Divorce Counseling Category
Depression: Does it only affect adults?
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, 3.2million Canadian youth between the ages of 12-19 are at the risk of developing Depression. Shocking? Right.
Children and adolescents can develop depression if they are/ have experiencing/ experienced:
- Huge pressure from school, society, or family
- Stressful transitions, such as changing school, neighborhood, city, or country
- A major loss, such as a death in family
- Being bullied
- Disappointments
To read more, please visit http://blog.montrealarttherapy.com/?p=116
By: Reyhane Namdari/ Art Therapist
The loss of a person, the loss of a relationship
Loss is a natural part of life. Life is, after all, a series of emotions that connect people together but can also tear them apart. Loss of any kind is painful and can enter your life in many forms, not just from death. The loss of a person, the loss of a relationship, or even the loss of hope often leads to a sense of sadness and helplessness often described as the “emptiness in your stomach” feeling that seems insurmountable. Loss can make you snappy or spiral you into night after night of restless sleep. It alters your mood and often changes how you see the world around you.
Some people argue that the pain after a loss gets better with time. Others would argue that the pain actually never gets better but that we get better at dealing with it. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Why is it that the pain of a loss can feel like it’s never going to subside? On some level it has to be that we believe deep down that we can’t ever be happy again. Some...
Parenting after Separation & Divorce
The thought of communicating with your ex-spouse, after a break-up or divorce, may seem daunting, infuriating, or even off-limits. But what about when children are involved? This is the time to put forth serious efforts and considerations, in order to overcome challenges, for the sake of your children.
While overcoming built-up resentment and a potentially painful history with your ex will prove difficult, it is important to put your children’s needs ahead of your own. Your marriage may be over; but your family is not. Your children are your most important priority and it should be recognized that they are more important than the conflict that ended the marriage.
So how do you challenge this obstacle?
Try to establish a completely new relationship with your ex-spouse – a parenting partnership; also known as co-parenting. This new relationship will not be about you or your spouse’s feelings but rather it will focus on your child’s happiness, stability, and wel...
MINDFULNESS-BASED ART THERAPY
Mindfulness is a state of mind where the focus on the bodily sensations is at its highest peak. A mindful person is aware of how his/her body is reacting to the anxiety provoking thoughts and symptoms of anxiety.
In the practice of mindful art therapy one practices to be present and remain present to face distressing thoughts, fears, future, or expectations of others. Changing your responses rather than reacting is the aim of mindfulness art therapy.
The latter could be practiced with art activities, which we will introduce in future posts. Please follow our posts on www.montrealarttherapy.com
By: Reyhane Namdari/ Art Therapist
What Is Love?
What Is Love?
Today’s word is love. A lot of conflict happens because people have different definitions to this simple word. Most of the time, I think those definitions are wrong. So what is love? After all the poetry, music, books and movies on the subject, you’d think we’d have this one down by now. Here’s some ideas of what I think love is.
Love is like my garden. When I look at it, spend time out there, I have a number of feelings and behaviors. I admire it, I praise it, I share peaceful moments with it. Those satisfying feelings are not love. Love is not a feeling. So if it’s not a feeling, what is it?
To know what love is, let’s first turn to what it’s not. In my consulting room, one of the most common definitions of love is admiration. When people fall in love, they form a mutual admiration club. That’s not love. Neither is the lust they feel. Falling in love should be called falling in lust. You only lust for people you want to...
The Judge-Jester and the Little Boy
October 9, 2012
I walked into the courtroom and saw the judge dressed up like a jester. Hanging from the rafters were orange, yellow, and blue bunting. Balloons were everywhere. In the middle of the court room was a huge piñata. Over four feet, top to bottom, a deep ruby red. It was in the shape of a heart. Beside it was the most beautiful wooden gavel, two feet long with thin silver filigreed inlay. Around the judge-jester, on every side, amongst the balloons, looking up at the piñata...were hundreds of children dressed up like judges. The judge-jester raised his hand, and everyone, from toddlers to children who had just celebrated their tenth birthdays, were silent.
The judge-jester, a man in his sixties with freshly-scrubbed face, smelling a little like soap, a little like sweat, and a lot like amateur clown make-up, cleared his throat ceremoniously. The children became even more quiet. "In the past ten years, I have made the final decision as to where each o...
Out with the Old and In with the New
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Many of us know this beautiful scripture, but who among us truly lives it? Where do we learn who we are and what is our value to the world? Is it possible that these answers evolve over time?
Growing up in a dysfunctional, possibly abusive family has become so common today that it challenges the very definition of “normal.” Divorce rates have maintained a rate above 50 percent for more than a decade. Regardless of the family structure, the reality is that many of us were not raised to be mentally healthy, securely attached children and in fact, many times were being raised by parents whom themselves were not mentally healthy as a result of their own up bringing.
Given this intergenerational pattern of “bad programming,” it is not surprising that so many of us grow up with a less than stellar view of ourselves. Perhaps you learned as ...
Hiding In Plain Sight
Have you ever noticed how some people just seem to have it all? They seem happy, rich, sophisticated and overall just really balanced? They project an image of a carefree lifestyle where they are loved, secure, successful and everything is at their fingertips. It seems that that nothing could possibly go wrong for them. Or so it seems…
Consider the news story where an upstanding member of the community is suddenly charged with a heinous crime against his wife or family or the business executive, once admired for his vision is suddenly convicted of embezzlement. This secret behavior shocks us all and often rocks our faith in human kindness to its very core.
But what about at home? Consider the wife who has invested twenty years of her marriage trying to be the modern day trophy wife only to realize that she is more comfortable at home in her sweat pants and slippers than lunching at the country club after a spirited game of tennis. Or the man who loves his family but finds hims...
Do We Marry Our Parents?
There are no hard rules when it comes to mate attraction. Many people fall in love with partners who are diametrically the opposite of one of their parents. This is often the case in families where a parent was an alcoholic or abusive. These children vow they will never ever want to end up in the kind of family People who grow up in such homes often look for mates who are nondrinkers or who are easing going—mates who are completely opposite of their parents.
However, others choose mates who possess a parent's negative trait like alcoholism or abuse. It seems irrational that an adult would fall in love with a mate who suffers with alcoholism or who is abusive to them, particularly after experiencing the pain of such a relationship in childhood with a parent, yet people do it all the time. The common stereotypic example of such a relationship is the woman who keeps finding herself in relationships with physical abusive men.
In these relationships, the person...
Show Me the Money
How many of us spend a large percentage of our time chasing, thinking about, stressing or worrying over money. The funny thing is, the more we do these things the more energy we give to what we do NOT want. The Divine (God, Cosmic Joker) just wants us to be open to be happy and to receive the gifts that are coming our way. All we have to do is to get out of the way. I would call this faith and you don't have to be religious to have it.
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