Time spent alone in thought can be positive – a rich environment for personal growth and creativity. Yet, getting “in our heads” can also be dangerous when we are negatively turned against ourselves. There is an important difference between introspection and rumination. Introspection can be a process of healthy self-reflection examination, and exploration, all of which is good for our well-being and our brain. Rumination, on the other hand, can lead us to spiral into a vicious cycle of negative thinking that holds us back and hurts us in our lives. Psychiatrist and mindfulness expert, Dr. Daniel Siegel describes positive time reflecting on yourself as “time in,” a period in which people... read more ...

  What is disorganized attachment? When a child has an ideal attachment, the parent or primary caretaker provides the child with a secure base from which the child can venture out and explore independently but always return to a safe place. When a parent or caregiver is abusive, the child may experience the physical and emotional abuse and scary behavior as being life-threatening. The child is stuck in an awful dilemma: her survival instincts tell her to flee to safety, but safety may be in the very person who is frightening her.  The attachment figure is thus the source of the child’s distress. In these conditions, children often disassociate from their selves. They may feel detached... read more ...

A person’s life is too often a repetition or reenactment of the past. Becoming your true self is a process that lasts throughout a lifetime. Our personalities are not set in stone by the time we drive off to college or even the day we head to retirement. It is always possible for a person to change. Yet, in order to achieve lasting change, we have to know ourselves. How did we become who we are and how do we seek to be different? A person’s life, while entirely unique, is all too often a repetition or reenactment of the past. Very often, we live out past prescriptions from parents and society without really questioning “what do I want?”  Negative adaptations to our early environment... read more ...