Healing Psych

Dr. Katrina Wood's psychotherapy blog

Coming home: the LGBTQ teen

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Some of the biggest challenges parents face are with LGBTQ teens. Despite significant progress made in society regarding sexual preferences and alternative genders, there continue to exist stigmas and judgments. Most are based on fear, ignorance and outright discrimination. If your teen grows to become part of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community, you need to be … [Read more...]

Boys and girls: A different way of thinking

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Science tells us that boys and girls have marked distinctions and differences. Neither better nor worse. Neither good nor bad. Nonetheless these distinctions have significant impacts on how they walk in the world. For example, it often seems girls are more adept than boys at thoughtful communication. There are good reasons for this: Scientists and psychologists long have known that girls’ … [Read more...]

The dark road that leads to light

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Walking along a dark road, it starts to rain, your phone barely has life, when out of nowhere it begins to pour down. The thin jacket you put on when you walked to your friend’s home on this pleasant evening becomes drenched in a heartbeat. You quicken your pace. The 20-minute walk home now feels like an interminable uncertain journey, as you find yourself beginning to shiver, even cough a … [Read more...]

When gratitude is in short supply

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How often are small kindnesses extended without a second thought, simply an automatic gesture between human beings, just because. … Probably millions of time daily around the world. What a wonderful image this suggests. People offering help, care, love and consideration. Society values and rewards such gestures. Studies have shown time and again how gestures of kindness and consideration … [Read more...]

Taming the resentful mother

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There is something startling about a mother demonstrating bitter and resentful behaviors toward her daughter. Something unnatural, confusing and disquieting. This dynamic should not exist in a normal mother-daughter relationship. Yet it occurs more than we would like to admit. But why -- and what impact does this have on a child who looks to a mother as all-encompassing protector, mentor, … [Read more...]