Is It My Fault? is a message of hope and healing to victims who know too well the depths of destruction and the overwhelming reality of domestic violence.
At least one in every three women have been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in their lifetime. The effects of domestic violence are physical, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual, and can have long-lasting distressing consequences. Continue reading
Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. Today, however, millions of people who are really no more than “worried well” are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world’s most influential psychiatrists, explains why stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, the misallocation of medical resources, and the draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient brains and into the hands of “Big Pharma,” who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Continue reading
Introductions. The few seconds where we decide how to tell new people who we are as a person. Every time we meet someone new, we almost instantaneously begin to formulate how we will put our best foot forward. We want to explain who we are as quickly as possible, so the other person will like us almost immediately. Our desire is to make a good impression that others will remember.
A sample introduction might look something like this:
“Hi, I’m John.”
“It’s nice to meet you Jim. I just graduated with my Masters in Biblical Counseling from Southeastern and right now I’m working as a landscaper. What do you do?”
You might start with something more general, like the reason you’re in the same place at the same time, but we quickly find ourselves asking and answering the question, “What do you do?” Continue reading
As a counselors (or perhaps just as a caring person) you might tend to put others first and focus on their needs above your own. This pattern in life might be sustainable for a short time, perhaps during a crisis, but if that becomes a lifestyle the ability to support diminishes. If you are not well, you cannot help others become well. Therefore, it is critical that you take time for your own well being and growth apart from caring for others.
Does that sound selfish to you? If so you’re in good company. A lot of people struggle with self-care because they believe that to practice self-care is to stop caring for others. After all, if we are taking time to care for ourselves then we are taking time away from caring for others. However, if we understand self-care correctly it is accurate to understand that the better we are practicing self-care the healthier we will be and the more effectively we will be able to care for others. Continue reading
Facebook has over 1.7 Billion users. That means that within the last month over 1.7 Billion different accounts have been accessed and used to connect with one another to view, share, and like post by other users that they may have never met but consider “friends.”
Social Media. The place that we go to hide in the open. We escape into a land of hashtags and picturesque photos of our latest vacations or the most recent newlywed couples that allow us to believe the fairytale others choose to tell us. Continue reading
John H. Chapman 