Betty Bickers, LCSW Psychotherapy Services

05/15/2023

Stop minimizing and discounting your feelings. You have every right to feel the way you do. Your feelings may not always be logical, but they are always valid.

Because if you feel something, then you feel it and it’s real to you. It’s not something you can ignore or wish away. It’s there, gnawing at you, tugging at your core, and in order to find peace, you have to give yourself permission to feel whatever it is you feel.
.. You have to drown out the voices of people who try to shame you into silence. You have to listen to the sound of your own breathing and honor the truth inside you.

Because despite what you may believe, you don’t need anyone’s validation or approval to feel what you feel. Your feelings are inherently right and true. They’re important and they matter — you matter — and it is more than okay to feel what you feel. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, convince you otherwise.

~ Daniell Koepke

Photo : Poppy Leigh Social Media

09/10/2019

Coping skills for intense anxiety or agitation. Safely Blow off Steam.

09/10/2019

Coping Skills for intense anxiety or agitation. "Blow off Steam Safely"

08/10/2019

Thank you to everyone who has "liked" my FB posts or my videos on YouTube.

08/03/2019

This is my first video. My YouTube channel is just getting started!

03/10/2019

PTSD and Ordinary People

You could be experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and not be aware of it, because you think PTSD only happens to military veterans or first-responders. Trauma is something that happens to other people.

"Big T" traumas and "Little t" traumas happen every day, all around us. Each of those crime stories on the local news means many individual lives were touched by each of those events. Every police or fire siren signals a potential traumatic event for those directly involved. We often don't take the time to consider the aftereffects of these events once the initial emergency has passed.

War and terrorism are obvious sources of much trauma as is childhood physical and sexual abuse. Natural and man-made disasters affect more people every year. The sheer horribleness of these events make it more understandable that their victims might be traumatized.

The field of mental health has been awakened by research into the treatment of trauma that an event doesn't have to be catastrophic to have a significant physical and emotional impact on a person. A car accident can be traumatic for the ones involved. Medical emergencies can be traumatizing for family and friends as well as for the suffering patient. Coming close to having a horrific experience and believing one was facing harm or death can also have terrifying effects despite a safe outcome.

I began this article by suggesting that some of us may be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress disorder and not know it. Many psychiatrists and therapists have taken too long to recognize, diagnose, and treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in their clients.

One of the primary reasons persons suffering from PTSD don't present for psychotherapy or other mental health treatment is that they are desperately trying to avoid anything that reminds them of their past event(s). Sufferers work hard to avoid distressing memories thoughts, feelings and physical sensations that are closely associated with that traumatic event.

They also try to avoid any external reminders that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, feelings, or sensations associated with that event. This means avoidance of people, places, activities and situations that might "trigger" memories of the trauma. This logically follows that some PTSD sufferers can deny or minimize their symptoms in an effort to avoid getting treatment.

Despite these efforts, one of the most horrifying aspects of suffering from PTSD is that you have at least one intrusion recurrent symptom that involves remembering the traumatic event; having dreams of the event; and/or having a dissociative reaction in which the individual feels or acts like the traumatic event is reoccurring.

These events often leave the individual retraumatized. Negative changes in thoughts and mood associated with the traumatic event occur. These can include overwhelming feelings of negativity; loss of interest in activities; feelings of separation from others. Marked changes including irritable behavior and angry outbursts; reckless or self-destructive behaviors; and problems with concentration. Sleep disturbance in often seen with those suffering from PTSD.

Another reason why this diagnosis has often been missed is because of these varying manifestations depression and anxiety can have in individuals. With Mood Disorders or Anxiety Disorders, symptom reduction often becomes the focus of the treatment plan. Mental health providers can miss the trauma aspect of their clients' histories if it is not specifically asked about in treatment. And as we have discussed, often clients are reluctant to acknowledge the most painful aspects of their histories, choosing to withhold traumatic material from their provider.

This article gives just a brief glimpse into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and does not intend to act as a diagnostic substitute for a psychiatric evaluation completed by a licensed mental health professional. My hope is to shed some light on the subject of trauma and its impact on ourselves and those we love.

You don't have to view yourself as a "trauma victim" in order to seek treatment for your PTSD.

05/15/2018

Betty's Office 3.2: Why EMDR? Why Now?
I haven't seen a breakthrough like this in all my years working as a psychotherapist! I have been practicing in the mental health field for over 30 years and I am excited to write about Francine Shapiro's gift to the world, "EMDR". EMDR stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. EMDR gives new hope to those suffering from emotional distress related to past or recent traumas.

As a therapist who was licensed (way back) in 1988, I was initially skeptical of this new therapy, EMDR, that emerged in the 1990's. Nothing was discussed in terms of EMDR at the UC Berkeley School of Psychology nor the USC School of Social Work where I was trained in the early '80's.

I initially questioned the practice of EMDR therapists waving their fingers in front of their clients' eyes and took this to be some form of hypnotherapy. I thought it was rather silly initially, I must admit. I heard EMDR therapists share about how quickly and effectively it can "clear" traumatic memories. Some of my fellow therapists began moving away from more traditional cognitive-behavioral therapies to practice EMDR exclusively.

It seemed too good to be true and I didn't buy it. I had been trained with therapy treatment goal words such as "cope with", "manage", "reduce", and the hopefully optimistic "work through" when it came to treating the effects of trauma. The word "cure" was rarely if ever mentioned in most clinical psychology books.

But the EMDR therapist community speaks of "releasing" or "clearing" traumatic memories by reworking the patient's brain's memory circuits. Changes in the brain literally occur as a therapist and patient work together using bilateral stimulation of the brain to review and reprocess painful traumatic memories.

I had been turning a deaf ear to a new therapy that apparently over the past 25 years has been helping people all over the world resolve depression and anxiety resulting from all types of traumatic events. But thank goodness, my ears and eyes were opened at the Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference held this past December in Anaheim. Truly cutting edge work is being done in the field of mental health and I needed to hear about it.

I immediately signed up to get EMDR training and I am nearly through its completion as I write this. I have introduced EMDR into my practice and have already seen amazing results. Believe me, having a patient exclaim that they feel better than they've ever felt after an EMDR session is more of an immediate and validating outcome than is typically seen in a therapy session.

It is my life's work to become the most effective therapist I can be. Learning about EMDR is teaching me to push beyond what I thought was possible to accomplish in therapy.

05/09/2018

Thank you for writing about your chronic depression and anxiety, Mr. Wheaton.

I’m about to go speak to NAMI Ohio’s statewide conference, Fulfilling the Promise. These are the remarks I prepared for my speech. Before I begin, I want to warn you that this talk touc…