Literally Literary and The Writing Cooperative prompt — There are conventional rites of passage that chronicle pivotal life transitions such as marriage, childbirth, graduation celebrations and other sundry celebratory milestones. If one is fortunate enough to have been born into a cohesive family, this tribal unit will afford one a sense of collective identity and enduring security. Within…

Understanding the ‘Repetition Compulsion’ — Poet and novelist Charles Bukowski wrote, “I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.” His words evoke in me memories of a bleak childhood steeped in inhumanity. They encapsulate my experience of a world tainted by love forgotten, love betrayed and love denied. …

Navigating a complex process of remembrance and mourning — Adapting to estrangement becomes a necessary rite of passage for those of us intent on self-preservation, who realize that staying tethered to one’s pernicious family of origin will eventually lead to psychological annihilation. Exiled, we either collapse under the weight of debilitating loneliness or we learn to persevere, to soldier…

“Only the family, society’s smallest unit, can change and yet maintain enough continuity to rear children who will not be “strangers in a strange land,” who will be rooted firmly enough to grow and adapt.” ~ Salvador Minuchin, Families & Family Therapy The cohesive primal bond of the family affords…

From A ‘Sistah Tribe’ Therapeutic Theater Workshop — READER Once upon a time there was a girl named Sheri who was born searching for the gaze that would meet her own. One snowy day her search brought her to a dark forest.

As a survivor of chronic child abuse and a complex-trauma therapist, I can attest that healing from trauma is a daunting and courageous journey back to the eternal child. It is a returning to the inherent longing for wholeness. Trauma is a penetrating wound and injury, which threatens one’s life and arrests the course of normal development by its repetitive intrusion of terror and helplessness into the survivor’s life.

Examining the psychological underpinnings — The workaholic with her work or the alcoholic with his booze are having a love affair. Each alters mood to avoid the feeling of loneliness and hurt in the underbelly of shame ~ John Bradshaw According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the opioid epidemic has reached a…

It harks back to neglect and grooming — Like many of the traumatized men and women I treat for narcissistic abuse syndrome, I too was a magnet for malignant narcissists. Throughout much of my life, the plight of brutal circumstances as a child raised by abusers set me up for subsequent victimization. The developmental disasters I incurred impeded…

A Psychological Analysis — There’s no doubt that the quest for love is universal. The giving and receiving of love are as fundamental to our well-being as the air we breathe. …