Selfwork With Dr. Margaret Rutherford | Self-help | Mental Health | Depression | Anxiety | Relationship Problems| Therapy

How much do you count on people "liking" or "following" you or the videos you put on Instagram, FB or TikTok?  And are you really happy or does your life appear to others as happy? Is your self-esteem found in the present or does it lie in the amount of positive attention something gets on social media? This of course is part of creating the persona of perfectionism that I stress in my work on perfectly hidden depression. But today, we focus on the three components of true happiness and how to add happiness to almost any experience you have: Positive psychologists say that all you have to do is add pleasure, challenge or meaning - and happiness will arrive. The listener email today is from someone who suffered childhood neglect and knows it’s affecting her relationships in her adult life. I’ll hope to help out where I can. Hope you enjoy this episode on true happiness - sponsored by BetterHelp. Important Links: BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now! Victor

Today’s podcast is one that, if you’ve been listening to SelfWork for a while, you know that this topic has been my own personal passion – as it’s closely aligned with my work on perfectly hidden depression. We’ll talk about ten fears you face when you choose to give up or ease out of being or looking as if you're in total control. Those ten fears are: The fear of vulnerabilty The fear of uncertainty or unpredictability The fear of facing the past The fear of your anger exploding as it's been long suppressed The fear of not being able to forgive yourself/your imperfections The fear of there being no other way to succeed The fear of rejection The fear of not being needed The fear of being wrong The fear of intimacy The listener email comes from a graduate psychology student whose experiencing greater and greater insecurity as the end of her training approaches. She wants to know if I felt the same way and what recommendations I could make. How do you bolster your self-confidence when you can’t measur

If there’s ever been a time when we need to manage our emotions, it’s now. None of us are sure what these next few months will bring – or even 2021 – and that’s true on many fronts. So this week’s podcast is on managing your feelings. The term for doing this in psychology is emotional intelligence, aka EQ. Here's the definition: the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. Here are the three questions you'll find the answer to today! 1) Does one emotion govern you more than others? And if so, how that might be leading away from actual regulation and more toward instability?. 2) What are some actual things you can do to self-soothe or to learn how to not to react to your emotions, but to respond to them? 3) What to do if you don’t like the way you feel and want to change it. The listener email today is from someone who strongly related to the fairly recent podcast on trauma bonding. She wanted to know a l

There’s an  exciting new product on the market – especially for anyone who has suffered with horrible PTSD-based nightmares. I should first tell you I have no relationship with the makers of this product. But since I've treated many patients with both PTSD and CPTSD, I know how exhausting and frightening these nightmares are. It’s a newly approved product by the FDA for just this use; however, it requires an Apple Watch. I’ve used hypnosis fairly effectively in the past for these kinds of traumatic nightmares – but there are many who don’t understand hypnosis and/or it doesn’t work completely or for a long enough period of time. The testimonials are meaningful, as the research was done with veterans of war and this is the first relief many of them have had from these intrusive and almost constant events. Important Liinks: Episode 206 What Dreams Are Made Of Article announcing Nightware's FDA approval Nightware's website BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now

Thank you to all of you who contacted me these past two or three weeks! This week’s episode is a conversation – not literally  - but I’ve heard from so many of you about the last couple of SelfWork podcasts, I wanted to respond. You sent me your stories of your own struggles with a therapist, especially about termination and boundaries; I was very moved to address the core issues of what went wrong and discuss them in more detail. The listener email is actually two other responses I received about people pleasing - and how that trait had affected therapy. I was reminded that there was even more to it than Episode 212 had covered! Important Links: SelfWork Episode 210 on Leaving or Staying In Therapy SelfWork Episode 212 on People Pleasing Article by Dr. Clifford Lazarus in Psychology Today on common mistakes WebMD Link to serotonin syndrome BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now! You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, S

Wow. Sometimes when I pick a subject for SelfWork, I have to dig deep to find research that I can bring that will add clarity or give you what’s new out there on the subject. People pleasing?  There are YouTube videos galore and all kinds of other resources. Most everyone agreed on how it starts - with an anxious/insecure attachment to a parent. We'll define what exactly a people pleaser is, and focus on some issues in therapy that are very specific to those who struggle with being uncomfortable not being the "giver" in the relationship. The listener email today is fascinating. It's about growing up in a narcissistic family and being handed a role to play - the golden child, the scapegoat and the invisible child being the most common. Her healing began when she began to let go of that old dynamic – and she asks if growing up in a narcissist family might be correlated with perfectly hidden depression. Important links: SelfWork episode 062 on Enmeshment BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provide

Here's a bonus episode for you during the holidays!  I couldn’t think of a better guest than Shann Vander Leek. She’s the cohost of the extremely popular podcast AnxietySlayer and the website AnxietySlayer.com. Her gentleness and broad knowledge of all things calming is incredible. She and her partner Ananga have created a complete experience of teaching you the how-to of what you can do right now about your anxiety, through words and music, meditation and calming practices. What I especially love about this episode is that Shann demonstrates some actual techniques you can try while you’re listening as she and I - and now you - do them together. BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now! You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click

