An emerging trend in the world of therapy is for therapists to identify as “trauma informed”. This typically means they have done specific trainings to understand how trauma forms, how it manifests in clients, and specific methods with with which to...
The fascinating thing about relationships is that they don’t exist entirely in the external world, they begin and end in your own mind. The way you interact with others is shaped entirely by how your senses interpret the world around you. Sight, sound, touch; all of...
When people come to therapy struggling with addiction, there’s often a thread of self-criticism woven deeply into their story. They see every slip-up as failure, every struggle as proof that they aren’t trying hard enough. But what I see, what so many of them can’t...
Being neurodivergent in a world built for neurotypical people isn’t just challenging, it can feel exhausting. For many of my clients, masking, hiding or suppressing their authentic selves to fit societal expectations has become second nature. They’ve spent years...
When I tell people I consider myself a trauma therapist, they assume I work with client's who've experienced really big, life-changing events. While that’s true in some cases, being a trauma therapist isn’t just about addressing the extreme. It’s about understanding...
As a therapist who has spent years working in the fields of mental health and addiction, I’ve seen firsthand how deeply intertwined these two challenges can be. Addiction is rarely a standalone issue. More often than not, it’s connected to an underlying mental health...
I recently worked with a client around OCD using hypnosis and saw incredible success. We focused on his OCD in a single session after working together for a while on other issues. The outcome was remarkable. After years, even decades, of battling certain distressing...
One of the analogies i like to give my clients with ADHD, or ADHD symptoms, is that you are a high-performance vehicle stuck in a suburb. Everyone around you is a Toyota Corolla. You can pour sugar into their gas tank and they’ll still run (they’ll just...
I recently completed my Master's degree after a break of almost 10 years. After sharing my success story, I received several inquiries from other people with ADHD who are currently in university (and their parents), wanting to learn more about what worked for me, so I...
I have found cold showers to be a helpful component in my trauma healing journey, and I believe there is research to support this finding. Early on, when I started taking cold showers, I’d find myself crying afterwards, and stretching to release trauma-induced...
ADHD is a child who was never taught how to be in the world. A creative who is too big for this world. ADHD is disappointment that it's not possible to do everything, that our mind is bigger than the universe. ADHD is being misunderstood, it's wasted potential, it's...
I’ve worked with several clients with addiction, and here’s what hypnosis for addiction typically looks like. The principle with addiction is that we pursue it to provide temporary relief from some other discomfort. Life sucks, we do something that makes...
We know a single traumatic event can already result in PTSD showing symptoms like anger, depression, and anxiety. If you take a single traumatic event and multiply it, or have prolonged exposure to a traumatic experience- it can result in CPTSD, or Complex Post...
My mother will always fall very short of what I want, need, and deserved her to be. I am working on coming to terms with this, alongside the understanding that she does wish she could be better. This desire, this staring her flaws in the face and being pained by them,...
In business: 20% of my clients give me 80% of my headache. Interestingly enough, these are usually also the ones who paid me the least and gave me the most grief over the cost. So a great way to filter them out is to raise prices! 80% of a great looking website can be...
As a former ordained Orthodox Rabbi and ex-religious Jew, I know firsthand what Religious Trauma looks like. (In fact, parts of this site still bear testament to the time when I was devoutly religious and taught Jewish meditation; I have a policy to not delete content...
My biggest fear is other people's suffering. It was the first day of processing during my Ayahuasca ceremony, realizing that all that pain I was feeling was in response to other people, but not actually other people. This gave me some control back, these were still my...
A few months ago I first entertained the thought that I had ADHD. I hadn't considered it earlier because the name is so very misleading. One of the biggest disservices to ADHD is the associations the name gives us - a hyperactive kid who can't sit still and is given...
Fortune teller’s omens to the contrary, the thing you fear usually does not come true. One of my favourite quotes from Mark Twain goes “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” I found this to be true for my personal anxieties – I would...
I have long known that I exist within a contradictory dichotomy: an attraction to both freedom and safety. (I use safety and structure interchangeably here, because to me structure creates a feeling of safety) I think others may relate to this as well, but I’ve always...