Tag: Therapy

Posted on in embodiment, trauma

Post Trauma

You’ve likely heard of PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. After someone has gone through a traumatic event, they may develop symptoms that interfere with daily life and include physical, mental, and emotional disturbances. At the extreme, this can be crippling and requires professional support to recover. In many cases, symptoms are less severe and may even be hidden, giving the appearance of normal functioning. Many professionals believe that PTSD can be resolved by treatment and plenty of living proof is walking around in the world. Some believe that the effects are life-long and at the very least, change how a person experiences life. To any person who is struggling with PTSD, especially those who try to hide it, do not be afraid to reach out and seek support. There are amazing therapies that can improve your life.

What happens after therapy? Maybe you’ve improved enough to function well but still feel different than you used to be. Maybe you have been through something traumatic but don’t have the symptoms of PTSD, yet you still feel not yourself. Maybe you notice that traumatic thoughts resurface sometimes, or that triggers exist in unexpected ways. Regardless of any diagnosis, or treatment you’ve had, maybe you just know that an event changed you and that’s hard to accept.

When there’s no stress disorder (PTSD) but you’re stuck in the limbo post trauma (PTSD) or you’ve healed a lot but still the post trauma changes linger, it can be a confusing place. Social messages tell you that you’re either all broken or should be all healed and back to your old self. That’s simply not the case. Everything we go through in life forms us, changes us, and impacts who we become. This is true of positive and negative occurrences, big and small. Even when we go through a negative or distressing event, we can utilize the effects of that experience for positive growth. We become more aware, more insightful, more compassionate, we see the world differently, and even the hard parts can be used for good.

Trauma is too common. It’s part of the human experience. Everyone gets dealt a different hand and we never know what tomorrow holds. Count your blessings every day because bad can’t erase good. And if you find yourself in the post trauma fog looking for answers, come with me on a journey of healing and find hope.

Posted on in Personal Thoughts

The Problem with Health Insurance and Therapy

We all need someone to talk to sometimes, someone to listen, to care, to process, to advise us occasionally, and to support us through transitions in life. I teach a pyramid of support. At the bottom, the foundation layer, you have the support that is closest to you in proximity. This includes your family and friends, peers and coworkers, acquaintances, and social connections. It’s the people who form your daily interactions and will likely show up to your funeral. At the tippy top of the pyramid is the rarest and most professional support you might ever need; think psychiatrist, plastic surgeon, or criminal defense attorney. Some people never need this level of support. If you do have a need in this category, it is likely there is no alternative because it is so specialized.

The middle part of the pyramid between the bookends includes a variety of styles and levels of support. I call this the “can’t do it myself and I need some help” section. Skilled trades and professional services fall into this section. It’s the people who provide you something you can’t do for yourself. Narrowing in on the category of mental health, this section includes therapists, counselors, mentors, social workers, life coaches, health coaches, doctors, nurses, trainers, and more. There are many people in many roles who offer different flavors of support but ultimately are purposed to help you make the most of your life and find true wellness.

Unfortunately, in our society, money and the systems it flows through controls the narrative. In recent decades, “health insurance” has become the standard decision maker in people’s care. Many professionals who are connected to the “health care system” are under the influence of the people behind insurance. So, when therapy transitioned to a health-care service in order to qualify for coverage, it became a pawn of the industry too. What does this mean for you?

Concisely, if you use your health insurance to cover a service, it must be deemed a medically necessary treatment. Said another way, anything that your insurance pays for must be justified as a treatment of a disease or disorder. Your therapist has to diagnose you with a mental health disorder and then notate your treatment to get paid. I’ve talked about this before in sharing why I left the clinical world of professional counseling. The system is not aligned with my moral standard. For a small group of individuals, this insurance benefit is a great thing! But most people are walking around believing they have mental health issues that they don’t. In fact, socially it is common to make light of serious disorders because they have become so familiar to us. I find this to be a tragedy and disservice to humanity.

