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Friday, August 14, 2015

Don't "Fall" Into Bad Habits This Fall

Friday, August 14, 2015 @ 12:29 PM

Dear Friend,

Is it possible that the summer season is nearly behind us already? 

Do you remember the days when "traditional summer" lasted right up to Labor Day?

At least here in the Raleigh-Durham area, kids are getting ready for school, buses are showing up on the roads and vacations are in the rear view mirror.

Perhaps it's true ... "August is the new September."

As families start to get back into old routines or try to figure out new ones, it's important to acknowledge the stressful situations that can come with them.  Often times, couples with existing relationship issues find autumn to be a stressful time. The pace starts to pick up again and time demands for schoolwork, extra-curricular activities and workload can also conspire to bring old problems back to the forefront.

We want you to know that we are well equipped to provide grounded, proven marriage counseling that offers perspective, guidance and resources to help motivated couples get back on track.  In many respects, this is the perfect time of year to address couples' issues ... before the days get shorter and the stress-filled holidays begin to stack up.

Our proprietary Connected Marriage Home model has a proven 85% success rate for restoring distressed marriages and we incorporate this information into the customized program we implement for every couple we serve.

If you or someone you care about is struggling with marriage issues and dedicated to working toward a solution, we are here to be of service. We can offer counseling in traditional weekly appointments, or meet more or less often as needs and schedules dictate.

For couples who are eager to make headway at a faster pace, or are traveling a long distance for our sessions, we routinely conduct extended sessions that can run from 2-to-4 hours.

We also offer Couples and Group Intensives -- approximately 20 hours of counseling over a condensed 2-to-3 day period -- for those occasions where time is of the essence or the issues facing a couple are extremely challenging.

 

We offer FREE 15-minute phone consultations as an effective starting point. This brief, candid conversation is a good way to reach a collaborative decision about the best way to proceed.  

Christian Counseling Associates Raleigh
809-1000 Spring Forest Rd
Raleigh, North Carolina, US
27609

Office: (919) 260-5830

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

WHAT IS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE?

Wednesday, August 12, 2015 @ 12:03 PM

Domestic Violence is a repeated pattern of behavior one person uses over another to gain power and control. Types of abuse can include verbal, emotional, financial, physical, intimidation, sexual, or spiritual.

Abuse occurs to women in all socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, and educational levels and in all faiths. An abused woman is just as likely to be a successful professional or the woman sitting next to you in church as a woman on welfare.

Abuse in America

• Every 9 seconds a woman in the United Stated is abused by a husband or boyfriend.

• On the average more than 3 women are murdered by their husband/boyfriend every day.

• 4 million American women experience a serious assault by a partner during an average 12-month period.

• 1 in 5 female high school students report being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner.

• 1 in 3 teens report knowing a friend or peer who has been hit, punched, slapped, choked or physically hurt by his/her partner.

• Women of all races and all faiths are equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate partner.

• For 30% of women who experience abuse, the first incident occurs during pregnancy.

• Battered women are more likely to suffer miscarriages and give birth to low birth weight babies.

• 74% of employed battered women were harassed by their partner while they were at work

• Seventy-four percent of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner (spouse, common-law spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend). Of these, 96% were females killed by their intimate partners.

• Most murder-suicides with three or more victims involved a “family annihilator” – a subcategory of intimate partner murder-suicide. Family annihilators are murderers who kill not only their wives/girlfriends and children, but often other family members as well, before killing themselves.

• 1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.

• Approximately 3.3 million children witness violence toward their mothers each year.

• 63% of young men between the ages of 11 and 20 who are serving time for homicide have killed their mother’s abuser.

• Violent youth are 4 times as likely to come from homes in which their fathers beat their mothers than are non-violent youth.

Stats from FBI Crime Report, U.S. Department of Justice and The National Domestic Violence Hotline website

Statistics on the Effects of Domestic Violence on Children

• For 30% of women who experience abuse, the first incident occurs during pregnancy.

• Approximately 3.3 million children witness violence toward their mothers each year.

• Violent youth are 4 times as likely to come from homes in which their fathers beat their mothers than are non-violent youth.

