Tortoises are slow and steady, each step made with great intention. Not too dissimilar to the counseling process. For Catheryn Robinson, that’s a good thing.

When working with juvenile sex offenders, professionals may feel that the treatment protocol should vary from traditional treatment methods. While there is the offense-specific component that needs to be addressed, overall youth who have committed sexual offenses respond well to the same treatment as other adjudicated youth.

In my last blog, I shared a little about the plight of shelter dogs — one shelter dog in particular. Nia has been living in a narrow wire kennel run for at least four months. Despite living in confined quarters with limited human contact and almost non-existent mental or emotional stimulation, Nia stays in seemingly [...]

There is nothing warm and cozy about her room. It’s just three feet by five feet of hard, thin strands of interlocking steel. Overhead, the long, yellow fluorescent lights buzz incessantly like annoying mosquitoes. There is nothing to buffer the non-stop barks and echoes that follow. The disinfectants and bleach vapors burn her strong olfactory [...]

“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” -Albert Schweitzer Happy belated birthday to Albert Schweitzer (14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965), humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner (1952). Schweitzer was ahead of his time, his [...]

I would like to continue with the second Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) tenet used to help individuals create new positive neural pathways; developing new ways of thinking and being.To recap, these tenets are love, touch, relationships and experiential learning. Todays message is on the power of touch in AAT.

“Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness, envy and to be rude, aggressive or violent, they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture – especially towards those in need.” – Jerome Kagan In my last blog, I gave an overview of the [...]

“We now assume that when psychotherapy results in symptom reduction or experiential change, the brain has, in some way, been altered” (Cozolino). In the wake of the 1990s “Decade of the Brain,” much of the resulting counseling research suggests moving away from the sole use of talk therapy towards integrating sensory based interventions…particularly with individuals [...]