Trauma and the Holidays
The holiday season can be a time for gratitude, peace, love, and joy. It can also be a time of stress, pressure, intense trigger responses, depression, and anxiety. For those who are going through or have experienced trauma, the latter is more likely. Survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence or harassment, incest, stalking, and bullying…
Challenging Family Scripts and Setting Healthy Boundaries During the Holidays
As a marriage and family therapist, I was asked to speak at a recent Lady Docs gathering about family interactions that play a prominent role during this holiday season. Feel free to journal as the group did last week as we explore family relationships. As therapists, we treat people as part of a family system…
2019 National Race to End Women’s Cancer
This morning, my husband and I and several friends met at Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. for our third 5K run/walk for National Race to End Women’s Cancer, to support the Foundation for Women’s Cancer. Gynecologic cancers include Ovarian, Cervical, Endometrial/Uterine, Vulva and Vaginal Cancer. According to the American Cancer Society statistics, there were 110,070…
A walk in the gardens – just what the doctor ordered
There are always things that need to be done. But, sometimes peace and quiet in nature is just what the doctor ordered. Our last exercise post was about the benefits of exercise – 150 minutes of mild to moderate exercise each week. Prior posts touted the importance of walking for osteoporosis prevention. We know that being outdoors…
Helping Others – Tips Related to Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month
It seems that every cause has a day, week or month to bring awareness and that we can be inundated with these messages. With that in mind, this post is about an issue that most people don’t talk much about or know how to respond to: pregnancy and infant loss. October signifies the awareness of…
The Gastric Cancer that Never Was
This blog probably will be among the longest ones you have seen from me. I often warn my women friends whenever I write a long email, to tell them what I think about the week, from political news to social issues to all the “interesting” events happening to me that week. I advise them to…
DC Central Kitchen — ”We fight hunger differently”
In the past, Lady Docs has volunteered as a group at DC Central Kitchen. Yesterday, I’m proud to say, we had the most volunteers they remember seeing there. During the week, graduates of their Culinary Job Training Program, who are now paid employees, prepare the food. On the weekends, generous donors, like Dr. Chitra Rajagopal,…
Psychiatry Is Like Retail
Psychiatry, like retail, has busy seasons. Unlike retail, psychiatry’s hectic periods occur secondary to fluctuations in seasonal light exposure, rather than during major holidays. For years, I treated patients for worsening, or new onset depression, around Halloween, October 31. Some of this was Seasonal Affective Disorder, some simply the effects of diminishing light exposure on pre-existing…
The Marriage Counseling Workbook: 8 Steps to a Strong and Lasting Relationship
Although my book was published almost exactly one year ago, I’ve been surprisingly reluctant to publicize it since. The overlap of writing the book with my postpartum months after the birth of my second child amazes me. Ethan was born in June, I finished writing in December, and the book was in print by the…
We Are What We Eat: Stay Slim the Japanese Way
I often heard the expression “We are what we eat,” which turned me immediately off from certain foods. Who would like to be a cow? Chicken? Pig? Should I be a turnip or donut? An apple or brownie? There is some truth in this statement, however, I secretly agreed. Studies on obesity have shed some…