• 63% of young men between the ages of 11 and 20 who are serving time for homicide have killed their mother’s abuser.

Stats from FBI Crime Report, U.S. Department of Justice and The National Domestic Violence Hotline website

How You Can Help a Friend or Relative in an Abusive Relationship

1. Believe her. Take seriously what she tells you. Listen carefully to her story, do not judge, and respond to her feelings.

2. Be concerned about her injuries – does she need or has she received medical attention?

3. Be concerned about her safety or need for a safe place. Be sure that a safe place is available to her, whether in a home or at a domestic violence shelter; let her know how to contact such a place in your community.

4. Support the legitimacy of her getting away from the situation where she is in danger, but do not push her to leave or criticize her for not having left sooner. The danger level intensifies when she leaves the relationship.

5. Recognize that she may feel she has failed as a wife, but she does not cause the abuse. Nobody deserves to be hit. Just because the couple has conflict (normal), that does not mean there is justification for the verbal or physical abuse (not normal).

6. Realize that if she stays in the relationship and her husband does not get help, the abuse will happen again and will get worse. Explain the cycle of violence. Domestic violence increases in frequency and severity over time.

7. Recognize that she may be very ambivalent. She probably loves her husband and it is quite possible that when he is not abusive he can be very loving toward her.

8. Be aware that an abusive husband may have greatly damaged her self esteem and confidence in her ability to take care of herself and her children. Don’t reinforce her low self esteem by taking over and making decisions for her. Choices about her life are hers, not yours. Let her make her own decisions. Help her to see she has choices.

9. Suggest that her husband needs treatment. He needs to take responsibility for, and change his behavior. Has she thought about pressing charges? Battery is a crime, and a record may be helpful in the long-run to hold him accountable for his behavior.

10. Encourage her to utilize any local resources available to victims so that she can get as much information as possible about her options. You can give her the phone numbers to call in her area to get help.

11. Above all, let her know that you are there to help and listen and that you will support her in her decisions.

C.J. Hendry & Associates

25000 Center Ridge Road, 6
Westlake, Ohio, US
44145
Office: (440) 892-7034 

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

12 Tips to Help Your Child Listen and Follow Directions

Tuesday, August 4, 2015 @ 12:35 PM

No matter if you are coming in for depression help, anxiety help, marriage counseling, or other issues, many factors determine the depth of relief and satisfaction a client experiences from their counseling. Here are some suggestions for making your therapeutic experience the best possible:

1) Be totally honest. Believe me, I've heard every story. The human condition contains basic elements that exist in all problems presented, and you're not going to shock me, nor am I going to disapprove of you!

2) Be open to new ways of thinking. Although you are free to examine, use, or discard any suggestions I make, remember that behavior change is required for growth. "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten."

3) Understand the difference in professional therapy and "talking to a friend." A minimum of six years of college, two of them in human behavior, is required to legally practice as a counselor. We are also required to get several thousand hours of internship experience and supervision before being licensed.

4) Expect some resistance from family or friends. Change, even good change, can be threatening, and comes with a price. Your relationships will change because your world changes when YOU change. There will be people in your life who resist this, who want you to "stay in your box." It is indeed necessary to rock the boat for things to ultimately improve.

5) Do your homework. The true change of the therapy experience only takes place outside of the office, as you test the new ideas I give you and report the results back to me.

6) Journal, journal, and journal some more. The research is compelling: journaling continues the therapeutic progress outside of the session, releases tension, and moves you forward faster.

7) Attend as regularly and as often as possible. It's also smart to come in occasionally after therapy has ended if you sense a downturn in mood or thinking.

8) Be patient with yourself. It took you a lifetime to develop these thinking patterns; it will take more than a session or two to change them!

9) Make notes after the session. Ideally, schedule enough free time after your therapy to go somewhere and process what came up.

10) Take responsibility for the session. Notice during the week what bothers you, excites you, what insights come up in your journaling that need to be explored further. Bring this information to session.

 

Christian Counseling of Mcalester

918-423-0220

104 E Carl Albert Parkway

 

McAlester, Oklahoma 74501