Blog posts, news articles, and other resources from The Center • A Place of HOPE
Being a nice person is a wonderful quality. But is there such a thing as being too nice? This could be the case for people who have what’s known as a people-pleasing personality. People-pleasers are always nice – not because they want to do good, but because they’re terrified of...
Attachment theory highlights the importance of a strong, healthy attachment in childhood. This important attachment comes at the earliest stages of life to a parent or primary caregiver, usually a mother. This first, fundamental attachment, or relationship, sets the stage for all relationships going forward.
People arrive at the point of depression from many different places, indicating there are a variety of paths to recovery. In short, there is no one answer for depression and no single path to recovery. Just as the reasons for depression are a varied as the individuals who suffer from...
Depression is a common and serious illness that can affect how you feel, think, and act daily. If you or a loved one are suffering from depression, you are not alone. Over 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression each year. But the good news is that depression is treatable with...
According to recent statistics, about 25 percent of people with eating disorders also engage in some form of self-mutilation, self-injury or self-harm. Self-mutilation, also known as self-harm or self-injury, is the act of intentionally harming one’s own body through cutting, burning, hair-pulling or a wide range of behaviors that inflict...
When a pandemic like the Coronavirus happens in the world around you, it can be incredibly scary and overwhelming. Everything around you seems to have changed and be out of your control. You may be on lock down at home; or be on social distancing restrictions; or you may have...
One of my clients had had his marriage blow up in his face only months before. His pornography habit had been discovered yet again--after repeated promises of “I’m quitting now"--and his wife was so fed up she had left the house for a week. (It could just as easily be...
“Things were going well all week with my wife and me, and I thought the tensions were behind us,” a client told me recently. “But no, last night, she got all upset again over nothing.” If your marriage has been disrupted by your spouse exploding over their discovery of your...
How can you put your life back together after addiction? Healing happens when you reintegrate healthy connections with yourself and others. Once you admit you’re broken, you must agree to look at reconnecting the pieces of your life that addiction has torn apart. Your relationships may be strained, estranged, or...
Do you know the difference between fear and anxiety? If you look in the dictionary or ask most people, these words are often used interchangeably. However, there is an important distinction between them. To understand, let’s consider Janet and Marc. The sun was just beginning to peek through the blinds...
There's something important to remember in the quest for strength and courage, and that's a spirit of kindness. Too often we teach our children the verse, "Be kind one to another" (Eph. 4:32 RSV), and then we forget the admonition as adults. True forgiveness and kindness are cut from the...
Have you ever noticed how relaxed you can feel after you've done something physically strenuous? It's possible to relive a little of this feeling by engaging in progressive muscle relaxation.
When people are burdened by fear, worry, and anxiety, they struggle to live productive, happy lives. These same feelings propel them headlong into excesses. Often, they are focused on the negativity associated with their excesses, such as obesity or alcoholism or addiction to pornography. They want help to "just stop"...
Healthy people are growing people, and people do not grow healthy in isolation.
If you try to live without balance, you will invariably retreat to older patterns of thinking. The tendency is always to default to previous, often unbalanced, behavior when the going gets rough, when feeling boxed in, or when the pressures of life become more than you feel you can bear. ...
It is so important, as you work toward taking charge of your life, that you begin to insist on dealing with reality instead of perception. As I've counseled people, I've been amazed at how deceptive people can be to one another. But the person you and I are best at...
Anxieties are progressive, so it seems logical that one of the answers to anxiety would be a progression of a different kind. When a fear starts out small and keeps expanding, the way to combat anxiety is to cut that anxiety down to size. Instead of trying to take on the whole fear, you start small, working your way up your fear, like climbing a ladder.
Guilt is an insidious reaction that contributes to stress. Guilt cries out, “Never enough!” When you feel guilty or ashamed, or you blame yourself for not being or doing all you think you’re supposed to be, you can never find peace.
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The whole person approach to treatment integrates all aspects of a person’s life: