Rituals of Respect: Crafting meaningful do-it-yourself ceremonies for the dearly departed
In the Battleground Community Center, more than a thousand origami cranes hung in long streamers from the high ceilings. Candles flickered on the mantle above the stone fireplace, and the long slow hum of a large bronze Tibetan singing bowl filled the room. A crowd of hundreds, standing room only,...
In Search of Awe: On the Psychological Motivations to Witness a Total Solar Eclipse
The days are rapidly counting down to the total solar eclipse that will speed across the continental United States on Monday, August 21, and in my home, we are in full preparation mode, gearing up for a journey to the wide open skies of Eastern Oregon. For what would normally...
Upcoming lecture: Five Bodies of Grief, July 7
“Is something wrong with me? I’m afraid I’m not grieving the right way.” Such statements are common in my therapy practice, and every time I hear them, I feel pangs of frustration and sorrow. Grieving clients, confused by thoughts and feelings that may be unexpectedly profound, or surprisingly muted, often...
Terror & Murder on the Max: How to Offer Support in the Wake of a Community Trauma
It has been a Memorial Day weekend full of tear-glistening eyes and cracking voices here in Portland, where so many conversations since Friday evening have at some point turned to a discussion of “what happened on the Max.” Two men murdered, a third severely injured — after all three came...
“Seeing Fires Where There Aren’t Any:” How a history of cliff-side traumas ignited a new response to vertigo
I, for one, was hanging on for dear life. Every 20 yards or so, the hair-pin-turning, cliff-cut road dipped perilously into patches of sunken pavement, evidence of recurring landslides. To one side, a sheer cliff wall; to the other, air and the freedom to plunge into it. Nary a guardrail...
Electing Sanity: How to hold your center during the ugliest presidential campaign in history
There’s less than seven weeks to go until the presidential election, and with every passing day, the most divisive, racially charged and scandal-laden political campaign in modern history only gets uglier: louder and nastier rhetoric, violence at campaign rallies, incessant repetition of contradictory statements and accusations, releases of polling data that alarm...
On Orlando: Troubles with Motives, Fundamentalism and the Politics of Division
Amidst all the terrible headlines in the news recently, I have in the week following the Orlando massacre found myself pondering a recurring theme: the politics of division. As if it wasn’t enough to be in the midst of an ugly campaign season full of divisive and bigoted rhetoric, the...
Reclaiming Personal Power: Four Keys to Healing from Trauma
Trauma. It’s a word loaded with meanings both personal and political. Indeed, the very notion of “trauma” itself may be understood as a cultural experience that first emerged from political upheaval. Some theorists trace the origins of our current conceptualization of trauma to the bloody uprisings of the French Revolution in 1789,...
Season’s Grievings: Surviving the Winter Holidays in the Wake of Loss
Nothing seems to stir up feelings of grief quite like the winter holidays. As a psychotherapist, and also someone who has known plenty of loss within my own circle of family and friends, I am perhaps all-too-familiar with the myriad ways people suffer during the holiday season. This time of...
Extremely Dark Places: The role of empathy in healing from suicide
Walking the dog under the St. Johns Bridge one lovely evening a few weeks back, Marlene and I noticed a small patrol boat circling an area of the Willamette River just downstream from the bridge. With night encroaching, a spotlight skimmed across the shimmering dark surface of the water, searching...