 East Bay Area Therapy is offering FREE THERAPY to members of the black community. We are doing our part to lift up the black community, especially during this time.
. . . Black mental health matters. Period. . . . For more information: . . . Email: Grace@eastbayareatherapy.com . . . Tel. (510) 621-8143 For everyone's safety, we are scheduling video visits via a secure HIPAA compliant platform. East Bay Area Therapy wishes you all optimal mental and physical health.   Celebrating Achievement: I am now a Certified Treatment Specialist for Diverse Populations (CTSDP)4/7/2020  East Bay Area Therapy's mission has a commitment to serving people of diverse communities and backgrounds with culturally competent mental health services. I recently took several classes adding up to 26 hours of continuing education to become a Certified Treatment Specialist for Diverse Populations (CTSDP). Here are the classes I completed:
Certified By: |
| Single and happy....or feeling lonely... Attached and in love... unhappily married...arguing with your partner... None of that matters. TODAY is the DAY! DO something loving for yourself! After all, you have seen yourself through the struggle, heartaches, the triumphs, the joy, the pain...you know the depths of your own darkness and the brightness of your radiant light. YOU have been the most loyal to yourself. YOU are the one you have been waiting for. YOU are your very own ride or die.... IT'S TIME to show yourself some LOVE. YOU deserve only the best loving treatment. YOU know exactly what you want and need on a day like today. |  |
Take a hot bath, get a massage, take a weekend trip, watch your favorite movie, indulge with a delectable treat, or unplug....whatever it may be...make sure to honor yourself.
Happy Valentines Days from East Bay Area Therapy.
At East Bay Area Therapy, we rejoice in the incredible diversity in the pan- African community of the San Francisco Bay Area. We recognize that there is massive variation in preference in identity, culture, level of self-acceptance, and internalized oppression through personal anecdotes, education, research, and psychological practice with our amazing clients. As a practice who welcomes and regularly works with individuals who identify as Black, African-American, Caribbean, and as African-Immigrants, we exclaim Thank You! to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for his invaluable role in furthering the positive mental wellness for the pan-African community. We know that discrimination and oppression have a severely harmful effect on mental health and stand for racial justice and restitution.
According to a video by Goalcast (https://www.goalcast.com/2017/09/12/martin-luther-king-story/), Martin Luther King was a child who suffered from episodes of severe depression. He was deeply emotionally affected by racial discrimination, oppression of African-Americans and the pan-African community, and witnessed atrocities towards him, his family, and towards those who shared his African heritage. He made his first suicide attempt around the age of 12, when he jumped out of a second-story window. He made a second suicide attempt before the age of 13, as well.
As with many people who suffer from mental health struggles, he was extremely intelligent, innovative, and was passionate about making a change in the world. He tirelessly fought for justice for the oppressed and stayed focused on his DREAM. He achieved academic excellence by earning his doctorate degree at a very young age (while dealing with depression, too!) and visited India to study a non-violent approach to civil disobedience. He knew that the guidance he was seeking could be found in a collaboration between cultures!
East Bay Area therapy prides itself on being a practice that utilizes culturally conscious counseling, and maintains a safe environment for members of oppressed communities, not limited to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, legal status, ability & disability, and any other ways in which a beautiful human being can be wrongly and unjustly mistreated in this world.
Dr. King, thank you for making it possible to serve many pan-African clients at our practice, East Bay Area Therapy. We are proud to serve African-American, black, Caribbean, and African-immigrant clients with humility, research–based evaluation and treatment strategies, and continuously reflect on our areas of privilege, powerlessness, and how we can use our given privileges to further the wellness of the pan-African community as a whole.
According to a video by Goalcast (https://www.goalcast.com/2017/09/12/martin-luther-king-story/), Martin Luther King was a child who suffered from episodes of severe depression. He was deeply emotionally affected by racial discrimination, oppression of African-Americans and the pan-African community, and witnessed atrocities towards him, his family, and towards those who shared his African heritage. He made his first suicide attempt around the age of 12, when he jumped out of a second-story window. He made a second suicide attempt before the age of 13, as well.
As with many people who suffer from mental health struggles, he was extremely intelligent, innovative, and was passionate about making a change in the world. He tirelessly fought for justice for the oppressed and stayed focused on his DREAM. He achieved academic excellence by earning his doctorate degree at a very young age (while dealing with depression, too!) and visited India to study a non-violent approach to civil disobedience. He knew that the guidance he was seeking could be found in a collaboration between cultures!
East Bay Area therapy prides itself on being a practice that utilizes culturally conscious counseling, and maintains a safe environment for members of oppressed communities, not limited to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, legal status, ability & disability, and any other ways in which a beautiful human being can be wrongly and unjustly mistreated in this world.
Dr. King, thank you for making it possible to serve many pan-African clients at our practice, East Bay Area Therapy. We are proud to serve African-American, black, Caribbean, and African-immigrant clients with humility, research–based evaluation and treatment strategies, and continuously reflect on our areas of privilege, powerlessness, and how we can use our given privileges to further the wellness of the pan-African community as a whole.
