I will be co-faciltating a 5 part series on parenting adolescents with Rosanne Tobey this coming March.

Session dates are as follows:

Session 1 – Understanding Adolescence (March 3)
Session 2 & 3 – Communicating with Your Teen and the role of discipline (March 10th & 17th)
Session 4 – Helping your Teen through the High School Battlefield: Bullying, Cliques, etc. (March 24th)
Session 5 – Signs your teen may be in trouble (March 31st)

The series will take place in the cafeteria of St. Bartholomew the Apostle Church at 7:30pm, 2032 Westfield Avenue, Scotch Plains NJ. Admission is free.

To register simply email your name and phone number to jm@johnmigueis.com

Angie LeVan is becoming one of my favorite reads. She wrote this gem on visualization in December and followed up with a great article on thriving this month.

Don't get me wrong I'm not one of those "positive thinking" people. That is to say, I don't think of positive thinking as it's interpreted by many of those who claim to be disciples of the silly “if you think it, it will happen” commune.

It has been my experience, however, that many people get held back by negative thinking not based in reality, they avoid good risks because of catastrophic thinking grounded in haywire logic. We've all been guilty of this, in fact it is the sort of thing phobias are made of.

One method of overcoming irrational thinking is to simply have a debate with it. State the fear, determine whether it is reality based and if it's not, challenge it. Allow the fear to counter with a “what if” or alternate scenario and respond again until you've uncovered every irrational thought driving the fear and defeated it in argument.  All of this should be in writing. Once you've accomplished this, practice the argument over and over again in your head until its' memorized.

Another approach is visualization, which involves actually developing a mental image of achieving your goal. A pretty simple, easy to use example from Angie's post:

It may seem corny but I found this to be highly effective particularly with folks who suffer from anxiety disorders or chronic pain.

I've been reading a great deal on Imago the past 6 months and I found it does a very good job of applying standard interventions in a way that enables couples to implement change quickly (under the right circumstances).

The nice thing about Imago is that even if it's not your primary model, everything it offers can complement your work. The most effective tool is the dialogue – at worst you can say it is a superficial exercise meant to teach empathic communication. Quite frankly, I think if most people got this part of Imago down they would be well on their way to getting their marriage back on track (assuming it was off track).

That being said, the theory behind it and some of the following can be a bit much. Also, its not for everyone- I would never consider this approach if domestic violence (as one example) were an issue. Lastly, the potential for the therapist to lose control of the session is a bit greater than with other approaches in my opinion.

Despite some of the drawbacks, I look forward to integrating a good deal of Imago in my work. I found Wade Luquet's book to be both very digestible and practical.

So today I went back and forth on the domain name I selected for my site (johnmigueis.com) and wondered why I ever decided on that. I guess part of marketing is to sell yourself (which I have an aversion to) but why did I think using a name no one can even pronounce, much less remember, as a domain name was a good idea? Seriously, if my name wasn't Migueis and you just showed me “Migueis” I'd have no idea what I was looking at.

In fact, when I was younger I wasn't quite sure how to pronounce my name. I knew the correct pronunciation of my name but this is America- and I thought there were only ten other Portuguese people living here and they all happened to be related to me.

So I don't expect people to say my name Portuguesey and, as a result, I pronounce it Mee-gwez or Muh-gwez. Occasionally I'll have a Portuguese person yell at me for “anglicizing my name” and demanding I not be embarrassed to say my name correctly but that sure beats having to train someone to say my name correctly (mee-gaigsh-see what I mean?). Usually when I try that, people get all nervous about offending me (or say it wrong but think they got it right and repeat it proudly) and I get mad at myself for putting them in that situation while at the same time committing myself to a ½ hour training that goes to nowhere.

In any event I might end up buying another domain name.

I've been reading up a lot about marketing and psychotherapy and quite frankly I'm finding the whole thing a bit weird. When did we all turn into Matthew Lesko? 

I do think that assertive marketing is key to any business and in some ways it removes the stigma of seeking help for the client. On the other hand, basing your site and approach on the “5 easy steps to making your first million selling 2012 survival gear” business model brings the profession down a notch. The question I have is whether it's successful. I've asked a couple of folks who went this route to get back to me with some results. If it works you may see me on T.V at 3am speaking to a crowd who can't help but clap and cheer every time I push my book and free set of allen wrenches.

Other thoughts...

About 80% of my wardrobe consists of sweatshirts from various colleges that my family members either attended or have close affiliations with. My family recognized this, and bombarded me with adult clothing for Christmas. I still plan on wearing my green Notre Dame sweatshirt everywhere.

Having four other people eat the hottest wing on the "hot wing scale" with you does not make the idea any better or the act any less painful.

Eating 4 pounds of really salty pistachios is a good way to get rid of those unwanted lips.

My nine month old daughter runs into the dog with her princess car on purpose. I think it's funny.

I decided that I don't have quite enough to do and that adding one more thing (this blog) on top of what is an already impossible list would be a great idea.  It's been two months since I began trying to get into a private practice. Now that I'm here I find it is definitely a lot different than working for an agency. The great thing about this opportunity is the ability to be creative and the kind of freedom you're given to make your own way.

Don't get me wrong, I think everyone who is a therapist should work for an agency at some point and even maintain some sort of relationship with one throughout their career, it's the best way to stay on top of best practices.

I started working on something today that I think will be a pretty exciting initiative – if it gets off the ground to a point where I feel confident enough that it won't be a miserable, embarrassing failure, I'll write a little more about it.