Ideas on Mental Health & Meaning
Why the Holidays Can Be Hard on Mental Health—and What Helps
Why the Holidays Can Be Hard on Mental Health—and What Helps For many people, the holidays are supposed to be joyful: warm gatherings, shared meals, traditions passed down through generations. Yet every year, a quieter truth emerges in therapy offices, inboxes, and...
Working Through Seasonal Affective Disorder: A Meaning-Centered Approach to Winter
At the time I am writing this, we still have not reached the Winter Solstice - the shortest day of the year. This day marks the slow, the very slow, return of more sunlight in our days. Warmth, light, brightness.... still months away. And, I don't about you, but I...
The Meaning of Holiday Nostalgia
Why We Become So Nostalgic During the Holidays Every year, right on schedule, it happens. It usually starts in my office just a few days before Halloween - if I am conscious enough to start asking the right questions. But, for most of us, it starts less...
Your Annual Logotherapeutic Holiday Gift-Giving Guide
I've been writing this blog every week for somewhere around 15 years. Every year, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, I share something about holiday gift giving. I love writing this post every year. A few times, I think I actually listed gifts I thought would be...
The Psychology of Values: Why What You Believe Matters for Well-Being
Last week, I wrote about Meaning - shocker, I know. But from that, came some great discussion in my office. I write about meaning often. I talk about meaning just about every day. I study the idea of meaning all the time. Sometimes I forget, not everybody does. ...
The Power of Meaning: Using Logotherapy Principles to Improve Your Mental Health
Logotherapy—developed by Dr. Viktor Frankl—centers on one core idea: human beings can endure almost any “how” if they have a “why.” Its principles help people build meaning, resilience, and psychological flexibility. Here are practical ways to apply Logotherapy in...
You’re Not as Depressed or as Anxious as You Think You Are – Part II; Anxiety
Don't get me wrong - depression and anxiety are VERY REAL issues in our world today. Whether physiological in nature, a symptom of modern life in a constantly quicker world, or some combination thereof, these issues are real. And sometimes, medication is part of the...
You’re Not as Depressed or as Anxious as You Think You Are – Part I
I've been saying this for a long time. Maybe you are not as depressed or anxious as you think you are. Surely, in my clinical opinion, for what it's worth, you're not that depressed or that anxious that you require medication. You see, when I studied depression and...
Phoenix Revival
Through my journeys in the past few weeks I was recommeded to read a book - an amazing story - a story of intense trauma and revival. A story most of us can't relate to directly, but a situation we can all recognize in our lives, in some parts. This book, Phoenix...
A Story About Men
I am just now descending back into "the real world" after what seems like decades away from the office. In reality, it was only two weeks - several days on a Men's Peer Group Retreat working with plant-based medicine in the mountains of Colorado; followed by my wife...
The Difference Between Selfish and Self-Care
This was an important discussion last week at my men's retreat - what is "selfish" and what is "self-care". From my experience, those of us who tend to ask that question may find ourselves on either end of an extreme. Some people finding themselves "giving until it...
When You Don’t Feel Like A Priority
Sadly, it's been an all-too-common theme, not feeling like #1 in your own marriage or relationship - and I hear it from both sides, both men and women, husbands and wives. That’s a tough and painful place to be, and it makes sense you’d be searching for what to do....