Would you like to know how many people have visited this page? Or how reputable the author is? Simply
sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.
 SHARE 
|
|
She is the author of The Next Osama (2010), co-author of The Worst is Over (2002), the newly released Verbal First Aid (Penguin, 2010) and the author of numerous articles on mental health and cultural issues. She specializes in the treatment of trauma, anxiety, and grief, working with people all over the country.
She has her practice in New Mexico with her canine therapeutic assistants. She has worked with trauma, anxiety and fear in patients for twenty five years. She has watched it, felt it, wrote about it, and helped heal people from it. As a result, she has learned a few things about fear, particularly that growing epidemic she calls VIRAL FEAR.
OpEd News Member for 941 week(s) and 6 day(s)
49 Articles, 0 Quick Links, 84 Comments, 0 Diaries, 0 Polls
Articles Listed By Date
List By Popularity
List By Popularity
Page 1 of 3 First Last Back Next 2 3 View All
(17 comments) SHARE
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Parents as Authorities? Why are parents so reluctant to be parents? What has happened in our culture and in our families that we are more worried about whether our kids like us than whether we properly prepare them for a life that is almost always challenging and sometimes damned unfair.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011Parents as Authorities? Why are parents so reluctant to be parents? What has happened in our culture and in our families that we are more worried about whether our kids like us than whether we properly prepare them for a life that is almost always challenging and sometimes damned unfair.
(24 comments) SHARE
Sunday, February 20, 2011
"What Am I Supposed to Do?" The Case for Self-Sufficiency Made Personal On Feb. 3, 2011, New Mexico ran out of gas. This was the last thing I would have imagined...but it led to a decision that will probably change my family's life forever.
Sunday, February 20, 2011"What Am I Supposed to Do?" The Case for Self-Sufficiency Made Personal On Feb. 3, 2011, New Mexico ran out of gas. This was the last thing I would have imagined...but it led to a decision that will probably change my family's life forever.
(8 comments) SHARE
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Scandals and Sociopaths: The Psychology of American Politics Another scandal, another reason for mudslinging. Another tragedy, another opportunity for sociopaths. America is being waylaid once again by sociopaths and narcissists -- not just on the interpersonal level, but on the one that affects us all, the political one.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011Scandals and Sociopaths: The Psychology of American Politics Another scandal, another reason for mudslinging. Another tragedy, another opportunity for sociopaths. America is being waylaid once again by sociopaths and narcissists -- not just on the interpersonal level, but on the one that affects us all, the political one.
SHARE
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Modern Medicine: Healing or Stealing? In one of my talks on Verbal First Aid, I make a point of bringing up the stethoscope as one of the inventions that truly changed medicine and the art of healing. Because where once the physician had to lay his or her ear on the patient's chest to hear the heart beating, now there was over a foot of distance between them. In our zealousness and fear, we have substituted machines for people, insurance forms and money for joy, a
Thursday, July 15, 2010Modern Medicine: Healing or Stealing? In one of my talks on Verbal First Aid, I make a point of bringing up the stethoscope as one of the inventions that truly changed medicine and the art of healing. Because where once the physician had to lay his or her ear on the patient's chest to hear the heart beating, now there was over a foot of distance between them. In our zealousness and fear, we have substituted machines for people, insurance forms and money for joy, a
SHARE
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Giving Your Child Real, Life-long Survival Skills: Verbal First Aid Part 2 in the series from 7/12/10: Children develop working models of the world in their minds as they develop. This starts at birth. Emotional memories and experiences are formed into templates and stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. These templates then begin to form impressions of the world that determine how we respond to any given situation.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010Giving Your Child Real, Life-long Survival Skills: Verbal First Aid Part 2 in the series from 7/12/10: Children develop working models of the world in their minds as they develop. This starts at birth. Emotional memories and experiences are formed into templates and stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. These templates then begin to form impressions of the world that determine how we respond to any given situation.
(1 comments) SHARE
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Giving Your Child Real, Life-long Survival Skills: Verbal First Aid According to military advisors, survival is a matter of thinking. It's not just a positive "attitude." It's precisely what we say to ourselves that can make the difference between health and illness, life and death. This is part one of a two-part series on the therapeutic potential of words.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010Giving Your Child Real, Life-long Survival Skills: Verbal First Aid According to military advisors, survival is a matter of thinking. It's not just a positive "attitude." It's precisely what we say to ourselves that can make the difference between health and illness, life and death. This is part one of a two-part series on the therapeutic potential of words.
