Each year holiday advertisements for Christmas start earlier and earlier (this year I actually saw one before Halloween!) and with them comes the meta message for many folks that they need to shape up for the holidays. It won’t be long before the parties begin and we are thrown into the paradoxical mandate to, “look […]

Humor is important, but the pain that people experience during the summer about their bodies is NO laughing matter. And the last thing that is helpful is for people who are feeling badly about not having the “beach body” that is being touted as the ultimate benchmark of success, is to then feel even worse […]

December 1st was Rosa Parks Day. What Ms. Parks did by refusing to give up her seat on that infamous bus was a brave and self-affirming act. She said, “NO” and change was ignited. There are many reasons for saying,”no” and while not all of them are as momentous as what Rosa Parks did, I […]

Love Your Body Day is October 14. This important event was started by the National Organization of Women because in their words: “Every day, in so many ways, the beauty industry (and the media in general) tell women and girls that being admired, envied and desired based on their looks is a primary function of […]

For this month’s Therapeutic Tidbit I’d like to focus on the importance of breaking the silence and talking about what is going on. Sometimes this entails a re-framing of our frame of mind…here’s what I mean. The news of Robin William’s death in mid-August seemed to impact an enormous amount of people. It was shocking, […]

Weighing the Pros and Cons What comes to mind when you think of the word confidence? It is a word that is bandied about quite extensively in our culture and means different things to different people depending upon the situation. When we think of a confidence game or con game the word confidence changes into […]

In this iconic cartoon (you can watch the full version below), a young owlet has to choose between following his inner voice and passion for jazz, or pleasing his father by singing what his father believes is best. With Father’s Day in June, it’s important for dads to remember to support their child’s autonomy, allow […]

by Dr. Deah Schwartz Therapeutic Tid Bit of the Month: You are Amayzing! This month you MAY notice the media gearing up trying to convince you how unamazing you are. It is their job to be certain that we dislike ourselves enough to spend the next month buying products and programs to drastically change our […]

by Dr. Deah Schwartz Therapeutic Tid Bit of the Month – Marching Forward If you are like most people, you thrive on positive reinforcement and disintegrate just a bit each time you are shamed or told you are wrong. So why do we give our power over to negative reinforcement oracles like scales, diet companies, […]

by Dr. Deah Schwartz This year I am going to stress the importance of finding your own personal “sanity clause”. Because the holiday season is a mixed bag of delightful and stressful situations disordered eating and body hate may get re-activated. A helpful antidote for the situation is to remember that the best gift you […]