Pressing Pause

PRESSING PAUSE

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“Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.” -Thoreau

I wonder what Thoreau would have said about the invention of the internet.

Recently, the staff at Womencare invited child and adolescent therapists to come share in a conversation that struggled to assess and consider the impact of technology on our kids, our relationships, and our lives. In the brief 1 ½ hour discussion, we touched on many things.

We discussed communities- the creation of new, and the strain on old.

We pondered social rules- what it means to be a friend, and what it means to be a friend on Facebook, and when and how to bridge those relationships.

We thought about information- how to wade through the seemingly endless stream of data and finding ways to sift the good from the bad.

We wondered about neurological changes- if the very fabric of our brains is changing because of the new ways we receive and process data.

We considered safety- how to protect our children and ourselves in a world with even more ambiguous boundaries.

Eventually, an important question emerged- when and where do we stop to consider all of these pieces in order to act, as opposed to react? As therapists, we try to provide a space in our client’s lives for them to begin to consider their own choices with wisdom and grace. As people, we do this while trying to forge our own path through this changing scenery. Some try to abstain almost entirely, while others immerse themselves in the new world, rushing to keep up with the latest development. Either option limits our opportunity to best serve our clients, who look to us for guidance and balance. So how do we play that role in a world where people frantically feel that speed is of the essence, and feel frantic about keeping up?

Ultimately, the answer may be to do exactly what we did. We took a moment to press pause on the information overload and come together to share our knowledge, in order to best help our clients. It seems we all came away from that conversation with something new- a new thought, new guideline, or new piece of information. We wish to offer a sincere thank you to everyone who came, and an invitation to them and others to continue to take those moments when we can find them. Together, we can hold that space to think and make choices in a more powerful way than we can traveling alone. (And no one’s phone went off during that whole hour and a half… at least not audibly!)

Ellen Lonnquist 

Yoga Group: Listening to Your Body, Listening to Your Heart

As part of our foray into the blog world, we would like to increase your awareness of events occurring at Womencare Counseling Center. Please take a look at this Yoga group, which will be occurring in March and April. We'd love for you to join us!

About the group: In our bodies we experience the challenges and tensions of life hardships, yet the body can be the most forgotten element in our healing journey. This six week group will introduce participants to a supportive and soothing yoga experience through physical postures, breathing techniques, hand gestures, and meditation. The facilitators are therapists who work with the many faces of trauma, mind/body connection and are trained yoga instructors.

Group Details:

• When: Saturdays, 3:00-5:00, March 16 - April 20, 2013
• Where: 1740 Ridge Avenue, Suite 201, Evanston, Illinois 60201 
• Led By: Merari Fernández Castro
• Program Fees: The Yoga Group is $210 per person for the series. Group fee includes program materials. Scholarships are available. Refunds permitted until one week before the workshop and are subject to a $30 administrative charge.
• RSVP:  To join one of our therapy groups, please contact our Intake Counselor at 847-475-7003.

Invisible Victims of PTSD

Thank you Alex Kotlowitz, author, neighbor, and Northwestern University’s Writer in Residence, for insisting in your New York Times article (The Price of Public Violence, 2/23/2013) that we expand the conversation about children and murder.

Thank you for insisting that in addition to mourning the victims, in addition to sending our deepest regrets to the families of the children, in addition to all our attempts to console by smothering schools with cards and teddy bears, that we speak about the less visible victims.

Kotlowitz reminds us that when “Hadiya Peddleton, the fifteen year old public school student and band majorette, who just a week earlier had preformed at president Obama’s inauguration, was killed on Jan. 29, she was standing under an awning in the park with a dozen friends.” Her treasured friends huddled under the awning on Jan. 29, and that day their world was also changed forever. 

The witnesses, the ones who were missed by the bullet, the ones who were spared, the ones who watched Hadiya Peddleton, all the Hadiya Pendeltons in other neighborhoods. The friends and family members of fourteen year old Dajae Coleman of Evanston, the children of Sandy Hook Elementary, all of them were witnesses and they are haunted by trauma. Kotlowitz reminds us that their sense of future is altered by what they experienced.

In 1994 the DSM-IV (the diagnostic manual) added one word to the criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from the previous edition. The word was witness. It stated that one criteria for PTSD was that “the person has experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others.”

The children and families, who walk the streets where the murder of youth is frighteningly commonplace or for those who sleep in nicer bedrooms and once imagined it could never happen here, they may all be the hidden victims of PTSD. 

