SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Recent Episodes
Dr. Margaret Rutherford
Welcome to SelfWork! Do you have things in your life you want to change, but you struggle to believe you can? Dr. Margaret has a direct, down-to-earth approach to therapy and treatment, and uses her twenty years of experience to guide you in making the changes you want. No psychological jargon here! Rather, she uses a solution-oriented approach to depression, anxiety, trauma or grief - what Dr. Margaret calls, "What you can do about it." Subscribe today!
Today we’re focused on how on the power of words can calm. I stopped to think about “soothers” with words in our culture , such as Mister Rogers, Aibileen Clark from the movie The Help, and even more recently and comically, Ted Lasso. Dr. Dan Siegel, a psychiatrist, author, researcher and integrative neurobiologist coined the phrase “Name it to tame it.” I'll do my best to demonstrate his model of the brain so you can see for yourself!
We feel and know love. We feel and know sorrow. And we feel and know or recognize self-forgiveness. It happens inwardly. You can’t see it – but you can sure feel it. So in this episode, sponsored by BetterHelp, we'll talk about how to get to self-forgiveness and seven things that might make that harder.
How can you prevent something that may be seemingly inconsequential or something "I should be able to manage" from becoming the straw that breaks the camel's back? Here are seven ways to prevent that from happening. We’re all handling isolation, quarantine, job loss, financial troubles, boredom, loneliness, grief, fear – a new brand of anxiety that’s literally about taking your next breath. So today, in this episode sponsored by BetterHelp, I'll focus once again on "what you can do about it."
I talk about a recent Ted Radio Hour interview I heard with A.J. Jacobs. He's the author of the recent new book Thanks A Thousand. He did a fascinating and arduous life study of how to make himself happier - and wondered if expressing gratitude would get him there. What did he do? He chased down everyone that even had a minuscule amount of responsibility for providing his morning cup of coffee - and thanked them.
Sometimes you don’t know why, but you’re drawn to someone or to their story. Adam Hill is one of those people for me. Adam presented himself as a thoughtful guy as well as being a doctor who’d trained as a pediatric oncologist at some of the finest schools and research centers the USA has to offer. And then came the fact that he is a recovering alcoholic. He's also the author of Long Walk Out of The Woods. Tune in and learn.
Today I’m sharing the work of Stacey Wright, a psychotherapist in Georgia whose work is frequently featured on The Mighty. She specializes in the treatment of highly sensitive people and describes how empaths are both different and similar to HSPs.
And yet there's debate about the term and even the concept of an "empath" being a noun is disputed as an appropriate label for someone who's simply highly empathetic.
"I want this over!!" is being shouted from the rooftops by many whose pandemic fatigue is morphing into pandemic burnout, meaning that whatever skills you’d been using to dig a little deeper or find some laughter or hope – those skills are maxed out. So, in this episode of SelfWork, sponsored by BetterHelp, we'll focus on four considerations that might help you realize that the pandemic is dramatizing normal facets of long relationships.
Writing a book is the hardest and most labor-intensive task I've ever accomplished. And sometimes, while I was deep in the throws of its creation, I would wonder why I was doing it, even though I was so passionate about its message. What did I really hope would happen as a result? Well, two things have happened this week that remind me of why the topic of perfectly hidden depression is vital for our mental health culture- and you - to understand.
Sibling sexual abuse is a complex and painful subject that's vastly underreported. And it can happen in any home, anywhere. How is it different than normal sexual curiosity between siblings? What sets the environment up for it to occur? What if they themselves repeated or even forced sexual activity on others in the family? Trigger Warning: If you choose to listen to this episode on sibling sexual abuse, please keep your own self-care in mind. the US hotline is 1-800-656-4673.
But today, we focus on the three components of true happiness and how to add happiness to almost any experience you have: Positive psychologists say that all you have to do is add pleasure, challenge or meaning - and happiness will arrive.
Here are the three questions you'll find the answer to today!
1) Does one emotion govern you more than others? And if so, how that might be leading away from actual regulation and more toward instability?.
2) What are some actual things you can do to self-soothe or to learn how to not to react to your emotions, but to respond to them?
3) What to do if you don’t like the way you feel and want to change it.
There’s an exciting new product on the market – especially for anyone who has suffered with horrible PTSD-based nightmares. I should first tell you I have no relationship with the makers of this product. But since I've treated many patients with both PTSD and CPTSD, I know how exhausting and frightening these nightmares are. It’s a newly approved product by the FDA for just this use; however, it requires an Apple Watch
Most everyone agreed on how people pleasing starts - with an anxious/insecure attachment to a parent. We'll define what exactly a people pleaser is, and focus on some issues in therapy that are very specific to those who struggle with being uncomfortable not being the "giver" in the relationship.
Here' a bonus episode for you during the holidays! I couldn’t think of a better guest than Shann Vander Leek. She’s the cohost of the extremely popular podcast AnxietySlayer and the website AnxietySlayer.com. Her gentleness and broad knowledge of all things calming is incredible. What I especially love about this episode is that Shann demonstrates some actual techniques you can try while you’re listening as she and I - and now you - do them together.