I couldn't have imagined what the first year in business would hold as I opened Great Lakes Therapy Center last summer. A pandemic where woking meant seeing clients via telehealth, wearing masks in public, and not hugging those close to me was certainly not on my radar…

I couldn't have imagined what the first year in business would hold as I opened Great Lakes Therapy Center last summer. A pandemic where woking meant seeing clients via telehealth, wearing masks in public, and not hugging those close to me was certainly not on my radar…

I couldn't have imagined what the first year in business would hold as I opened Great Lakes Therapy Center last summer. A pandemic where woking meant seeing clients via telehealth, wearing masks in public, and not hugging those close to me was certainly not on my radar…

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests, all of us at Great Lakes Therapy Center want to make it clear that we stand with the Black Lives Matter Movement. We support the people protesting across the world and we commit to examining and changing the ways we have benefited from and unintentionally have contributed to systemic racism.

I became trained as a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional through the International Association of Trauma Professionals so that I could be better equipped to assist my clients in the healing process. For people coming to Great Lakes Therapy Center with the goal of processing past trauma, treatment may look different than they were expecting. After completing the intake process, therapy will not necessarily look like the typical talk therapy format. There are reasons for the variation in session structure when processing past trauma.

When I talk about anger, I like to start by asking a simple question: “Is it alright to be angry?”

I get many responses to this question, but most of them amount to saying the same thing: “No.” This response never surprises me. After all, who wants to be angry? Just the word anger is enough to conjure up bad memories of when we said or did something that prompts feeling guilt or shame. On top of that, we are constantly receiving messages from our environment that anger is “bad” through movies, television and social media. Anger acted on ineffectively can lead to damaging emotional consequences that we cannot forget. When we become emotionally dysregulated, anger often leads to harm in our relationships.

We are very excited to announce that our DBT practice is moving to a new office! Great Lakes Therapy Center will now be located at 123 W Madison Suite 2150! We will still be in the Chicago Loop. We will still be offering comprehensive DBT. We will still be talking about our dogs in group as homework examples. Many things will stay the same and there is still a great amount of change that occurs when moving from one space to another. Moving, while it can be frustrating, is an excellent opportunity to balance acceptance and change together!

I have a similar routine almost every morning. Since I do the same thing over and over again, I am rarely mindful of what activity I am participating in. It has become automatic. Often I am thinking about if the weather and how it changes so often in Chicago. I might be thinking about what I need to pack in my backpack for the day. I might be wrapped up in thoughts about how I would rather be in bed. It is common to not be aware or mindful of what we are doing in the moment if it is an activity that occurs every day. Normally, this would not create problems for me. One morning recently, my lack of awareness and mindfulness created some personal distress.

Often clients that look to dialectical behavior therapy for help describe experiencing higher emotional sensitivity than others around them. At times, that sensitivity to others and their emotions can produce a deep love and sympathy in relationships. At other times, it can lead to reactivity that results in regret or negative affects on relationships. Psychology Today posted an article by Carlin Flora discussing the experience of emotional contagion. She describes emotional contagion as a “a basic building block of human interaction [that] helps us coordinate and synchronize with others” (Flora, 2019). We are naturally affected by the mood of others around us and it is needed to build relationships. If you are extremely sensitive though, this could create problems for self worth or relationships without DBT skills.

One factor that can get in the way of desired change is a lack of knowledge or ability to know how to do so. While attempting to change but not knowing how to do so effectively, one could be accused of not being motivated. More often what we see at Great Lakes Therapy Center is lack of skill rather than a lack of motivation. It is important to differentiate between the two because problem solving for willfulness and problem solving for inability look different. Problem solving for willfulness involves exploring factors in the way of becoming willing and practicing skills to increase willingness and to decrease willfulness. Problem solving lack of ability or knowledge looks like regularly attending and participating in a DBT skills group and practicing the skills regularly outside of group.

In every DBT skills group at Great Lakes Therapy Center, we practice mindfulness together to increase our focus in the moment, strengthen the foundation for a DBT skills practice outside of the group room and decrease painful emotions in the long term. Mindfulness can be its own practice, such as meditation. It can also be a lens we apply to everyday experiences and activities.