Posts by Laura K. Schenck, Ph.D., LPC
Self-Serving Bias: “I’m Above Average”
“The true means of being misled is to believe oneself finer than the others.” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld The vast majority of us have a general sense of being smarter, funnier, or better-looking than your run of the mill “average” person. But how is this possible? We can’t all be above average … right?…
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Myers-Briggs: Psychological Type & Relationships
“Are we not like two volumes of one book?” – Marceline Desbordes-Valmore An understanding of your and your partner’s personalities allows you to appreciate the ways in which you are similar and dissimilar. When we fully understand the complexities of personality “preferences” we are able to appreciate differences and understand how to best work together…
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Mindfully Reconnect with Your Body
“To come to our senses, both literally and metaphorically, on the big scale as a species and on the smaller scale as a single human being, we first need to return to the body, the locus within which the biological senses and what we call the mind arise.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn A mindful stance towards…
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DBT’s “What” Skills of Mindfulness
“Things are not what they appear to be; nor are they otherwise.” – Surangama Sutra Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), created by Dr. Marsha Linehan, incorporates the practice of mindfulness into almost all aspects of treatment. While mindfulness is technically its own component or module of treatment, aspects of mindfulness are present throughout the other treatment…
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11 Ways to Cut Back on Drinking
“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” – Ernest Hemingway When drinking alcohol begins to interfere with your life, it is time to reassess your relationship with alcohol, your tendencies to drink to excess, or typical situations with alcohol that lead to problems. For…
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Myers-Briggs: 8 Extroverted Personality Types
“It is always good to know, if only in passing, charming human beings. It refreshes one like flowers and woods and clear brooks.” – George Eliot The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) divides personality into 16 distinct types, based on Carl Jung‘s theory of psychological type. We all exhibit different “preferences” for ways of being and interacting with…
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The Importance of Trying New Things
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” – Soren Kierkegaard Many people struggle with feelings of anxiety or resistance to novel experiences. Often, this fear of the “unknown” is instilled in us in childhood, when we are learning from our parents what things are safe and unsafe.…
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Myers-Briggs: 8 Introverted Personality Types
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) organizes personality into…
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Experiential Avoidance: The Desire to Avoid Distress
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul.” – Carl Jung When we experience unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or sensations, there is often a natural tendency to want to avoid these uncomfortable experiences – sometimes, at all costs. This is called experiential avoidance. The irony is that experiential avoidance has…
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Understanding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” – Mark Twain The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is based upon the ideas of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961), who wrote that “what appears to be random behavior is actually the result of differences in the way people prefer to…
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