Category: Breathe

You are sitting on a bench at your local playground. It’s sunny (despite Michigan’s temperamental weather). Your gaze begins to wander and settles on children climbing. They are climbing everywhere. It’s amazing, actually, how many things children can climb on. You further notice how they run, walk, slide down slides, play tag, squeal with delight on swings. Toddlers trundle off in a big, new-to-them world. They seem to take up space with ease; it’s their world, we’re just living in it. They are so sure that they belong wherever they go. Do you have this scene? For me, this imagined space invites lots of emotions: joy, wonder, delight, curiosity, and sadness. Yes, sadness. Because I, as an adult, have a harder time feeling so present and excited and happy and confident of belonging. I have more awareness and more to my story as to why these emotions make sense for me.

What is play, and why does it make sense for all humans of ...

Recent decades have seen an increasing interest in the healing and therapeutic potential of nature and the perspective of various nature-based interventions for the benefit of mental health. The field of nature-based therapies is expanding in line with this interest. During the formative years of modern psychotherapy, several psychotherapists had a close, loving relationship with nature and who had contributed in some ways to the formation of nature therapy. One of them was Carl Jung, a renowned Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who was one of the first people in the field of mental health to voice concerns about the separation of men and nature. C. Jung believed that a modern man was in danger of losing all contact with the world of instinct, increased by his living an urban existence and separation from nature. Jung wrote in his diaries that the loss of instinct is largely responsible for the pathological condition of contem ...

Having a child is a huge transition and brings changes for the entire family. This time of transition is often difficult for all members of the family, but is further complicated when PMADs enter the picture. PMADs stands for Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders and encompasses diagnoses of depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, and postpartum psychosis. Symptoms can occur at any point during pregnancy and within the first 12 months after childbirth, so it is important to continually be on the lookout for changes. PMADs impact 1 in 5 women and are the number one complication of childbearing. Research is also showing that PMADs can occur in around 10% of fathers, and this number can increase if the mother is experiencing symptoms. The good news is that there is help. Postpartum Support International believes that, “You are not alone. You are not to blame. With help, you will be well.”

The first step in that process is knowing what to look out for. O ...