Autism

Autism is a challenging diagnosis for a family.  It is more and more common and unknown as to why:

A good book is Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew by Veronica Zysk

1. I am a whole child

2. My senses are out of sync

3. Distinguish between wont and cant

4.  I am a concrete thinker; I interpret language literally.

5.  Listen to all the ways I’m trying to communicate

6. Picture this.  I am visually oriented

7.  Focus and build on what I can do rather than what I can’t

8.  Help me with social interactions

9. Identify what triggers my meltdowns.

10.  Love me unconditionally.

For more help with autism go to your local regional center and visit the Autism Society of Los Angeles or the county in which you live.

For more help with the emotional aspects of this condition and for help with parenting go to http://www.mhurreltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.

Post Romantic Stress Disorder

A new book by John Bradshaw is Post Romantic Stress Disorder

Four degrees of PRSD

The first degree covers the sense of shame that is experienced when an in-love trance is broken by diminished sexual desire in one partner.  The second degree comprises the no-listen, no-talk, and no-feel.  Conflict resolution is judgmental shaming, which triggers constant defensiveness, and creates distance and “dissmell”.  Intimacy is avoided and both partners do things to create separation.  Third degree of PRSD is slow withdrawal from each other, avoidance of sex with the partner, possible sex addiction and/or affairs.  The marriage becomes boring and unhappy.  The fourth degree of PRSD involves the rejected spouse/lover.  They remain in the throes of the romance program and refuse to accept that their marriage or love affair is over.  This may cause the rejected person to put their life on hold obsessing over the love object, and may result in desparate measures to be with the person including threatening suicide, battering, stalking, hypervigilant mate guarding, physical and emotional abuse, and sometimes even murder.

It is obviously very important to realize what is going on especially in the fourth stage and get professional help if necessary rather than resorting to measures that would result in legal or other personal problems.

if you need help go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.

Life Isn’t Fair

From Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Surrender to the Fact that Life Isn’t Fair.  Here’s what Richard Carlson says,

“One of the mistakes many of us make is that we feel sorry for ourselves, or for others, thinking that life should be fair, or that someday it will be.  It’s not and it won’t.  When we make this mistake we tend to spend a lot of time wallowing and/or complaining about what’s wrong with life. We commiserate with others, discussing the injustices of life.  “It’s not fair,” we complain, not realizing that, perhaps, it was never intended to be.”

The sooner we let go of the idea that life is fair, the earlier we live in reality, and do our best to keep going rather than playing the victim and withdrawing from life.  LIFE IS HARD!  We have to honor the struggle and how it toughens us.  The beauty of a diamond is a direct result of all the pressure and obstacles the carbon is put through.  We are DIAMONDS in the making.  We have to learn from our mistakes and have grace and forgiveness for ourselves.  Respect the process, laugh at ourselves and our circumstances, see the good in everything, and turn problems into solutions.  Make lemonade out of the lemons in your life.

for more ideas on how to stay positive amist the turmoil and chaos go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.

Spend a Moment Every Day thinking of Someone to Thank

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff is a great antidote for stress.

From DSSS:

This simple strategy, which may take only a few seconds to complete has long been one of the most important habits I have ever engaged in.  I try to remember to start my day thinking of someone to thank.  To me, gratitude and inner peace go hand in hand.  The more genuinely grateful I feel for the gift of my life, the more peaceful I feel.  Gratitude, then, is worthy of a little practice.

I learned a long time ago that it’s easy to allow my mind to slip into various forms of negativity.  When I do, the first thing that leaves me is my sense of gratitude.  I begin to take the people in my life for granted, and the love that I often feel is replaced with resentment and frustration.  What this exercise reminds me to do is to focus on the good in my life.  Invariably as I think of one person to feel gratitude for, the image of another person pops into my head, then another and another.  Pretty soon I’m thinking of other things to be grateful for–my health, my children, my home, my career, the readers of my books, my freedom, and on and on it goes.”

Practice gratitude and see how your life soars and negativity subsides and you see abundance in every area of your life – career, health, and relationships.  Having an attitude of gratitude magnitizes all the good of the universe to you!!

for more ideas go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.