(1 comments) SHARE
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
"Kid Whispering": Keeping Your Kids Safe With Verbal First Aidâ„¢ By engaging the child's mind in the process of healing, we are teaching him how to heal himself, what his own body is capable of, how his thoughts, the pictures in his mind, and his expectations have a profound impact on how he feels and how he heals.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010"Kid Whispering": Keeping Your Kids Safe With Verbal First Aidâ„¢ By engaging the child's mind in the process of healing, we are teaching him how to heal himself, what his own body is capable of, how his thoughts, the pictures in his mind, and his expectations have a profound impact on how he feels and how he heals.
SHARE
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Life As A Reality Show If it is true that art reflects life, it must be equally as true that life reflects art. We are what we surround ourselves with and perhaps it surrounds us in the way it does because it is in fact a projection of our truest selves.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010Life As A Reality Show If it is true that art reflects life, it must be equally as true that life reflects art. We are what we surround ourselves with and perhaps it surrounds us in the way it does because it is in fact a projection of our truest selves.
(2 comments) SHARE
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Verbal First Aid and Attachment in Children Verbal First Aid could not be more important when we are speaking to the developing mind of a child. It Is not only helpful in calming a child after or even during a crisis, but it gives growing children the resources they need to develop into
Tuesday, June 29, 2010Verbal First Aid and Attachment in Children Verbal First Aid could not be more important when we are speaking to the developing mind of a child. It Is not only helpful in calming a child after or even during a crisis, but it gives growing children the resources they need to develop into
(1 comments) SHARE
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Verbal First Aid in the Face of The Unspeakable I have been teaching Verbal First Aid principles to lay and professional audiences since 1994. And somehow it always comes down to this. At some point during the talk, a hand slowly raises and the question--in one form or another-- is asked: What do you say when a parent loses a kid? What do you say when it seems like there's nothing you CAN say?
Tuesday, June 29, 2010Verbal First Aid in the Face of The Unspeakable I have been teaching Verbal First Aid principles to lay and professional audiences since 1994. And somehow it always comes down to this. At some point during the talk, a hand slowly raises and the question--in one form or another-- is asked: What do you say when a parent loses a kid? What do you say when it seems like there's nothing you CAN say?
SHARE
Saturday, June 26, 2010
A New Tool for Risk Management in the Workplace: Verbal First Aidâ„¢ It has been repeatedly documented that the earlier the intervention, the more likely a positive outcome. When a person at work experiences a traumatic event, the quicker we address the fallout from that experience, the better that person will respond. What that means in business terms is a quicker return to work, less rancor, better productivity, and less litigation
Saturday, June 26, 2010A New Tool for Risk Management in the Workplace: Verbal First Aidâ„¢ It has been repeatedly documented that the earlier the intervention, the more likely a positive outcome. When a person at work experiences a traumatic event, the quicker we address the fallout from that experience, the better that person will respond. What that means in business terms is a quicker return to work, less rancor, better productivity, and less litigation
(4 comments) SHARE
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The Objects of Our Devotion: Spiritual-Need Marketing When did Americans go from a devotion to God to a devotion to things? In advertising circles, which is essentially the crank shaft of our economy, it is a truism that the American is a demanding consumer. "Give us what we want," is the credo. But it appears that what they want is a product. We have gone from one nation under God to one nation under Wal-Mart.
Thursday, December 17, 2009The Objects of Our Devotion: Spiritual-Need Marketing When did Americans go from a devotion to God to a devotion to things? In advertising circles, which is essentially the crank shaft of our economy, it is a truism that the American is a demanding consumer. "Give us what we want," is the credo. But it appears that what they want is a product. We have gone from one nation under God to one nation under Wal-Mart.
(2 comments) SHARE
Monday, December 7, 2009
American Pathology Once again, I thought, Americans have been driven by the media right into a tree. But I might have thought too quickly. It may in fact be more symbiotic than I imagined and it horrified me to consider how much we might be driving the media. But I had to consider the possibility that it was in fact true.