Today's SelfWork, sponsored by BetterHelp, focuses on why, how and why you might choose to end therapy, or more concisely, to leave a particular therapist. We'll cover some "good" reasons to leave, reasons that either have to do with the success you've experienced or reaching your goals, as well as the ones that have to do with disappointment with or even misbehavior or unethical behavior by the therapist themselves.  But we'll also focus on the reasons why you might justify leaving, when in actuality, it may not be in your best interest to do so. I’m a huge believer in the power of good therapy. But it’s not always good. And we need to address how you know when it’s time to leave – or not. The listener email is once again quite different. I’ll read from a letter I received from a man who’s serving time in prison, He reached out in a very special way – and I thought you’d like to hear. Important Links: BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now! Good ar

I'd planned to do this episode of SelfWork on developing trust in others. But as I researched the question, I realized that first, you have to make sure you can trust your own decision-making. And your gut. I found the work of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman (who made the most sense to me) on how you can determine if you can trust your gut or not.  There are three questions that need a "yes" answer before you can jump into believing that intuition of yours - and today, on this episode sponsored by BetterHelp, we'll find out what those three questions are. And I offer a five-step process to work your way through those three questions, as well as adding a few ideas of my own. The listener wrote in for this week described a very painful relationship with his therapist, that had led him to feel even more shame for a porn addiction. Luckily, he was able to recognize what was going on and he left that therapist. I decided I couldn't address such a huge topic - how to handle conflict or disapp

Sometimes my own life offers a topic to me; I was definitely struggling to not be dragged down by my own rumination this past weekend. So many of us are spending hours worrying about Covid, politics, the future, finances, about jobs. The list is endless. So today, in this episode, sponsored once again by BetterHelp, we’re going to talk about rumination. Is it ever helpful? Or is it something that’s dragging you down a rabbit hole of negativity? The listener email is different this week in format. I was very touched by Kat Cardy, an artist in the UK, who sent me a poem she’d written based on her identification with perfectly hidden depression. I asked her permission to use it and she said yes! It’s lovely… and my heart was very full when she sent it. I was interviewed on a podcast called Seize the Moment by two New Yorkers,, Alen Ulmann and Leon Garber.  What I didn’t know was that they’d both not only read the book, but identified themselves on the spectrum of PHD; in fact, Leon revealed that he himself had a

YGTG is five minutes of jam-packed info about one concept or idea or behavior - and today it's about emotional bandwidth. People are using the term emotional bandwidth to reveal that they can't tolerate certain emotions or discussions. It's a short cut way of saying, "I can't be there for you right now." But when does it become an almost too impersonal or detached way of absolving yourself from a commitment? It may make something seem almost like a technical glitch rather than a personal choice to withdraw from a commitment that would take emotional maturity and growth. Or rather than the more vulnerable, “I don’t think I can learn how to be the person I thought I could be.” You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membersh

Challenging your assumptions can lead to remarkable change – and can break emotional paralysis. On SelfWork today, sponsored by BetterHelp, we're going to talk about doing the dishes. Yes you heard me – dishes. One of my FB closed group members very aptly posted the story you're about to hear as a way of coping with the stress of the pandemic – to look at your own life through a different lens and see how you could manage your struggles differently – by challenging your own rules/assumptions. When you do, it can bring huge relief, and a tremendous jumpstart to your hope for change – and change that lasts. It's called "second-order change" in psychology and it can be very powerful.  Our listener email today is from a woman who’s writing about being dominated both at home and at work – I’ll let you listen to her email and see what you think. I was struck by a couple of things – and hope to offer ideas that will be helpful. Important Links: BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a sp

Whether or not you believe that dreams have meaning (and almost half of Americans think that’s true…), you probably have had many types of dreams. Today, in another episode sponsored by BetterHelp, we're going to talk about the diverse categories of dreams  – and then the proposed “meaning” of those very dreams. We'll look into what can bring nightmares on as well as the most recent research on what's termed "lucid dreaming." Early psychiatrists certainly believed and espoused that dreams had unconscious meanings – that they are created by the part of our mind that lives in the background of our consciousness but influences and guides us. So today we’ll talk about nine categories of dreams and then travel into the land of what dreams may mean.. maybe for fun or maybe, for those of you who have a strong relationship with your dreams, to employ them for healing. Our listener email today is from a young woman who’s suffered multiple traumas in her life… sexual abuse and her mother’s dying rig