And thank you Alex Kotlowitz for also paying homage in your article in the New York Times to the impact on other witnesses, those of us on the front lines. The social workers, the child advocates, the schoolteachers, the first responders whose souls and bodies are also infected. We call it secondary trauma, vicarious trauma; we call it heartbreak. 

The witnesses multiply and so too do those who suffer from PTSD, this has become a hidden public health crisis.

Let us also remember that the solution may reside in the witnesses. Those who refuse to turn away; those who refuse to think it is somebody else’s problem, the enlightened witness: communities that refuse to be indifferent, who are committed to sustain their outrage when a child, anyone’s child, is murdered and those who are determined to seek solutions even when it would be easier to turn away. 

Laurie Kahn

Co-Director of the Trauma Training and Consultation Program

Director and Founder Womencare Counseling Center 

The Pregnant Therapist: Transference & Countertransference in the Therapeutic Relationship

As part of our foray into the blog world, we would like to increase your awareness of events occurring at Womencare Counseling Center. Please take a look at this event, which will be occurring in March. We'd love for you to join us!

Event Details:

• When: Sunday, March 3rd, from 9:30-12:30pm
• Where: 1740 Ridge Avenue, Suite 201, Evanston, Illinois 60201 
• RSVP: Contact Amy Derringer Chandler at 847-475-7003 ext. 30 for information
• Program Fees: $65

When a therapist becomes pregnant, the client-therapist relationship is impacted in ways that can be both challenging and enriching. A therapist's pregnancy is an unavoidable self-disclosure, which impacts the therapeutic relationship before, during and after the therapist’s maternity leave. The complex feelings and interpersonal dynamics which arise are stirring for the client, and also for the therapist as she enters into her own time of psychological change and growth. This three hour workshop provides a forum for therapists to share experiences, discuss themes and together explore this transformative time.

Pressing Pause: Exploring the Challenges and Benefits of Today's Technologies and Their Impact on Young People

As part of our foray into the blog world, we would like to increase your awareness of events occurring at Womencare Counseling Center. Please take a look at this event, which will be occurring in March. We'd love for you to join us!


Event Details:

• When: Friday, March 8th, from 9:30-11:30am
• Where: 1740 Ridge Avenue, Suite 201, Evanston, Illinois 60201 
• RSVP: Please RSVP to Beth Holzhauer at (847)475-7003, ext. 24, or email her here. (bholzhauer@womencarecounseling.com)

This gathering offers a place for professionals who work with children and adolescents to exchange ideas, thoughts, concerns and resources about the challenges and benefits of today's technologies and their impact on young people.

It is our hope that this dialogue will build community, and inspire us to generate strategies thta will support our work with children and adolescents.

A complimentary light breakfast will be served. There is no fee for this event.

Our Journey Into Social Media

Womencare is taking the leap into the world of social media.  I do not find social media intuitive. I have never tweeted and I am baffled by Facebook. The truth is, it seems daunting.

My most ambitious post on Facebook was at 3:30 in the morning, a lonely time for the occasional insomniac.  After I perused my children's and friends’ pages I gathered my courage to post something: “Is anyone awake?”  My hope for a comrade to reply in the wee hours evaporated into the cloud.  So please bear with me and with Womencare as we venture into the land of blogs, Facebook and tweets.

Obama wisely said in his recent inaugural speech;  “When times change so must we.” So we will forge forward into this new territory. On the other side of my dread of the unknown is sparkling excitement.  I am a communitarian; I love any tools, ideas or opportunities that create connections and foster community be it gatherings in living rooms, on the street, on-line or off-line.

As a writer and trauma therapist I am passionate about the power of words. In my 30 years of experience treating the aftereffects of trauma I understand that what isolates and disables survivors of child abuse is not simply the horror of abuse or neglect but the loss of language. Without words our experiences are un-shareable, cementing a sense of disconnection from ourselves and from others. Moving the traumatic from wordlessness to words holds such promise. It is part of what we do as therapists; we become midwives to stories that were once unspeakable. Truth telling breaks the code of silence and allows for healing.

As we stumble into this territory of social media, aware of its challenges and aware of its potential to foster new connections, we will share our thinking, stories that inspire us, our dreams and ideas that inform what we do and the programs we create. We hope to connect to others who share our vision. We want to acknowledge those who are doing courageous work and share resources that we think you will find valuable.

As we begin we will blog once or twice a month.  Our intention is to increase the frequency as we gain more confidence. We will also communicate with you on Facebook.

Here’s how you can help. Subscribe to our blog and "Like" our Facebook page to follow us there. Email us your ideas and comments. Applaud when we succeed and gently nudge us when we miss the mark.

Best,
Laurie Kahn
Director and Novice Blogger

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