Back Issues of EWM 
Here is a List of the Back Issues We Have Available Click on the issues with links to see some excerpts from some of our back issues.
| Sep./Oct. 2011 |  Creating a Strong, Supportive Family - One key to an emotionally healthy life is having the backing of a strong, supportive family.
A strong family may be as small as two people or as large as a kinship network of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The size of the family, ... does not matter as much as the feeling of belonging that emerges .... |
| Jul./Aug. 2011 |  Good Argument Has Its Up Side - But Only If We Fight Fairly. All couples argue. This is a normal and expected part of any relationship. Of course, some relationship experts say that arguing is healthy, while others say beware. While an occasional argument might be unavoidable and can even ultimately clarify boundaries within the relationship.... |
| May/Jun. 2011 |  Post Traumatic Stess Disorder - Most of us build our lives around the belief that we will be relatively safe. Granted, normal daily life involves many stressors, especially in these hectic times, but we expect these pressures to happen and we become accustomed to handling them. |
| Mar./Apr. 2011 |  Social Anxiety - Overcoming Stess - Ask people what they fear the most and many of them will answer, “speaking in public.” In surveys that ask people about their fears, about one person in five reports an extreme fear of public speaking. Shyness and other forms of social anxiety are common – and they prevent people from fully experiencing life. |
| Jan./Feb. 2011 |  Loss Can Bring Gain - Loss can be painful but it can open the door to new, and even better, life experiences. Loss is embedded in the process of living. It happens to everyone and it is inevitable. There is no such thing as constant gain in our lives. Despite our wish to live in the security of abundance and perfect health, we necessarily must lose something.... |
| Nov./Dec. 2010 |  Working on Your Relationship Conflicts can be expected to arise in even the strongest of relationships. Two people who attempt to create a relationship always bring their own issues, backgrounds, expectations, personalities, and inner difficulties into the interplay that occurs between them. It is not at all unusual that the two people might find themselves, ... |
| Sept./Oct. 2010 |  The Resilient Personality All of us experience major disruptions at certain points in our lives. In fact, this is an expected and predictable hallmark of the human condition. For some, these hard times come frequently – the impact of the trauma is overwhelming and recovery, if it comes at all, can be painfully slow. |
| Jul./Aug. 2010 |  What About Depression? Everyone feels sad from time to time.
It’s only natural. Most people go through blue days or just periods of feeling down, especially after they experience a loss. But what experts call clinical depression is different from just being “down in the dumps.” |
| May/Jun. 2010 |  Handling Personality Conflicts Some people are easy to be around and some are not. All of us seem to have at least a few difficult friends in our lives ... especially if we lack the tools for responding to them in an adaptive way. |
| Mar./Apr. 2010 |  Addictions We are all pleasure seekers. There are pleasure centers located in the human brain, which, when activated, are associated with feelings of euphoria. This happens to us every day. During the day we go through naturally occurring periods when we feel comfortable, secure, happy, and fulfilled – and this is followed by periods when more negative feelings ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2010 |  To Forgive All of us have been hurt, in one way or another, by someone else. While it is easy to forgive a friend for the slight distress we feel over a phone call that was not returned, it is not so easy to forgive those who have harmed us in a major way. |
| Nov./Dec. 2009 |  Relationship Conflicts - Where Did the Love Go? Relationships are seldom as simple as we would like. They bring
out our needs, anxieties, and conflicts with people from our past –
parents, friends, and former partners. |
| Sep./Oct. 2009 |  Rumination – When We Get Lost in Our Thoughts Thinking about our problems is, without doubt, part of an effective way of solving them. If we need to deal with one of our life issues, we think it through, review our various options, and then choose a course of action to handle the problem. |
| Jul./Aug. 2009 |  The Altruism Option - A Key to Wellness and a Fuller Life. A positive approach to life and paying attention to ways that we
can contribute to others, can make an immense difference in the
perceived quality of our life. |
| May/Jun. 2009 |  Relationship Addiction The experience of finding the right partner and falling “in love” is one of life’s true joys. It brings a feeling of euphoria, passion, connection, and hope for a happy future. It can lead to a lifetime of loving contentment. |
| Mar./Apr. 2009 |  Understanding Anxiety Anxiety is the body’s reaction to an event that is experienced as disturbing or threatening. Our primitive ancestors experienced stress when they had to fight off wild animals and other threats to their survival. |
| Jan./Feb. 2009 |  Loneliness If you feel lonely, you’re not alone.
Loneliness is a subjective sense of isolation –
a feeling of not being able to connect with other
people, a sense of being apart. As humans, we feel
the need to be with other people. |
| Nov./Dec. 2008 |  Understanding Anger We all get angry. Many people choose not to believe this, but anger is a universal human emotion that can help us survive and solve some of life’s problems – or, conversely, it can create further trouble. |
| Sep./Oct. 2008 |  Depression in Men The incidence of depression in our society seems to be on the rise. Recent estimates suggest that as many as one in three of us will experience some form of depression within our lifetimes. Others claim that depression may even represent a symptom of our times ... |
| Jul./Aug. 2008 |  Self-Reflection and the Inward Looking Person We live in a world of extroverts. Our social norms are geared to people who are “out there” – those who achieve, compete, socialize easily, and are energized by the external world. Society encourages us to describe ourselves in terms of what we see externally ... |
| May/Jun. 2008 |  Staying Together – How to Build a Healthy Committed Relationship When we make a commitment to our partner, our usual expectation is that our relationship will last for life and that our love will see us through the inevitable hard times. Yet, when reality sinks in, we have to acknowledge that while love is one of the components of a relationship’s longevity ... |
| Mar./Apr. 2008 |  Surviving the Life Crisis Life crisis is one of the inevitable features of our lives. Learning how to survive a crisis is a crucial skill, and one that we will probably need more than once throughout our lives. A crisis can occur when things begin to fall apart around us. The things that shape us – our marital status, job title ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2008 |  Emotional Manipulation We’ve all been manipulated by other people, and it’s likely that we’ve done a bit of manipulation ourselves. Telling a white lie in order to get what we want is one way of manipulating someone. Students are notorious for telling teachers that they couldn’t get their paper in on time ... |
| Nov./Dec. 2007 |  OCD -- Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder was once thought to be a fairly rare but serious mental problem. Specialists saw it as serious mainly because the behavior of a person with this disorder appears quite abnormal to other people. About one in forty people suffers from OCD ... |
| Sep./Oct. 2007 |  Weight Management and Your Emotions Obesity is at epidemic proportions in the United States and most Westernized countries. If you are overweight, you are hardly alone, as you can see by looking around you. About two-thirds of Americans are overweight and the statistics climb by the year. Even children now ... |
| Jul./Aug. 2007 |  Making Life Changes Why do people seek help from a psychotherapist? Psychotherapy helps people in many ways. For some, it is a way to understand themselves better. For others, it helps to find meaning in their lives. Some have a definite problem they want to address (like, “Is my job right for me?), while others ... |
| May/Jun. 2007 |  Friendship and Social Support Since 1985 the number of people who say they have no one to talk to has doubled. The lack of social contacts and social support, despite our technological advances over the past decades, is one of the downsides to the huge transformations that have taken place in our society... |
| Mar./Apr. 2007 |  Cognitive Distortions One of the best tools we have for living a healthy life is our ability to think. Our world is composed of a large number of events that happen constantly. Some are positive and some are negative, and most are neutral. We interpret these events as they happen with a series of thoughts that flow ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2007 |  Control Issues One source of confusion and conflict between people is when one person tries to control another, using subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle methods. When they are in the presence of the controlling person, the one being controlled feels lost, devalued, and disconnected from their own ... |
| Nov./Dec. 2006 |  The Crisis of Infidelity The single most destructive threat to a committed relationship is when one of the partners engages in a sexual relationship with another person. This is not an uncommon event. Conservative estimates suggest that about a quarter of women, and a third of men, have violated their marital commit ... |
| Sep./Oct. 2006 |  Procrastination Almost everyone has been afflicted by procrastination at one time or another – that nagging menace that compels us to put things off for another day, another time. For some people this is a persistent problem, and for others it appears in only some areas of their lives. The result, is ... |
| Jul./Aug. 2006 |  The Lasting Relationship One hallmark of success in life may be the ability to sustain a long-term relationship. People in lasting relationships tend to live longer and stay healthier. Research shows that they report more happiness in life, more rewarding social interactions, and lower instances of substance abuse.... |
| May/Jun. 2006 |  Sleep and the Sleep Disorders The National Sleep Foundation tells us that nearly half of us don’t get enough sleep. In modern-day society, because of night work, television, computers, and the profound stress we experience in everyday life, our sleep is often disrupted. Sleep is a basic biological need ... |
| Mar./Apr. 2006 |  Body Image In China, parents once bound the feet of their daughters in pursuit of beauty. In parts of Africa, both men and women elongate their earlobes and decorate their skin with minerals to look attractive. At one time in this society, we found plump, rotund people to be the epitome of beauty. Old movies show us ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2006 |  Pets and Emotional Wellness What a revolutionary breakthrough it would be if we found a way to lower blood pressure, lessen the ravages of depression, boost our immune systems, enhance our sense of emotional well being, decrease our feelings of loneliness, increase motivation, elevate our self ... |
| Nov./Dec. 2005 |  Birth Order If brothers and sisters are raised by the same parents, how do they end up so different? How is it that one sibling grows up to be successful academically and professionally but with few friends, while another becomes the athlete with loads of friends? To the degree that one of the siblings is a ... |
| Sep./Oct. 2005 |  Breaking Up – It’s Hard To Do There is nothing easy about ending a love relationship. Breaking up is seldom the ideal resolution to problems within relationships, but all too often is the outcome, despite our best efforts to prevent it. Over the past two or three decades, about half of all marriages have ended in ... |
| Jul./Aug. 2005 |  Effective Listening Listening is the other half of communication. Our first thought, when we think about communication, may be to consider the speaker’s ability to convey ideas effectively. What we often forget is that without a listener the speaker may as well be talking to the wind. Just as ... |
| May/Jun. 2005 |  The Intimate Relationship Some of us search our entire lives for a feeling of oneness with another person. It’s hard to describe, really, what we search for, but we know it when we finally achieve it. Maybe we tire of that dark feeling of being ultimately alone as we struggle through life. If only there were ... |
| Mar./Apr. 2005 |  Enhancing Your Self-Esteem How others treat us is greatly influenced by the way we see ourselves. We all know people who genuinely like themselves and feel content with their lives. Because they see the positive in themselves, they are able to understand and appreciate the good in other people. They treat ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2005 |  Negotiating Life Transitions Change is an inevitable part of life. Transitions are as natural as night and day. In nature we observe times when things move slowly without visible change – and then suddenly acceleration occurs followed by a transformation. Tree leaves that have been green all summer suddenly... |
| Nov./Dec. 2004 |  The Search for Authentic Happiness Most people seek a life filled with meaning, contentment, gratification, and pleasure. In moments of reflection, we may wonder what we can do to direct our lives not only away from anxiety, anger, stress, and depression – but toward a state of personal fulfillment. We may ... |
| Sep./Oct. 2004 |  Emotional Unavailability - When Your Partner Can't Connect When we commit to a relationship, we usually expect that our partner will reciprocate with roughly the same level of emotional involvement that we put into it. Many of us hope to find a soulmate, a partner who can share and understand our feelings ... |
| Jul./Aug. 2004 |  Punctuality - Getting There on Time Some of us have a pattern of being late for appointments, social events, classes, and project deadlines. No matter how hard we try, no matter how strong our resolve to be on time, it just doesn’t happen. We are always late. Researchers estimate that 15 to 20 percent of the ... |
| May/Jun. 2004 |  Attention Deficits - Living with ADD and ADHD Most people with Attention Deficit Disorder don’t know they have it. Indeed, the disorder was not recognized until the 1980’s, and it was not until the 1990’s that the recognition of adult ADD was established. However, it is a condition that can have a significant impact on the ... |
| Mar./Apr. 2004 |  Manipulation in Relationships - and How to Deal With It We are all vulnerable to being manipulated in relationships, whether between romantic partners, friends, parents, children, employers, coworkers, or neighbors. When we allow another person to manipulate us, we are colluding with their desire to ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2004 |  Stress and Anxiety Disorders Stress is the body’s reaction to an event that is experienced as disturbing or threatening. Our primitive ancestors experienced stress when they had to fight off wild animals and other threats to their survival. Now, in the contemporary world, we are more likely to feel stressed when we face ... |
| Nov./Dec. 2003 |  Looking for Love in All the Right Places Although some people prefer to remain single throughout their lives, most people strive to connect with and live in partnership with one special person. There are many obvious advantages to finding a relationship partner – physical, economic, social – but there is another ... |
| Sep./Oct. 2003 |  Understanding the Personality Disorders All of us have our own unique ways of feeling and thinking and expressing ourselves. Most of the time, our uniqueness is seen simply as an individual difference – or some-thing special about each of us. In fact, this is what brings interest and variety to the people in our lives.... |
| Jul./Aug. 2003 |  Truth and Honesty in Our Relationships When we commit ourselves to a relationship with another person, we rightly expect to experience a sense of fulfillment that we didn’t have before. Humans, as social beings, seem to have a universal desire to find a partner. Sexual attraction often serves as the motivator for ... |
| May/Jun. 2003 |  Assert Yourself Have you ever heard yourself say, “I’m a nice person. I’m a polite person. I’d never intentionally do anything to hurt anybody. So why don’t other people give me the respect I deserve?” The problem could well be due to difficulty with assertive-ness. Maybe you aren’t showing your nice, polite, ... |
| Mar./Apr. 2003 |  Living With A Chronic Illness The disabled often say that those who are able-bodied are just temporarily so, that most of us at some point in our lives will suffer from some form of physical disability. Many of us believe in the old adage that states that if you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything. However, ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2003 |  It Takes Two - A Way to Understand Relationship Conflicts Our relationships with our partners are colored by our own personal legacies. We often react to our partners as if they were someone else – and most of the time this causes conflict in the relationship. When we entered into a primary ... |
| Nov./Dec. 2002 |  Grieving - Our Heartfelt Response to a Major Loss Grieving comes to most of us at some point in our lives. In fact, statistics show that each person can expect to experience the loss of a loved one once every nine to thirteen years. The resulting sadness may be the most painful of life’s experiences. Because it is ... |
| Sep./Oct. 2002 |  Overcoming Shyness and Social Anxiety Ask people what they fear the most and many of them will say, “speaking in public.”