Trigger Warning: Strong content about sexual assault, human sexual slavery, and severe forms of human exploitation
Grace Pacheco, M.A., MFT presents educational material and case examples focused on severe forms of sexual abuse for the psychology graduate students at JFK University in Pleasant Hill, California. She discusses sexual assault, human slavery, exploitation, and captivity, and how they manifest in three complex case examples. She shares about working with persons who are transgender, sex workers, sexual offenders, Christian, lesbian, and focuses on the unique experience for a black lesbian Christian client.
She shares briefly about her relational style with her clients, the use of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and offers valuable concepts from Christian-based book, The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse by David Allender and Karen Lee-Thorp.
Grace Pacheco, M.A., MFT is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) in Pinoles, CA who specializes in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of severe anxiety and trauma-and-stressor disorders. She has unique training and experience with Christian queer people of color with a variety of intersecting oppressed identities.
Disorders Discussed: Bulimia, Exhibitionism & Paraphilias, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Grace Pacheco, M.A., MFT presents educational material and case examples focused on severe forms of sexual abuse for the psychology graduate students at JFK University in Pleasant Hill, California. She discusses sexual assault, human slavery, exploitation, and captivity, and how they manifest in three complex case examples. She shares about working with persons who are transgender, sex workers, sexual offenders, Christian, lesbian, and focuses on the unique experience for a black lesbian Christian client.
She shares briefly about her relational style with her clients, the use of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and offers valuable concepts from Christian-based book, The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse by David Allender and Karen Lee-Thorp.
Grace Pacheco, M.A., MFT is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) in Pinoles, CA who specializes in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of severe anxiety and trauma-and-stressor disorders. She has unique training and experience with Christian queer people of color with a variety of intersecting oppressed identities.
Disorders Discussed: Bulimia, Exhibitionism & Paraphilias, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
How to Take a Shower with Disabling Depression
When one is going through disabling depression, there isn't a whole lot of motivation to do much of anything. The most obvious and measurable basic self-care activities are things like feeding ourselves, bathing ourselves, brushing our teeth, changing our dirty clothing, hygienic toileting… you get the point.
All of these things become compromised when we feel depressed at a disabling level. High functioning and moderate functioning depression are certainly valid in their own struggles and levels of functional loss. We are not, however, going to discuss moderate or high functioning depression in today's blog. There are plenty of articles throughout the internet on those levels of depression.
When depression becomes disabling is when days go by in bed and we have no clue if it's Monday or Thursday.
These are times when we've been wearing the same shirt for a few days — but we aren't exactly sure how many.
We start to tell the time by how light it is or how dark it is through the window. Time becomes simplified to daytime or nighttime.
The amount of days it has been since one showered is often measured by the amount of visible grease and sweat in our hair (glamorous, I know), comments from other people, or through whiffs of ourselves in passing moments.
All of these things become compromised when we feel depressed at a disabling level. High functioning and moderate functioning depression are certainly valid in their own struggles and levels of functional loss. We are not, however, going to discuss moderate or high functioning depression in today's blog. There are plenty of articles throughout the internet on those levels of depression.
When depression becomes disabling is when days go by in bed and we have no clue if it's Monday or Thursday.
These are times when we've been wearing the same shirt for a few days — but we aren't exactly sure how many.
We start to tell the time by how light it is or how dark it is through the window. Time becomes simplified to daytime or nighttime.
The amount of days it has been since one showered is often measured by the amount of visible grease and sweat in our hair (glamorous, I know), comments from other people, or through whiffs of ourselves in passing moments.
Motivation
It can be very hard to even get motivated before discussing The How of taking a shower. Many people might exclaim, shower? For what? I'm not going anywhere! What's the point? I will feel the same afterwards!
Those of us psychological nerds who study human behavior and psychology, and think about it all the time (AKA Me!), are aware of a couple handy principles that can be applied from an "old school" area of early psychology.... Operant Conditioning.
Even though many depressed people prefer to spend most of their day in their bed and do not necessarily want to get out of bed, they will get out of bed to either directly reduce a negative stimulus (or feeling) that they feel inside of their bodies or add a positive stimulus (or feeling). See below:
A. A depressed person gets out of bed to use the restroom, aiming to decrease discomfort (negative stimulus) that one experiences from holding urine or feces inside of one's body.
B. A depressed person who lays in bed all day may get up out of bed to binge eat on the ice cream in the freezer, to increase positive feelings (positive stimulus) in the body.
Yes, it can be very tricky when somebody claims they don't care about anything. Given that, how can one decrease or increase anything?
I call BS!
I know that there are always things that humans want to increase or decrease, based on our universal traits.
Those of us psychological nerds who study human behavior and psychology, and think about it all the time (AKA Me!), are aware of a couple handy principles that can be applied from an "old school" area of early psychology.... Operant Conditioning.
