Down To Earth Newsletter
Volume 7 – Issue 2 – February, 2008
Beyond Modern Therapies: Integrating Traditional & Alternative Techniques – 14 CE’s available – Mar. 15 & 16 – Topics include Play Therapy, Animal Assisted Therapy, Energy Work, Acupressure, Mindfulness, Music Therapy, Aromatherapy, and many more. Dr. Marlo will present “Psychodrama One-on-One: Create a Cast of Characters Yourself” on Sunday, March 16th at 1:30pm. For more information, call Christine Fair at 480-941-7552. Click Here for online registration information – Under “Class Name,” scroll down to “SEMINAR BEYOND MODERN THERAPY.”
Debunking Myths – What Does That Have to do with Anything?
Myth: When new clients enter my practice, I have them fill out a very lengthy and detailed biography, no matter how old they are. I ask questions about their mother’s health during pregnancy, their childhood illnesses and injuries, and how many times their family moved when they were a kid, where they went to school, and a host of other background items. Frequently, people leave large sections of the questionnaire blank, and when I interview them for that information, a common response is, “What does that have to do with anything?”
Fact: Tons of patterns are put into place during our earliest experiences. A stressed-out, ill, or frightened mother can produce a jittery, difficult-to-soothe child who later seeks lover after lover to soothe himself, to no avail. Medical illness that separates a mother from a child during the first 24 hours of life can impair an infant’s developing ability to trust such that, as a teen, he cannot tolerate his girlfriend speaking to other boys for fear of losing her to another. A parent who ignores the cries of an infant during the first weeks of life, thinking they are making the baby tough may actually be setting the child up to distrust the environment at large, resulting in a paranoid, suspicious personality that rejects the generous offers of caring individuals and instead struggles to do everything himself.
Moving a dozen or so times during elementary school can teach a child not to get attached or to grow numb to the pain of losing friends. That kid, in high school, may purposefully not make any friends to avoid further pain, ending up isolated, quite depressed, and likely to begin the substance abuse that will eventually get him divorced or fired from his job 30 years in the future, when the use finally becomes debilitating.
Having an undiagnosed learning disability or behavioral or mental disorder in childhood forces kids to develop coping mechanisms to survive their educational experience that may not lead to dysfunction in adulthood, like copying from peers, lying, or ‘flying below the radar.’
The things that happen to us before the age of 12 are incredibly important and frequently must be re-visited in order to sort out current difficulties.
January Discussion Question: If you had a crystal ball, what would you like to know about your own future?
This turned out to be a great question. Seven readers wrote in to reject the offer of a crystal ball! Not one person wrote in with any desire to actually know something concrete about his or her own future!
For those of you who included your mailing address, your DrMarlo prizes are on their way!
February Discussion Question: What do you think is the single-most important requirement of a successful relationship?
E-mail answers to: discussion@drmarlo.com and answers will appear next month. Your state of residence, your first name and last initial will be used unless you tell us not to use them. Anyone who responds and also includes a mailing address will receive our fantastic information cards, NEW RECOVERY REMINDERS, and a couple of temporary tattoos, just for fun.
Thought For The Day: The body is the biggest tattle-tale.
PERSONAL GROWTH EXERCISE
To spotlight our E-Coaching services, our newsletter includes a personal growth exercise each month. These exercises illustrate the kinds of activities our clients are asked to complete when they are using our E-Coaching services. The exercises printed here are quite general in nature, but the exercises sent to our E-Coaching clients are individualized to meet each client’s specific needs. We currently offer a package of 10 E-Coaching Sessions for $500.
The Talking Stick
In discussion groups, sometimes an object is passed from member to member, to provide order for the discussion. Only the person who has the object is permitted to speak. The object, whatever it is, is often called a “Talking Stick,” since Native North American tribes traditionally used a stick for this purpose.
It is easy to see the purpose of having a talking stick in a large group. We want to be sure to give everyone a chance to be heard, prevent people from talking while others are talking, and facilitate respect for the speaker and the topic.
