Daniel Davis, LMFT

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What Type of Person are You?

May 3, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

“Psychological Type is nothing static – it changes in the course of life,” writes Carl Jung.

“We cannot safely assume that other people’s minds work on the same principles as our own. All too often, others with whom we come in contact do not reason as we reason, or do not value the things we value, or are not interested in what interests us,” writes Isabel Briggs Myers.

All of us humans have the same psychological equipment to perceive what happens inside us as well as outside us. We use four different kinds of building blocks to form ideas about our experiences and decide how to respond to events – sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition. Virtually every one of us is born with a preference for one of these four psychological functions in a descending order. We will use all four of these functions, but our preference will determine how much we will use sensation, thinking, feeling and intuition.

“Sensation tells us something exists; thinking tells you what it is; feeling tells you whether it is agreeable or not; and intuition tells you (from where) whence it comes and where it is going,” writes Carl Jung.

Sensation is simple to explain – how one relates with material things in the world. When a person who prefers sensation type person enters a room, he evaluates the things in it. “There is a solid black table and wooden shelves. The walls are brick, and ceiling has exposed beams.”

The thinking function is rational, cool, and logical. One who prefers thinking will interpret events as they happen, working what it means. This rational psychological function is high valued and almost exclusively taught in North American schools. Our capacity to think is tested and an I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient) labels us. Our place in the modern American world is almost exclusively determined by our ability to think, says Robert Johnson.

The feeling function is a way of judging using values. One who prefers feeling function responds to what happens with value judgment. “Awesome concert, Dude!” “This class bites!”

This name can be confusing, because the term “feeling” function is often confused with emotion or affect. Feeling, in this sense, is the capacity to place value on people, places, things, and events. For many, the feeling function is the orphan of these four and largely misunderstood and haphazardly named.

The person who prefers intuition is able to ‘see’ the whole picture, asserts Anthony Stevens. This is a mysterious process. Intuition is very hard to define. “It is an extraordinary and out of the world capacity of knowing without knowing how one knows,” says Robert Johnson.

These four functions are like radio stations, we can either use our thinking function or our feeling function at one time. Jung assumes that we are born with a preference for one of these. Due to this preference, we will often develop skills related to one of these functions. If we are not supported in our family and schools to develop our preferred functions, then we may have difficulty. For the psychological functions that we naturally prefer may be undeveloped. We are like a fish trying to fly. A fish needs to swim; this is what they are naturally inclined to do.

Balancing our brain helps us to use more of our mind. It is very helpful to learn over time to access all our psychological functions. Please consider watching this video on the importance of balancing your brain:

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Filed Under: Balancing Your Brain, Blog, Career Development, Whole Brain Balancing, Whole Brain State Tagged With: Anthony Stevens. reason, Carl Jung, feeling, function, interest, intuition, Isabel Briggs Myers, psychological, Robert Johnson, sensation, thinking, typology, undeveloped, value

Depression and Music

March 1, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Some of the symptoms of depression include low energy, irritability, sadness, physical pain, low self-esteem, self-criticism, hopelessness, crying, and changes in eating and sleeping. The source of these symptoms can be biological, psychological, social or spiritual. One can suffer from low blood sugar or a low level of testosterone. Our beliefs can contribute to symptoms of depression. A bad marriage can lead to these symptoms. We may be in a spiritual crisis, lacking meaning in our life. As we transition from one set of beliefs about reality to another set of beliefs, we often feel loss.

When we experience loss, consciously experiencing and expressing our sadness enables us to integrate the loss. Expressing anger is also a part of the process of grieving loss. When we resist our feelings, we may feel numb. When people experience depression, they often describe their bodies as feeling numb. Often we avoid consciously experiencing our emotions and expressing them, when we fear being overwhelmed by them. When we fear being overwhelmed by emotions, we find ways to block our feelings. Often, these are not conscious choices to not feel.

Most often, we learned early in our lives to control our feelings by developing defenses. We may breathe in a shallow way and tighten our muscles to resist emotions. These defenses to consciously experiencing our sadness or anger can lead to depressive symptoms.

Unfortunately, feeling depressed is pretty awful. Depression is not good for our physical health. We can learn to express our feelings. One way to do this is with another person who is comfortable with emotion and affirms your experience of your emotions. In this way, we have a corrective emotional experience which enables us to learn to consciously experience and express our feelings.

Music is an outstanding way to consciously experience feelings. “When the time comes that you’re ready to begin facing your emotions, music that speaks to your heart can help you begin to release your pain,” writes Maureen Draper.

I can pick music which enables me to cry. The process of crying enables me to move forward with my grief and integrate the reality of my life without my beloved. When I hear a John Denver song, I often think of my dad. We can associate certain songs or musicians with a loved one who has passed on. Maureen writes: “Music that reminds you of a loved one brings to the surface whatever may not have been finished or unsaid between you.”

Art of all kinds, be it paintings, poems, stories, film or music, can evoke emotion. Great art reaches us emotionally, and we vicariously experience something important to us. This is why we can be so drawn to a certain author or musician. The beauty of art can move us in countless ways. We can cry with awe when listen to Adagio with Strings by Barber. We may experience exhilaration or hope when listening to Mozart or the Beatles.

Listening to music can be profoundly comforting. The music from our childhood can bring us feelings of being protected and nurtured by our parents as a child. I can remember the song, “Puff the Magic Dragon” from my childhood. Many songs from this era remind me of the emotions of my childhood.

When we are alone with our grief in the middle of the night, music can help us feel the comfort of being in our mother’s arms as a child. Music from early in a relationship with our husband or wife can bring up the emotions of falling in love, which are very healthy for our bodies.

We can use music to – in a sense – move backward in time to recapture hidden emotions and memories. Some may wish to feel the feeling of safety by imagining being held by the divine during our darkest hour of pain. Music can remind us of this kind of love.

Perhaps, finding the core of who we are is the most powerful dynamic to resolving depressive symptoms. Music is a powerful elixir to find the essence of our self. Please watch this video by pianist and author, Maureen Draper, about music and depression:

Filed Under: Art, Blog, Emotions Tagged With: beliefs, biological, changes, crying, depression, eating changes, emotion, energy, Falling in love, grief, hopelessness, loss, low irritability, Maureen Draper, memories, music, numb, physical pain, pianist, psychological, recapture hidden emotions, sadness, self-criticism, self-esteem low, sleeping, social, spiritual, symptoms

What is Emotional Regulation?

January 26, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

An important part of psychological well-being is healthy self-soothing. Being able to calm yourself down is important. When someone feels too much anger, he may yell, curse, or hit someone else. Acting out our emotions destructively is one consequence of poor emotional regulation. Another way of dealing with painful emotions is to try to numb ourselves with alcohol or other drugs. Many problems result from our inability to regulate our feelings well.

When we are born, we rely on our mother (or primary caregivers) to calm down. Our brain is designed to rely on interactions with others to find balance and adjust to surrounding circumstances. Early in life, infants need connections to caregivers in order to develop healthy brain function. The interactions between the child and parent enable the child to achieve balance or regulation within her own mind. Interactions with caregivers allow the child’s brain to develop the structures necessary to move from emotional regulation with a parent to more independent forms of emotional regulation.

When children who are infants, toddlers, and preschoolers experience healthy emotional regulation in their relationships with their mom, they become school children who are seen by peers and teachers as likable. These children also perform well in school, show good social skills, and act in ways that build their relationships with others. But children with poor emotion socialization have difficulty in peer relationships, have trouble in school, and are at risk for emotional problems such as anxiety and depression during their childhood. These effects persist into adulthood.

Children need environments, like home and school, where they can be emotionally expressive. Children need parents who express their emotions, but do not overwhelm their children. A mother’s emotions have a powerful influence on her child’s emotional development. Children benefit when mothers talk about their own emotions. When their children are emotional, mothers who avoid yelling and punishing and provide positive responses to their children, enable their children understand their emotions better. Children also need their emotions to be accepted. When children are raised in an environment where they learn to explore their own emotions, and they learn to make connections between their emotional experience and events they see. They are able to understand their emotions in various situations.

After they reach school age, children who assess and process emotional information will in turn respond more appropriately to others and have skills that promote their own emotion self-soothing. The more emotional intelligence that children have, the greater their empathy they have with peers. These children also behave in ways that promote relationships, and they are more popular. The children who can identify their emotions and who self-sooth them well are seen as more likable and more prosocial in relationships with their peers. These early emotional experiences are a foundation for emotional intelligence.
When we are feeling highly emotional, we are in a state of emotional imbalance. An event with the people or events around us can trigger an emotional reaction. These emotional reactions are made more likely by past experiences that created vulnerabilities within the individual. These vulnerabilities are embedded in our memory and directly influence our thoughts, feelings, and choices.

Our emotions and affect influence what we see and hear. Our perceptions can be changed by the affect being experienced by the perceiver. “An affect oriented clinician can help a client more accurately perceive his environments by teaching him (Affect Management Skills Training) AMST skills to regulate his affect,” writes Dr. John Omaha.

The development of affect regulation, enables the emergence of a strong sense of self. When one has poor sense of self, he will not be able to self-soothe well. An adult with a strong sense of self is able to manage disturbing events and respond quickly to stressful demands. She will be able to remain self-aware during a disturbing event. This optimally functioning adult will be flexible, highly skillful, and self-aware in the area of emotions and affect. She will genuinely and with authority increase positive emotions, like joy, and calm negative emotions, like shame. This has been called a self-reflective function. Self-soothing with be accomplished by making use of inner images of safety, soothing, validation, and affirmation. The optimally functioning adult will not use alcohol, other drugs, food, sex, relationship, or work to numb out emotions. They will manifest vitality and will pursue the goals she sets for herself with energy and persistence. Please watch this video and learn about healthy emotional regulation from Dr. John Omaha:

Keywords:
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Filed Under: Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog, Calming Oneself Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, AMST, anxiety, brain function, depression, emotional intelligence, Emotional Regulation, emotionally, emotionally flexible, emotionally self-aware, healthy caregiver, highly skillful, infant, John Omaha, likable, mother, numb, parents, preschoolers, psychological, school children, school performance, self soothing, social skills, strong sense of self, toddlers, well-being

Symptoms of Depression

December 1, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

“People need to realize that their thoughts are more primary than their genes, because the environment, which is influenced by our thoughts, control the genes.” Bruce Lipton

Depression is complicated. It is dominated by sadness or low energy. We may lose interest in what was once important to us. These symptoms can have various origins. Depression is overdetermined, meaning there are biological, psychological, social, and spiritual dynamics.

It is possible to see depression when looking at a brain scan. It is clearly a biological phenomenon. Not only our genes play a role, but sleep, food, and exercise also affect depression. We may be predisposed to depression, because our parents or grandparents suffered from depression and carried the genes. Yet research from the science of Epigenetics dramatically changes assumptions about depression.

Epigenetics literally means above the gene. The main idea is that the surface area of a cell determines the health of the cell, not the gene. The gene is merely a blue print for the cell. The signals that the cell receives at the surface area of the cell determines whether a cell thrives. If the cell is in a toxic environment, then the cell will respond defensively. If the cell is in a nourishing environment, the cell will grow and thrive. The signals that the surface area of the cell receives are thoughts, feelings, food, and drink.

Dr. Richard Davidson says that “there is no more effective way to produce localized and specific changes in the brain than behavioral or mental interventions. Behavioral or mental interventions can produce more specific biological changes than any currently known biological method that is known – medication for example.” Taking medication effects the entire body, not just the small areas of the brain related to depression. We are given a long list of side effects, when the pharmacist hands us medication for depression.

Our thoughts, feelings, and behavior affect our depression. If I am self-critical in a destructive way, this can magnify depression. It is important to change our thoughts. Sixty-five percent of our thoughts are redundant and negative. We need to change our thinking at the subconscious level to move toward health and freedom – full remission of depression.

With depression, one is avoiding emotions that seem overwhelming or is simply unaware exist. Learning to regulate our emotions and affect enables us to feel safe expressing our emotions in a healthy way. Resolving trauma can make a big difference, enabling us to feel peaceful and energized.

Our relationships can also effect depression. Depressed people can isolate themselves and then are deprived of the energy that comes from human interaction. Our beliefs and our values can lead us to be depressed. Please watch this video on symptoms that can be related to depression:

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Filed Under: Blog, Emotions, Uncategorized Tagged With: behavioral interventions, biological changes, Bruce Lipton, cell, depression, drink, energy, environment, Epigenetics, feelings, food, genes, interest diminished, interventions, medication, mental, nourishing, over-determined, pharmacist, psychological, redundant and negative, Richard Davidson, sadness, self-critical, side effects, signals, social, spiritual, subconscious thinking, surface area, symptoms, symptoms of depression, thoughts, toxic environment

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About Daniel Davis, LMFT

I create an environment where clients experience their unique significance, authentic empowerment, and profound acceptance and collaborate with clients to identify solutions to their current crises. For more information on how I can help you, contact me today by calling 408-249-0014 or emailing info@danieldavislmft.com. I look forward to speaking with you! Read More…

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I provide Virtual Counseling, E-Counseling, and Online Counseling and Psychotherapy Services as well as Phone Therapy Sessions to residents of California. As such, you can access any of my services at a location of your choosing. Please contact me today for more information and to find out how I can help you!

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Daniel Davis, M.A., LMFT
Counselor in Santa Clara, CA
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