An invitation to psychological dialog based on the belief that an ongoing realization of the independent existence of The Feeling Life is central to any full-spectrum understanding of the human experience.
In other words:
We must meet our feelings as they present and not how we might like them to present.
Since it is only by meeting our feelings on their terms that we may eventually unlock the secrets they carry w/r/t our progress and further development.
Join Christine Louis de Canonville and Kristin Walker as they discuss narcissistic personality disorder in women.
Christine worked in the area of mental health and trauma recovery for the last 28 years, providing psychotherapy to children and adults for a range of life issues, including Addictive Behaviors, Anxiety, Anger, and Relational Issues.
For 5 years, she worked in the Trauma Unit of St. Brendan’s Psychiatric Hospital under the watchful eye of the eminent Professor Ivor Browne. In 1995 she set-up her own private clinical practice where she now specializes in Narcissistic Abuse Recovery.
Her life as a “care-giver” started in earnest when she was 23, and it was both a painful and magnificent adventure through both Western and Eastern paradigm of thought. Her philosophy of life is that every great artist uses a palate of many colours to bring their canvas to life, and this is true of any effective therapist.
Her palate is made-up of many disciplines, from Psychology, Medical Anthropology, Philosophy, Sociology, Criminology, Criminal Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Metaphysics, Spirituality, Theology, and more. All these disciplines are wonderfully compatible to the life of any Psychotherapist.
Christine works primarily as a Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapist, where she incorporates a Person Centered Approach, utilizing a range of modalities (Western & Eastern) where appropriate. She is also a qualified accredited Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor, Master NLP Practitioner, Master of Clinical Hypnosis, Life, Business & Executive Coach, Spiritual Director, Shamanic Counselor, Curandera Practitioner, and Transpersonal Therapist.
Since qualifying, she has been a member of many accredited Boards and is a Member of the Irish Association of Counselors & Psychotherapists.
Christine is also a trained and accredited Psycho-Spiritual Psychotherapist: Throughout the years, she was also going through personal spiritual development. True to form, her quest for “truth” was to take her to visit many places. She did her fieldwork study (for her Master’s Degree in Medical Anthropology) with indigenous Shamans from Native American Sioux Indians, to Peruvian, Bolivian, European, Celtic, and Mexican shamans.
She also studied comparative religions, and to her surprise, she became a Theologian. For many years, she worked with Emaho, an American Indian from New Mexico, who challenged her to see life through “Life’s Eyes” rather than through the eyes of the personality. Her journey also saw her apprenticed to Eloxochitl, a Curandera Teacher in the Medicina Mexihka Tradition (Mexican Shaman). In 2006, Christine was honoured as a Curandera and a Warrior Woman when she was given the Native American Indian name of “Cihuatequiani”, which means “Woman Who Works”.
It has been part of her life’s work to integrate these two ways of knowing (Western Behavioural Psychology with Eastern Consciousness Psychology) into an Integral Transpersonal Therapy. This is a seamless way of working with the whole person, not just on a mental, emotional, and physical level, but also at a spiritual/soul level of the self.
She grew up with an older psychopathic brother from childhood. Unfortunately, due to her early conditioning, she found herself re-experiencing victimisation during her adult life by three other narcissists (2 females and 1 male). About 12 years ago, she began Criminology Studies, and she became very interested in Psychopathy, which is the study of The Dark Triad (the classical narcissist, malignant narcissist, and the psychopath). She completed her post-graduate diplomas in both Forensic Psychology and Criminal Psychology.
Having done her own recovery work, Christine became the “Wounded Healer”. She decided to specialize in helping other people in their recovery from toxic relationships, especially those who had been victims of pathological narcissistic abuse. She became a published author of The Three Faces of Evil: Unmasking the full spectrum of narcissistic abuse, and has gone on to publish two more books on the subject of narcissistic abuse.
She appeared in the popular Television Documentary – Evil: A Would You Believe? Special – as a mental health expert (with other experts) speaking on the subject of Evil. Many of her articles have featured in major online magazines and professional Journals. She was a guest on various international radio shows (i.e. Ireland, America, Canada, England, and Sweden). She was the keynote speaker for the IACP at the first Professional Mental Health Conferences in Dublin, and she was a guest speaker on the 1st World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day Summit (WNAAD).
She started the “Roadshow for Therapists”, where she travelled throughout the Four Provence’s of Ireland with her training workshops for mental health professionals on narcissistic personality disorder, and the effects of narcissistic abuse on the victims.
