Therapy Chat

Welcome back! In Episode 39 of Therapy Chat Podcast, host Laura Reagan, LCSW-C interviews Kat Love as the third installment in the practice building series. Kat Love is a website designer and founder of www.katlove.com. She specializes in helping therapists build websites with empathy and compassion. The focus is on speaking to clients in a way that expands our ability to be of service, whether by providing useful free information and resources on our websites, or by helping clients find us to begin therapy. Kat and Laura discuss some of the reasons that therapists may be hesitant to create websites, some of the mindset blocks that get in the way of creating a website that speaks to your clients, and overcoming these fears. You can find more of what Kat Love is doing at www.katlove.com and as always, please visit iTunes to leave a rating and review, subscribe to receive the latest episodes as soon as they are released, and you can also visit www.therapychat.com to download new and previous episodes. Enjoy! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome back to Therapy Chat! In Episode 38 host Laura Reagan, LCSW-C interviews Oakland, CA psychotherapist Renee Beck, LMFT. Renee specializes in dreamwork, tarot and transpersonal psychotherapy. In this episode she explains the shadow that is in all of us - the unconscious parts of ourselves which are hidden from our awareness. She describes how she works with her clients using dreamwork and tarot as well as other creative methods to bring the shadow to conscious awareness. She is available for clinical supervision in California and offers consultation on dreamwork and tarot anywhere in the world. She can be found at www.reneebeckmft.com. Hope you enjoy this episode and please visit iTunes to leave a rating and review and subscribe for all the latest episodes as soon as they're released! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome back to the Practice Building Series on Therapy Chat! In Episode 37, the second episode in the practice building series, you will hear Laura Reagan's episode with Joe Sanok, who is a podcaster, counselor, business coach and successful entrepreneur. Joe shares tons of tips and techniques for building a practice which runs effectively, efficiently and highly productively. Joe also offers several freebies for listeners! You can find more about Joe by visiting his website, www.practiceofthepractice.com and listening to his Practice of the Practice podcast on iTunes. And don't forget to visit Therapy Chat on iTunes to subscribe and leave a rating and review! Let us know what you think of this practice building series!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome to Episode 36 of Therapy Chat! In this episode, host Laura Reagan, LCSW-C interviews author and psychotherapist Tim Ambrose Desmond, LMFT. Tim is a student of Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn who wrote a book called Self Compassion in Psychotherapy: Mindfulness-Based Practices for Healing and Transformation. Laura and Tim discuss how he became interested in self compassion, how it has helped him, and how it can be used in psychotherapy. He explains concepts from the book. To learn more about Tim and try out his online course teaching self compassion, visit his website, http://www.timdesmond.net or visit Morning Sun Mindfulness Center online at http://www.morningsuncommunity.org to learn more about his work. Thanks for listening to Therapy Chat, and as always, please visit iTunes to leave a rating and review and subscribe to receive the latest episodes! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome back! In Episode 35, the first episode of the Practice Building Series, host Laura Reagan, LCSW-C speaks with counselor, coach and podcaster Colleen Mullen, PsyD, LMFT. Colleen is a psychologist and coach practicing in San Diego, CA and hosts a popular podcast called Coaching Through Chaos. She is also the co-host of a new podcast she will talk about in this episode. With so much going on, Colleen understands that burnout is an occupational hazard for entrepreneurs. She offers some ways to identify when you are at risk for burnout, and some strategies to avoid entrepreneur burnout. You can find out more about what Colleen is doing by visiting her website, www.coachingthroughchaos.com. Listen in on this conversation for some key points therapists need to think about when considering going into private practice. Enjoy! And please visit iTunes to leave a rating and review for Therapy Chat, as well as subscribing and downloading episodes! You can also listen and download episodes at www.therapychatpodcast.com. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome back to Therapy Chat! If you’re a therapist, my guest today is someone who needs no introduction. Dr. Dan Siegel is my guest, and he explains the concept of interpersonal neurobiology, the nature of the mind, integration and “Mwe”.He shares his story of becoming interested in the brain and the mind beginning in college, and continuing through his medical school training. He explains his disappointment at discovering in medical school in the late 1980’s that there did not seem to be a science of the mind that psychiatry was using to inform mental health work. He wanted to understand both how the body functions and how our mental lives play a part in keeping us alive.He explains that interpersonal neurobiology is not a branch of neurobiology, but a framework combining many disciplines including the mental health fields of