Kellevision

How to Fight Fair

In any relationship disputes and conflicts are going to arise.  However, there should be rules about what is and is not appropriate during a fight.  These rules may simply be agreed upon by the partners, or they may be written down and posted on the refrigerator door.  However they come to be, it is important to agree on what is and is not acceptable and that both parties honor these rules.  Not having a set of rules of what is off limits can change simple fights into open wounds that fester and grow over time creating deep resentments and unspoken animosity that slowly poisons a once loving relationship. 

Intervention

Can you be addicted to a show about addiction?

When one member of the family changes...

For the first post of the new year I would like to address "change".  This is a time when people often make New Year's resolutions to change behaviors they dislike.  It is important to realize the effects those changes may have on your family interactions. 

Please, please, please let my child have a mental illness?

The mother grinned broadly and triumphantly when she announced that the psychiatrist had diagnosed her child with ADHD.  "I knew it!"  "No one would listen to me, but I knew it, and I was right!"

Maintaining Your Mental Health During the Holidays

The holidays can be a time of great celebration - or great frustration - or both!  If you are needing a bit of help during the next two weeks I will try to be more available than usual.  In the meantime, here are some previous articles which might prove helpful:

All previous articles about staying sane through the holidays.

 

Fear of Rejection

She's Afraid I Won't Like Her

So she doesn't talk about It
She skirts It
She avoids It
She denies that she feels It
She denies that she thinks It
She denies that she does It

She is afraid It is abnormal
She is afraid that I will label her "crazy"

I want to tell her that It is perfectly normal
I want to tell her, this is what people do
But I can't, because she hasn't told me about It
Because she thinks I won't like her if I know about It
So I wait
And I watch
As she gets stronger and feels safer and gets closer
To telling me about It
Without realizing
I already know about It

And I still like her

 

Pepper spraying other shoppers? Shoppers crushing each other? Go hug someone!

The shopping experience this season seems to be inordinantly dangerous!  The usual hustle and bustle people experience during the Christmas season seems to be fraught with a lack of empathy for others this year.  What can you do? 

Anger vs. Drama

David Richo, in his book, How to Be an Adult, does a beautiful job of describing the difference between drama and real anger.

An Open Letter to the DSM-5

Mental health professionals from around the world are signing a petition contesting the proposed changes to the DSM-5, as the medical model of mental illness continues to have its validity challenged.

Generation RX - The Effects of Capitalism on the Practice of Medicine

"To call normal children diseased, abnormal, chemically imbalanced.  To make patients out of them for profit.  This is not only anti-scientific, it is contrary to our Hippocratic oath.  It is immoral, and it should be exposed and stopped."

Dr. Fred A. Baughman, MD
Neurologist and Author
As quoted from the movie, "Generation RX"