In our culture alcohol consumption has often been synonymous with being socially accepted. Somehow we have linked the ingestion of these liquids, which everyone knows contains toxic substances, to our desire to be socially connected. It has always been the baby boomers version of Facebook and Twitter. In fact, decades ago while serving as a young Army officer, it would have been considered an insult not to share a few “cold ones” with the men as a form of celebration. I’m not saying the Generation X and Y’ers are immune to becoming alcoholics. It seems to be a problem that transcends generations. Yet, when we allow occasional or moderate use to become a compulsion, then we have transitioned from participating in a social activity to developing and maintaining an addiction, which can easily ruin relationships, end careers, and even end in death. When do the effects of drinking...

When considering the role of a psychotherapist, one should consider how they interact with a client or patient who has a rather dysfunctional personality. A healthy personality involves the ability for someone to integrate new experiences into their current patterns of thinking (i.e. values, beliefs, and behavior – which make up their core personality.) When someone fails to integrate new experiences, they could possibly be diagnosed as having a personality disorder to include Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). While all of us will encounter times when things are difficult, a BPD diagnosis happens when a person has a long-term integration problem that is acted out in the form of strong emotional reactions. Normally such a person does this because earlier in life when their brain was not fully formed. At that point, their emotional brain [i.e. limbic system and especially the...

As nutrition is so vital to our body’s health, why do so many of us turn this necessity into a problem? Normally, the answer lies in the fact that we have corrupted many of the natural capabilities of our brain. We have learned that eating not only serves as a requirement to provide nutrients to our cells and organs, it has somehow become linked to our stress-fighting defense mechanism. So, how do we transition from eating for stress to once again primarily eating for health? The essential problem is that there is a tremendously close relationship between the parts of our brain that handle our self-preservation regarding our need for nutrition and our self-preservation regarding our need to safeguard our bodies from external threat. Furthermore, this linkage between our eating habits and our other survival needs makes a whole lot of sense. For instance, if we think that our survival...