Kate Motaung

Prevalence During any given year, the National Institute of Health (NIH) reports that as many as 17 million Americans suffer from depression. Depression is a real illness which is costly in terms of relationship problems, family suffering and lost productivity at work. The good news is that depression is highly treatable. Symptoms While all of us feel sad or down sometimes, these feelings tend to pass quickly.  Depression, on the other hand, may be present if symptoms persist more

Spring and something else was in the air. The morning was crisp and beautiful. But it could have been dreary and cloudy for all I cared, as long as I could be with my girlfriend, and dream out loud. Me: “What do you think of that house over there? Do you like it?” She: “Yeah, but I like that style over there better.” What was being communicated in that not-so-veiled exchange? We were both single, liked each other and were thinking of the future … together. Sure enough,

Rabbi Irwin Kula, in his book Yearnings (2006), uses the image of “dancing with uncertainty.” Kula resists being seduced by the illusion of 100 percent certainty and says he has come to accept assuredness as the “51 percent.” This allows the other 49 percent to remain very much alive and valued in a person, thereby maintaining a sense of wholeness. Kula believes that every decision is a partial and ever-evolving truth that embodies halacha, the Jewish idea of “pathing” a way forward

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. (Proverbs 25:2 ESV) Proverbs has a way of getting right to the heart, and the mind, of a matter. This is not to suggest that Proverbs is an easy tip-sheet for life. It is more like the tip of an iceberg, in that the answers it provides can point us to underlying mysteries. As I suggested in my previous article, an experience of

In my own life, and in my experience as a Christian counselor, waiting is the soul-mate of uncertainty. They go hand-in-hand. Often, clients enter counseling feeling as though they are stuck in the ‘waiting room’ of life: mired in the painful conflict, chaos, and questions of a current situation or a memory—or both. They want answers, and they want them quickly. They want to feel better. The equation has already been assumed: answers = relief. There is a ‘certain’

Does your husband have any faults? Is your wife inadequate in any way—does she have weaknesses? Does your mate irritate you? I’m sure that the answer is “no,” but just in case … I want to assure you that there are good reasons to not ignore these faults. Don’t waste them. They are important. If that sounds counter intuitive, you’ve got the right idea. Christian marriage introduces an entirely new dynamic, really a counter-dynamic, to the way of the

We all know how powerful addictions can be. Despite the best will in the world, the decisions that we make to stop engaging in harmful activities all too often come to nothing. This is because the decisions that we make do not reflect our true desires. In my previous article I explained how our decisions and our desires are located in two different parts of the brain. This means that, while we may decide to stop a particular activity, we often

Addictions are powerful forces that many of us experience in one form or another. We struggle to break free from them, often with little success. We tend to think that we can overcome addictions simply by changing our behavior, only to discover that it doesn’t work like that. We honestly think that we should be able to do something if we put our minds to it, but it doesn’t take us long to discover that life is not so

When you’re the parent of a teen who struggles with body image, the saying that “knowledge is power” can be radically true when it comes to getting your teen appropriate help. I talked through the defining features and warning signs of the three most well-known eating disorders: Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge-Eating Disorder. In this post, I want to focus on a body-image disorder that is less talked about, yet incredibly important for parents of teens to be aware of, namely

One of the hardest parts of recovering from an eating disorder is learning what to do with the constant “Ed” thoughts that stream through your mind anytime you’re anywhere. For those of you who haven’t heard of “Ed” before, this is simply a shorthand way that some people find helpful to refer to their Eating Disorder (E.D.). And for anyone who has ever met Ed personally, you understand the feeling of having your thoughts dominated by an unwelcome, critical,

When I sit down to talk with the parents of a teen who is struggling with an eating disorder, one of the first questions that comes up is “Who’s to blame?” Faced with this question, many parents wonder what they did wrong that caused their child to resort to such behaviors. And then there is also the less-talked-about but equally common response, where parents find themselves becoming angry at their teen for “choosing” such behavior. So we need to

References “Wired for Intimacy” by William M. Struthers and “Out of the Shadows” by Patrick Carnes All people long to bond with others. We want someone to share in our joys and support us in our sorrows. As Romantic pianist and composer Frederic Chopin said, “It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.”