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the benefits of female therapists for women

It’s a girl thing: The benefits of female therapists for women

An article by Nicoletta Pallotta, MD, LCSW.

The challenges that women deal with are often directly related to their gender; sexism, stereotyping, motherhood, childbirth issues, infertility struggles etc.

As a society we like to think that we’ve achieved ‘equality’, but the truth is the way women experience life and are perceived in life, is still very different to men.

Traditionally perceived gender roles are something we’ll never truly escape. There is inherent pressure on women to balance career and family, and this is something that affects women across the globe. If you have children, you probably undergo immense guilt when unavoidable parental obligations interrupt your working day, even if a 60-hour week is your norm, deep down you may still think this way. All this in addition to the general predicament of feeling undervalued both at home and at work.

If you feel like you need help in dealing with any aspect of life, there’s a lot to be said for talking to someone of the same sex. Female therapists get it, because they live it. They understand. This is not to say that male therapists aren’t amazing and don’t add value, but when you’re dealing with sensitive subjects that are unique to women (and even when you’re not) it can be comforting, and easier to talk to a female counselor who can personally relate to much of what you’re going through.

How to manage Negative Thoughts

When we have depression, negative thoughts can be both a cause and a result of our mood.

Those negative thoughts feed depression, and in turn it fuels them, filling our head with spiralling fear, anxiety, worries, stress, hopelessness and anger.

‘GLASS HALF EMPTY’?

Having our heads full of these thoughts and feelings is so much more than being moody, or pessimistic, or a ‘glass half empty sort of person’. It’s not that we choose to take a bleak outlook – in fact, we spend a huge amount of mental energy trying to take a brighter outlook, despite what we’re thinking or how we’re feeling.

Negative thoughts feed other negative thoughts, and they whip themselves up into a frenzied cycle in our heads. So how can we stop the blighters in their tracks? How can we prevent the first negative thought growing and bringing others with it?

Ideally, we’d be able to step back and think calmly, but when our heads are bursting with noise and imaginary arguments, that’s hard to do. There are some smaller things we can do, though.

TRY A BREATHING TECHNIQUE

Press pause. Try to concentrate on slowing down your breathing. Some of the techniques for coping with a panic attack can be very helpful here too. A quick breathing technique that can help to calm our racing brains is to breathe in through your nose to the count of 7, then breathe out through your mouth to the count of 11, and repeat – the 7/11 technique. You can do it anywhere.

DISTRACTION

The negative thoughts swarm into our brain and get worse if we concentrate on them, so we need to distract ourselves from them as quickly as possible. Is there an activity you could get stuck into, whether it’s at home, at work, or anywhere else?

Talking to someone can be a good distraction. We don’t have to talk about how we’re feeling or what we’re thinking (although that can help too – see below) – it’s just another way of taking our minds off those damaging thoughts.

BECOME A DETECTIVE

Can you work out where your negative thoughts have come from? What’s triggered them? Can you narrow it down to a specific thing that’s happened, or something that’s coming up? Maybe it’s something you’re afraid of, or something that’s made you angry. If you can identify the cause of that thought or feeling, you might be able to do something about it – and that’s much more helpful than over-thinking it and going over it again and again without taking any action.

Are you tired? Tiredness can give us a warped view of our world. Knowing we’re not to blame for our thoughts, and that something physical is influencing them – like sleep deprivation, or even something like dehydration or hunger – can help to give us some perspective back.

Check the facts. What’s real and what might not be? Could our insecurity about a person, a situation or ourselves be clouding our judgement and making us paranoid? For example, we might see someone looking angry or disgusted, think it’s about us in some way, decide they hate us, and conclude that everyone else hates us too. See how that spiralled? But it’s very possible that we misinterpreted that first person’s expression, and that means the whole chain of thinking is wrong too.

ARGUE BACK

Depression bullies us. It finds us alone and assaults us with the kind of thoughts that will make us dance to its tune.

Sometimes we need to consciously run through counter-arguments and remember things we could try doing to shut depression up. This can be difficult and takes practice. It’s as if we have to install some kind of counter-argument software in our brains, feeding us positive thoughts about ourselves.

We can fight back with the facts, or with encouraging self-talk. We can see depression as a third person, who we can refuse to obey.

TALK TO SOMEONE

Getting the negative thoughts out of our heads can help to liberate us from them. It can help to get another person’s perspective – someone we trust to tell us straight. They can give us a different, clearer interpretation of something and are likely to be kinder to us than we are to ourselves.

If you don’t want to talk about your thoughts, it might help to write them down.

If there’s nobody around and you urgently need to speak to someone, contact us now, we’re here to help.

Women who make a difference in their neighborhood

An article by Nicoletta Pallotta MD, LCSW

Every woman has an ability to make a difference in their environment. We are role models to our daughters, granddaughters, sisters, nieces and our friends.

So you’re wondering “how can i make a difference”?

Susan, a stay at home mom, who has 3 children that are school age was trying explore what she can contribute. She knew that she had to be home for her children and was limited on time but yet wanted to give back. One day, one of the local community programs where doing a canned food drive so she offered to volunteer.

Susan couldn’t believe how fulfilling it was to give back. When she met with the person who headed the food pantry, her idea was to distribute food to homeward bound seniors in the community. Just think how rewarding this was for
Susan and what a great role model she was for the women in her life. When you give to others not only are you helping another person but you are a teacher of an important life lesson, paying it forward is a great message.

Nothing is too small. Whether it’s helping someone in your community to cross the street because they have poor vision or offering someone who needs help getting to an appointment.

As Oprah says; “when we think only about ourselves we live a half life, when we give back we live a full life”.

A message from our Founder and CEO

As the Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to impact our the world, keeping you and our staff safe is our top priority. We’d like to take a moment to let you know about the steps we’re taking to keep our community safe at this time.

NCC is following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and other local and national health organizations. We continue to receive the most up-to-date information and are taking the following actions to date:

1. Our offices have been stocked with appropriate and effective cleaning supplies and we have increased the frequency of scheduled cleaning and sanitization across all offices.

2. We’re recommending that our employees take precautionary health measures, including frequent hand-washing, social distancing, staying home when sick and pausing all non-essential traveling. For their safety and yours.

Our commitment to our clients remains the same. All of our sites are open.

If you can’t come in, speak to your therapist about doing online counseling.

If you have any question contact us through the form below.

Take care of yourself and each other.

Dr. Nicoletta Pallotta
Founder + CEO