Orlando’s Counseling, Marriage & Family Therapy and Life Coach Professionals

Jessica Stage, MSW, Registered Clinical Social Work Intern

Hopefully many of you out there have a three day weekend in celebration of Labor Day. Labor day was first celebrated September 5th, 1882 in New York City. Labor day was meant to recognize the impact of the working class on American life. How often do you feel “celebrated” in your work life?

According to a 1999 study, three out of every four American workers describe their work as stressful. No job is without every day stress and worries. You may feel as though your boss is constantly looking over your shoulder and checking your work. You may dream of becoming self employed, and having no one to “tell you what to do”. On the other hand, your friend who is self employed is stressed out because she is working seven days a week, because she has totally responsibility over whether her business succeeds or fails!

New challenges at work can bring more stress. A promotion can lead to longer hours and more work done at home. This “drain” can lead you to feel overwhelmed and overworked. When you complain about the workload, do you also complain about the increase in prestige or in pay? Sometimes we forget that achieving our dreams is not easy, and can result in more work and responsibility.

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Kim Murphy, MS, Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern

Everyone’s heard of co-dependency, a term originally used to describe the behavior of a person in a relationship with an addict. Today co-dependency is defined by Wikipedia as “having a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively care taking ways that negatively impact one’s relationships and quality of life… [it] may also be characterized by denial, low self-esteem, excessive compliance, and/or control patterns.” Sounds familiar, right? We all seem to know someone who behaves like this at times. Well, how familiar are you with the other half of this equation, counter-dependency? In their book entitled The Flight from Intimacy, Psychologists Janae and Barry Weinhold (2008) describe a person exhibiting counter-dependency as one who “pushes others away; acts strong and invulnerable; is cut off from his/her feelings; is self-centered; is addicted to activities or substances; blames others; avoids intimacy; acts grandiose; tries to victimize others; and is a people controller” among other things (p. 5). So, you’re probably thinking you know someone like this as well. Unfortunately, in America this kind of behavior is considered somewhat within our social norm. Being in any kind of relationship (professional or personal) with someone who is appears counter-dependent can be extremely frustrating and exhausting. As a therapist at Life Skills Resource Group in Orlando, I do not find myself working with the counter-dependent person. However, I often find myself working with someone who happens to be in a close relationship with a counter-dependent person.

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Amy Smith, MS, Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern

I am currently in the middle of a move and as I have been packing I have noticed some of the similarities between packing and counseling. Moving is about closing old doors to make way to open new ones. It is a time to clear out old items in your closet that you no longer need or want. You may clean areas of your home that you have not seen in a while. Moving also affords you the opportunity to donate items to others who may need them more than you. It’s a time to buy new things and create new spaces. For me, it is also a time to reflect on the memories attached to the home and each item as I pack them. I also vision new memories that I will be making in my new home. Like moving counseling offers the opportunity to clean out and make changes to different areas of your life.

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Garrett Fabico

Everyone is struggling. Love and relationship, life and its purpose, depression and a need for direction; the list could continue indefinitely, populated by concerns inherent to existence as a human being. There is not a mature face on Earth that doesn’t know the conflict of dissatisfaction in solitude, disguised with a smile for the sake of sociability or ease. Still, these issues have ways of making us feel alienated from the world, isolated by the secrets we keep locked behind our eyes. It is our response to these feelings though, our methods of coping with uncertainty and fleeting happiness, which really set us apart from one another. Some people seek shelter in religion, some in art and music, some in wealth, some in possessions. But no man can truly say who is rich and who is poor. These things we do to make ourselves feel significant and worthwhile are often only thinly veiled distractions from the constant struggle with our selves that manifests in times of loneliness, despair, or doubt. Sometimes, it seems that truly finding lasting calm is a peace reserved only for the enlightened or the feeble-minded

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Jean Austin-Danner, Licensed Clinical Social Worker

I am one of the counselors at Like Skills Resource Group in Orlando. I am also a human being with my own life experiences. This blog posting is written more from a personal, rather than professional, perspective.

As I cleaned out some old files recently, I came across something I wrote in the days preceding my mother’s death in April, 2001. I am working with several clients who are working through their own grief right now. I share my words of coming-to-acceptance to honor all those who courageously do the hard work of grieving.