psychology, psychiatry, counseling, social work, as well as sociology, philosophy, quantum physics, math and others to answer the question “what is the mind?” He explains that he has interviewed over 100,000 people and none of them had ever had any training in what the mind is, which is a real gap in knowledge considering that we in the mental health field are working in the mind. That is what our work is.He tells us that if the mind is where the self comes from, then the who, what, why, when and where can be deepened by asking the question about what the mind is, why it exists, where is it, what’s its function. Dan argues we need to understand the mind to understand all of these questions. He discusses this in depth in his new book, Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, which is coming out in Fall of 2016.He notes that the field called Philosophy of mind discourages asking what is the mind. Psychiatry doesn’t have a definition of the mind. Psychology doesn’t have a definition and says it’s a useful placeholder. What is a healthy mind? What’s a healthy thought? Some topics Dan discusses in this episode:Mind is not emotions in this definition. It includes emotions, feelings, anything you can be subjectively aware of.In Dan’s definition, consciousness, subjective experience and information processing are the 3 parts of the mind.He talks about how he noticed that what we call mental health disorders fit into a pattern of chaos and rigidity. In probability theory of math there was an area of study which related to this which states that a complex system has three characteristics: It’s open to influences from outside of self; capable of being chaotic and it’s non-linear.It’s a self organizing, embodied and relational process. This answer comes from math. He explains that in mental health, integration defines health.He states that the best definition of mental health is that the system is Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized and Stable (FACES).Where attention goes, neural firing flows, neural connection growsDan talks about how therapists can use these concepts to help clients live happier and more fulfilling lives, not just lives of being free from mental health symptoms. We had a very thought-provoking discussion and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.Links to resources mentioned in this episode:Wheel of Awareness practiceMindsightThe Mindful Therapist Norton Series on Interpersonal NeurobiologyThe Developing MindMind: A Journey to the Heart of Being HumanDan Siegel’s websiteI hope you enjoyed Episode 34 of Therapy Chat. I was so honored to interview Dr. Dan Siegel. As always, please visit iTunes to leave a rating and review, and subscribe to receive the latest episodes of Therapy Chat as soon as they are released!You can also listen on Stitcher and Google Play (available now!). And for more of what I'm doing, please  sign up for my newsletter. You can also sign up for information on my Daring Way™ offerings and other groups and workshops; sign up to receive the latest episodes of Therapy Chat when they're released; sign up to receive my latest blog posts when they are posted, and follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram & Google+. If you're a trauma therapist you may be interested in my new Trauma Therapist Community, forming now. Click here for the info. I look forward to connecting!  Wholeheartedly, Laura Reagan, LCSW-C    Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome! Today we’re discussing Perfectionism, Worthiness, and Self-Compassion. I’m using a personal example from my own experience as the basis for our discussion. Join me! What you’ll hear in this episode: The “growth ceiling” can cause anxiety as we exceed our expectations. As an example of a “growth ceiling,” I never imagined having a thriving full-time practice where I love going to work and serving my clients, or having a podcast, or interviewing prominent guests. Brene’ Brown refers to this as “foreboding joy,” the dread that “good things just can’t happen for me.” The solution to these attitudes is to stay in the moment and to realize that no one is more worthy of good things than another. Kristin Neff identifies Three Elements of Self-Compassion: Self-Kindness Common Humanity Mindfulness Scarcity—What does it mean to operate from this focus? My personal example is when I was overjoyed to interview Dr. Dan Seigel for the podcast. Listen in to hear the disastrous story of my recording attempt! I normally would have felt like a failure and gone into a shame spiral, but instead, I was able to think, “How lucky I am to have had that beautiful conversation with Dr. Seigel!” My Self-Compassion practice has allowed me to have this incredibly different attitude and retain my sense of worthiness. I had to contact Dr. Seigel and request to re-record the conversation, which will be a soon upcoming episode. Self-Compassion has truly changed my life. “I’m human. Stuff happens. We recover, and it’s OK.” Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Dr. Kristin Neff You may want to become part of my Trauma Therapist Community, where therapists will share collective wisdom and strategies. Sign up at laurareaganlcswc.com.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome! My guest for this episode is Dr. Andrea Brandt, a psychotherapist, speaker, and author who has much knowledge and experience to bring to the table. Her book, Mindful Anger: A Pathway to Emotional Freedom, explores revolutionary thinking on the topic of anger. Join us as we discuss mindful anger.What you’ll hear in this episode:Mindfulness and anger are not usually thought of as partners.Anger is almost always viewed as a negative emotion.