Look for the Good Blog

Pick Your Poison: Guilt or Resentment

Article By Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, Guest Expert and author of the award-winning book It’s Not Always Depression.

5 Minute Read

Martha and Harvey, Taylor’s parents, asked to stay at Taylor's apartment for the weekend. Taylor did not want their* parents to stay with them. They desperately needed downtime to relax and be alone after a hard week at work. Their parents had the financial means to stay at a hotel.

Clara‘s boss asked her to work late on Tuesdays. Clara did not want to quit night school to accommodate the request.

Fred wanted his wife Sarah to wear high heels when they went out because he found them sexy. Sarah loved and wanted to please him, but found them too uncomfortable to bear.

Bret’s neighbor asked him to walk his dog for a weekend when he had to be out of town. Bret was experiencing an episode of depression which made commitments difficult.

Situations that require us to choose...

5 Important Things to Know About Toxic Shame

Article By Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, Guest Expert and author of the award-winning book It’s Not Always Depression.

4 Minute Read

Shame is an emotion designed to inhibit our impulses and the expression of our authentic Self. This powerful emotion ensures we conform to fit in with our family, peers, community, religions, and any group in which we wish to belong.

Groups offer many survival benefits like collaboration, protection, support, and safety. Healthy shame ensures we aren't too greedy, covetous, aggressive, abusive, or neglectful. Healthy shame motivates us to be good people. When we act in accordance with the values of our groups, we feel good. When we don’t, we feel fear of retribution, banishment, and we feel the excruciating pain of shame.

Alternatively, toxic shame is a symptom of a toxic environment where we develop entrenched negative beliefs like I am bad, I am not good enough, I am unlovable.

Toxic shame...

It's Not Always Depression, Sometimes It's Shame

Article By Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, Guest Expert and author of the award-winning book It’s Not Always Depression.

5 Minute Read

(The following post was originally published in The New York Times on March 10, 2015)

How can it be that a seemingly depressed person, one who shows clinical symptoms, doesn’t respond to antidepressants or psychotherapy? Perhaps because the root of his anguish is something else.

Several years ago a patient named Brian was referred to me. He had suffered for years from an intractable depression for which he had been hospitalized. He had been through cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, supportive therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy. He had tried several medication “cocktails,” each with a litany of side effects that made them virtually intolerable. They had been ineffective anyway. The next step was electroshock therapy, which Brian did not want.

...

What Emotion and Trauma Theory Teach Us About Bullying

Article By Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, Guest Expert and author of the award-winning book It’s Not Always Depression.

4 Minute Read

Richard, a former patient of mine, used to bully kids when he was in high school. When I asked him to share what bullying felt like, he told me intimidating kids was the only time he felt powerful and strong.

Richard was beaten by his father. As a defense, a form of emotional protection stemming from past abuse, he bullied others. He showed the world his tough side. But secretly he believed he was worthless and the “weakest boy on earth.” Buried under his rage and aggression were the tender emotions of fear, sadness, and worst of all shame. All of us become scared, sad, and ashamed when we are treated badly by the very people who are supposed to respect and protect us most.

What happens to the mind in a traumatic environment?

Trauma, hardship, and adversity, as Richard experienced as a...

Disgust: A Natural Emotional Response to Abuse

Article By Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, Guest Expert and author of the award-winning book It’s Not Always Depression.

5 Minute Read

Disgust is an emotion about which I never gave much thought. It was just something that happened to me if I caught a stomach virus or ate something disagreeable. But after practicing psychotherapy for several years, disgust emerged as an important emotion for trauma healing.

For example, Kyle, a man in his forties, wanted help with his depressed mood and chronic anxiety. He told me in no uncertain terms that his mother was a cold and uncaring woman. Behind closed doors, she routinely lied, manipulated, and scared her son. His insight into how his mother’s behavior affected him was impressive, one of the positive results stemming from psychoanalytic psychotherapy. However, I thought of Kyle as a survivor of emotional abuse despite the fact that others thought he came from a “fine family.” And, I...

