Ginger's Blog
Article: Surrogate Sex (*This Article is Not-Yet-Rated)
Sometimes, we need to practice. A dry run, so to speak. For, if we throw ourselves in before we are ready or even worse, with the wrong partner, we might leave the experience more harmed than nurtured. And then, we are less likely to want to dive in again or when we...
The Dance Steps of Anger, Hurt and Fear: A Collected Effort Toward Healing – Part II
So, having plunged deeper into the sea, getting past anger and into hurt, we now travel to the bottom of the ocean floor. Sitting on the sea floor is our human needs. Denial aside, we all have them. Yes, there are the basics - food, shelter and clothing - but there...
Group Therapy Through the Grand Canyon
After about two hours, I assessed that it was gonna be one long week. Two boats, 28 strangers and four guides - better known as "river rats" - ready to lead the way. When I booked a whitewater rafting trip down the Colorado River for my kids and I this summer, I was...
The Dance Steps of Anger, Hurt and Fear: A Collected Effort toward Healing
I will never forget her. I even recall her name. Martha. (Not her real name. But I remember that too.) The first time she said "f#*k" outloud, we all stood and cheered. Her history, like many that darkened the doors to our program, was abysmal. She had endured years...
Grown-Up Love: Evolving Into Relational Maturity
I began teaching psychoeducation (sounds awful, doesn’t it?) in a psychiatric hospital on the north side of Chicago. Yes, it was many moons ago, when insurance companies cared enough about the human heart to finance treatment. Back then, we in the mental health field...
Article: Breaking Up the Party
No matter the modality - individual, group or couple - it is very common for someone to say, "I can't take that in. I don't believe it to be true." The verbal expression of love being offered to him or her by me, his/her partner or the group cannot be received. In...
Personal Essay: Falling In Love
I never planned it this way. I never meant for it to occur. And then one day it just happened. I woke up and in the words of Dr. Suess' Grinch, my "heart grew three sizes that day." I always knew that I wanted kids. I had worked too hard and come too far...
Happiness Is So Over-Rated: Learning to Enjoy All Your Feelings
Sometimes I feel like a fraud. Hurting people darken the doors of my office and want me to give them relief. In one way or another, every patient tells me the same thing - that I need to fix them or someone else. I must provide the magic answer that will give him or...
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