Remembering to Give Gratitude

From The Handbook of Happiness by Mayo Clinic

Make a collage of pictures of the most important people in your life and post it on your bedroom wall so that you see it first thing in the morning.  It will cue you to start your day with gratitude.  If creating a collage takes too much effort, write the word gratitude on two sticky notes and post one on the bedroom wall and the other on the bathroom mirror.  If you see the bathroom note before thinking about gratitude, go back to bed and start over.

for more tips on having joyful attention and being grateful to improve your outlook on life and see more results in all areas go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.

Joyful Attention

This is from the Mayo clinic book Handbook for Happiness

Joyful Attention

Phase I:  Train It

Four to twenty-four weeks depending on your effort and natural attention skills.

Practice joyful attention three or four times a day during the Train It phase.  The best times include when waking up in the morning, at breakfast, at the start of a meeting, while listening to a presentation, durikng lunch, while connecting with nature, when arriving home from work, at family time in the evening, at the dinner tables, before you go to sleep, or in church.

Three practices:

Wake up with Gratitude and in the Moment

-start my day with five thoughts of gratitude

-feel the floor under my feet

-be aware of something interesting int he bathroom

-pause during my shower to enjoy water on my skin

-imagine grace flowing into my home with water

Attend to Nature

-spend quality time in the backyard

-visit a playground

-walk in my neighborhood

-get to know a tree

-attend to a flower

-appreciate indoor artwork

Heartfully meet my Loved Ones and Friends

-pay attention to what makes them unique

-appreciate transience

-try not to change others

-keep flexible preferences

-be cheerful when I meet my loved ones

-find reasons to praise them

for more ideas about practicing joyful attention go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.

Nonviolent communication

Four steps to expressing anger from Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg

1. Stop.  Breathe.

2.  Identify our judgmental thoughts.

3.  connect with our needs

4.  Express our feelings and unmet needs in a nonviolent way.

The important thing is to come from understanding and nonviolence, do not attack or blame, or come from judgment.  Connect with the person and see the humanity in the other person and see the connection you have with the other person.

for more help with anger go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.

Mark L. Hurrell, LMFT

Educational psychologist

Handbook for Happiness

There is a new Handbook for Happiness by Amit Sood, M.D.

The 4 step plan is as follows:

Train Your Attention

Cultivate Emotional Resilience

Start a Mind-Body Practice

Pick Healthy Habits

In subsequent blogs this steps will be further explained.  For happiness listen to the Pharrell song and go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022 for assistance.

Getting Past Your Past

Another technique for dealing with painful memories is the Floatback Technique

As you think of the negative cognition and the recent event, hold them both in mind.  Where do you feel it in your body?

As you think of the recent incident and the negative cognition, notice the feelings in your body, and let your mind float back to childhood.  What memory comes to mind when you felt that way?  If something automatically comes to mind, then write it down in your Memory column along with your age and the SUDS level.

U&sing cue words, list the earliest memories and the ones with the highest SUDs level.

Place them in the Memory column opposite the recent event.  For more help with traumatic memories go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.

The Anatomy of Hope

Jerome Groopman, M.D. wrote the book Anatomy of Hope.  Here are some insights he shared in that book.

When he performs his examination and reviews results he looks for hope.  He writes, “Hope is as vital to our lives as the very oxygen that we breathe.”  The question he asks is why do some people find and hold onto hope whiles others do not.  For some their vision is blurred because they believe they are unable to have control over their circumstances.  “Helping them find hope harks back to the two elements of the emotion that Richard Davidson discussed: a cognitive, or informational one, and an affective or feeling one.  For physicians to impart hope they have to believe it themselves.”  Often other patients who can speak from personal experience are the best people to instill hope.

Dr. Groopman says that an equilibrium must be maintained between the threats and dangers and the strategies to eliminate or mitigate these threats and dangers.  Dr. Groopman says that hope is the very heart of healing.

My practice incorporates the hope that Dr. Groopman talks about as well as the laughter, mindfulness, imagery of healing that are talked about by Norman Cousins, Bernie Siegel, O. Carl Simonton, Jeanne Achterberg, Louise Hay, Deepak Chopra and many others.  My role is to help people manage or heal from their physical illnesses through dealing with the psychological variables that are part of a physical illness.  By approach is biopsychosocial and includes the spiritual aspects of a person.

For help with your healing or that of a loved one, please go to http://www.mhurrelltherapy.com or call 310-802-4022.