How To Say "NO!" When You Feel So Guilty

Article By Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, Guest Expert and author of the award-winning book It’s Not Always Depression.

5 Minute Read

I take good care of myself. My family, friends and clients know this about me. I would not be surprised if behind closed doors I’ve been described as selfish. I am actually all right with that; I own it. I worked at taking care of myself in this way as a matter of mental health necessity. I say "no" for many reasons, including that it helps me be a better person. What a paradox! To be a better person, I have learned to be ok with acting selfishly.

Let me explain: Giving is wonderful and necessary. But when we give, and give, it can become too much. We can become depleted, resentful, and even depressed from containing our anger.

Staying healthy depends on sometimes saying no.

We all know that feeling of conflict. A friend or neighbor asks a favor. The boss asks you to stay...

Loss: A Cauldron of Emotions

Article By Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, Guest Expert and author of the award-winning book It’s Not Always Depression.

4 Minute Read

Recently, a follower of my blog reached out after reading It’s Not Always Depression. I was touched by how much this reader said the book helped during a time of intense grief and invited her to share her experience. Below are words by “Rae.”

I lost five members of my family over these past four years. In rapid succession: my father, my mother in law, my mother, my kid brother (on my birthday) and my father in law. And in between those deaths the company for which I worked restructured and I lost my job.

Yeah.

Others have written about grief far more eloquently than I ever could. Didion wrote: “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it…We do not expect the shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind.” C.S. Lewis...

7 Ways to Help a Child Deal with Traumatic Stress

Article By Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, Guest Expert and author of the award-winning book It’s Not Always Depression.

5 Minute Read

Life is stressful. That’s a fact. To grow and learn we must try new things. Struggling, prevailing, and tolerating failures along the way builds confidence and the deep feeling in a child that “I can do it.” But the positive aspects of struggle and stress are lost when the amount of stress becomes too great and/or sustained.

Persistent and long-lasting stress on the mind and body caused by overwhelming emotions leads to traumatic stress, a condition characterized by a nervous system in overdrive. The brain’s emotional centers lock into a state of DANGER and the body operates in the fight, flight, and freeze modes.

Traumatic stress feels awful. For example, the body tenses and succumbs to many other physiological changes leading to digestive problems and headaches. Furthermore,...

A Reflection by Adrianne Robinson, Mother of A Seven Year Old Student

He bounded off the bus with his backpack bouncing behind him. He smiled and waved to me with one hand and while the other was tucked away in his pocket. He seemed more excited to see me than his normal after school demeanor. I watched my boy hop around the puddles left behind from yesterday’s rain and I found myself matching his excitement with my own…though I had no idea why. As I knelt down to hug him, he barreled towards me almost knocking me over. His one-handed hug was tight as the other was still nestled in his pocket clenching whatever treasure he had found. Then he stepped back and said, “I have something for you!” Our eyes were level with each other, but his eyes seemed to sparkle with some sort of mysterious pride. He stepped back and quickly pulled his hand from his pocket and then put it behind his back. I didn’t get to finish asking what it was before he took his hidden treasure and proudly held it before my eyes. “I got this for you...

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Meet Guest Expert

Hilary Jacobs Hendel

Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, is the author of the award-winning book, It’s Not Always Depression, which is based on her work as a therapist. Hilary is a certified psychoanalyst and AEDP psychotherapist and supervisor, and has published articles in The New York Times, Time, Oprah, and other major media outlets. Her blog "The Change Triangle" is read worldwide.

Meet Guest Expert

Brooklyn Raney

Brooklyn is the Founder and Lead Trainer of "One Trusted Adult," an organization that provides programming for educators, professionals working with youth, parents and guardians, and young people, to ensure that every young person has at least one trusted adult.

The Educator & Parent Curating These Articles

Kari Yacawych

Kari has been a teacher for the past 27 years. She spent the first 20 years of her teaching experience as a classroom teacher for first, second, and fourth grade. For the past seven years, she has been the Library Media Specialist at Sunnyside Elementary School. Kari started working on our content in 2020 and has played an integral part (along with her kids!) in planning out the Wiggle Warrior® program.

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