Even though many depressed people prefer to spend most of their day in their bed and do not necessarily want to get out of bed, they will get out of bed to either directly reduce a negative stimulus (or feeling) that they feel inside of their bodies or add a positive stimulus (or feeling). See below:
A. A depressed person gets out of bed to use the restroom, aiming to decrease discomfort (negative stimulus) that one experiences from holding urine or feces inside of one's body.
B. A depressed person who lays in bed all day may get up out of bed to binge eat on the ice cream in the freezer, to increase positive feelings (positive stimulus) in the body.
Yes, it can be very tricky when somebody claims they don't care about anything. Given that, how can one decrease or increase anything?
I call BS!
I know that there are always things that humans want to increase or decrease, based on our universal traits.
Method
So, the seemingly simple method for motivating ourselves or loved ones to take a shower are to provide an incentive which may be negative or positive.
Lets take two ways:
1. Increase a negative stimulus to make NOT showering intolerable
2. Increase a positive stimulus to make showering tolerable
Lets take two ways:
1. Increase a negative stimulus to make NOT showering intolerable
2. Increase a positive stimulus to make showering tolerable
How to Make NOT Showering Intolerable
Change your bed sheets to clean sheets. Getting back into them with dirty hair, body, and clothing will feel uncomfortable. Some people say that it promotes an urge to shower so that one can feel that total "fresh and new" feeling.
- Exercise 1: Smell your armpits by lifting them up and directly sniffing them three times in a row. This will orient you to how you smell (which you may not have noticed) and increase motivation to get rid of the unpleasant odor
- Exercise 2: Think about the bacteria that may be on your genitals or living on the inside of your butt. Set a timer for one minute (on your cell phone) and focus on how these regions probably may smell, how it might look under a microscope, how it might feel if you did not wash her hands after touching each region. This one is pretty rough but often does the trick.
- Exercise 3: Look at yourself in the mirror, in your camera's selfie mode on your phone, and examine the area where dirt typically collects on your body. Some people collect dirt in the folds of their neck, others use a cotton swab to examine the quantity and color depth of yellow buildup in their ears, and others look at the bottoms of their feet. Perhaps, all three might be a good start.
Make Showering Tolerable
| Turn on the music that you would like to shower to before you get in using a cell phone, speaker, or waterproof speaker inside the shower. Make sure you choose something that you like. |  |
Make it Quick and Easy
- Tell yourself that you don't even have to stand up. People who have been in bed all day prefer to be seated, lying down, and often feel lethargic. Sit on the ground inside the shower and let the water run over you.
- Eliminate overwhelm by making the process of bathing simple. Forget shaving, exfoliation, conditioner, face masks or any of the things that you did when you felt better. The goal of the shower is simply to get clean.
- Choose one cleansing product — shampoo, body wash, soap — and that's all you have to use. Start with your hair and soap it up at least one time. Forget the conditioner.
- Put your chosen cleanser on a washcloth and, starting with your face. Rub the washcloth down all of your torso and limbs and end with your butt. Do not reuse the washcloth.
Wishing everyone suds and bubbles,
Grace
I am overjoyed to announce that one of my inspirational clients has been granted asylum in the United States of America. This individual, who just so happens to be a transwoman, demonstrates what it means to be a woman by exhibiting profound internal strength, mental endurance, a passion for life, the ability to rise up through the darkest despair, and an uncanny ability to hold her head up high through some of the most excruciating moments of existence. Transwomen are so severely mistreated, abused, and tortured all over the world — the United States is not an exception. However, there are certain laws and rights that do protect transwomen, transmen, and others who do not subscribe to a binary gender.
After suffering from verbal abuse, physical violence, sexual violence, severe childhood neglect, torture, threats, and hate crimes — without even minimal protection from law enforcement (they actually were perpetrators of assault) nor safe family members, this asylum-seeking transwoman has received that what she already deserved as her birthright — asylum in the United States. Like all of the colorful hummingbirds who stop at East Bay Area Therapy for a short sip of nectar, may she fly!
After suffering from verbal abuse, physical violence, sexual violence, severe childhood neglect, torture, threats, and hate crimes — without even minimal protection from law enforcement (they actually were perpetrators of assault) nor safe family members, this asylum-seeking transwoman has received that what she already deserved as her birthright — asylum in the United States. Like all of the colorful hummingbirds who stop at East Bay Area Therapy for a short sip of nectar, may she fly!
East Bay Area Therapy provides psychological evaluations for immigrants with various types of legal immigration cases not limited to U Visa, asylum, the extreme hardship waiiver (I-601A, I-601, I-929), VAWA, T Visa. All services are provided by Grace Pacheco, M.A., MFT, a liicensed psychotherapist in the state of California who is fluent in both English and Spanish languages. She commonly works with interpreters who speak languages from around the world and has access to interpreters who speak Mayan indigenous languages (Mam, K'iche'), Brazilian Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Tagalog, Hindi, Arabic, and more.
To learn more about psychological evaluations, click the button below:
To learn more about psychological evaluations, click the button below:
