Suicide, Sex, Shame, Stress & Sleep...

I tell the counseling students at Western to get comfortable talking about Suicide, Sex, Shame with their clients. Depression and anxiety are the most common things that clients present with and assessing and treating these should be second nature. Shame - what do they fundamentally believe about themselves? What is hidden, what do they hide?

Today's headline in the Oregonian is "Portland suicides spike: Experts say upheavals in the economy and the mental health system may be factors."

Carlos at Ragmuffin Soul is having a good discussion on depression in the church, in ministry.

Other things that I watch for are Sleep, Stress, Sport, Support and Spirituality.

Sleep - "How are you sleeping?" This open-ended question often opens a can of worms that may unpack an area of life a client may not have ever talked about with anyone, not even their physician or family. It's hard to do the work of self-care, make appointments, remember to take meds, go to school or work if you're not sleeping well.

Stress - How do you cope? What do you do? What is driving you? What is happening in your body? What does it look like? How does it affect your relationships? Daily Life?

Sport - recreation, exercise, play, fun. With the busy-ness of life, it is so easy to get away from exercise. And there are too many passive, inert ways to entertain oneself these days. For some patients and clients this is a simple, yet big missing piece in their daily life.

Support - I encourage clients to get support from family and friends, church and/or support groups , with healthy relationships, during the week. If the counselor is the only safe, healthy relationship, the progress of therapy will be slow. Anxiety, depression, low energy, chronic pain, shame isolate us from life-giving and healing relationships and community.

Spirituality - One of the breakout sessions at GroupLife last week was Mindy Caliguire (interview link) on Spiritual Formation in Groups and she talked about soul care. One of the ideas she took from Dallas Willard, "Fundamental aspects of life such as art, sleep, sex, ritual, family ('roots'), parenting, community, health, and meaningful work are all in fact soul functions, and they fail and fall apart to the degree that soul diminishes."

Sleep, sex, art, recreation all are symptoms. I don't force all my clients to talk about their faith and spirituality but very often working on and talking about all the symptoms does lead to exploring the core, the soul, the spirit. Day to day, what are we here for? What are the values, meaning and purpose driving my life's story?