Integrity Counseling Services

Pennsylvania's Premier Center for Catholic Counseling and Spiritual Direction

Category: Mental health

Hope for Teens with Specific Strategies

By Gian Milles, M.S., L.P.C.  — We hear a lot today about the mental health crisis in teenagers. While it is true that teen mental health in America has been declining since the early 2010s, there is also reason for hope. According to research from the CDC, about 3 in 5 children ages 6 to 17 exhibit indicators of flourishing, including showing interest in learning new things, staying calm and in control when faced with a challenge, and working to finish tasks they start. Sometimes, with sensationalistic news and no shortage of geopolitical instability, we can be tempted to focus only on the negative. Depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, you may see the 3/5 figure as comforting (over half of our children are healthy!) or worrisome (nearly half of our children are unhealthy!). Either way, I want to share some good news with you.

If you are one of those people who are happy to hear that 3/5 of children are healthy, I rejoice with you. This is certainly a wonderful thing that so many children are doing so well despite the adversity they are facing in our tumultuous times. On the other hand, if you are concerned about those that are not or if you know a young person who is struggling, there is reason for hope.

Psychologists have defined hope as willpower + waypower. What does this mean? It means that having hope consists of having the mental energy or motivation to achieve clear goals and specific pathways, or mental plans, for being able to make these goals happen. With proper coaching, the 40% of children and teens who are experiencing significant anxiety and/or depression can grow in the virtue of hope, and hopeful people are protected against strong, persistent emotions such as anxiety and depression. Helping teens to stay motivated by offering them incentives (e.g. taking them to a sporting event or a trip to Rita’s Water Ice) can be helpful. If it appears that they are motivated, but are having trouble with follow-through, It can also be helpful to help them problem-solve with specific ways they can achieve their goals. This may involve guiding them through building more effective study habits, improving their diet, or helping them to join a sports team or get a gym membership.

In the context of these strategies, the most powerful force for good in a child’s life is unconditional love. Kobe Bryant advocated for this in one of Bryant’s  last interviews. When you tell a child that you love them no matter how they behave, and, what’s more, that God loves them no matter how they behave, this gives teens the freedom to take risks, knowing that failure does not threaten their inherent dignity and lovability.

This combination of unconditional love along with specific goals, motivation, and pathways to success are the resources that allow teens to effectively experience the freedom from anxiety and depression that God and we desire for them.

Hiking

Having a Healthy Mind, Body and Spirit: What Does that Really Mean?

By Cindy Dowling, M.A., L.M.F.T. — How many times have you heard the importance of having a healthy mind, body and spirit to live your life to the fullest? It is something that I share the importance of with my clients. You may be wondering what exactly that means. Read on . . .

A healthy mind is the ability to maintain emotional balance, cognitive clarity and mental resilience.  A state of mind where you have control or authority over the negative thoughts that pop into your head daily. Studies have shown we have over 6,000 thoughts a day. Those thoughts affect our actions and reactions to situations and people in our lives. When one lets their thoughts cause them to get stuck in the past (past regrets/mistakes/ losses/failures) it leads to depression. When one lets their thoughts lead to over-thinking fears of the future, a person can suffer from anxiety.  A healthy mind also includes emotional stability, the ability to process and express feelings in a healthy way, and the capacity to adapt to change or adversity. Finally, maintaining a healthy mind means taking care of your emotional needs, setting boundaries, and nurturing your sense of self-worth and purpose.

To maintain a healthy body there are many avenues to explore. Your diet should be full of nutritious, minimally processed foods including a healthy supply of fruits and vegetables. If you typically eat healthy, you will know when you eat something unhealthy because you can feel it in how your body functions. It’s like putting the wrong fuel in your car and then it just doesn’t run the way it should. You should exercise regularly. When you exercise, your body naturally produces endorphins which help regulate your body’s response to stress and anxiety, and contribute to a feeling of overall well-being.  Sleep (7-9 hours a night) and hydration are also important pieces to having a healthy body. Finally, avoiding unhealthy habits such as smoking/vaping, drinking alcohol and drug use is important.

A healthy spirit would include having a sense of inner peace and being confident in your religious values and practices. A healthy spirit is nurtured with a disciplined prayer life that encompasses gratitude, compassion and self-reflection. It would include a personal relationship with God that instills a sense of belonging to the body of Christ and a deeper meaning for life.

Working to maintain a healthy mind, body and spirit can help keep you functioning in an optimal condition and enhance your overall quality of life. If you feel you are lacking or struggling in one of these areas and may need the help of a mental health practitioner, please give our office a call to set up a consultation with one of our therapists.  God bless.

Integrity Counseling Services prayer

No Electronic Substitutes for Prayer

By Michael Kastelnik, Psy.D. — If you have been out in public in the last few years and patronized a business, you may have noticed some advertising that recommends you to “Download the App” that is pertinent to that business. This advertisement usually offers some reward, such as free gasoline or a free sandwich, for your downloading the free app. I’m reminded of the expression “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” but we can discuss the true cost another time. Whether you participate in it or not, I think we can agree these companies are successful in using this technique of reinforcing our purchases, and sometimes even giving them the not-so-subtle name of a “Rewards Program.”

