Practicing Boundaries without Armoring the Heart

Life seems to offer plenty of opportunities to practice boundaries. Whether it’s in our relationships with family and friends or at the grocery store check-out line, we have many chances to decide if, when, and in what ways information and people can be part of our lives. Maintaining healthy boundaries… Read More

The Meadows an Exhibitor at the Spring IECA Conference in Chicago

The Meadows will be an exhibitor at the Spring Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) in Chicago, Illinois at the Chicago Marriott Downtown on April 10-13, 2013. The theme of the conference is “Meeting Our Challenges.” IECA Conference Consultants, school, college and program admissions officers, administrators and staff, and related service… Read More

Paying Attention to Rising Waters

Alongside green acres of alfalfa, a twisting river cut through the farmland on which I spent much of my formative years. In the summers, after the chores were done, my friends and I would spend hours on the river swimming, skipping rocks and catching fish. (At this point in the… Read More

Jon Caldwell Interviewed by BlogTalkRadio

The Meadows Psychiatrist, Dr. Jon G. Caldwell, was featured on BlogTalkRadio’s program “Hope-Strength-Recovery”; with host Carol Juergensen Sheets, LCSW, CSAT, PCC, on Monday, January 7, 2013. Jon G. Caldwell, D.O., is a board-certified psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of adults with relational trauma histories and addictive… Read More

The Role of Shame in Addiction

By Meadows Senior Fellow John Bradshaw, MA Addiction has been defined as a pathological relationship to any mood-altering substance, experience, relationship, or thing with life-damaging consequences. Addiction is pathological because it is rooted in denial. There is no other disease where the worse it gets, the more the patient… Read More

Link Between PTSD and Violent Behavior is Weak

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/link-between-ptsd-and-violent-behavior-is-weak/2012/03/31/gIQApYFZnS_story.html The political and emotional complexities of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and TBI (traumatic brain injury) can lead to stigmatization and inaccurate attributions. It has long been assumed that soldiers, especially those who have served in combat, are at higher risk for violence. Following… Read More

ADHD, Income Taxes, and Unopened Envelopes

By Bonnie A. DenDooven, MC, LAC Many Americans have a visceral, gut-wrenching reaction to the terms “IRS” and “taxes”. It is a response quite similar to the way certain war veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) overreact to the sound of a car backfiring. For those who suffer… Read More

Pain: Healing, Growth, and Awareness

Emotional pain often brings people into therapy and/or recovery. This may be the pain of depression, another relationship ending badly, or finally hitting rock bottom. In a very real sense, addiction is the result of pain avoidance. However, in the end, addiction creates more pain than it avoids. Entering… Read More

Healing our “Connective Tissue”

Yogis have long known the healing power of turning into oneself and deeply stretching one’s muscles and ligaments – while also stretching one’s mental focus, tuning out the static and noise of the world outside. This practice, thousands of years old, has far-reaching physical, mental, and spiritual benefits for the… Read More

Borderline Personality Disorder and Sex Addiction: Interesting Bedfellows

The fields of psychiatry and psychotherapy are peppered with uninformed beliefs and misjudgments. For instance, individuals can be pejoratively diagnosed as borderline or, perhaps more accurately, viewed as exhibiting symptoms of complex traumatic stress. In cases of the latter, old unresolved traumas are reenacted in the here and now and,… Read More