Well+Being Holistic Mental Health
Emotional Health & Wellness Tips From The Therapy Couch And Other Places
Healing Traumatic Stress & Loss With Self-Care
Whether you're struggling to manage challenging life events, a trauma or accident, loss and grief or any kind of transition that causes you distress or destabilization, it's helpful to understand that your feelings, emotions and behaviors are a normal reaction to extreme and/or disturbing events. As a NYC psychotherapist who uses EMDR therapy, supportive work and a focus on helping clients develop healthier coping skills, I'm happy to share tips to support you as you move through difficult times, and in time, find healing and recovery.
What Helps?
Finding Balance With DBT’s Wise Mind
Wise Mind is a highly-effective core skill used Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). According to DBT, we have three states of mind: reasonable mind, emotion mind, and wise mind. Wise mind is thought of as the balance or integration of the reasonable and the emotion mind. Reasonable mind is the rational part of you, just-the-facts, thinking state of mind where you are ruled by logic. When you find yourself governed by emotion mind, your emotions are in control. You tend to be led by strong feelings and desires. Both states have their value and provide important information, but it’s easy to become stuck in one state of mind, being either cut-off from emotions or controlled by emotions. That is where wise mind becomes an important ally in your goal to have a more balanced life and state of mind.
In dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), the goal is to have wise mind available to you in situations where you are pulled to an extreme state or polarization. Wise mind is the integration or intersection of the reasonable mind and the emotion mind. Put another way, wise mind is your intuition or inner wisdom. It’s the state where you are wisely able to balance between the cool detachment of reason, and the wild current of emotion mind. Incorporating this wise mind DBT practice allows you to find balance between inaction and the active state of doing. Practicing wise mind allows you to engage in your life with awareness, with the goal of mindful presence.
Coaching vs Psychotherapy: What’s Important To Know
You have areas of your life where you struggle, but you’re not sure about next steps. Whether you are searching to resolve difficulties for yourself or your relationships, you have options. If you do a quick search for a therapist or coach, you will find quite literally, thousands. Searching for a therapist or coach in New York City can be quite overwhelming. Coaches have many specialities, such as: executive coaching, health coaching and relationship coaching, as just a few examples. Additionally, the field of mental health offers many professional titles that can be equally confusing, such as psychotherapist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, counselor, as examples.
When searching for your guide, you may have noticed that many therapists also provide coaching. Some therapists have received coaching training, while others have not. This is an acceptable practice because coaching is an unregulated field. There is no board exam that must be passed in order to hang a shingle as a life coach. Licensed psychotherapists, counselors and psychologists, who have not been trained to coach, can offer coaching services. The challenge is: many who struggle with mental health issues are often drawn to coaching because it is a non-pathologizing path towards freeing yourself. Which means that coaches can find themselves doing therapy, and regularly cross that line with people who happen to be vulnerable. This is problematic, because coaches who are not licensed in a mental health field should not attempt to provide mental health services. They simply are not trained should problems arise, and they do.
How do you know which is the right fit for you? If you have a history of mental health concerns or trauma(s) that have impacted your functioning, you are better served working with a licensed therapist. They are in the best position to help you heal the root cause of your struggles. If you are a higher-functioning individual, personally and professionally, coaching can give you the help you need. Coaching sessions are highly-focused and designed to offer solutions to quickly help you get your life back on track.
Radical Acceptance: Cultivating Peace Within When Life Feels Unbearable
This week in my eating disorder seminar, we revisited the concept of distress tolerance—the quiet, powerful skills we call upon when emotions feel overwhelming. As we explored how to navigate emotional intensity, I found myself reflecting on one of the most grounding practices we have: radical acceptance.
In a culture that urges us to fight, fix, or fake our feelings, radical acceptance invites something entirely different. It asks us to soften. To lean into the truth of what is, without judgment or resistance. It doesn’t mean we approve of pain or give up hope. It means we stop fighting reality—and begin meeting ourselves with compassion and clarity.
What Does Radical Acceptance Look Like?
Choosing to accept, fully and from within
True acceptance isn’t performative or forced. It’s not bypassing, and it’s not pretending. It comes from within, and it begins with the willingness to be honest about what’s here.Recognizing that pain is part of being human
Every one of us experiences fear, sorrow, grief, shame, and heartbreak. These emotions are not flaws. They are evidence of aliveness. When we stop judging our pain, we begin to suffer less.Stopping the fight against reality
Resisting emotions often amplifies them. Avoiding pain often deepens our distress. Radical acceptance helps us release the exhausting need to control what cannot be controlled. And in doing so, we begin to make space for peace.
It’s not the emotion itself that overwhelms us. It’s the struggle against it.
Improving the Moment: Skills from DBT Therapy
When radical acceptance feels out of reach, distress tolerance skills from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) can help us get through the moment without making things worse. One helpful acronym is IMPROVE, which offers small, doable strategies to shift your state and calm your nervous system.
Imagery
Visualize a safe or peaceful place. Allow yourself to engage all your senses. Imagine what you see, hear, smell, and feel in that space. Let your body respond as if it were real.