December 5, 2016 By Admin

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Wind Ridge Press NEW Publication! Author Anthony Quintiliani, a licensed psychologist with more than 35 years professional clinical experience, casts a wide net into the personal, clinical, and societal causes of prolonged human suffering and unhappiness in his book Mindful Happiness. The book’s guided interventions are aimed at helping to relieve depression, anxiety, traumatic reactivity, and […]

College Students – Mental Health in The US R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC The Association of University and College Counseling Center Directors has released data on the mental health status of American college students. Two survey between 2016 and 2018 yielded results from as far back as 2014. Here are some selected statistics (rounded): Anxiety 47-61%; […]

How to Offer Personal Tribute to Those Who Have Died The Four Noble Truths tell us sobering news. There is suffering, and impermanence of all things including us and our loved ones. Below I have listed several thing you can do to HONOR a person you have lost. Here is the list. Recall a special […]

Mindfulness Practices to help Reduce Your Worry & Suffering My last post dealt with various mindfulness-based practices and skills that may help to reduce created suffering due to excessive worrying. I will add a few more practices in this post. First, let us go back to Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and his Meditations. In Book 2, page 14 […]

Mindfulness Practices for Expanding Acceptance Mindfulness and contemplation can be great allies in our struggle to better understand each other. This is especially true when it comes to matters of interpersonal relationships and highly significant relationships. It is also important in diversity, or as some now refer to it – variation in human beings. Variation may […]

Happiness Characteristics – Post #2 Below I will note a few key characteristics of experiences and attitudes associated with happiness. Do your best to experience some of these each day – as much as is possible. Here is the first list. Being Fully Alive to Experiences – Do your best to be fully involved in […]

So Many Ways to Self-Medicate – It Just Brings More Suffering Very often poor child-parent (child-caretaker) object relations, attachment with care takers, and attunement by care takers negatively impact young children early in their lives. The well-documented scientific fact that environmental conditions play a more important role in gene-expression than pure genetics implies clearly that […]

Trauma: Object Relations Therapy Object relations therapists, D. W. Winnicott especially, have presented a logical analysis on how to provide object-relations-oriented therapy to people suffering from the effects of psychological trauma. Such attachment-based trauma therapy provides support and healing from trauma, loss and long-term trauma-effects. The interventions below combine the best of object relations therapy, […]

More Psychoanalytic Gems – In an earlier post, I noted a list of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Gems, including a later post on D.W. Winnicott’s approaches to building a therapeutic alliance. My general aversion to this form of therapy has more to do with its slowness and high costs than to its effectiveness. It is effective! However, […]

Helping Professions and Emotional Balance Helping professions must practice to achieve emotional balance. Working conditions for the helping professions have become more and more difficult over time, especially with the advent of so called “helpful technologies” and ever-increasing governmental/funding requirements for documentation. When I started in the (behavioral health) field of clinical psychology and addictions […]

Mindfulness – Self-Kindness Practice Befriending the self is one of the most difficult things for Americans to do. It is probably true that self-kindness is difficult for most people; however, the current rampant criticism (I am right! You are wrong!) and extreme greed manifesting in the United States tends to produce two opposite extremes: […]

A Radical Feminist in her Time Over 800 years ago Hildegard of Bingen presented radical viewpoints on women-power and male-dominance in the Christian Church, stone/gem healing, meditation, insight and intellect, the web of life or planetary oneness, being in nature, environmentalism, and personal stories of suffering, etc. Despite her outspoken manner and her popularity among […]

Building Healthy Intimate Relationships: Intimate relationships are often the source of many years of happiness and satisfaction, and sometimes the cause of great pain and suffering. It depends! I will list various realities of initiating and maintaining a positive intimate relationship. After reading these, ask yourself: Where is my relationship? If you are unhappy, do […]

Amitabha Buddha – Pure Land Meditation The following meditation had been modified by me to make it a more specific self-healing meditation and to better fit the time we now live in. Sit quietly and complete 3-4 deep, calming breaths. Pay attention to the quality and density of the light you see outside of your […]

How to Find & Choose an Effective Therapist Recently The Harvard Health Newsletter posted some interesting questions to ask while seeking out a psychotherapist. I will add a few more details and areas of inquiry in this post. Keep in mind that these questions and inquiries do not mean you will be happy and improve […]

Practice Approaches to for Mindful and Enhanced Emotion Regulation Brought to us by way of The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont Mindful Approaches for Enhanced Emotion Regulation; here are some approaches to practice. 1)In some ways you could understand the progression from auto-pilot mind to greater stability and equanimity of […]

Mindfulness, Movement, and Meditation Practices Meditation Master Thich Nhat Hanh offers some of the most helpful mindfulness, movement, and meditation instructions available today. His themes here are about reducing your suffering, increasing your satisfactions, and expanding your happiness as a result. Please do not note that “I do not have time to do these things!” […]

Self-Help in Mind-Body Medicine In this brief post we will review several specific ways that may improve your psychological and physical health. The post will be short, sweet, and simple to encourage participation. Here it is. Affirmation – “I am learning to love myself just the way I am.” Repeat this mantra sub vocally over […]

Meditation for Health Improvement It is estimated that between 10 and 15 million Americans participate in some form of regular mindfulness or contemplative practices; secular-based meditation and yoga may be the most common of these practices. Many others practice tai chi, qi gong, forest-based contemplation, Taoism, etc. The US National Institute of Health has been […]

Meditation Process in Chan Buddhism Chan Master Changlu’s The Deportmant for Sitting Meditation (12th century China) is a clear and helpful set of instruction. 1) It begins with the making of a personal vow for great compassion, personal liberation, and samadhi – all for the purpose of delivering sentient beings from their suffering and to their […]