Feature by Simran Bharadwaj Image by Freepik When we first started working from home, it was a necessity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a transition that was difficult for everyone. Adjusting space in the house for multiple working individuals and children at virtual school. It was chaos. After two years it became a way of life. However, due to this major change in lifestyle there comes the challenge of managing working from home without burning out. Some of the main questions to ask yourself are: Do you find it difficult to concentrate? Have your sleep habits changed? Do you lack energy at home? If you realize that burnout is a significant concern, there may be changes you can make to your daily routine to balance out work stress and relaxation at home. 1. Creating a Home Office This space doesn’t necessarily have to be a whole room. Setting aside space in your apartment for office related activities, and nothing else, will help with separating the work and home environment. Rather than taking your laptop to the sofa or bed, stick to one space to do work, like you would if you had to go in person. 2. Mindfulness Mindfulness doesn’t always mean meditation. It can also mean paying attention to what your body needs. When we are focused on work we can forget to take breaks, eat food, drink water, or just get up and stretch. Working at home can lead to too many breaks or too few. Listening to what your body needs is important to avoid burnout. 3. Sticking to the Routine Waking up every morning, taking a shower, eating breakfast, essentially sticking to the routine that you would normally have if you were going into the office. Understandably these morning activities might be slightly altered considering a change in responsibilities with being at home, however sticking closely to a routine you are used to can help with managing time during the work day and not think about work after logging off. 4. Stay Active and Schedule Breaks Working from home can often lead us to extending our work hours due to distractions during the day or just knowing we can always log on later and finish up some extra work. Creating a calendar and sticking to a schedule can help with finishing tasks during the designated work day. However, if you find yourself working past the end of the work day anyways, I would suggest taking breaks throughout the day to stretch, walk around the apartment or even outside. Staying active will keep the blood flowing, which will help avoid staring at a screen for over 8 hours per day. Although many of us have been working from home for over two years now, the change hasn’t been easy. It can be difficult to stay focused all day while being at home. These tips are just a few that have helped me in the last couple years to prevent burnout and limit over working just because I can log on outside of the workplace. AuthorSimran Bharadwaj is a pre-professional licensed mental health therapist in New York City. You can contact Simran at simran@mwr.nyc and read more blog posts at www.mwr.nyc.
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Feature by Dr. Sara Schapiro and Nikita Fernandes, MHC-LP Via Pexels Although sex therapy has been around for awhile, people still have misconceptions about what sex therapy entails. For example, what makes a sex therapist different from other therapists? For starters, sex therapists work with clients on a variety of challenges that range from sexual trauma to kink explorations. Sex therapists also collaborate with other sex and intimacy professionals such as surrogate partners or sexological body workers in order to offer clients a holistic framework for healing. Partnering with other health professionals enables sex therapists to understand the client better as the therapist gains a comprehensive view of the clients background both inside and outside the therapy session.
Feature by Simran Bharadwaj Second generation individuals, the children of immigrant parents, may feel a disconnect when trying to talk to their parents about their mental health. Over the last two years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic families were at home relying on each other to help them through this strange new world. Children may have attempted to talk about their mental health with their parents. However, there may have been a disconnect between parent and child, as parents were also stressed with the changes in their lives. Parent-child language discordance can also contribute to children not trying to connect or communicate with their parents when they need help. Since there are so many reasons for disconnects to occur, it is important to understand why the disconnect occurs and how to try and bridge the communication gap. In some minority communities there can be a lack of cultural competence and therapeutic understanding because therapy and mental health are considered a taboo topic. There are increased barriers to culturally appropriate mental health care in areas with large ethnic minority populations, and high rates of poverty. This is due to the limited access to healthcare as well as the language barrier with minority populations. Even for children who are no longer living in poverty, mixed messages about mental health may have been passed down through their parents. As a result of this constant disconnect, it can become difficult to heal. Mentalization based therapy is a therapeutic technique that can help greatly in these situations. Mentalization is the ability to think about thinking, meaning that individuals learn to observe one's thoughts and consider what someone else’s thoughts might be. This therapy modality can help repair relationships between parent and child when neither feel as though they are able to effectively communicate what they are thinking and feeling. Learning the other’s place in their own mental health journey as well as their understanding of mental health can be crucial in unpacking the other's response to you, in this case the response of parents to their children. AuthorSimran Bharadwaj is a pre-professional licensed mental health therapist in New York City. You can contact Simran at simran@mwr.nyc and read more blog posts at www.mwr.nyc.
