1step2life
One of the best things I learned when my son became ill with chronic migraines was patience. That and teamwork. The Doctors will tell you that adolescents with migraines have to keep interacting with the world. That is really difficult for parents to get their heads around. Kids have to keep going to school even […]
Two weeks post-vaccine, it’s been liberating getting out of the house. Even walks in the woods seem freer, less worried about folks strolling by mask-less and much too close. I am excited about chatting with folks at the dog park – still socially distanced and faces obscured. It felt ridiculously friendly to have a face-to-masked […]
Physics has gravity (it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law). Psychology has learning theory. The basic ideas behind learning theory are deceptively simple: If you are rewarded for something you will do it more often. If you are punished for something, you will do do it less often. If something bad is happening […]
Last year, I wrote an essay called What’s Working? A 5-Minute Exercise for a Better Life for Psychology Today. Although everything else seems to have changed since last year, the ideas in that essay have not. Today, I want to talk about using it to take a few steps forward that will make your next year better. […]
Platitudes can hurt people in pain just as much as illness.
Acute pain is protective. With chronic pain, the pain itself becomes the disease.
Faking being sick? I’m faking being well. And not that successfully.
Pain, stress, and emotional distress are in the mind, but express themselves in physical tension. You can feel it in that tight neck, those stiff shoulders, and in that clenched jaw and hands. Notice that your back teeth hurt just a little? Feel that twinge between your shoulders? Back ache just a bit? The relationship is […]
Four strategies to organize work and decrease anxiety.
It feels good to be recognized for being strong. Because overcoming obstacles is hard. Especially when many of those obstacles are not something that most people even see as an obstacle – like making it from your bed to the couch. Overcoming obstacles can reveal strength in us we never knew we had, shape us […]
Concrete tips on moving a teen in pain out of bed and towards functioning.