you seem to be avoiding?  When looked at in this light, clients are often more willing to look at, and feel, the emotional discomfort that they might otherwise prefer to avoid.

I’ve been away on vacation (nothing like a little Caribbean sun to make the end of winter pass more quickly!) and I’ve been a bit negligent on my blogging duties. I’ll try to post a bit more regularly to catch up.

I’ve come across an interesting web site that offers a free personality test that appears fairly accurate and reliable. You can check it out for yourself at the following link http://www.personalitytest.net/

Enjoy the testing!

Ok, the truth is, this whole blog thing isn’t as much fun as I had hoped.  It’s the not the writing part.  It’s the tech stuff behind the curtain.  I’m tech illiterate if anyone was wondering.  My web master is also new to the whole blog thing, so we’re trying to figure things out together.  My hope is to have this page look just like the rest of my website and I’m confident that we’re going to get there.  In the mean time, please be patient with these aesthetics and I’ll be posting something more substantive in the coming weeks, so check back soon, and thanks for visiting!