However, what if we all had to use a talking stick for every conversation all the time? What if people never interrupted each other, talked over each other, made their point while the other person was still finishing his, raised her voice to speak louder than the original speaker? What if we made all of our conversations subject to the rules of the Talking Stick?
Try this with a friend. Use a real stick or object if you have to, or just imagine that there is such an object and concentrate on only having one of you talk at a time. See how long just two people can keep up that form of communication. Start the time over if you interrupt each other, if one starts talking before the other one is done, if one person says they weren’t done talking yet, if you don’t know what the other person said because you weren’t listening. See if you can make it even 5 minutes without having to start over.
You will find that when you let a person have as long a turn of talking as they truly want to have, you end up understanding them a whole lot better than when you’re stating your own points, and that one of the keys to productive communication is that you truly understand the other person.
For a FREE 5-Session Trial of E-Coaching, send us a report of how this activity worked for you! We may share your report in our next newsletter with your name, last initial, and state of residence (unless you tell us not to). Send to FreeSessions@drmarlo.com. (Offer Expires 3-20-08)
E-Coaching! Try it Now!
Not every problem is a mental illness. Not every issue is a trauma. Not every botherment is an emotional disorder. For life’s daily issues and for personal growth, now there is E-Coaching! Dr. Marlo Archer offers a 10-session consultation package for people who are not diagnosed with any mental illness who would just like some coaching, some guidance, or some personal growth. We are offering the 10-Session package for $500. Begin by using PayPal to send a $500 payment to DrMarlo@drmarlo.com, then send an e-mail to that same e-mail address, expressing your specific area of concern to begin!
Dr. Marlo’s Movie Madness – Entertainment and Education
Dr. Marlo’s Movie Madness has entered YEAR FOUR and we have moved the date to Thursday around lunch time. We continue to show a free movie with a mental health theme and interested parties can stay after the movie for a discussion about the movie. One credit informal CE is awarded for a $10 fee. Networking 11:15am-11:30am. Movie at 11:30am, Discussion until 2pm. Upcoming Features: February 28 – October Sky (Suggested relentlessly by Duane Brickner) Suggest movies for March 20th, April 17, or May 15. If your selection is chosen and you have included your mailing address, we will send you a FREE DVD MOVIE from previous years’ Dr. Marlo’s Movie Madness. Sign up for Movie Madness updates by sending a blank e-mail with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line to MovieMadness@drmarlo.com.
Publish Your Work – Promote your Practice – Two ways to publish – for free as a semi-anonymous author (your state of residence, your first name and last initial will be used), or, for $10, as a professional promoting a mental health practice (your full name, with credentials, address, phone number, and e-mail address will be included). We reserve the right to decline to publish any submissions. Current subscribers = 2802. Send creative contributions to: articles@drmarlo.com.
Dr. Marlo in the Media
We write a monthly column about teenagers for Arizona Together Newspaper, Arizona’s Good News “Newspaper,” Established 1991. Read February’s Article, “Teen Substance Abuse: Not Always the Bad Kids” online. Arizona Together currently reaches 50,000 readers monthly who are interested in recovery from addictions of all kinds.
The Psychology Session – Internet Radio Show – SEASON THREE IN FULL SWING – Season Three is attracting MORE GUESTS! Our February 19th show featured Kristi Dee Doden and we look forward to speaking with Karen Gage on March 4th. All three seasons of The Psychology Session are available online – and – you don’t have to even download them anymore, you can just play them right out of the webpage! Let’s hear it for Producer Jon! We continue to welcome show suggestions and advertising sales. E-mail suggestions or inquiries to PsychologySession@drmarlo.com. Order SEASON ONE AND TWO ON CD! Only $20. Send requests to PsychologySession@drmarlo.com.
Never underestimate the healing power of a hug –Marlo J. Archer, Ph.D.
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