As the field of mental health continues to evolve, I have realized that each of us in medicine and wellness is a warrior. Those of us who took the first steps, proposing “radical”, new, and unpopular ideas are the strongest warriors. They face the most scrutiny, doubt and persecution. And each practitioner’s strength as a warrior can be measured by how close behind the leader they walked. Our society’s healing warriors have blazed a trail for those of us who may be weaker

It strikes me as so very surreal that my training in ketamine assisted therapy (KAT) instructs me to bring elements of spirituality into the office. "White coat shamanism", some have called it. I was was in training, I was thinking to myself, "Wait, really? You WANT me to do this? I'm not going to get in trouble somehow?" Aside from my own healing work, my journey had included a diverse education that prepared me for this experience. Ever since my undergraduate days, I h

Today, I dressed in flowing silken skirts and fabrics of blue and purple, greens and yellows. In my hands as I walked into the office, I carried the antique wooden Bible box handed down in my family over generations. It held no Bible. It never had in my lifetime, because my spirituality is my own to choose. Instead, it contained items that spoke to me; five ceramic seashells, decorative tea light holders. Only one would feature a tea light- the shell that signified Fire

As A Mental Health Therapist, I explain the fuzzy concept of boundaries to my clients like this: Imagine you have a back yard that you have worked hard on. You have grown a beautiful garden. You have installed a nice pool. There is lovely seating. You keep the lawn healthy. You’ve worked hard to make a special place of peace for yourself. The only problem is that periodically, “hooligans” from the surrounding neighborhoods take a shortcut home through your back yard. An

WHY is so much of who we are and how we function as adults based in childhood? Take a look at this graph from Harvard. It basically shows that, although our brains are constantly changing and malleable across the span of our lives, our brains as children are MUCH more malleable than as an elder (red line). EVERYTHING we experience as a child gets encoded into our brains, soaked up like a sponge. And it stays there. Unless we make effort to change it. The graph also shows tha

I adore the following analogy... it works for many populations, including the shining gems that are our neurodivergent children. A child with neurodivergence may have a diagnosis of ADHD, ASD, high IQ, low IQ, or a nerodevelopmental condition. Welcome To Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley Copyright©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author. I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to

After coming back from our training for Authenticity Therapy (AT) in Costa Rica this January, I got to learn first-hand how tending and talking to my inner child (IC) kept me grounded and helped everything else going on in my life fall into place. I began using this powerful technique with some of my long-term clients, and lo-and-behold! They became ready to discharge! They began to trust that they could navigate life without my support because they carried their own deep

So. You know that part of the brain that helps you think before you act? Us folks with ADHD have less of it. Now before you go jumping to conclusions, that does NOT mean we are less smart. It means we are worse at some things, but better at others; and this process is theorized to have played a big role in human evolution. We are STELLAR in a crisis or under pressure. It be like this: We are the lifesavers. So all those times humanity was somehow threatened? Wars, geno

In our office, we can spot ADHD very well. Not instantly, mind you (although if you walk in my door as an adult with rainbow hair and a pop-culture tee shirt, I'd bet money). Still, even when we are absolutely sure.... we always double check with a QB Check assessment. Because the QB check does not rely on any personal opinion or observations, this helps rule out any bias, which I fully admit we may have! After all, we believe ADHD is a "thing." But not everyone does, and

"You are weirdly calm. Like, FREAKISHLY calm," the pediatrician observed as I held a screaming baby. I remember at the time, I found it odd to hear. I recognized that my newborn was in distress. Yet, I knew it was from no intentional shortcoming or lack of attention on my part. I absolutely wanted to get him help, and so here I was at the pediatrician. I was pretty sure the pediatrician could help, so I was not worried about my baby dying. I hadn't caused this, and I w