Feature by Nikita Fernandes Imago Relationship Therapy is a type of relationship and couples therapy that focuses on relational counseling to turn any conflicts between couples into chances for healing and progress. It was created by Drs. Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt in 1980. The word 'imago' means image in Latin. The idea behind the therapy is to help couples understand what their partner is saying and how their partner might be feeling. Using imago therapy with couples has been beneficial in helping clarify misconceptions, reduce conflict, and rediscover ways to connect with and communicate effectively with one another.
Feature by Nikita Fernandes I recently had the chance to attend one of The Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance ( TASHRA) trainings titled "Exploring Issues and Clinical Implications around BDSM/Kink and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury." TASHRA is a non-profit working to improve the healthcare services of folks with alternative sexualities. It is a great resource for healthcare professionals as well as people that identify as kinky. The presenter was Dr. Markie Twist, PhD (she/her/they/them), who is an award-winning sexuality educator, sexologist, relationship therapist, author and international speaker. Dr. Markie presented great insights about NSSI (non-suicidal self-injury), which is defined as intentionally creating pain on one's own body tissue without suicidal intent.
It must be noted that the author is not promoting self-harm behaviors but rather exploring the purpose through a curious lens. Feature by Dr. Sara Schapiro and Nikita Fernandes Interpersonal psychotherapy was created to address symptoms of depression. It was at first intended to be a time-limited approach. Today, it is applied throughout treatment. Understanding how life events, relationships, and social support interact with mood disorders and other mental conditions served as the foundation for interpersonal therapy.
Mentalizing is the ability to “think about thinking”. The ability to observe one's thoughts and to consider what someone else's thoughts or beliefs might be (also referred to as “inner mental states”). The most important aspect of mentalization is the ability to be open to considering that someone else's thoughts and feelings may be different than one’s own. Bateman and Fonagy created Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT) initially for patients who were diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder. MBT aims to increase the client’s ability to mentalize. Such as, the client will begin to develop a curiosity about others' thoughts, feelings, and motivations. Feature by Nikita Fernandes Historical narratives shape people’s understanding of events. From museums like the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art to films like Stonewall Uprising, queer history has been showcased and depicted in a multitude of ways. However, it is important to recognize the whitewashing of history. Whitewashing refers to leaving out important events and marginalized communities in history. To shape a white narrative, queer people of color have been left out of the LGBTQIA+ history narrative. This is done to keep the dominant group in power and white cisgender males are often credited for milestones in the queer movements. However, people of color have been pioneers in the field of queer history and deserve to be recognized and applauded for their integral work that led to progress.
Feature by Nikita Fernandes Via Pixabay Narrative Therapy has emerged as one of the most powerful types of therapy to support minority communities. It has gained popularity in 2022 along with the rise of movements such as the Black Lives Matter and the focus on mental health after the pandemic. Narrative therapy is relatively new. It was developed in the 1980's by Michael White, an Australian social worker, and David Epston, a family therapist from New Zealand. It gained traction in the United States in the 1990's.
Narrative therapy is a nonpathologizing, empowering and collaborative experience for clients who hold minority identities. The empowering nature of this therapy can be experienced through nudging clients to reframe their past experiences, gain control over their present and shape a better future. Narrative therapy uses prompts to have client reflect over the stories they tell themselves about their life. For example, a therapist might ask a client to write about their past struggles and highlight what helped keep them afloat. This strengths based approach can help remind clients that they are much more resilient than they believe. Feature by Nikita Fernandes Via Unsplash On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and took away the constitutional right to abortion. People in America woke up to a post-Roe world where access to abortion dramatically changed the lives of millions of Americans. Protests started over the country as people loudly defended the right to have autonomy over their own bodies and personal choices. There has been much discussion over what this ruling means for a polarized country that seems to get more divided as time passes. Although there has been much deliberation and dialogue about what this means for people, a majority of it has revolved around a person’s right to choose for themselves.
Overturning Roe v. Wade, at its surface, is driven by the Evangelical Christian value that abortion and contraception are seen as unnatural and sinful. However, the silent message and value that is not being spoken about and has not received much attention - sexual liberation of marginalized communities have been shunned for decades and policed by conservative religious ideology; overturning Roe. v Wade is another method of shaming and controlling sex. Feature by Nikita Fernandes Via Pixabay Richard Schwartz created the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model to work with clients who held conflicting views of themselves. He explained these conflicts as having various parts within ourselves. As human beings, we are made up of different parts that serve specific functions. Internal Family Systems is a powerfully transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy. The mind is considered to be naturally made up of multiple sub-personalities or families within each individual’s mental system. These sub-personalities take on different roles, such as an inner critic or inner child, and consist of wounded parts and painful feelings like anger and shame.
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