A  few weeks ago, a patient looked at me and said, “I realized that what I needed  - I’d had all along. It’s like the ruby red slippers. You simply have to know their power and your own power.” I haven’t been able to get that notion out of my head since that session. We all have the capacity to learn, to understand, to see and to have confidence in ourselves - but we can sabotage and discount our strengths, values, talents, and gut feelings. In this episode, I decided to trust my own red slippers in this episode, sponsored by BetterHelp, and allow my own mind and heart to create a list of ten things that can build self-confidence - and with humility I bring it to you. This is Movember – the month where men’s issues, specifically in the way so many disregard their medical and mental health, are highlighted by men growing mustaches – in a light-hearted but very sincere attempt to throw light on men. Thus the listener email is from a man who writes that he’s begun having symptoms of anxiety and panic at a time w

Trigger Alert: This episode discusses childhood sexual abuse, so please listen with care. Movember is a movement whose focus is to raise concern and awareness about the state of men's health, both medical and mental, in the United States. I myself have seen firsthand how extremely difficult it is for many men to seek help or open up at all about what’s going on with them. So I thought about who I could approach to help achieve Movember’s mission, and one person immediately came to mind. That person was Lewis Howes, and he graciously agreed to be interviewed. Lewis overcame tremendous obstacles, including a learning disability, bullying and sexual abuse on his way to becoming a media sensation and a New York Times bestselling author. His podcast, The School of Greatness, is rated in the top 100 of all podcasts, garnering 250 million downloads in seven short years. His books, the first also entitled The School of Greatness, and his second, The Masks of Masculinity, have reached millions of readers as well.

I’ve been surprised over the years about the things people believe about alcohol use that’s very old-school. For example, that for the use of alcohol to be a problem, you’ve got to be lying in a ditch somewhere, having lost your job and friends. Or if you can go a long time without drinking, then you don’t have an issue. Statistics show that one out of every eight people in the US fit criteria for alcohol use disorder, as it’s called now. It can cause all kinds of pain for both the drinker and those that love them. Especially curiously for those who are high-functioning drinkers – people whose lives look quite intact socially and/or professionally, who can be quite successful and engaged in their own right. Yet they drink. A lot. Whether it’s a part of family gatherings, the music you listen to, gameday celebrations – if you drink to celebrate and drink to grieve – it can be detrimental to just about everything about you. And what remains astounding is how easy it is to stay in denial about it. So that's

I originally wrote this in July of 2016 in the wake of natural disasters, shootings, and tragedies overseas. I’m offering it again to you today with a few nods to what we are going through together as the world faces this pandemic. I wish you all well. I sat down to write early this morning, and could only think of the many tragedies, caused by humans and by nature, that have been occurring for the last few weeks and months. I felt paralyzed. Broadcasters keep using the term "unprecedented" and they are right. Especially here in the United States, there are few areas where there is not division and unrest.  How could what I have to say matter? Then I remembered a stranger's kindness, and I smiled. We can always choose kindness.  You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed gro

I thought today might be a great day to post an episode about acting maturely, as we in the US have gone through a very divisive election and hopefully will be trying to mend and heal and carry on. I'll be back next week and can't wait to fill you in on what's been happening! This is a very early episode... but the message is one that's a thread throughout my clinical work with patients - and now, you. Feeling mature, decisive, not being reactive but responsive, having insight into our own behavior and changing that behavior when it’s appropriate – when we can do these things, we are acting in our adult selves. So much of how or how long that takes depends on what happened to us as kids. In this episode, sponsored by BetterHelp, we'll talk about your childhood strategies – the ways you unconsciously coped with whatever was present in your family. If you’re still using the same guide or strategy, you might be stuck, or not actually dealing with life as it is now. We'll define not only d

Today is the first anniversary of Perfectly Hidden Depression's  publication and I'm honored to tell you that it's being translated into seven more languages, including Korean, Hungarian, and Russian. So in this episode, sponsored by BetterHelp, and when we're on a bit of vacation, I'm reposting your questions and my answers about PHD. The first is from a writer who is losing her battle between creativity and perfectionism; the second from a wife and mother who is busy all day, but feels “blah” at night. A young woman used the SpeakPipe feature of the podcast (see below..) and  asks about how to move from what she terms “self-hatred” to “self-love." And the last is from a man who’s tried therapist after therapist, but now realizes that he tried to be the perfect patient and never revealed parts of himself that might show him in a vulnerable light. How can he begin to be real? Thank you for all these questions! If you're interested, I've also shared the first published excerpt f

We're on vacation so I've selected several of my favorite podcasts from the first 100 episodes. Again sponsored by BetterHelp, they're my favorites either because of some personal reason or they lay out a practical "what you can do about it" approach! We'll be back November 13th with fresh episodes but I hope you really enjoy this blast from the past. There's lots of information out there about how to stop beating yourself up or how to increase your self-esteem. But how do-able is it? 'm offering three practical exercises for you to try -- things that I've offered as ideas to my own patients who are struggling with depression and low self-esteem, and are convinced that others look down on them, that they're unacceptable, or that they don't have what it takes to create a good life. You can try these out for yourself! The email listener for today questions whether or not she has borderline personality disorder, and seems to discount having suicidal thoughts. Important