Mental Wellness

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The Problem with Intimacy

September 1, 2019September 4, 2019 Jan Anderson, PSYD, LPCC alcohol consumption, being benefit, closeness, cognitive distortion, cultural tendency, dangerous little bugger, degree of distance, distortion, distressed mother, emotional risk, empower way, feel safe, golf, good chance of intimacy, good character trait, handy way, herd, herd animal, high risk, human being benefit, human condition, intimacy, lesson, like herd animal, lone wolf, lone wolf mentality, lonely mother, meaningful connection, mentality, new thought structure, obesity, painful awareness, reality, reality of the human condition, relationship quicksand, skill, skill memory, tactics, think error, timeworn tactics, universal law, universal law of relationship, vulnerability, weak-minded individual, wolf, wolf mentality

“We’re not close.” That was the elegantly simple way a distressed mother tearfully described her relationships with her grown children.

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Mental Wellness 

Estranged from Your Adult Child: The Last Thing You Ever Expected

June 1, 2019September 4, 2019 Jan Anderson, PSYD, LPCC adult child, alienation of divorced parent, child blame, child-centered family, childless member, childless member of society remark, college-aged son, daughter-in-law, dependent parent, Elizabeth Vagnoni, endless heartache, estrangement, estrangement stem, family-oriented time, family-oriented time of year approach, feel of profound vulnerability, guilt, happy life, heartache, Indian court system, Joshua Coleman, kid, long-term conflict, loyalty conflict, mental illness, mother 's befuddlement, Mr. Samuel, parent advice, parent-centered, Parent-Child, Parent-Child estrangement, primal bond, professional help, profound vulnerability, quick-fix solution, Raphael Samuel, Raphael Samuel of Mumbai, refuse contact, relationship repair, remorse, San Francisco psychologist, serious life situation, six-session, six-session internet seminar, society remark, son-, son-in-law, successful adulthood, temperamental mismatch, time of heartache, twenty-seven-year-old, unanticipated place, Vagnoni, well-meaning parent, year approach

As holidays, birthdays and other family-oriented times of year approach, it’s a time of heartache for parents whose adult children

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Mental Wellness 

How to Make Peace with Your Parents — And Just About Anybody Else

May 1, 2019June 21, 2019 Jan Anderson, PSYD, LPCC accusatory suffer, bad feel, Bibliotherapy, case of abuse, character draw, emotional baggage, emotional recovery, emotional wound, endless loop of ruminate, enjoy movie, evidence-based recovery method, experience part fit, forgiveness, forgiveness process, good life, hoped-for relationship, ill-tempered meanness, insufficient condition, loss of the hoped-for relationship, mother 's decades-long, mother 's hostility, near-effortless, near-effortless opportunity, painful reality, parent 's hurtful behavior, recovery, recovery look, resilience, set consequence, sheer desperation, sincere-but-delusional, sincere-but-delusional pretend, surprise benefit, therapy, victim mentality, write therapy, Wynona Judd

“It’s always something or your mother,” as Wynona Judd is fond of saying. I guess she should know. She and

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Mental Wellness 

How Resilience Protects Your Heart — Inside and Out

March 1, 2019May 13, 2019 Jan Anderson, PsyD, LPPC 20 year anniversary, 20 year anniversary of successful operation, abortion decision, American heart association 's Louisville circle, American heart association event, anger, bad feel, broken heart syndrome, Care, Care center, chair of the American heart association 's Louisville circle, challenge population, Christine, Christine M. Kleinert institute, death of long-term spouse, decades-long addiction, doctoral process, evidence-based recovery method, evidence-based therapy, food desert, great ice-breaker, hand transplant, health of the heart, healthy food option, heart association event, image002 photo, incest survivor, Jewish hospital, KentuckyOne, KentuckyOne health, Kleinert Kutz, Kleinert Kutz hand, long-term spouse, Louisville, Louisville circle, Louisville hand transplant program, love-deprived, love-deprived adolescent, M., M. Kleinert, M. Kleinert institute, Major relationship breakup, Matthew Scott, mind-body, mind-body connection, mother 's demise, name of relative, physician, real health risk, recovery, resentment, resilience, side of addiction, stress-induced cardiomyopathy, surgeon, transplant, UofL, urban food desert, usual culprit, victim mentality

“What’s your why?” I knew that question would be a great ice-breaker at the American Heart Association event I was

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Mental Wellness 

Treat Your Spouse Like a Stranger

January 1, 2019March 21, 2019 Jan Anderson, PsyD, LPPC Alex Lickerman, argue couple, B., balanced perspective, contrarian strategy, convenient distraction, counselor, crazy behavior, distraction, distressed marriage, divorce coach, familiarity-breeds-contempt-reversal, familiarity-breeds-contempt-reversal technique, favorite contrarian strategy, gratitude, happy couple, healthy distance, healthy sense of self-respect, imperfect harmony, intense feel of gratitude, interest strategy, intimacy, John Gottman, Joshua Coleman, Joshua Coleman note, just-right, just-right balance, just-right balance of healthy distance, loss of people, marriage counselor, marriage researcher, Matthew fray, Matthew fray 's lament, mystery, opposed thing, opposite impulse, partner, people guess, silent treatment, sophisticated skill, sport advice, spouse, stranger, time-out, toxic pattern, tricky territory, unhappy couple, unhappy people

