The 3 O's of Mindfulness - Episode 21
Everything is Psychological
In this episode we continue our discussion of mindfulness. We start to delve into the details of how to begin the practice of mindfulness. This practice enables us to become more aware of our experiences, our feelings, and our thoughts. If we want to make changes for ourselves we must first become aware of the things we need to change. Increasing awareness is our first step to change. Mindfulness will help us with this. Dan Siegel () suggests we engage in a process of observance, objectivity, and openness. We observe our feelings and thoughts, we are objective about them, and then we are open...
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Prioritizing the Authentic Relationship - Episode 20
Everything is Psychological
In this episode we continue the discussion of prioritizing, but we shift to how the emphasizing of one thing over another can relate to our relationships. When make one relationship the priority, and focus our energy and efforts on one relationship over others we can improve all of our relationships one at a time. It is not possible to make significant improvements in relationships when we are multitasking people. We have to prioritize even for a short period of time to make substantial games in any relationship. ...
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Priorities - Episode 19
Everything is Psychological
We are back from a 3 month hiatus with episode 19. Life's priorities moved me away from the podcast for a while, but now I am up and running again. I hope to keep the episodes coming every week to 2 weeks. The focus of the podcast will remain psychological in nature with a shift at times to the integration of spirituality and psychology. ...
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Positive Psychology - Episode 18
Everything is Psychological
Psychology is a part of the healthcare field. The healthcare field is oriented towards pathology. It is about what is wrong with us. When you go to your primary care physician they ask you what's wrong, you tell them the symptoms, they give a diagnosis a treatment. You don't go to the PCP because you're healthy. It's the same with the psychologist. Most people go because they have a problem. We diagnosis and provide a treatment. The focus is on what is wrong with individuals. We try to alleviate symptoms. We don't focus on what is right with everyone. What if we did? I believe we can make a...
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Evaluating for Special Education - Episode 17
Everything is Psychological
Psychology includes a wide variety of types. One type of psychology is school psychology. The school psychologist primarily works at an elementary or high school. They provide various services including counseling, crisis intervention, consultation, and psychological evaluation. In this episode we talk about the roles of the school psychologist, and we focus specifically on the psychological evaluation portion of their duties. In the school world the evaluation is called a psychoeducational evaluation. We will discuss the process to have a student referred for an evaluation, and then what are...
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Getting to Know Your Anxiety - Part 4
Everything is Psychological
The fourth part of four episodes on anxiety. The workshop has wrapped up, and we are reviewing what was presented at the workshop here in episode 16. The workshop at St. Peter's Episcopal average around 25 people per week. There was a lot of positive feedback about the presentations. I hope to be able to do more workshops in the future. If your group is interested in a presentation on anxiety, depression, relationships, parent/child communication, or a wide variety of content about psychology let me know. I'd be happy to present depending on the schedule. ...
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Getting to Know Your Anxiety - Part 3 of 4
Everything is Psychological
We continue our discussion of getting to know our anxiety. This episode looks at anxiety as something to be embraced. The conversation starts with looking at the words of Jesus. He promises that life is full of trials, but that we aren't alone. We are to embrace the anxious experiences, and through those experiences we go through we will find success. ...
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Getting to Know Your Anxiety - Part 2 of 4
Everything is Psychological
In this episode we continue the discussion of anxiety and how to manage it in one's life. We are keeping with the concept that we want to embrace our anxiety instead of deny it and ignore it. In the last episode we learned more about our anxiety to help it be our frenemy instead of our enemy. In this episode we start to look at some practical ways to manage the anxiety. We review the biological causes, and then cover three techniques. ...
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Getting to Know Your Anxiety - Part 1 of 4
Everything is Psychological
In this episode we are learning more about what is anxiety. Most of the time we see anxiety as an enemy. It lurks in the shadows. It's a monster that keeps up paralyzed, and holds us captive from engaging in our lives in a full and meaningful way. What we want to do is move our anxiety from enemy to frenemy to friend. This means we need to get to know anxiety in a more intimate way. We need to bring it out of the shadows, and see it for what it is. ...
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More About Spirituality in Therapy - Episode 12
Everything is Psychological
Episode 12 is focused on a question from listener. There was a request to follow up the spirituality in therapy discussion with, "what would I do with a client from something other than Christian?" My answer is that i approach therapy for each client in the same manner from a client centered approach. The focus of therapy is what the client wants to talk about. If they want to discuss religion that becomes the focus because they are steering the conversation that way. If they are going deep into the background of a faith I am not familiar with then I might refer to a therapist more...
info_outlineIn Episode 5 we discuss Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. We review the symptoms, treatment, and go over examples. OCD is more than having to be on time every where, or organizing your music collection alphabetically by genre.
We also look at the recent news from American Psychological Association, and how individuals within the professional organization were involved in consulting with the Department of Defense on torture during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Check out the New York Times article for more information.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is when an individual is overcome with an unwanted thought, or feels compelled to do an unwanted action. This thought or action takes up significant parts of their day, and interferes with their day to day life. It is characterized by the following symptoms:
Obsessions — unwanted intrusive thoughts
- Constant, irrational worry about dirt, germs, or contamination.
- Excessive concern with order, arrangement, or symmetry.
- Fear that negative or aggressive thoughts or impulses will cause personal harm or harm to a loved one.
- Preoccupation with losing or throwing away objects with little or no value.
- Excessive concern about accidentally or purposefully injuring another person.
- Feeling overly responsible for the safety of others.
- Distasteful religious and sexual thoughts or images.
- Doubting that is irrational or excessive.
Compulsions — ritualistic behaviors and routines to ease anxiety or distress
- Cleaning — Repeatedly washing one’s hands, bathing, or cleaning household items, often for hours at a time.
- Checking — Checking and re-checking several to hundreds of times a day that the doors are locked, the stove is turned off, the hairdryer is unplugged, etc.
- Repeating — Inability to stop repeating a name, phrase, or simple activity (such as going through a doorway over and over).
- Hoarding — Difficulty throwing away useless items such as old newspapers or magazines, bottle caps, or rubber bands.
- Touching and arranging
- Mental rituals — Endless reviewing of conversations, counting; repetitively calling up “good” thoughts to neutralize “bad” thoughts or obsessions; or excessive praying and using special words or phrases to neutralize obsessions.
The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 2.2 million adults in the US suffer from OCD which is less than 1%. It is equal in men and women, and about 1/3 of people develop symptoms as children or adolescents.
Check out these sites for more information.