“The Pleasure Principle” that humans live by teaches us to avoid anger.The goal? To get wisdom from your angerAnger helps us set boundaries, meet needs, and accomplish change.Andrea shares a personal example from her own family, where a passive-aggressive approach to anger stemmed from the murder of her grandfather by the Chicago mob in the 1920’s!Andrea later went through therapy and learned to get in touch with her feelings.She remembers being startled by the power of the energy in tandem with anger.“Anger is a very corrosive emotion if you don’t have the tools to deal with it.”Conflict and anger CAN strengthen relationships and don’t have to destroy them.Andrea shares how she uses snowglobe imagery to help clients deal with anger with mindfulness.“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: how our anger belief systems are learned during childhood.Andrea’s book can help with anger in the following ways:Deepening your understanding of angerLearning new ways of perceiving and dealing with angerUsing exercises to learn to benefit from angerLearning how to catch the impulse of angerRealizing what your triggers to anger areLearning to use assertive communicationUsing mindfulness and meditations in response to angerHelping passive-aggressive people deal with anger more directly“It’s not ANGER that needs to be managed, but the impulse that precedes the anger.”“Passive-aggressive people are deeply committed to INACTION.”Andrea discusses the mind-body connection to anger.How sensorimotor psychotherapy can be effective and powerful in dealing with angerConnect with Dr. Brandt at abrandtherapy.com or email her at abrandt@abrandtherapy.com. Find her book on Amazon!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome to this episode. Our topic is Mother’s Day and why it can be tough for some people. In fact, some people hate Mother’s Day because of a history of childhood emotional neglect, abuse, or trauma. Know that you’re not alone and that many people have mixed feelings about this holiday. Let’s discuss it! What you’ll hear in this episode:I hear four reasons from clients as to why Mother’s Day can be tough:  “My mom isn’t here and I miss her.” Solution: Find ways to honor your feelings and her memory. “I’m dealing with infertility.” Solution: Celebrate however YOU want, even if it’s unconventional. “My childhood included neglect, abuse, or trauma.” Solution: Do what makes you feel special and nurtured. “I’m a single mom who is unsupported EVERY day of the year.” Solution: Reach out to a friend who is also a single mom. I have two recommendations that might help deal with a difficult Mother’s Day: Avoid social media on Mother’s Day and the day after. Try a little self-nurturing lovingkindness meditation: Called “metta,” it includes simple breathing awareness and the repeated phrases, “May I be safe, May I be happy, May I be kind to myself, and May I be free of suffering.” Remember, you are NOT alone. Therapy can help! Visit laurareaganlcswc.com/mindfulness for two free downloads and meditation help.                 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

This is Part 2 of a series about Sexual Assault Awareness, and today’s focus is on Childhood Sexual Abuse. Let’s jump right into our topic!What you’ll hear in this episode:Childhood Sexual Abuse is “a form of child abuse including sexual activity with a minor who is not capable of consenting.” Remember that a child CANNOT give consent to sexual activity!Childhood Sexual Abuse is not always physical contact, but can include digital/online interaction, fondling, exhibitionism, child pornography, sex trafficking, and much more.In 93% of cases, the sexual abuser of a child is someone known to the child or the family.Most statistics under-represent the frequency of occurrence, but 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys will be sexually abused during childhood.Up to 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males have been sexually abused during childhood.Being abused makes it more likely to be sexually assaulted later in life.Most offenders are male, with about 33% being juveniles.There is a “grooming process” used by the abuser to draw the child into a sexual relationship, and usually, the abuser will fill roles of trust and value in the victim’s family.The effects of childhood sexual abuse are emotional problems, mental health issues, behavioral problems, and academic problems.The effects can also include PTSD, depression, anxiety, suicide, and eating disorders.Many times these behaviors are not recognized as signs of sexual abuse.Protect children by showing interest in their lives, knowing the people in their lives, and knowing caregivers especially well.Background checks and the sex offender registry are NOT foolproof!Know the warning signs, both physical and behavioral.Know how to ask questions to the child and how to respond without judgment and blame.Report abuse to the police or to Child Protective Services.Call the Child Help National Abuse Hotline: 1-800-422-4453Help is available at sexual abuse crisis centers. Visit centers.rainn.org and search by zip code.Be sure to find a therapist with specific training in the field of sexual abuse. Not all therapists are qualified to help in all areas.Other resources include: victimsofcrime.org and www.rainn.org.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands