With hardly any thought at all, you can probably say whether, in your family of origin, you played the role of the responsible one or the rebel, the people pleaser or the mascot. Roles serve an organizing function. In a family, roles sort out each person’s relationship to the group. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with roles, they become a problem when they’re rigid and shape poor choices as a teenager or adult.

Roles are especially harmful in families where abuse and/or addiction occurs. They become a vain attempt to control a situation that is chaotic and frightening. Also, as John Bradshaw explains in On the Family, roles function to project the image of the happy family, preserving denial that anything is wrong.

Based on the work of Virginia Satir, Claudia Black and Sharon Wegscheider, below are the common roles that children play in the family, as well as that role’s impact on adult life.
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Ilona Tobin has been a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years in Birmingham, Michigan. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory.

Knowing the “proper” procedure for communicating on an honest, yet respectful level can be quite a conundrum. How honest and how respectful need we be? Sometimes being phony can feel okay and can serve us relatively well, but, most of the time, at the very least, we suffer damage to our self-esteem. Any time we fail to honor our true selves and feel that we need to hide who we really are and how we really feel we commit some form of psychic self-mutilation.

So, how do we stay authentic without bringing a mountain of misery down on our own heads? It’s best to know that, every once and a while, the mountain will fall and that survival (ours and others’) is not only possible, it’s likely.
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Ruth Gordon is licensed clinical social worker in both Massachusetts and Florida. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

Despite, the often, dramatic, ups and downs, I think I have led an extraordinarily lucky life . This is because of the people I have been fortunate and privileged to know who have chipped away the ice as I was becoming worn out and seriously considering giving up. Repeatedly, just as I was running out of steam, the right person has come along, at the right time, and has given me whatever it is I have needed to get me to the other side of the street.

I am not going to name names here, but I hope, and believe, that those of you I love and appreciate, (who are, obviously, still alive) who are reading this, know who you are.

We all say that “we have to love ourselves first”. I agree with that to an extent. It is the rare human being who can live in isolation and retain his/her sanity and humanity. It’s the other people in our lives who lift us up above the level of pure survival. The right kindness at the right time makes all the difference.
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Ruth Gordon is licensed clinical social worker in both Massachusetts and Florida. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

(Or Does It Just Seem Like It)?

We all have friends or coworkers who just can’t seem to sit still or stay focused. “I must have undiagnosed ADHD,” they joke. When you get right down to it, we’ve all felt restless, disorganized, or distracted at one time or another. So then, do we all just have ADHD?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)—once referred to as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)—is one of the most common disorders in childhood, affecting about 7.5 percent of children, according to the Mayo Clinic. But many adults with ADHD don’t even realize they have the disorder. They do know that everyday tasks—from keeping appointments and getting up in the morning, to staying focused and being productive—are a real challenge.
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Ilona Tobin has been a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years in Birmingham, Michigan. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory.

It’s always unsettling, to say the least, when facing an inevitable unwelcome event that will occur at some unknown time in the future. This could be anything from going to the dentist to a serious loss. There hangs the sword of Damocles and we are helpless to make it vanish or to slither out from under it — we are stuck.

We can steel ourselves, go into denial, round up a crew of advisors, or utilize any one of a number of possible reinforcements.
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Ruth Gordon is licensed clinical social worker in both Massachusetts and Florida. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

For the past four years, Betty has made a New Year’s Resolution to exercise more. She’s also vowed to lose weight (an annual resolution since 2000), and to finally start that novel (this one goes all the way back to 1995.)

Like two out of every five Americans, Betty begins every new year with stout resolve and good intentions. But like most who make New Year’s Resolutions, by the time the spring fashions hit the shop windows, all that resolve has gone the way of last year’s colors. No exercise program. No weight loss and, sadly, no novel. Not even a beginning chapter.

What goes wrong?

Betty’s problem and the difficulty most people face in keeping their resolutions is that changing behavior involves more than simply vowing to do so. A lot more. So, whether you want to do more or less of something, quit something altogether or start something new, here are a few tips that can help.
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Ilona Tobin has been a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years in Birmingham, Michigan. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory.

At some time, nearly every person experiences feelings of depression—sadness, discouragement, the blues. These are common, normal feelings that come and go—mild depressions that can be seasonal or event-related.

Depression becomes an illness when symptoms intensify and persist over an extended period of time.

Depression can be treated; however, nearly two-thirds of depressed people don’t get appropriate treatment.
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Ilona Tobin has been a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years in Birmingham, Michigan. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory.

When the concept of “power” comes up it is usually connected to some type of emotional reaction. Some seek it; some fear it; some wish for it and on and on. When we can’t reshape or influence our environment in some important way, we customarily feel powerless. It is one of life’s most distressing sensations. Significant loss is always a trigger, and depending on our degree of optimism and self-confidence, we feel like our lives are out of control to varying degrees.
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Ruth Gordon is licensed clinical social worker in both Massachusetts and Florida. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

What does the word commitment suggest? It usually evokes a strong sense of intention and focus. It typically is accompanied by a statement of purpose or a plan of action. Very often, we utilize this word in regard to proclamations we may make about the seriousness of our relationships. For example, “I’m in a committed relationship,” or “I’m completely committed to this relationship.” In such circumstances, what exactly are we saying? We take it for granted that the word or the expression means the same thing to all of us. I can assure you that it doesn’t.
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Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist with offices in Westport Ct and NYC. For more information, please visit his listing on the Therapist Directory or his website. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

Deciding to pursue therapy, finding a therapist, making that first call and keeping that appointment are, from my perspective, huge and courageous steps.  Moreover, these initial steps are usually taken partially in the dark, so to speak.  You do not know this person, you have no clue as to whether they can help you, and here you are deciding to lay out for them intimate details about your personal life and struggles!

 People typically have all sorts of questions and concerns in beginning psychotherapy.  Here I will attempt to address some of these.
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Dr. Tempinski is a clinical psychologist with more than 25 years experience treating adult individuals. She is fully licensed in the state of Michigan. Her solo private practice has been designed with the goal of maximizing client confidentiality. Dr. Tempinski works with the philosophy that most emotional difficulties stem from inner turmoil that can be understood and resolved. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory