A great way for clients to relieve stress during the holidays is through music. Selecting and listening to the right kind of music is an enjoyable, easy way for clients to counteract the stress of the holidays.

Studies have shown that music affects our mood and energy levels because our heart beat, blood pressure, and brain waves all adjust to the tempo, rhythm, and harmony of music.

This holiday season, we should encourage clients who are beginning to feel stressed to listen to soothing music whenever possible. It can be helpful to ask clients about the types of music they enjoy and how they traditionally react to it in order to make the best suggestions as to what might be helpful.

During this time of New Year’s Resolutions it’s important to remind your clients to make resolutions that are designed to reward – not overburden – them.

Some good suggestions for New Year’s Resolutions might include:

• Learn to take one hour out of each day just for yourself
Take this time to do something just for you – read a book, enjoy a hot bath, phone a friend.

• Get a checkup
Seeing your doctor for a regular checkup makes your health needs a priority.

We all experience stress…but sometimes your clients may need a little help from you to learn how to manage their stress – particularly when trauma is involved.

As therapists and first responders, it’s important we remind our clients that stress is a part of life – and not all stress is bad stress. Explain to your client sometimes, stress can even be good for them. How? Because it can motivate them. Oftentimes, the stress our clients feel from a deadline they have to meet motivates them to get the task done.

But it’s also important we make them aware that too much stress can actually be harmful. At least once a week the evening news runs a story about how stress can cause heart attacks, or how it can weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to getting sick. And these reports are true! Stress can do all of those things – and a whole lot more.

But how do we, as therapists and first responders, know when a client has too much stress?

It’s important to remember that your clients’ reactions to a trauma can be short, or it can be long-lived. Regardless of their reaction time, it’s important to remember most of them will react.

Keep in mind how your clients respond to trauma depends on a few things:

• How severe was the trauma?

• How long did the trauma last?

• How strong (physically and/or emotionally) were they before the traumatic event?

Your clients’ answers to these questions will help you determine how they will respond to a traumatic event.

Remember, your clients can have both physical and emotional reactions to trauma. Some of the more common emotional reactions clients tend to exhibit include:

This week I want to take a look at a safe and effective therapy you can use with your clients to help them eliminate emotional distress – Thought Field Therapy, or TFT.

One of the greatest benefits to Thought Field Therapy is that the client sees immediate results; and, Thought Field Therapy is extremely versatile – it can be used to treat a variety of addictions, phobias, fears anxieties, and even post-traumatic stress disorder.

Thought Field Therapy works by eliminating negative feelings a client previously associated with a specific thought. You see, a client’s negative emotions create disturbances in their body’s energy system, and it’s these disturbances that may cause the client’s physical problems, negative emotions, addictions, and cravings.

Thought Field Therapy works as a mind-body therapy for clients by combining modern science, oriental medicine, and the body’s own energy system to help the client overcome their negative feelings.

Continue to join me this week as we take a look at how you can put Thought Field Therapy to work for your clients.

Hope Makes Healing Possible!

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

*Written in collaboration with Jessica Hicks

We’ve taken a look at what Thought Field Therapy is. Now let’s examine how you can put it to work for your clients.

A Thought Field Therapy session begins with the therapist asking the client to think about a specific situation or event, and rate how uncomfortable s/he feels thinking about the event on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being the worst the client could feel and one being the client has no problems thinking about the event.

Then, the therapist directs clients to tap with two fingers on various pressure points on their bodies. The points you direct your clients to tap are done according to a specific algorithm developed based on the emotions your clients feel when thinking about the specific event. As you instruct your clients where to tap, they rate how they are feeling.

This series of therapist directed tapping lasts five to six minutes. At the end of the tapping session, the Thought Field Therapy treatment is complete and the client’s distress is eliminated.

Check back this week as we wrap up our look at Thought Field Therapy, and answer some frequently asked questions about this treatment.

Hope Makes Healing Possible!

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

*Written in collaboration with Jessica Hicks

Let’s continue this week’s look at Emotional Freedom Techniques therapy, or EFT, and how it can work for your clients by learning about where EFT originated.

EFT was developed by Gary Craig a little over a decade ago. EFT is designed to be a simplified and improved version of Roger Callahan’s Thought Field Therapy, which we discussed last week.

Craig’s EFT therapy is designed to draw its power from:

• Time honored Eastern discoveries that have been around for thousands of years.

• Einstein’s theory that everything is made up of energy – even our own bodies.

Keep tuning in this week as we continue our look at how you can put Emotional Freedom Techniques to work for your clients.

Hope Makes Healing Possible!

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

*Written in collaboration with Jessica Hicks

Let’s continue our introduction to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy by taking a look at the objectives of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

The objectives of Cognitive Behavior Therapy are:

• To identify the client’s irrational or unrealistic thoughts, assumptions and beliefs related to debilitating negative emotions.

• To identify how these thoughts, assumptions and beliefs are dysfunctional, inaccurate or