Dear Belleruth,

I have been listening to the Guided Imagery CD, Combat Depression, for a month now, everyday.  I have gotten very emotional during the part where a being enters your thoughts and touches you in a deep spiritual way.  I cry, sob, tense up, get really emotional and then the CD  (after a few minutes) has the being leave saying that you can call on him/her at any time, it is YOU that come and go, and suddenly you feel better for this...... Meanwhile I feel like crap - I don't feel better - I am now an emotional wreck.  What am I doing wrong or what can I do to suddenly feel better for doing this?  Please help.

Lucy

Investigators from the Coimbra Nursing School in Coimbra, Portugal and the University of Akron’s College of Nursing reported on the efficacy of a guided imagery intervention for decreasing depression, anxiety, and stress and increasing comfort in psychiatric inpatients with depressive disorders.

A quasi-experimental design sampled 60 short-term hospitalized patients suffering from depression, selected consecutively. The experimental group listened to a guided imagery compact disk once a day for 10 days.

Dear Belleruth,

I have a question about your affirmations.  I have been listening to the Anger & Forgiveness affirmations. This CD (and others) includes the affirmation that "I can avoid re-injuring by myself with repeated visits to past wounds."

Yet, doesn't it sometimes make sense, to examine the past in order to overcome it? What is the difference between "repeated visits to past wounds" and confronting past pain in a therapeutic context?  Please clarify this issue for me as I find it somewhat confusing.

Thank you.
Mike

Australia, with its vast distances between urban centers and medical help, has always been a world leader in developing mental health services over the internet, and do a tremendous amount of research in this area.  

So it’s no surprise to see that most recently, investigators from St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, ran a study with 45 depressed subjects, randomly assigning them to either an internet-based, clinician-assisted, computerized, cognitive behavioral treatment (CaCCBT) program for depression (called the Sadness Programme) or to a waitlist control group.

In the Sadness Programme, participants completed six online lessons, weekly homework assignments, receive weekly email contact from a clinical psychologist, and contribute to a moderated online discussion forum with other participants.

Researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Vermont in Burlington looked at the recurrence of SAD (seasonal affective disorder or depression) in the fall/winter, one year after receiving cognitive behavioral treatment.

The investigators had previously developed a group cognitive-behavioral therapy approach (CBT) specifically targeted for SAD and tested its efficacy in 2 pilot studies that compared outcomes with light therapy.

This study examines impact during the subsequent winter season (approximately 1 year after acute treatment), following participants randomized to CBT, light therapy, and a combination of both treatments.  (N=69).

I'm proud to introduce performing artist, Vietnam vet and awesome guy "Big Mike,"who sent us a beautiful card (with some hilarious elements) last week.  He’s officially disabled, but earns his keep playing the 12-string guitar and auto-harp.  Included in the envelope was this wonderful picture of him performing, along with his bright orange business card, and a sticker that read, “I do the handicapped shuffle when I’ve got the disability blues”.

Over the past 9 years I’ve been through the mill.  I’ve suffered 3 miscarriages, then had 4 years of infertility, and three IVF (in vitro fertilization) treatments.  I’ve watched friends and relatives get pregnant, filled with envy, anger, grief and discouragement.  My mind filled up with negative, sarcastic, disparaging self-talk.

I knew I needed to do something to combat the negative internal messages.  I have some hypnosis training, so I bought a dozen hypnotic and guided imagery CDs, loading them all into my MP3 player so I could check out the tracks and decide what to listen to. 

For me, Belleruth’s voice and words stood out immediately as something I could connect to.  I hate it when the narrator tells you to “let go”.  It’s very stressful to be asked NOT to be stressed!  But I relaxed when she started by acknowledging and validating the feelings I did have (“I know there are times when I become frightened, angry, impatient, jealous or sad, and I accept what I feel as my inner truth of the moment.”). For me, this was reassuring and uplifting - to first be allowed to accept the feelings I have, THEN to let them go.

My wife suffers from panic attacks, anxiety, depression, OCD and medical phobias. These issues have been going on for over a decade with no resolution in sight. The problems seemed to start just after a death in the family, and the anxiety just escalated from there until it turned into debilitating OCD, depression etc.

The largest obstacle to overcome seems to be the medical phobia. Because of this phobia I can't get her to seek treatment, so one thing just escalates into another. At this point she barely speaks to people, doesn't watch television or read etc. This is because any word she associates with medicine sends her into an uncontrollable panic. The words don't have to be medical - she just has to be able to draw some sort of correlation – for instance, hospitality, sounds like hospital.

We got this wonderful email as part of a chain, and even though I never do this, I’m passing it along – it’s simply too terrific to miss.  Check it out:

This is 'Faith'

This dog was born on Christmas Eve in the year 2002. He was born with 3 legs - 2 healthy hind legs and 1 abnormal front leg which had to be amputated. He of course could not walk when he was born. Even his mother did not want him.

His first owner also did not think that he could survive and he was thinking of 'putting him to sleep'. But then, his present owner, Jude Stringfellow, met him and wanted to take care of him. She became determined to teach and train this little dog to walk by himself.