Monday, December 7, 2009American Pathology Once again, I thought, Americans have been driven by the media right into a tree. But I might have thought too quickly. It may in fact be more symbiotic than I imagined and it horrified me to consider how much we might be driving the media. But I had to consider the possibility that it was in fact true.
SHARE
Friday, November 6, 2009
Just Another Kid Losing It With a Gun—PART II What makes a baby murder his parent? Nearly every child born comes into existence with an instinctive dependence on his parents.It may not be “love†as adults come to know it, but it is emotional Gorilla Glue. I see it as the most unconditional and purest of loves.We are their survival. They NEED us. What on earth could destroy that most natural of bonds?
Friday, November 6, 2009Just Another Kid Losing It With a Gun—PART II What makes a baby murder his parent? Nearly every child born comes into existence with an instinctive dependence on his parents.It may not be “love†as adults come to know it, but it is emotional Gorilla Glue. I see it as the most unconditional and purest of loves.We are their survival. They NEED us. What on earth could destroy that most natural of bonds?
SHARE
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Just Another Kid Losing it With A Gun – PART I On August 28th, a 10 year-old boy shot his 42 year-old father in Belen, a small, quiet town that lies just to the south of Albuquerque, NM. The man took one bullet to the head from a rifle around dinner time. This is not the first time a child has killed a parent or the first time lawyers, guns and money made it impossible to really understand what destroyed a young life.
Thursday, November 5, 2009Just Another Kid Losing it With A Gun – PART I On August 28th, a 10 year-old boy shot his 42 year-old father in Belen, a small, quiet town that lies just to the south of Albuquerque, NM. The man took one bullet to the head from a rifle around dinner time. This is not the first time a child has killed a parent or the first time lawyers, guns and money made it impossible to really understand what destroyed a young life.
(8 comments) SHARE
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Chicken Tenders and the Decline of American Civilization There are many who would say that somewhere in the 70's and 80's a trend that has undermined the natural order of family structure began and has continued unabated. This is not a commentary on who composes a family, but of who runs it—the child or the parent.
Sunday, November 1, 2009Chicken Tenders and the Decline of American Civilization There are many who would say that somewhere in the 70's and 80's a trend that has undermined the natural order of family structure began and has continued unabated. This is not a commentary on who composes a family, but of who runs it—the child or the parent.
(2 comments) SHARE
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
“Stop Shopping and Start Thinkingâ€: The Writing on the Wall and Viral Fear Graffiti found in NY: Stop shopping and start thinking! This is particularly interesting since we are now approaching the season to shop and shop and shop and shop. It also made me wonder what he was suggesting we actually think about. And perhaps more importantly, what we were doing instead of thinking.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009“Stop Shopping and Start Thinkingâ€: The Writing on the Wall and Viral Fear Graffiti found in NY: Stop shopping and start thinking! This is particularly interesting since we are now approaching the season to shop and shop and shop and shop. It also made me wonder what he was suggesting we actually think about. And perhaps more importantly, what we were doing instead of thinking.
(8 comments) SHARE
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Stimulate This. What is occurring with our CEO's, the self-indulgence, the entitlement, and magical thinking (which in their cases has paid off handsomely) is also occurring at every level of society—from the states to the local governments to individuals.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009Stimulate This. What is occurring with our CEO's, the self-indulgence, the entitlement, and magical thinking (which in their cases has paid off handsomely) is also occurring at every level of society—from the states to the local governments to individuals.
(2 comments) SHARE
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Why Are We Still Trying to Conquer Nature? With all the understanding and data we have presumably gathered over the years about the incredible complexity of life, we still don't seem to have a grasp on our place in it.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009Why Are We Still Trying to Conquer Nature? With all the understanding and data we have presumably gathered over the years about the incredible complexity of life, we still don't seem to have a grasp on our place in it.
(2 comments) SHARE
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thoughts On My Way To Ground Zero: A Memoir from the Days After 9/11. I wrote this almost 8 years ago shortly after the attack on the Twin Towers, but the events are as fresh as ever. I offer it in honor of the bravest men and women I have ever worked with.
Friday, September 11, 2009Thoughts On My Way To Ground Zero: A Memoir from the Days After 9/11. I wrote this almost 8 years ago shortly after the attack on the Twin Towers, but the events are as fresh as ever. I offer it in honor of the bravest men and women I have ever worked with.