Given the power of incentives to shape our behavior, is it possible that the appeal of making our lives easier applies to less worldly activities than eating, such as thinking or praying? There are plenty of websites, applications and content related to intellectual endeavors and even to our faith. In fact, you are probably reading this article on a website. I personally enjoy finding the occasional video, podcast or prayer on the Internet. Some of these activities are “infotainment” that can help pass the time as well as provide me with some level of information that can inform my worldview and my faith. I can even stay connected with my brothers in Christ around the world via email or other apps.

A problem arises if we consider simply engaging with religious electronic content as fulfilling our Christian duty, or worse — vaguely being a “good person.” We can consume such content both passively and actively. The passive reception of content, such as displaying sacred art on the walls of your home or hearing an audio recording of Gregorian chant while you do chores, surely has its benefits. And, attentively reading threads in a group chat or listening to a recording of someone praying can be quite engaging and even an invitation to pray on your own. The Holy Spirit can speak to us through other people including the words of a book or the recorded voice of someone expounding on theology. Those words can even be the content of prayer, but the words themselves are not a substitute for the activity required of us to speak to Him in prayer. Hearing a recording of the rosary playing in the background is probably better than hearing a lot of what is on the radio today. But passive listening, while helpful for reinforcing learning of a foreign language, probably doesn’t count as prayer time, especially if that is the only time you are giving to God. Just as the Greek meaning of the word liturgy suggests, it is the work of the people, and work typically requires producing rather than merely consuming.

Given the challenge of incorporating technology in our lives while preserving our humanity, what can we do? Even if using this technology is more necessary to work, study, shop and communicate, there are some aspects of our lives that we can and must retain in simplicity.

For example, we can pray. We can spend time speaking to God and attempting to quiet your mind in order for your soul to hear what He has to say. Practice meditating on Truth using a good translation of the Bible and a commentary from the Church Fathers. Pencil this time in your calendar or planner, if necessary. If you don’t have a minute or two to spare for prayer, you might want to consider freeing up your schedule a bit. Also, you can make rules for limiting your electronics use to certain times and/or places. With the rest of your time, try to incorporate activities with flesh-and-blood people around you and more stable objects around you such as plants or books.

Even if our devices help us exchange information with each other and allow you to spread good ideas including the Good News, it is up to us to use our whole being, not just our digital profile or consumption habits, to follow the commandments to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. There isn’t an app for that, and that’s okay.

Alcohol Addiction

Drug and Alcohol Addictions: Causes and Enabling vs. Helping

By Gian Milles, MS, LPC, Integrity Counseling Services

Causes of Drug and Alcohol Addictions

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, people begin taking drugs for one or any combination of four reasons:
1) to feel good
2) to feel better if they are feeling bad
3) to improve performance or psychological functioning
4) curiosity and peer pressure.
I believe this is exactly right. This means that when people have an addiction to drugs and/or alcohol, this addiction serves a function.

All of us want to feel good. I do not know anyone who enjoys feeling bad, purely for the experience of feeling bad. Some people may enjoy the pain of a good workout (I do), but it is really the challenging of the mind and the growing of the body that people are after. The pain for its own sake would not be worth it. Even people who engage in self-harm or suicide are typically attempting to alleviate some sort of intense suffering.

At the same time, every single one of us chooses to do things that make us feel bad. We each have bad habits that we are struggling to kick. In this way, we all suffer from addictions. Addiction, as a human phenomenon, is more a matter of degree and type than it is about certain people being built a certain way.

While it is true that we all have addictions, some are certainly more severe than others. My inability to put the stinkin’ remote down and stop watching the second season of Narcos on Netflix (yes, I binge-watched it this past week) is not severe enough to prevent me from going to work. We are all in this together, but some people more than others have addictions that interfere with daily functioning. See the work of experts Dr. Gabor Mate and Dr. Anna Lembke to provide a more comprehensive case for this position.

Enabling vs. Helping

Friends and family can play an instrumental role in enabling an addiction, or conversely, in helping a person to overcome their addiction.

Many people fear losing their loved one, so they do not establish proper boundaries regarding the addicted person. They may even give them money that is being used for the drugs. This enabling is doing far more harm than good. Any addicted person will tell you how brilliant they can be at exploiting their loved ones to finance their addiction. Brief tips on how to avoid enabling include not giving someone money, not allowing someone to spend time with you while they are actively using drugs, and not allowing someone to live with you while they are using. These can be very difficult things to do when we see a person suffering with the disease of addiction, but oftentimes they are what is ultimately most helpful.

On the other hand, people who have the support of friends and family are more likely to overcome their addiction. Part of the reason the 12-step programs like AA and NA have helped so many people is because there is such an emphasis on building relationships. In these relationships, addicted people can feel unconditional love and acceptance. Some ways you can be helpful to an addicted person are by buying them groceries, giving them transportation to work or to a doctor’s appointment, and letting them know that you love them unconditionally and are there for them if they ever need to talk. Tough love in the form of strict boundaries is often the best way to help. Encouraging them to get help and staging an intervention with other loved ones can also be effective.

If you or someone you know is suffering from an addiction to alcohol or drugs, please do not hesitate to reach out for help.

Therapist Gian Milles Featured on Relevant Radio

Gian Milles therapist

On April 17th, Integrity Counseling Services’ licensed therapist Gian Milles, MS, LPC was featured on Hour 2 of The Drew Mariani Show. Gian discussed how spiritual factors including a relationship with God and attendance at church improve one’s mental health, and how the absence of those factors can lead to depression and suicidal ideations.

Listen to Gian’s segment on the Relevant Radio podcast at The Drew Mariani Show 4-17-24.

 

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