She is the founder of narcissisticbehavior.net that has readership from all over the world. Part of her advocacy work is to provide a blog for furnishing information about the different facets of narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic victim abuse.
Join host Kristin Walker with Dr. Paul Meier, Dr. Lisa Day, and Grant Davis as they discuss the often misunderstood role of ADD and ADHD medication. There are pros and cons which we discuss in detail with our incredible guests.
Dr. Paul Meier is the founder of Meier Clinics, a multi-state outpatient mental health organization, a best-selling author and practicing psychiatrist.
Dr. Lisa Day has over 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families struggling with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, behavioral/medical issues, addiction, relationship struggles, interpersonal boundary concerns, work/life balance, major life adjustments, divorce recovery, crisis, grief, forgiveness, and loss. She has worked in a variety of settings, including working with adolescents and adults in both inpatient and outpatient programs as well as working as a coach in assisting individuals to identify and reach their full potential in their social and occupational endeavors.
Dr. Day is an expert in assisting clients to develop healthy boundaries, integrating healthy communication skills, and utilizing mindfulness in applying healthy coping skills to deal with the stressors contributing to their challenge. Dr. Day works with eating disorders ranging from anorexia and bulimia to compulsive overeating.
In addition to being a licensed psychologist, Dr. Day is also a licensed registered nurse. This allows her to treat the whole person and understand how various stressors affect people both physically and emotionally.
Grant Davis is new to the show and is a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Grant provides psychiatric medication management for children, adolescents, and adults. His approach to medication management is client focused and collaborative based on information shared between clinician and the client. Grant believes that a strong therapeutic relationship between clinician and patient is vital for positive mental health outcomes.
www.meierclinics.com
Malkia Newman joins our show to talk about her work in the mental health field and her personal journey with bipolar disorder.
Behavioral health conditions are common in Malkia’s family. Her struggle with her own mental health led her to CNS Healthcare in 2004 for treatment. She stabilized and went on to pursue a career with the newly formed CNS Healthcare Anti-Stigma Program in 2005.
CNS Healthcare Anti-Stigma Program is a Peer-Led education program that challenges stigma by uncovering commonly held myths and stereotypes. Using poetry and music in her recovery story, Malkia message is that “hope and recovery is possible”. Malkia serves as the Team Supervisor assisting in developing presentations that have reached over 80,000 people in Detroit, Lansing, Marquette in the Upper Peninsula, as well as Washington D.C., New York City, Houston, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Chicago, Phoenix, and Nova Scotia, Canada to name a few. Malkia’s service includes an appointment to Oakland Community Health Network’ Board of Directors as a consumer representative where she serves today. Her tenure on the board
includes serving 2 1/2 terms as board chair and she is one of the two consumers in the state of Michigan to have the privilege do so. An ordained minister, Malkia is a part of the ministry team of New Birth International Church in Pontiac, MI.
www.cnshealthcare.org
5 Ways the Arts Can Play a Role in Healing
While you may know me as a psychologist, what you may not know is that I was also a Studio Art major in College, and the arts have always played a big role in my life. Over my career, I have continually tried to connect the dots between emotional recovery and the power of the arts, sometimes downplayed by researchers who claim there is a lack of evidence to show a connection. The American Journal of Public Health, however, published a meta review of the literature looking at the connection between healing and music engagement, visual arts therapy, movement-based creative expression and expressive writing and concluded that there are “clear indications that artistic engagement has significantly positive effects on health.” (p. 261)
The arts come in many forms — painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, music, dance, theater, poetry, creative writing and so much more — and throughout the ages, art has played a unique role in individual and community healing from trauma and suffering. Here are five ways art helps us transform our wounds into sources of power:
Connection — art brings people together and builds community and the connection we feel through our shared experience of the art helps us feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves.
Indirect communication — if I am suffering, but I cannot share with you directly what I am going through, I can talk about a piece of art I admire related to my suffering, and we can have a conversation about my experiences as a first step in expressing vulnerability.
Positive attraction — for most people the arts are compelling and intriguing, we lean in to experiencing them, even when (especially when?) the focus of the art is dark or taboo. We open a door and draw people in to explore the unspeakable through the language of the arts when otherwise they would run away.
Brain stimulation — when we communicate theory or statistics through our words, only a small part of our brain lights up. When we stimulate the brain through music and stories and poetry, we engage more areas of the brain and have a much richer experience, one that is more likely to be remembered later.
Transcending and transforming — there are some experiences that cannot be captured by words and the arts give us the tools to expand our ability to communicate to a more fuller picture and be changed by the experience of that expression in ways regular talk therapy can fall short.
In this interview, I speak with Swil Kanim — my “new friend in the canoe,” as he likes to say. I met Swil at the Four Directions Problem Gambling and Health Awareness Conference put on by the Evergreen Council on Problem Gambling in Washington State, and as I sat in the front row experiencing Swil’s gift of storytelling and musical performance, I was transfixed. You will be too. Swil is an indigenous man and a trauma survivor who credits his ability to overcome racism and suffering and become a student of honor to his discovery of the violin in the 4th grade. Join us as he shares his path of finding that healing was his responsibility and the way he would be true to his journey was through expressing himself musically.
About Swil Kanim (from www.swilkanim.com)
Swil Kanim.png
Swil Kanim, US Army Veteran, classically trained violinist, native storyteller and actor, is a member of the Lummi Nation.
Because of his unique ability to inspire audiences to express themselves honorably, Swil Kanim is a sought-after keynote speaker for conferences, workshops, school assemblies, and rehabilitation centers.
He travels extensively throughout the United States, enchanting audiences with his original composition music and native storytelling. His workshops, The Elements of Honor, are attended by people from all walks of life.
Swil Kanim considers himself and his music to be the product of a well supported public school music program. Music and the performance of music helped him to process the traumas associated with his early placement into the foster care system.
Swil Kanim’s compositions incorporate classical influences as well as musical interpretations of his journey from depression and despair to spiritual and emotional freedom. The music and stories that emerge from his experiences have been transforming people’s lives for decades. For more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/36
Join our special guests, Shari and Jann Simmons, of www.whichwaypodcast.com. We talk about their bond as mother and daughter and how generational trauma played a role in their relationship.
Shari is currently the Executive Director of Fire Mountain Treatment Center and is an Adjunct Professor at Colorado Christian University, where she teaches Crisis/Trauma, Psychopathology and Management/Administration.
Since a young age, Shari has studied resiliency and the enduring self-sabotaging thoughts that are often the result of trauma. She is co-author of Which Way?, a memoir and psychological handbook on trauma for survivors, clinicians, and anyone who wants to understand and celebrate just how resilient the human spirit is.
Shari and Jann speak across the country at women’s retreats, treatment facilities, high schools and church groups, reminding others that the path we choose leads us to the life we were destined to have.
After devoting much of her adult life to raising her two daughters, Jann launched a successful 12-year career as an Executive Administrator in the banking industry. Jann is now retired and enjoying her life to the fullest. She thrives in her roles as mother and grandmother. She spends her time volunteering, painting and traveling. She is proud to say, she has traveled to Hawaii, Italy and Mexico, all destinations she never dreamed of seeing in her lifetime.
Jann began speaking at treatment facilities, followed by university classrooms upon her daughter’s urging. The overwhelming response she received when telling her story prompted the idea of writing this book. Sharing her journey through the book and during speaking engagements with Shari have brought her internal peace and hope for others.
www.sharisimmons.com
Join Dr. Paul Meier and Kristin Sunanta Walker for a show about ANGER AND RESENTMENT. The not so silent killers of joy, compassion, health, and well-being.
Dr. Paul Meier is a practicing psychiatrist, best selling author, founder of Meier Clinics out patient mental health centers across the U.S., and noted keynote speaker.
www.meierclinics.com
What is funny about depression? Especially the crippling kind! Join comic Jessica Holmes along with Frank King, The Mental Health Comedian, as they share the highs and lows of stand up while dealing with functional and often nonfunctional depression!
Frank King, Suicide Prevention and Postvention Public Speaker and Trainer was a writer for The Tonight Show for 20 years. Depression and suicide run his family. He’s thought about killing himself more times than he can count. He’s fought a lifetime battle with Major Depressive Disorder and Chronic Suicidality, turning that long dark journey of the soul into five TEDx Talks and sharing his lifesaving insights on Mental Health Awareness with associations, corporations, and colleges. A Motivational Public Speaker who uses his life lessons to start the conversation giving people permission to give voice to their feelings and experiences surrounding depression and suicide.
And doing it by coming out, as it were, and standing in his truth, and doing it with humor. He believes that where there is humor there is hope, where there is laughter there is life, nobody dies laughing. The right person, at the right time, with the right information, can save a life.
http://www.TheMentalHealthComedian.com
http://www.facebook.com/thementalhealthcomedian
A Matter of Laugh or Death https://youtu.be/IeMg6OFYfU0
Suicide, The Secret of My Success https://youtu.be/3D4m33DXtsI
Comedian Jessica Holmes had a great career and a happy family so it seemed a bit strange that she couldn’t get off the couch.
