"A journey of a 1000 miles begins with a   

                                            single step." - Laozi

Caption: Phillip Halling's (photographer's) footprints on Warren Little Beach at low tide. View south to Bude and the north Cornwall coast.


Footprints in the Sand. © 2007. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share   Alike 2.0 Generic license. http://commons.wikimedia.org. Retrieved from: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Footprints_in_the_sand_-_geograph.org.uk_-_422602.jpg 




Immanuel, or God with Us, is one of the many names of God. One of the goals of the process of becoming a therapist is the practice of being "with" or fully present with another person. Carl Rogers in his text, "On Becoming a Person" referred to this as seeking to fully understand the person and wanting to know what it is like "to walk around in their skin" or experience the world through their eyes. One of the comforting aspects of Psalm 34 is that it reminds us that God is close to us when we are broken hearted. There is great comfort in not facing our greatest pains or greatest joys alone, but in the presence of someone we love. An old proverb tells us, "A joy shared is doubled and a burden shared is halved (as cited in Knight, 2010)." 

A few years ago, I presented at a conference with Dr. Gary Sibcy and we talked about the topics of Attachment, Emotional Intelligence, and Neuroscience, and discussed the overlap of these variables and the importance of moving towards neural integration.
I would like to share with you a quote from Nebrosky that discusses this:

–“Attachment failures lead to unprocessed feelings of unregulated grief, which, without the empathic other, create unbearable states of aloneness that can only be regulated with defenses (Nebrosky, 2006).”