Articles of Interest
All articles written by Mitchell Milch.
The Fundamentals For Creating Healthy Mindsets For Success
A Meditation on MeditationThis article discusses how meditation trains our brains to learn from and creatively benefit from our learning experiences.
Anger Management
Busting Some Myths About Anger ManagementThis article busts some myths about anger management in the service of emphasizing the importance of being with, and learning how to think about and use our anger constructively.
Own Anger to Manage ItThis article discusses why anger can feel like a loaded weapon for some of us and leave us feeling as if we are at the risk of seriously hurting and/ or being seriously hurt by others. It emphasizes how to bring the distress level down so that we can express anger in mutually respectful and considerate ways.
Stress Management
Stress Management: Is Necessity the Mother of Good Inventions, Bad Inventions or Whatever Gets You Through the Night?This article discusses the ins and outs of managing stress so that we are able to meet our responsibilities to ourselves and others. The article looks at stress along a continuum from levels of stress that do not promote optimal growth and adaption, to levels of stress that do.
Couples Counseling/Successful Life Transitions; Separation/Divorce
Retirement Would Be A Cinch If I Didn’t Have To Stop WorkingLife transitions often leave us painfully aware of requirements that we grow as executive managers of our lives. This is a composite story of many patients of mine whose hopeful expectations of retirement were at first, bitterly disappointed. It is a heartening tale of one man’s discovery of and use of resources to embrace new found freedoms as opportunities for joy, self-esteem, and self-confidence.
The Keys To Turning Domestic Conflicts Into Win-Win PropositionsAfter years of couples counseling I decided to write an article summarizing the behavioral keys to building and sustaining successful relationships that balance respect and consideration for the individuals and their partnerships.
"Honey, I'll be right in to talk as soon as I put my football gear on."This article discusses the importance of creating an environment of safety if partners are to find freedom in their relationships to experience love, acceptance and satisfaction through open self expression.
How Can We Be So Hurt By Our Partners When They Behave Without Malice?This article discusses when couples in crisis get there because of one partner’s idealized and outdated expectations of the other partner that cannot be fulfilled. When thankless sacrifices are made in pursuit of these longings, love can turn quickly to hate and old wounds are reopened.
Do You Become A Human Vending Machine When Your Buttons Are Pushed?This article discusses strategies to help spouses sensitize the other to communications they find hurtful so that vicious cycles of attack and counterattack can be broken.
Recovering from Addictions
You Don’t Lose Weight on a Diet of Emotional DeprivationThis article discusses how disordered eating has become a norm in society. Disordered eating may become an adaptive yet, rigid and automatic growth stunting reaction to perceived threats. These threats are future projections of past attempts to depend on others to be protected and nurtured. I will offer a clinical example to illustrate my ideas, and how psychotherapy can restore new choice points in meeting these needs safely, so that disordered eating becomes a thing of the past.
Tangos of Debt Accumulation: What Are They All Worth?This articles looks at addiction as a dance of collusion. It stresses how over spending can be symptomatic of difficulties regulating emotions, regulating self esteem, and vulnerabilities to feeling indebted to others we depend on.
Anatomy Of An Addictive Behavior: Not For Men OnlyThis article illustrates how the compulsion to repeat history can be played out when needs are sexualized and a self-defeating, addictive relationship is formed.
Don’t Tell Me to Stop Training!This article discusses how aerobic exercise, by nature healthy in many ways, when over done can be damaging both physically and emotionally.
Parent Education/Single Parent Issues
Dating Tips for Single ParentsThis article discusses the importance of grieving the loss of a marital partner before re-entering the dating scene. It emphasizes the importance of developing self-sufficiency so that we don’t confuse falling in love with running from being alone.
Don’t Let The Fear of Screwing Up Your Kids Screw You Up As A ParentThis article discusses how to overcome the challenges of meeting the needs of our children when our needs as children were not adequately met. It’s a testament to the importance and power of personal forgiveness to give up on “doing over” what is already over and done.
Parental Authority and the Criminal Justice SystemThis article grew out of experiences interviewing adolescents, young adults and their parents prior to their children’s arraignments on a host of criminal offenses. My findings are instructive for all parents interested in raising respectful and law abiding citizens.
Single Parents and Security BlanketsThis article explores the implications and consequences of single parents turning their children into security blankets if they don’t meet needs left unmet in the wake of separation/divorce.
Overcoming Performance Anxieties/Performance Enhancement
How to Overcome Sports Performance AnxietyThis article makes arguments supporting the old adage that life is very much a “mental game.” Success on all fields of play require mental fitness as well as physical fitness.