In surveys which ask people about their fears, about one person in five reports an extreme fear of public speaking. Shyness and other forms of social anxiety are common – and they prevent people from fully experiencing life. |
| Jul./Aug. 2002 |  Adult Children of Substance Abusers - Dealing with a Legacy of Family Dysfunction Countless millions of adults in this country had a parent with a drinking or drug problem. A brief look at some of the history of the last century can clarify this phenomenon. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and this tended to validate, or at least give some justification for, ... |
| May/Jun. 2002 |  Enhancing Your Emotionally Committed Relationship Emotionally committed relationships bring excitement and passion into our lives, especially when they are new. Over time, however, we come across roadblocks based in personal issues that can distance us from our partners. When we first enter into a committed relationship, we may think that we ... |
| Mar./Apr. 2002 |  Resilience - The Ability to Bounce Back All of us experience major disruptions at certain points in our lives. In fact, this is an expected and predictable hallmark of the human condition. For some, these hard times come frequently – the impact of the trauma is overwhelming and recovery, if it comes at all, can be painfully slow. Others show resilience ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2002 |  Understanding Depression Everyone feels sad from time to time. It’s only natural. Most people go through blue days or normal periods of feeling down, especially after they exper-ience a loss. But what specialists call clinical depression is different from just being “down in the dumps.” The main difference is that the sad or empty mood does not go away ... |
| Nov./Dec. 2001 |  Strengthening Families One key to an emotionally healthy life is having the support of a strong, supportive family. A strong family may be as small as two people or as large as a kinship network of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. The size of the family, indeed the composition of the family, does not matter as much as the feeling of belonging and ... |
| Sep./Oct. 2001 |  Interpersonal Conflict and Effective Communication Conflict between people is a fact of life – and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
In fact, a relationship with frequent conflict may be healthier than one with no observable conflict. Conflicts occur at all levels of interaction – at work, among friends, within families and between relationship partners..... |
| Jul./Aug. 2001 |  The Aftermath of Trauma - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Most of us build our lives around the belief that we will be relatively safe. Granted, normal daily life involves many stressors, especially in these hectic times, but we expect these pressures to happen and we become accustomed to handling them. The more flexible we are and the more we know ... |
| May/Jun. 2001 |  Addictive Behavior We are all pleasure seekers. There are pleasure centers located within the human brain, which, when activated, are associated with feelings of euphoria. This is part of the daily cycle we all experience. During the day we go through naturally occurring periods when we feel comfortable, secure, happy, and fulfilled – and this is followed by periods ... |
| Mar./Apr. 2001 |  Boundaries in Relationships A successful relationship is composed of two individuals – each with a clearly defined sense of her or his own identity. Without our own under-standing of self, of who we are and what makes us unique, it is difficult to engage in the process of an ongoing relationship in a way that functions smoothly and enhances each of the ... |
| Jan./Feb. 2001 |  Preventing Job Burnout The atmosphere of the workplace has changed dramatically in recent times. Ever since the exploitative practices of the industrial revolution were removed through legislation, work has been defined as a place where a person could find fulfillment through a job which was rewarding and paid a fair wage. But this definition has reverted in ... |
| Nov./Dec. 2000 |  Forgiveness All of us have been hurt, in one way or another, by someone else. While it is easy to forgive a friend for the slight distress we feel over a phone call that was not returned, it is not so easy to forgive those who have harmed us in a major way. The greatest hurt seems to come from those who play the most significant roles in our lives. The enormity of ... |
| Sep./Oct. 2000 |  Working Alone On Your Relationship Conflicts and periods of doubt can arise in even the strongest of relation-ships. Two people who attempt to create a relationship always bring their own issues, backgrounds, expectations, person-alities, and inner difficulties into the interplay that occurs between them. It is not at all unusual that the two people ... |
| Jul./Aug. 2000 |  Anger - Managing a Powerful Emotion All of us get angry – although some people might not like to believe this. Anger is an emotion that can occur when there is a threat to our self-esteem, our bodies, our property, our ways of seeing the world, or our desires. People differ in what makes them angry. Some people will perceive an event as threatening, while others see no threat at all in the same event. |
Robert B. Simmonds, Ph.D., Editor
Emotional Wellness Matters