It’s time to start viewing money, healthcare, and professional support differently. It’s not what most people think it is. This is why I offer the services that I do and at a rate that does not compete with insurance. I believe in the power of support for personal growth and wellness. We’re all trying to make a living doing something we love. I’m also trying to change the world by flowing under the mainstream current for the greater good. It’s not easy standing alone but it’s worth it. I’ll tell you the hard truth. I hope you receive it.

Posted on in mindset

Hard Truths. Pt 3

My education, my background, and my passion is built on psychology, professional counseling, marriage and family therapy, human services, and a solid belief in the potential to heal brokenness and trauma. I embrace many thoughts and theories about human understanding and behavior. What I don’t embrace is how something that once was about seeking truth has become a system of control. I know there are good intentioned people in that system. Just like there are good doctors and nurses in a corrupt medical system. (Those two arenas are directly connected, in case you didn’t know.)

So with years of experience, exceptional skills, and a passion for helping people, why would I abandon the mental health field?

  1. The System. I could convince you that the system of professionals you will need to get support from is for your benefit. I was trained to do so. You’ll need your primary doctor to check your health and any specialists for particular issues. You’ll need your therapist to talk to, your psychiatrist to prescribe you the pills that will prove you are sane, your social worker to connect you with additional resources, your case manager to oversee all of your appointments and resources, and so on. It sure looks like you have a lot of support! Any one of those individuals might actually support you and have your best interest in mind. Again, it’s not any one or even all of those people and their positions I despise. It’s THE SYSTEM. You won’t find any one of those professionals going rouge and encouraging anything other than the prescribed path of the medical model. Tell them you don’t need the pills or ask for an alternative and natural remedy. Watch the doors slam closed. There is a prescribed path to treatment that ensures everyone gets in on the money.
  2. The Money. (i.e.: insurance). Someone has to be making the decisions that make up the system. It’s your insurance. Most people depend on insurance to pay for anything related to “health.” We have been conditioned to do so. In fact, most people believe that health is defined by this system. Go back and read part 1 about deceptions we accept as reality. This is one of the first areas I started getting blips on my moral antenna. I didn’t see anything that looked like HEALTHcare happening. In fact, I saw a lot of people being encouraged to stay dependent on the system- the exact opposite of caring for their health.
  3. Diagnosis. In order for your insurance to pay for you to talk to someone, you must have a mental health disorder that is diagnosable. All of the time spent on learning how to diagnose people seemed very altruistic. Once I entered the clinical realm, aka real-world application, I had to re-learn how to diagnose everyone for access to services. This ultimately was my breaking point; something I will share more about later. The key here is that your diagnosis links you to other potential services (see #1) and keeps that money flowing through the system.
  4. Mental Health doesn’t exist. This may be the hardest truth you encounter today. It’s made up. It’s an extension of the medical model in which a severed and separate part of you is treated by physical (pharmaceutical) means for spontaneous dysfunction. That cannot be true. You are an ecosystem. There is no spontaneous dysfunction. Everything happens for a reason. Often the reason is simple and logical. Just because we don’t know the reason does not negate a logical cause and effect. The truth is, we actually DO know most of the reasons! (We being humanity, collectively, somewhere among us.) What I am saying is that the truth is out there. It’s hidden, maybe by the system that profits from causing “mental health issues.”

At this point, someone reading this is already rejecting a newly encountered truth. We are most likely to reject truth which threatens our identity. If that is you, let me extend to you grace and hope. You will find what you are meant to find when you are meant to have it. I believe that. Sometimes we see seeds being planted and don’t know when they will grow or what they will become. If you feel a sense of curiosity, of wonder, of intrigue, or any openness to new information, You are on the right path and will continue to find what you are meant to find as you are ready for it. Be blessed.

Part 3

This is part 3 of a 4 part series that will be released in November & December 2021. Part 1 introduces the topic of cognitive dissonance and the foundational truth that not everything is as it seems. Part 2 develops the process of accepting truth and the personal revelations that became apparent to me once I sought truth. Part 3 exposes the system and the moral conflict it creates. It also shines a light on the hope and reason of a better way.