Jaime Gleicher Tag

One of the main assumptions in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is that we are all doing the best we can, AND also, we need to do better and try harder. This is acceptance and change. There is almost always questioning about this from clients, and rightfully so. 
As a DBT therapist who leads three skills groups at Hartstein Psychological in addition to seeing individual clients, I have taught the Distress Tolerance ACCEPTS skills too many times to count throughout my career and have used them even more in my own life (they work!).
I’ve been thinking a lot about dialectics during this Pandemic. If you are new to Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a dialectic is defined in DBT as two truths that coexist, even if they seem opposite. The dialectic that strikes me the most is the truth that we are seemingly living in very primitive times with a virus that has no known cure, even though we are so technologically advanced.
With the emergence of Coronavirus, it’s safe to say that we are all a little anxious as we approach a changing world and the unknown. While there are many articles out there about managing the anxiety and fear of COVID-19, I thought it would be important to take a look at some psychological strategies from Dialectical Behavior Therapy to help us cope.
Come summertime, it seems like every website or magazine compiles a list of the best "Summer Reads".  I don’t know about you, but I love them. I always look forward to having more time to curl up with a good book, especially when I am anticipating more free time, and preferably if that free time takes place on a beach.
In the summer, everything tends to be more beautiful; there are beautiful sunsets, beautiful vacations, beautiful evenings spent eating and drinking al fresco, beautiful beaches, beautiful bodies in beautiful bathing suits, and so on. However, exploring social media can make this worse.
The holiday season can bring up a plethora of emotions for all of us and these emotions can be positive, negative, and everything in between. All these emotions, combined with seasonal triggers, can make for some very overwhelming thoughts and can leave us prone to mood swings and emotional dysregulation. While people mean well this time of year, hearing "Happy Holidays!" over and over again can feel a bit invalidating or can invoke feelings like sadness or disappointment if life hasn’t felt so happy lately.
As human beings in a busy world, we want quick fixes for things and we want them… yesterday! And, who could blame us? We are spoiled in many ways when it comes to problem solving, efficiency and instant gratification. And, as such, we don’t have to put in that much effort.
Crying is most commonly defined as the action of shedding tears as an expression of distress or pain. It can also be the action of expression of any emotion felt: happiness, anxiety, frustration, fear–the list goes on. It is the human body’s natural release of the strong feelings that we all, inevitably, feel.
As any high school senior knows, the start of spring does not necessarily call to mind flowers and warmer weather. It means a plethora of emotions such as excitement, anxiety and fear; followed by emails, envelopes from colleges, and then more emotions. Spring is “college admissions decision time” and the focus of high school seniors is on determining which college or university is best for them and how they will spend the next four years.
The other night, I found myself Googling "What is Wellness?" I thought this was kind of funny, considering that I think psychotherapy most definitely falls into part of a "wellness" routine; yet I was getting confused. Scrolling through my Instagram feed, the hashtag #wellness was coming up often (there are 16 million posts tagged with the term and counting), and it was making me question what that actually meant.
With many of my clients transitioning from middle school to high school this past year, there has been a common theme with parents scrambling to put rules and guidelines in place. As a result, their teenagers are protesting: "I’m in high school! Why do I have MORE rules? That doesn’t make sense!"