Written By Julie Terraciano, MFT

What are the signs that we are arriving at burnout stage? Why might we allow ourselves to get there before we are truly conscious that we have over-extended ourselves?  What little “vacations” or breathers might be helpful throughout the year to refresh us?

Since this is vacation season, I have been contemplating these questions as I work with clients and listen to conversations outside the office. It is human nature to seek renewal. Current brain research supports this as well.

Apparently, the brain thrives with: proper hydration, good diet, rest, love (including friendship), exercise, creativity and novelty.  Taking ourselves out of our element, out of town, out of state, wherever we might find different activities and different perspectives can be good for our bodies and our souls.

If we are fortunate enough to visit a different culture and lucky enough to immerse ourselves in different ways of being and thinking, these experiences can leave us feeling enlightened. If we can manage to have healthy visits with family or friends, we can return refreshed. If we go away to take part in workshops to pursue our passions, we can restore our energy. 

When we don’t have the luxury to take the big trip, little road trips can be helpful. Visiting a friend in a nearby town or another part of the state can give us the change of venue that can support new ways of thinking about old problems.

In therapy, clients sometimes talk about being stuck…in their work, in a relationship, in the way they see themselves, the way they relate to their families, the way they communicate. As their therapist, part of my role is to help them look at these challenges differently, based on what they are telling me and what I sense from their words and their presence in the room. 

There are times in all of our experiences when we need a break from our usual way of doing things, our customary way of thinking. I often suggest that clients breathe when faced with a dilemma. Pursuing our own forms of meditation….drawing, writing, music, dance, yoga…all help us breathe differently. Conscious breathing can provide little vacations from habitual ways of being, relief from the annoying and the sometimes terrible challenges that we all come across in our lives.       

Written By Terry Potente, LCSW

Like all human endeavors, the practice of psychotherapy has ups and downs, trends and reactions. Since the expanding practice of psychotherapy began in cities at mid 20th century, much has come and gone and come back again. Prior to the professionalization of psychotherapy, mental health treatment was handled by a medicine man, minister, midwife or wise person in the local community who knew the troubled person and the context of the problem. The relationship was intense, personal and often a mix of religion and theater. This is still the norm in many parts of the world.

Universally, an essential element in mental health treatment is the relationship of therapist to client. In the early post war years, psychoanalysis was the trend and the therapist was a figure in the background. Passive, unexpressive, the relationship of the therapist to patient was that of a mirror or blank slate. In extreme reaction to that model came innovators. For example, Murray Bowen out of Georgetown and Salvatore Minuchin out of Philadelphia developed schools in which the therapist was directive, involved, opinionated, and quite intrusive. and often dramatic. The persona and role of the therapist was large. Bowen would hospitalize entire families to challenge behavior and communication patterns of family members. Munuchin set up reenactments in which he would direct the action and responses of family members. Individual psychiatric hospitalization or medication was considered extremely passé.

With another turn of events, the concept of "chemical imbalance" defined mental health problems and medication became the therapist with the actual therapist as a prescriber or a referral to a prescriber of meds. The act of talking to a therapist was considered a fairly useless means of treating mental illness or mental problems, very passé. very undramatic and "scientific".

Yet there was always a counter culture of practice. Virginia Satir, flamboyant and caring, promoted healthy relationships as the key to mental health even in the face of insults by peers. Jungians continued to practice deep, spiritually based, talk therapy. Relationship between client/patient and therapist was the important element. The more intuitive, relational style was sought out by seekers but wasn't considered "scientific" by the medical elite. Yet therapists, perhaps guiltily at times, sought a deeply relational practice, in which empathy, attachment and atunement made the work more satisfying and intuitively successful.

Written By Elaine Chan-Scherer, LCSW

Our lives are full of beginnings and endings.  I used to hate endings.  But I am beginning to see how important it is to end, so that something else can begin.  We see this in nature – after summer we have fall and winter.  We begin and end a school year, or a calendar year.  I am writing this as the year of the Tiger ends and the year of the Rabbit begins.  When this article is printed, it will be the season when Christians contemplate the last part of Jesus’ human life.  We need to end one thing to make space for another thing to emerge.

John O’Donohue, in his wonderful book of blessings called To Bless the Space Between Us, introduces his chapter called “Beyond Endings” with these words:

“Often what alarms us as an ending can in fact be the opening of a new journey - a new beginning that we could never have anticipated; one that engages forgotten parts of the heart.  Due to the current overlay of therapy terminology in our language, everyone now seems to wish for "closure".  This word is unfortunate; it is not faithful to the open-ended rhythm of experience.  Creatures made of clay with porous skin and porous minds are quite incapable of the hermetic sealing that the strategy of "closure" seems to imply.  The word completion is a truer word.  Each experience has within it a dynamic of unfolding and a narrative of emergence.  Oscar Wilde once said, "The supreme vice is shallowness.  Whatever is realized is right."  When a person manages to trust experience and be open to it, the experience finds its own way to realization.  Though such an ending may be awkward and painful, there is a sense of wholesomeness and authenticity about it.  Then the heart will gradually find that this stage has run its course and the ending is substantial and true.  Eventually the person emerges with a deeper sense of freedom, certainty, and integration.”

When coming upon the ending of a particularly life-nurturing relationship for me, O’Donohue’s idea of “completion” was helpful.  I could feel “complete” instead of holding on to the idea that I was missing a part of me.  Something in the relationship, and in me, was now “complete.”  This is different from the idea of “closure” which allows less access into the richness of my past interactions.  

It is easier when “completions” occur by our choice.  However, even in endings that are not by choice, this sense of “completion” can be authentic.  It may take longer to feel complete, but it is possible.  Different layers are a part of this completion process.  My father died when I was a teenager.  Decades later, I am still discovering subtle layers of understanding that contribute to “completion” and wholeness.

We often help our clients in this process of completion.   The process involves creating space and safety for any unprocessed feelings to emerge.  We create this space and safety through deep listening.  The client feels accurately heard and/or seen.   We use different methodologies including dream work, art, observation of and integration of the body and its language, ritual, and active listening and reflection to connect to unconscious parts of the psyche.   We understand that the psyche attempts to protect us when we are confronted with something we don’t like by going around what it perceives as a threat.  We, as therapists, are guides in being able to hold the “awkward and painful” so that these feelings are integrated into a sense of being whole and complete.

“Often what alarms us as an ending can in fact be the opening of a new journey - a new beginning that we could never have anticipated; one that engages forgotten parts of the heart.”  Here’s to forgotten parts of the heart.  May we rediscover these parts in ourselves and allow these parts to come forth in others.