Selfwork With Dr. Margaret Rutherford | Self-help | Mental Health | Depression | Anxiety | Relationship Problems| Therapy

Today we’re going to focus on high-functioning depression. What is it? What’s it not? Is it dangerous or is it not? And what does that mean anyway, ‘’high-functioning” depression"? It’s still depression, isn’t it? It’s the newer term for what’s “properly” called Persistent Depressive Disorder, which used to be called before that, Dysthymia. Maybe it’s a little sexier to call it ‘high-functioning depression” or “smiling depression.” But here’s my thought: if more people react to one label better than they do others, more power to that label. I don’t particularly care what we call it – and if more people can say, “Oh yeah, that’s me,” and recognize its validity or presence, then I’m all for it. Let’s make sure we all understand that I can’t think of any mental illness or disorder that’s not on a spectrum. You have depression. How you cope with it is based on myriad of factors. And there are millions of people who are coping every day around the world. I hope you'll benefit from listening and sharing thi

I wasn’t feeling so hot yesterday so took a time-out day and watched "Shrinking", the Apple TV series that has a superb cast and follows the lives of three therapists and their friends and families. It’s full of expletives, especially the f bomb. Which is fine by me but there’s wasn’t one person in the cast who didn’t explore its complete usage… It’s also very moving. And I was relieved to see that except for some entertaining but weirdly unethical behavior, the therapists are painted as caring and trying hard to help. But also having HUGE struggles in their own lives. I get it. There have been times when my struggles have been larger than others. And yet it’s still my job to be there for my clients – the way they’ve come to expect me being there.  Because I’m a shrink. So, I thought today we could talk about what those expectations – at least the basic ones – the stuff that both behind the scenes and front and center can be the building blocks of trust and safety in therapy.  an episode on creating e

When I was contacted by Paulina Siegel about being on her podcast, Shit Talking Shrinks, I was intrigued. She and her friend and colleague Victoria Aron are in Season Two of an hilarious, fresh challenge to the stereotype of the "therapist" - someone who's emotionally calm and somehow "above it all." So this is an expletive-filled SelfWork episode today - because guess what? Therapists can use colorful language as well! Yes, we offer our expertise in creating an emotionally safe space for you to risk your own healing and growth. But the old "immutable" therapist - the one who rarely interjects their own personality - is an identity that both these therapists challenge. And they do it with laughter and fun, intelligence and caring. I've long been "myself" as a therapist. I don't suddenly don some cloak as soon as a patient comes through the door. The unique nature of the therapeutic relationship lies in the focus on the issues of one person, the client. And yet, to g

Increasingly, I’ve noticed a trend in how people are describing “having fun” – and so much of that time, what they’re doing is scrolling thru TikTok or Instagram – Reddit  or Quora – or any online communications app. Even people who are actively struggling with depression will tell me how the major way they “distract” themselves is through focusing on what they can find on their screens.  This... despite all kind of studies showing that the more you interact or are “on” your phone, the more depressed you can become. I’m not advocating that anyone get rid of their phone. But… I do think that a way out of depression is finding tiny bits of fun. I found a “fun” expert – science journalist and TED speaker, Catherine Davis..  We’ll talk about her work and research – and use it to wonder together about how you might be experiencing depression and still be able to find “fun.” On a much different note. the voicemail today is from a woman who’d told her husband she was leaving him due to his narcissistic behaviors ove

Today I’m offering something different for you. No commercials. Just me and you talking. I’ve said before on SelfWork that I’ve seen so many people become paralyzed in their decision -making about what course or direction they should follow. Hopefully, through my own story of discovering my own potential, you’ll get a taste of what I’ve learned works – which is to simply “go.” Go in a direction – any direction that puts itself in front of you. At least that’s healthy and productive. Learn from that. And keep going. Sometimes you have to pick yourself up from disappointments. But you learn every time. And you'll hear at the end my own exciting announcement of my TEDxBocaRaton talk now being available on YouTube! I'll hope you can watch! Vital Links:  Here's the link to my TEDx talk! Just click here! Episode Transcript This is SelfWork, and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. At SelfWork, we'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world and what to do about them. I'm

I wouldn’t wish borderline personality disorder on anyone – it’s a truly difficult and chaotic way to live life. Yet it’s just as difficult to be in relationship with someone who lives their life on an emotional roller coaster. Today we’re going to focus on how you can set boundaries with folks who have borderline traits (I’ll also go over the traits themselves). We’ll focus specifically on having a parent with borderline PD – but these suggestions could also help if your friend or cousin or sibling suffers from the disorder. I’m pulling from some extremely well-written articles as well as my own experience with patients – and those links you’ll be able to find in the show notes.. The listener voicemail is tough to listen to and involves murder – so please realize this may be a trigger for you. It’s from a woman who’s deeply grieving her daughter’s actions as well as the deaths of grandchildren - and blames herself – or feels guilt – for not knowing how to help. I’ll do my best to answer… Vital Links: Click H

There are some people who can take the most difficult situations and find the humor in them. Cathy Sikorski is one of those people. I met her several years ago at a midlife bloggers association meeting and became an instant admirer. She's written a blog for years dedicated to examining the hard and hilarious life of caregiving, which she's done herself for the last twenty years. In addition to that, she's a practicing  dealing largely in Elder Law and in today's episode, has all kinds of personal and professional/legal advice to pass on to you. She’s the author of several books, the first being “Showering with Nana."  Today we’re going to discuss two more that outline very eloquently how to talk to your loved ones about their end of life plans – or what needs to happen when dementia is in the picture: Who Moved My Teeth and Twelve Conversations: How to Talk to Almost Anyone about Long-Term Care Planning. Not the most “fun” conversation to have – but vital ones. Our Advertisers Links!  Cl

This interview focuses on suicide prevention so please listen carefully. Here are the international suicide prevention crisis numbers (USA is not 988). I want to read you the first part of the email I sent to our guest today for SelfWork. "Katrina good morning. I’m the host of The SelfWork Podcast and I just saw the CBS Sunday Morning interview about your mom, the way she died, and your actions since it happened. Let me say I’m so sorry about the struggles your mom had all her life and how her bipolar disorder could take her in such destructive directions, ending in her suicide." "I’d love to interview you for SelfWork. I very much admire what you’re doing and think it’s such a brilliant way of working through the complete mess that gun control conversations can create. It’s positive. Proactive. And I know many of my own clients would’ve signed up." Who is Katrina Brees? She’s a grieving daughter turned activitist. And I think she’s come up with a brilliant way of bridging the debate over gun

There are a lot of mental illnesses that are characterized by intense emotion which then governs behavior, such as in bipolar disorder, major depression, or several personality disorders. But even it it’s a pattern, and not an actual mental illness, it may mean that you don’t have the skill to regulate your emotions – to have control over them instead of them over you. What does this look like? You get angry at a friend and you text them impulsively about your feelings instead of taking a minute to cool down. You get dumped by someone you're dating and you immediately head to the nearest bar or pub to work on getting picked up. That’s what we’re going to focus on today. How do you learn to more self-control emotionally or how to “self-regulate” those emotions?  We’ll also talk about when intense control over emotions is highly self-protective. The listener email follows this subject line as well, but is more about the listener’s recognition and identification with perfectly hidden depression. But they put

Today is an episode filled with your questions and my answers – one of my favorite things to do here on SelfWork! So today the topics are enmeshment, the difference between playing a role in someone’s life and having a relationship, and five ways to deal with defensiveness when you’re trying to have a conversation with a parent about the past. Great topics and questions! And I’m sure many of you can more than relate! Vital Links: Click Here for the fabulous offer from Athletic Greens - now AG1 - with bonus product with your subscription! SelfWork podcast on seven ways to move out of enmeshment Post on seven ways out of enmeshment You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome! My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression has been published

We’re going to be talking about the last two major mental mistakes or bad habits that can either lead you into depression or be a factor in your depression worsening or sticking around. And those two are over-generalizing – meaning taking one experience or one piece of knowledge and applying it to everything - or what can be aptly described as "not seeing the trees for the forest." And the last is having unrealistic expectations – not seeing or believing what's accurate at that moment, but instead holding onto a belief or expectation of what you want or what you believe SHOULD happen instead of what's actually happening. I’m working from Dr. Michael Yapko’s brilliant work on how not being able to make effective discriminations in your thinking can cause bad decisions to be made – decisions that keep you believing in something that is only going to lead to more pain. Click this link to see his handouts for the conference I listened to for this episode! We welcome back BiOptimzers and Magnesium

The excitement of shedding pounds. The disappointment of gaining them back. Deprivation as a way of life. Dieting is a merry-go-round…minus the fun. Whether this describes you or someone you care for (friend, family member, child, patient, client), it’s a real issue for too many of us today. Yo-yo dieting reveals a terrible reality: most Americans are alarmingly misinformed about what to eat, when to eat, and how to get healthy. Jenn Trepeck is my guest today on SelfWork. I listened to her podcast Salad with a Side Of Fries and was excited about her attitude, her experience, her laughter, and her incredible knowledge about food. She's described as a “force of nature” in the wellness space and is an Optimal Health Coach, podcaster and business consultant. After graduating from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, