by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 19, 2025 | Psychology, Psychology of Politics, Psychology Topics and Articles
You’re grieving, but there’s no funeral. No sympathy cards. No casserole dishes from concerned neighbors. No one asking how you’re doing. Because according to society, what you lost doesn’t count. Your pain isn’t real grief. You should be...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 19, 2025 | Spirituality and The Transcendent Function in Psychotherapy, Therapeutic Approaches and Techniques for Therapists, Therapy and Crisis Intervention for College Students in Alabama, Therapy for Chronic Pain and Chronic Illness, Therapy Resources, Tips and Tools, Trauma Treatment in Alabama
You’re sitting in your car after another sleepless night, phone in hand, typing “counselor near me” into Google for the fifth time this week. The results are overwhelming – dozens of smiling faces, all promising to help, most with 4.8 stars or...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 18, 2025 | Neuroscience and the Brain for Therapists, Psychology Topics and Articles
For over a century, neuroscientists believed that once memories consolidated into long-term storage, they became essentially permanent. Sure, you might forget details over time, and new learning could interfere with old memories, but the original memory trace itself...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 18, 2025 | Evidence Based Practice in Therapy, Interviews and Case Studies, Models of Psychotherapy, Parts Based Therapy
Back in the 1970s, the founders of NLP claimed they’d discovered something remarkable: that you could tell what someone was thinking by watching where their eyes moved. Look up and to the right? Creating a visual image. Down and to the left? Accessing feelings....
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 17, 2025 | Psychology Topics and Articles, Recovering from Abuse, Therapy Resources, Tips and Tools, Trauma Treatment in Alabama
There’s this exercise in DBT with a name that makes people laugh nervously when they first hear it: “Nobody Wants Your Whiny Baby.” The name is perfect because it captures something we all know but rarely talk about directly. Here’s what...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 17, 2025 | Mental Health and Trauma Therapy in Alabama, Neuroscience and the Brain for Therapists, Philosophy for Therapists
Have you ever worked with a client who seems absolutely unable to see things any other way than their own? Someone who follows the same routines religiously and falls apart when something unexpected happens? Or maybe someone who insists there’s only one right...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 16, 2025 | Jungian Therapy and Depth Psychology
The Moment Reality Refuses to Cooperate We’ve all been there. That moment when our carefully constructed understanding of how things should work collides head-on with how they actually work. The project that should have succeeded fails spectacularly. The person...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 14, 2025 | History of Psychotherapy, Psychology, Psychology Topics and Articles
The Wizard Behind the Curtain: The Horseshoe Theory of Consciousness Think about the end of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy has traveled the Yellow Brick Road, survived the Wicked Witch, and finally reached the great and powerful Oz, only to discover he’s a fraud, a...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 4, 2025 | Alabama Local History, Christian Mysticism in Therapy, Mythology and Therapy, Symbolism and Meaning in Psychotherapy
The Sacred Species and Their Archetypal Meanings In the depths of the human psyche, trees stand as primordial witnesses to our spiritual evolution. They are the axis mundi, the world pillars that connect heaven, earth, and the underworld in virtually every...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Oct 2, 2025 | Psychology Topics and Articles
Therapists across all modalities have observed a puzzling phenomenon that challenges our understanding of therapeutic progress: given similar presentations, symptom severity, and treatment approaches, some clients demonstrate remarkable improvement while others remain...
