Healing Psych

Dr. Katrina Wood's psychotherapy blog

Good stress, bad stress: a two-way street

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Some stresses actually are good for you and your body. The right kind of stress can activate the flow of endorphins, evoke feelings of happiness and excitement, and provide a feeling of overall wellness. Examples of good stress may be the anticipation of a wedding or a birth. The excitement of going to Disneyland. Taking a vacation cruise. Buying your child's first pet. Riding a thrilling … [Read more...]

You gotta right to sing the blues

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In a society that demands we "have a nice day" and keep up our perky smiles, what do you do if you just don’t feel that way on any given day? We all have down days -- times when nothing is going right, and we wonder if it ever will. It's important to normalize these down days when you only want to sing the blues. A variety of moods are essential to our human condition. Our feelings ebb … [Read more...]

Going it alone is no fun — expand your horizons

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Wish you could see things from another perspective, breaking with your old habits? Those habits die hard -- yet they are uncomfortably familiar. Carl Jung once said, "There is no growth without pain." Perhaps that's why we're often afraid to grow -- it's painful. Makes sense, yet perhaps there is another way of coping with the growing pains that we all have to go through to face life’s … [Read more...]

A pill a day, but don’t keep the doctor away

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Medicine alone is simply not enough to ensure wellness when treating depression, anxiety and many other mental health ailments. Psychotherapy, in the form of talking sessions with a qualified professional, is essential to recovery, researchers have found. We are created as social human beings. We did not come to this earth to be alone. Our connections -- emotionally, intellectually and … [Read more...]

Fighting fair and protecting yourself: a guide

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Here are my Rules of Fair Fighting: 1. When involved in an argument, speak about yourself, your experience, your feelings. Use language such as, "I felt angry" or "I felt sad" or "That caused me pain." Avoid: "You were an idiot" and "You made me mad!" Only the behavior of the other person caused you to feel a feeling. But whatever you felt was unique to you; the other person probably felt … [Read more...]