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By Courtney Ackerman  Postive Psychology Program People who meditate are happier, healthier, and more successful than those who don’t. Those amazing benefits of practicing meditation and mindfulness make you want to try it yourself. Good chance you have already tried meditation or mindfulness before. Maybe you decided – after a few frustrating attempts – that you must be one of those people […]

By GoodTherapy.org Staff Establishing a good self-care routine can sort of be compared to putting on an oxygen mask when an airplane cabin loses pressure. “Put your own mask on first before assisting others,” the flight attendant warns us during the safety brief before departure. While it may seem selfish and counterintuitive for some to help themselves

Contributed by Zawn Villines, GoodTherapy.org Correspondent Building on previous research showing the positive effects pet ownership can have on mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, a new study published in the journal BMC Psychiatrysuggests pets can improve people’s management of diagnosed mental health conditions. Pet Ownership as a Mental Health Self-Care Strategy The study involved 54 semi-structured interviews

By Bob Stahl                                                                                         grandfailure/Adobe Stock A great many people who suffer with

By Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.  Parenting is a difficult job and a juggling act no matter what. It requires balancing your own needs with those of your child. It involves managing your time, having adequate resources and supporting your child. For parents coping with a mental illness, “these issues are amplified,” said Ryan Howes, Ph.D, psychologist, writer and

By Michelle McQuaid Do you ever hear a little voice chattering away in your head that fills you with self-doubt? You know the one. Perhaps you’ve heard it saying: “You’re not good enough”, “You’re so lazy,” or even “You’re such an idiot.” It’s that voice of self-criticism that says things, you would never dare say

By Manuel A. Manotas, PsyD, Mindfulness-Based Approaches/Contemplative Approaches Topic Expert Contributor Let’s stop making mindfulness something other than what it is. Let’s stop making mindfulness the great cure-all. Let’s stop making mindfulness another gimmick to improve ourselves. Because it’s not. If we look clearly at the definition of mindfulness, we see that it is an inherent capacity in all

By Mallory Grimste, LCSW, GoodTherapy.org Topic Expert Have you ever felt like your emotions are so overwhelming they will never stabilize? Maybe you have an intense urge to return to unhealthy or risky behaviors to make yourself feel better. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)has a whole module that focuses on crisis survival skills. These are skills that help you hang in there, or

By Mallory Grimste, LCSW, GoodTherapy.org Topic Expert Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based therapeutic model originally developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan. She found that traditional cognitive behavioral therapies did not always help people who experienced chronic suicidal ideation or symptoms of borderline personality. Since then, DBT has been found to be effective with several other groups of people, including teenagers. One component of

Contributed by Jeremy Schwartz, LCSW, Dialectical Behavior Therapy Topic Expert Contributor Have you ever found yourself in such an emotional storm that you didn’t feel in control of what you were doing? When we are at our most vulnerable, we are most likely to act in the way that emotions make us want to act. As important as emotions are—they