Therapy Sketches
Reflections from the members of our clinical team on connections and insights made in psychotherapy about the lives we live and how it impacts our mental health.
Older sketches
What is Identity?
November 2024
Finding Who We Are: Exploring Identity in Therapy Identity is how we understand and define ourselves. It includes our values, beliefs, personality, culture, relationships, and societal roles. Identity is not fixed; it can change over time as we grow and experience different things. According to psychologists like Crocetti and colleagues, identity is shaped by our […]
Navigating Cultural Dynamics vs. Dysfunctional Relationship Patterns
November 2024
Culture is always changing, shaped by the social and historical environments around it. It develops through groups of people who share ideas, values, and ways of speaking. These communities are not isolated; they interact with the larger world and evolve as society and history change. Through ongoing exchanges, […]
Unpacking the Religious Trauma: A Journey Through Understanding
November 2024
Religion is a set of beliefs and practices that involve worshipping a divine power. It includes rituals, teachings, and moral guidelines for people to understand the world and universe. Religion means different to everyone. However, one common theme is that religion is known for its role in […]
Feeling of Surprise: Embracing the Uncertainty
October 2024
According to Paul Ekman’s research, surprise is one of our fundamental emotions. As surprising as it is, we feel surprised when we come across something we do not expect. This can be unexpected sounds, movements, and behaviors. For example, you can feel surprised when […]
Making Sense of Emotions: Experiencing and Identifying Feelings
October 2024
In our daily lives, we encounter many events and situations, both expected and unexpected, that trigger various responses in us. These responses encompass physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions. The reactions we give are often shaped by the emotions we feel. Therefore, emotions hold a critical place […]
Insights into Sadness: How does it affect us?
October 2024
We often hear the phrase, “Everyone feels sad from time to time.” We often hear that when trying to find solace. Although we understand that, it doesn’t take away the sensation of sadness that can be experienced as deep and painful. We get tiny signals of sadness […]
What do we fear?
September 2024
Fear’s Purpose: From Threat to Safety Fear is an emotional reaction to a stimulus that implies a real or perceived threat. Even though we highly despise feelings of fear and aim to avoid it as much as possible, fear has a robust adaptive value that contributes to our survival rate. Due to its adaptive nature, […]
Finding Joy: How to Build a Lasting Happiness
September 2024
Happiness is a positive emotional state characterized by feelings of joy and life satisfaction. It is one of humans’ primary and universal emotions, alongside anger, fear, contempt, disgust, sadness, and surprise. Happiness has significantly positive value among the other primary emotions since it arises from well-being, contentment, […]
Exploring Anxiety: Understanding Anxiety as a Complex Emotion
August 2024
Anxiety is an emotion that is experienced due to thoughts of future outcomes that could happen at some time in the future. Anxiety is classified as a secondary emotion, which means to feel anxious, we process information in accordance with our previous […]
Understanding Anger: From Reaction to Conscious Response
August 2024
Anger is one of the fundamental emotions felt by every human being universally. It is a natural reaction when a person experiences a negative experience, such as perceiving a threat against themselves, being unfairly treated, hide other underlying feelings that are hard to [...]
Breakup Ideation: Thinking About the Worst Case Scenario
August 2024
Conflicts in relationships are inevitable and might cause significant emotional distress to partners. Partners can feel various intense negative emotions afterward, such as anger, sadness, or hopelessness. The intensity might be hard to carry, especially when the conflict is not resolved. In order to take this heaviness, […]
Navigating Flooding: Managing Emotional Overload During Conflicts
August 2024
John Gottman’s studies about romantic relationships illuminate multiple aspects of happy, long-lasting relationships. One strong point they emphasize is conflict management. Gottman and his colleagues found that in happy relationships, the partners’ way of arguing is softer and more emotionally regulated. You might ask […]