A member of the venerable comedy TV show Royal Canadian Air Farce, Holmes was also opening for the likes of Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres, and emceeing for Oprah.
But Holmes’ sofa slump didn’t abate. Finally she was diagnosed with depression. But as any good comedian knows everything has the potential to become material so Holmes took her mental health and made it the topic of her self-deprecating, candid, and emotional and funny new book Depression the Comedy: A Tale of Perseverance (Page Two Books, April 28, 2019).
Holmes talks about her postpartum depression and her second depression some years later, when she “became less of a June Cleaver and more of a David-Hasselhoff-when-his-daughter-videotaped-him-lying-facedown-on-the-bathroom-floor-unsuccessfully-trying-to-eat-a-hamburger.”
Recalling her frustration when “NBDs” (“Never Been Depressed”) would ask, “Well, why don’t you just get out there and do something?” Holmes points out that “one of the most prevalent symptoms of depression is not feeling like doing anything, ever.”
“It’s an illness,” she reminds us. “I’ve never met someone with Type 2 diabetes and thought: ‘See, I’ve always just eaten bags of delicious sugar and been fine, so I’m not sure why you can’t figure it out.”
www.jessicaholmes.com
A different look at forgiveness and how it impacts our mental health. Dr. Lisa Day joins us to discuss this often misunderstood topic.
Dr. Day has over 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families struggling with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, behavioral/medical issues, addiction, relationship struggles, interpersonal boundary concerns, work/life balance, major life adjustments, divorce recovery, crisis, grief, forgiveness, and loss. She has worked in a variety of settings, including working with adolescents and adults in both inpatient and outpatient programs as well as working as a coach in assisting individuals to identify and reach their full potential in their social and occupational endeavors.
Dr. Day is an expert in assisting clients to develop healthy boundaries, integrating healthy communication skills, and utilizing mindfulness in applying healthy coping skills to deal with the stressors contributing to their challenge. Dr. Day works with eating disorders ranging from anorexia and bulimia to compulsive overeating.
In addition to being a licensed psychologist, Dr. Day is also a licensed registered nurse. This allows her to treat the whole person and understand how various stressors affect people both physically and emotionally.
A follow up to our previous show about undiagnosed ADHD in women with Dr. Lisa Day. Many of our listening family emailed with questions such as:
“My whole life has changed since getting this diagnosis and taking medication. Sometimes I don’t take it on the weekends or I run out and forget to refill the prescription. I start feeling extra sluggish and worn out. I was wondering if that’s probably how I always felt but it seems more extreme now that I know what life is like on the medication.”
“It felt like I was more agitated at the end of the day when my medication started to wear off but over time this has lessened. When you talked about how that can happen because we aren’t used to being focused so when meds wear off, our racing thoughts start again which can be irritating. Hearing that helped me a lot. I am 64 and one of my doctors said I lived with this my whole life without medication so what is the point of taking it now. I wonder what to say to something like that. It seems really rude or ageist.”
“When I take my medication I get so much done. It doesn’t feel like my brain is this complicated heavy mess preventing me from focusing. Am I in danger of burning out if I keep taking medication?”
“Why do you think this was not a common diagnosis for women? Do you think people just assumed we are scatter brained?”
“Can you talk about some experiences with patients and how their lives changed for the better after the diagnosis? Did any of them say that the people in their life were kind of surprised or scared at how much different they seemed?”
Dr. Day has over 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families struggling with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, behavioral/medical issues, addiction, relationship struggles, interpersonal boundary concerns, work/life balance, major life adjustments, divorce recovery, crisis, grief, forgiveness, and loss. She has worked in a variety of settings, including working with adolescents and adults in both inpatient and outpatient programs as well as working as a coach in assisting individuals to identify and reach their full potential in their social and occupational endeavors.
Dr. Day is an expert in assisting clients to develop healthy boundaries, integrating healthy communication skills, and utilizing mindfulness in applying healthy coping skills to deal with the stressors contributing to their challenge. Dr. Day works with eating disorders ranging from anorexia and bulimia to compulsive overeating.
In addition to being a licensed psychologist, Dr. Day is also a licensed registered nurse. This allows her to treat the whole person and understand how various stressors affect people both physically and emotionally.
www.meierclinics.com