For decades, marriage counselors have been advising couples to go on dates. A good idea in theory, right? Get away

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Mental Wellness 

How to Get Smarter and Happier by This Time Next Year

December 1, 2018February 15, 2019 Jan Anderson, PsyD, LPPC adaptation strategy, amped-up, amped-up version, brain, cortex, current social group, dear john letter, dilemma, emotion, emotional intelligence, essential-to-personal-wellbeing, essential-to-personal-wellbeing life skill, hard skill, intelligence, intelligent adaptation, john letter, lame result, life dilemma, low percentile, low-nurture, make intelligent adaptation, maladaptive response, once-adaptive, once-adaptive behavior, one-down, one-down position relative, original life situation, power of the primitive brain, primitive brain, QuickBooks, relationship crash, relationship intelligence, reptilian brain, small life, smarter, unspoken rule

I’ve noticed the things that overwhelm us during the holidays are really no different from what stresses us out the

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Mental Wellness 

Life Hacks to Handle Difficult People

November 1, 2018December 28, 2018 Jan Anderson, PsyD, LPPC big result, button area, challenge psychological work, difficult people, doable way, E.Q., emotional intelligence skill, extraordinary result, felt-sense, felt-sense experience, good case scenario, help get traction, hot button area, intelligence skill, intimidate energy, let, let 's call, MDU #116, negative behavior, neutral stand position, no. challenge, optimum place, original strength, person 's part, person 's wavelength, positive aspect, positive way, powerful shift, rational place, redefine goal, self-responsible, strengths-based, strengths-based process, success experience

Publisher’s note: This is part 2. Part 1 ran in MDU #116 You Can Be Right and Happy How can

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Mental Wellness 

Loneliness: It’s Even More Hazardous to Your Health Than Smoking, Drinking, or Obesity

June 1, 2018September 10, 2018 Jan Anderson, PsyD, LPPC Angie Leroy, author of the bestseller, aversive state, behavior look, brief kind, Cacioppo, check-out lane, Chicago 's center, chronic disconnectedness, close encounter of the brief kind, connectedness, director of the university of Chicago 's center, disconnectedness, double-standard expectation, establish intimacy, excluded hurt, feel of chronic disconnectedness, glance, governmental impact, governmental impact of connectedness, Harvard political science professor, Houston researcher, implicit vigilance, insufficient social connection, Jeremy Nobel, John Cacioppo, large social network, large social network of friend, little paranoid, loneliness, loneliness act, lonely people, massive health risk, meaningful connectedness, Naomi Eisenberger, pain, pain of alienation, perceptual state, personal psychological terrain, physical heart, physical pain, quality of a person 's relationship, revival of American community, shared inconvenience, short term self-preservation, situational loneliness, social capital, term self-preservation, the16–24, the16–24 year old, twenty % increase, UCLA psychologist, university of Houston researcher, well-meaning advice

What could possibly be more hazardous to your health than obesity, drinking excessively or smoking up to fifteen cigarettes a

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Mental Wellness 

Relationship Repair

May 1, 2018July 2, 2018 Jan Anderson, PsyD, LPPC big bummer, bummer, busy physician, cardinal rule of marital therapy, classic marital impasse, client, counsel, couple talk, evidence-based, evidence-based practice, fast-forward heartbreak, good chance, good chance of help, imposed intimacy, instinct more, John Gottman, John Gottman call, lightbulb moment, likelihood of divorce, marital therapy, marriage researcher, name of the family dog, partner, party participate, pretty good listener, relationship repair, relationship therapy, repair, seek relationship, straight talk, therapy, unique interpersonal dynamics, wife seek emotional connection, withdrawn husband

“You can’t fast-forward heartbreak and you can’t rewind love — and that’s just one big bummer.”(Chelsea Handler, comedian) It’s true

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Mental Wellness 

The Easiest Way to Change Something About Yourself

March 1, 2018May 8, 2018 Jan Anderson, PsyD, LPPC ability of therapy, Brent Roberts, Brett Steenbarger, brief approach, brief course of therapy, brief psychotherapy, colleague, curveballs, dilemma, easy way, emerge branch of psychology, environment of hope, exploration of new pattern, feel fake, focused change effort, good boundary, good news, major evidence-based, mental wellness, meta-analysis, motivational talk, new pattern, old pattern of thought, ongoing reinforcement, ordinary people deal, ordinary problem, powerful emotional experience, practice of brief approach, profound change, psychotherapy, rehearsal of the new pattern, resolution of a dilemma, science of brief psychotherapy, specific type of therapy, Steenbarger, temporary behavior change, therapy, trade psychology, trio of factor, unavoidable curveballs, unavoidable curveballs of life, use of a supportive relationship

Dilemmas are different from ordinary problems. Problems have solutions, while dilemmas are more about resolution than solution. Consider the following

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