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Jessica Stage, Registered Clinical Social Work Intern

As one of the Orlando therapists at Life Skills Resource Group, I have the honor of serving clients from diverse backgrounds and ages. In my “day job” I work in a hospital, where I see patients every day who are struck with the unexpected trauma of an injury or illness. I have been focusing my counseling work on clients who are coping with chronic illness and traumatic injury. It is a great way to blend my knowledge of counseling with my experience in the health care system.  I will see clients sometimes who are tearful and depressed due to being in unmanageable pain. Sometimes they are searching for a diagnosis, other times they have been told they have a chronic, incurable “condition”.   Being thrust into the medical system when you have always been “healthy” can be a shock. You lose so much control over your life. A doctor is telling you what you can’t do. A nurse is telling you to “take this medicine”. You may feel confused and overwhelmed, and feel that you have no say in your treatment. This is not true!

As a social worker, we work to show people the tools to advocate for themselves. YOU are the person who knows the most about your own (or your child’s) medical condition. A doctor or other health care professional is only seeing you for a few minutes, and has to try to obtain the most information in order to make an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan. You can work with your doctor or other health care professional in order to maximize your time and help them to help you. It is important if you are dealing with chronic pain to try to keep a “pain journal” of what times of the day, or what activities you are doing, in order to help the doctor find the root of the pain. Try to give the pain a numeric rating as well, on a scale from one to ten. If you tell the doctor ” my back hurts all the time” versus ” I feel like my pain is a 7 out of 10 when I take a shower, a 5 out of 10 when I am driving, and I only feel “normal” when I am in bed” this can lead to a clearer picture of what you are experiencing.

If you are going to a first appointment with a specialist, try to bring a trusted friend or family member along to help “take notes”. You can get told so much information that you may not process it all, or may not realize what you need to follow up on. It is important to write down any questions you may have so you don’t forget  to raise your concerns.  If you only have a half an hour with a specialist, try to maximize your time. Have the name and phone numbers of any referrals that you wish with you for the doctor’s office staff.

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Amy Smith, MS, Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern

Conflict is something everyone has to deal with sometime. Parents invariably have some conflict in their lives whether they are married, separated, or divorced. Often when families are dealing with divorce there is a heightened level of parental conflict. For children, having to deal with parental conflict is a terrible burden to bear. The actions of parents during this difficult time can affect all aspects of a child’s youth and have lingering effects well into adulthood. It is important for parents to be aware of this so they can make good choices and ensure their children learn appropriate ways to manage conflict. The Orlando counselors and life coaches at Life Skills Resource Group are available to help families make good choices in managing conflict in a healthy manner.

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Garrett Fabico

I attended Catholic schools for middle and high school and feel immensely grateful and privileged for everything that they exposed me to. It was from those environments that I learned how to recognize right from wrong (and how much more I enjoyed wrong), the importance of appreciation, and that maybe all that matters in life is learning to love your own. Perhaps most dear to the person I am now, though, was the byproduct of a regimented and often hypocritical Catholic education: independent thought. From an early age, I began to think inquisitively about religion. I was bothered most, I think, by my peers’ acceptance (or lack of apparent questioning) of God’s supreme wisdom arbitrarily dispensed by school textbook. Catholic God’s case received further demerit when I learned that even gingerly posed questioning (in middle school and from a particular junior theologian, mind you) would be met with either idiomatic rote or punishment. Though I was enamored by what I saw as the core of the Catholic faith—a selfless and loving lifestyle characterized by the actions you take for others—I was convinced that the people around me calling themselves Catholics did not show that they were Catholic by the way they lived. To me, a lot of these people were merely wearing their religion like a fly pair of shoes—they make a good impression and protect your feet from the hot concrete, but they’re nowhere to be found when there isn’t anyone around to see them.

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Amy Smith, MS, Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern

Nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce these days and according to the Associated Press, Florida has one of the higher rates in the country. Parents invariably divorce for a multitude of reasons, but their ultimate goal is to create a happier, healthier life for themselves and their children. What parents often overlook is that their actions during this difficult time can facilitate a smooth, informed, supportive transition for the children involved. The counselors and life coaches at Life Skills Resource Group Orlando can help guide families through this difficult time of transition.

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