Author Archives: rachelhofer

Creativity and Mental Illness

06 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Bi-Polar, Creativity, Depression, Mood Disorder

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Dr. Kay Redfield Jameson lives with bi-polar illness. She has been a very successful psychologist and writer. She believes that the research shows and the truth of the matter is that there is a correlation between mood disorders and highly creative artwork.  However, she says not to romanticize mental illness. Though many creatives and famous creative artists had mental illnesses that had an affect on their artwork, this did not come without its price. Byron and Van Gough, for example, wanted treatment for their illnesses. Many wanted to be treated and to get help, and some committed suicide at a young age. She makes the point that it is not a choice between being creative and taking medication.

Dr. Shelley Carson has a focus in her studies on psychopathology and creativity and teaches at Harvard. She says that most people who are creative do not have mental illness. She says people who have bi-polar and are creative are most creative right around the up and down from normal ranges of mood. She says the flight of ideas in mania and the feeling of ‘greater clarity’ may be part of what improves creativity in mental illness. She says anyone can become more creative by following the steps in her book. So you do not need to have mental illness to be creative.

Rachel Hofer

http://www.lovingtherapy.com

Creativity

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Brain Imaging and Counseling

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Play is distinct from ordinary life in its seclusion from ordinary life. Play begins and then it is over. It has its own space and time. It is an oasis.

People who feel they need to show that they are decisive are not as creative because they are not willing to stick with the problem longer. The ability to live with the discomfort of the unknown and undecided is a factor in creativity. This would relate to the Jung’s personality types. The feeling of whatever happens it’ll be okay. So there is a trust in play that leads to creativity.

Older wiser John Cleese!

Beauty and the Body Image Obsessions

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Body Image

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The culture, fads, and trends presented in media affect our minds and bodies by setting a standard and ideal of beauty. This can be artful and fun, a blessed addition to the beauty and creativity of life.

It can also be quite damaging. Often clothes are not designed in a way that would help the average body type to fit into the looks presented in media as ‘beautiful’, the lifestyle that went into creating the body images conveyed may not be healthy or normal, and the alterations to the images actually present a digitally created, unreal, and unattainable fantasy. Perhaps some are ‘beautiful’ to us only because no one could look like that: that status. There is something dysfunctional and unhealthy about the mentality that goes into creating this ideal of beauty that is beyond the bodily damage it can do if one attempts to recreate it: the obsessive driving jealousy and pride in status. There are core beliefs, lies in this case, associated with this that are rooted in trauma. These beliefs lead to feelings of self-depreciation and hatred when one does not meet the standards of beauty presented. Cognitive-Behavioral therapy and psychotherapy can be healing in these areas.

How we judge and interpret all of these dynamics is sometimes sensitive and subject to interpretation. However, when we search our hearts and find an unhealthy habit of mind, obsession, addiction, anxiety, or depression associated with these things we must ask: where is this coming from? This is part of our culture and a social problem to explore and at times expose. This is a beauty of the media.

How is it healthy to be beautiful? Simply to know and believe you are beautiful and use your assets. There is also a long and deep history of the value of beauty starting at least back in the classical times of the Greeks. Plato equated beauty and truth and the good. He believed that beauty ultimately leads us to what is good. French philosopher Simon Weil said that if we do not resist beauty it will ultimately express itself in us as love. Mathemeticians use beauty as evidence that they are on the right track. Some believed the implicit love of beauty was love of God. C.S. Lewis said it was beauty that aroused in him a desire more desireable than any satisfaction he had ever found in other desires, a desire for God. In English the word for healthy has the same root as the word for ‘holy’ from the german. There are lots of ways that what is healthy for our bodies and minds is popularly more ‘beautiful’ in America even today, also. This is especially true when it comes to fertility, but also in other ways for all of us who are not budding female beauties as well.

“What Not to Wear!” This show is fabulous! They discuss how people’s attitudes and beliefs about themselves drive their wardrobe and how they can transform not only their outward appearance but how they think and feel about their value.

http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/what-not-to-wear/videos/this-is-a-whole-other-level-of-sexy.htm

A supermodel of 10 years, Cameron Russel, says,”For the last few centuries we have defined beauty not just as health, youth, and symmetry that we are biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall slender figures, feminity, and white skin.” She says that of the models working in the year 2007 only 4% are non-white. She explains that in her field she is classified as a ‘pretty girl’ and says she has won a lottery. She goes on to explain how unfair this is to the majority of people who do not fit this narrow definition of beauty and how this is related to discrimination as well as struggles with body image.

 

Rachel Hofer

http://www.lovingtherapy.com

What to Do When You Get the Bejeebers Scared Out of You.

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Anxiety

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What is a ‘bejeeber’? Karen and Christi Porter explain this mystery.

If you or your child are interested in this book or the Bejeebers, Heebejebes, or Cooties feel free to message me at rachel@lovingtherapy.com.

Karen runs a school and her husband is Dr. Porter, an expert on Anxiety and helping kids with bullying. They live in Gainesville, Fl and you will find information about them at his website http://www.winningharmony.com.

Rachel Hofer
http://www.lovingtherapy.com

A Family Where You Are Loved and Belong

11 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Bullying, Divorce, Domestic Violence, Drama and Counseling, Family, Family Therapy, Forgiveness, Stigma

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Family is so important. Almost all of us have a family and if we do not then it is sorely missed. We feel compelled to find some sense of family somewhere. I believe it is fundamental to human psychology. We need our mom and a dad and siblings in whatever fashion they come. Some of us are adopted and some of us find them in the neighborhood, if not just for a season.

When we got dropped off at kindergarten the first day and mom or dad waved goodbye we had to find a new mom or dad. On the bus the first year of kindergarten me and my new best friend both had an adopted 5th grade ‘mom’ on the bus that looked out for us. This is normal and healthy because we need to be socialized. We also bond with new people, and move out to make our own ‘family.’ None of us are around forever and no-one is always present.

When people in our family are absent or not there due to illness, abandonment, drug use, separation and divorce, or death it wounds and sometimes even cripples us. Sometimes the wound is so deep and painful that one has to go through a grieving process as though a family or family member died. Only then can we accept the love that was always there even in the midst of what was painfully missing. We need to feel we belong somewhere. That is why social stigma is so wounding. That is why bullying is so wounding, cliques, and gossip. When we do not fit in anywhere we can feel like aliens and strangers, very alone.

In one of my favorite movies this idea is explored: The Muppets from Space. Gonzo has an identity crisis and feels he does not know where he belongs or is from. At the end of the movie, the best moment in the film, his family is revealed and celebrates HIM and THEM together! He shouts, “That’s MY FAMILY!!!!”

So many times, I believe, God (or fate if you will) puts families together. There is no program for this but when it happens it is nothing short of magical! Some families come together through formal adoption, others feel the magic and know it is a special brotherhood, sisterhood, or parental bond that has happened. The wounds that were inflicted can be healed in relationships.

I love my family and they have been very good to me. Every family has wounds.This has happened in my life. See below this video just some of the very special people in my life who have become family. 😉

kermit family

Picture 53

Rachel Hofer
http://www.lovingtherapy.com

Discover a Career Track That Brings You Joy

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Career Counseling, Christian Counseling, Personality Type

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So you have decided you are interested in pursuing further education. Especially in this society, finding the right career is not just about what work you are suited for but what lifestyle you want to live and what your life situation looks like. Many people are finding that online distance learning is the best choice for them and this is a viable option.

What program would suit you best!? Where can you even begin? Here are a few simple exercises to discover some new options and perhaps some direction.

Have you ever heard, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness & the world’s deep hunger meet (Beuchner).” Finding your fit in this society is about finding what you are good at, enjoy, and what is at the same time needed. Yet in the real world it means we sometimes take out the trash and reconcile that with our identity as a valuable task! These exercises can help clear your view from some negative influence and expectations that clutter the way.

1. Define what ‘career’ means to you. What is a career and why do you want one?

One definition includes, “. . . a process of self-development and fulfillment that includes the working out of one’s purpose and lifestyle in creating the stuff of work and life. Career is more than just one’s paid work and occupation.”

2. Make a list of what you have enjoyed doing in the past and one of what you were good at. What jobs, whether paid or unpaid, did you find were enjoyable to you? Why? Were you good at them and/or have potential to grow in that area?

3.Think about your life as a whole, not just your job or career. Make a pie chart of what part of your value comes from your job, work, or career as you define it and what other aspects of yourself and your life you value. You can find a list of core values online. Why is each part valuable to you? How can you incorporate your values into your job, work, and career? How does the paid work and other aspects of your life make up what you define as your ‘career’?

4.Imagine your career journey as a metaphor such as traveling down a river in a boat, for example. And answer these series of questions. . .

A. What would the metaphor for your career journey be?

B. Now where are your friends in the journey, your family, and others in your life? What are they doing and saying? How do you feel about this?

C. What else is on this journey?

D. What would you like it to look like ideally?

E. What would you or they need to change for your career journey to be ideal?

5. Take a few career and personality tests to see what they have to say about what jobs may fit you best. Two online tests are at http://www.livecareer.com/home.aspx and http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp.

6.  If you are interested in an online program, from there you can look at sites such as http://www.distancelearning.com to find an online program in that area. There is a wealth of information you can browse about each field and the programs offered.

8. Christians keep in mind the bigger picture of God’s call on your life, submission to him, and his command, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or your body, what you will wear. Is not your life more important than food, the body more important than clothes (Matthew 6:25)?” Also, instructions ‘on the authority of Jesus Christ’ to, “. . .make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,  so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12). Keep in mind the bigger picture of your life, “Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then are gone (James 4:14).”

9. Some books to read include The Call by Os Guinness and The Fabric of This World by Lee Hardy. What Color is Your Parachute: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers updates yearly with a new edition by Richard Bolles.

10. Seek out a career counselor and/or life coach to assist you on your journey. Sometimes talking to someone who is not a part of your life, can be more objective, and has training and wisdom in career counseling or life coaching can gain you leaps and bounds.

Rachel Hofer

www.lovingtherapy.com

End It Now !

09 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by in Domestic Violence

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end it now

CAMPAIGN AGAINST

ABUSE AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

WWW.ENDITNOW.ORG

end it now

I will be speaking at this event.

How long will YOU remain silent?

Women’s Ministry of Bethel Seventh-Day Adventist Church (across from Duval Elementary School) in Gainesville, FL will present “Focus on Abuse: A Panel Discussion” on Saturday, August 24, 2013 at 6:00 p.m.

Abuse

Child abuse, sex trafficking, abuse in the church, teen and relationship abuse, men abused, and abuse in the military are just some of the topics to be covered.  For more information, contact Mrs. Belinda M. Smith at (352) 872-8555 or contact Brenda W. Brown, Event Coordinator at or (352) 870-5212.

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Rachel Hofer

http://www.lovingtherapy.com