At its core, cognitive-behavioral therapy encourages balanced thinking. Through examining our thought patterns, and sometimes through use of thought charts, we can identify characteristic ways of thinking that then lead to uncomfortable emotions.

Being able to tolerate both negative and positive emotions toward an object, or person is a hallmark of this type of therapy. However, this concept, referred to by some as having a bi-phasic personality, is also a core component of the development of object constancy.

In order to have object constancy, a child must be able to grasp the idea that when something is bad (like an inattentive mother), it is not bad or gone forever. Instead, when the child has achieved object constancy, he/she demonstrates the understanding that a mother can fail to meet his/her needs in one moment, and yet still be a constancy in his/her life, capable of meeting his/her needs.

Continue reading Equine Therapy: Object Constancy, by Claire Dorotik →

While conducting a group recently, I was struck by how tentative the members were when I asked the question, “How approachable do you think you are?” Of course, I was asking the members to tell each other.

Resistance to authenticity is a natural effect of being human. We all engage in the habit of wanting to protect ourselves form the potential negative impact of THE TRUTH. Of course, the truth we are speaking of is really only our perception, or our truth. Yet this inherent tendency to avoid revealing what we really think impairs social relationships greatly. How is it that if a person are protected from others’ perceptions of him/her that any necessary behavioral adjustments can be made?

It was precisely at that moment when I recalled asking the same question in the middle of an arena with a big fuzzy nose nuzzling my shoulder. But this time I wasn’t asking the other group members to disclose the answer, I was asking the horse.

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According to Shawn Alchor, the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, and the CEO of Good Think Inc., a Cambridge-based consulting firm which researches positive outliers, 90% of happiness can be predicted not by what surrounds a person (the environment), but rather how he/she experiences this environment.

Alchor, who has used a 21 day gratitude list intervention in a variety of different settings in forty-two different countries, explains that when a person’s mood is more positive, dopamine levels shoot up, and the learning centers of the brain turn on.

Now, the Harvard professor continues, the person is primed to scan the environment not for the negative, but instead, for the positive. Interestingly, dopamine — the pleasure detector in the brain — also shoots up when bonding with another person, or animal.

Continue reading Equine Therapy as a Positive Psychology Intervention? by Claire Dorotik →

So often we are told to visualize what we want, and then our chances of achieving it will be greatly increased. While this idea is easy to understand and based in the study of neuroscience, the reality of it may actually be much more difficult for some people.

Especially when enveloped by self-doubt, fear, and worry, the tendency to second guess the visualization can be quite strong. Yes, we may be able to create the image of what we want — let’s say it is to find the perfect partner — but we will struggle to hold the image. So when the going gets tough, and we tend to doubt our future, we will also question the image itself. Questions like “Can I really find love?” and “Does he/she actually love me?” will ring through our ears.

But actually the ability to visualize — and hold the image — is one that is developed over time. Interestingly, the use of imagery is something that most pet owners do unconsciously. For example, most people who have a dog can recall a time when their dog came and sat by their side right at the very moment they had the vision of a loved person close by. Many dog owners can also share that their dog seems to “know” just right when they are about to walk in the door.

Continue reading Equine Therapy: A Path to Visualization?, by Claire Dorotik →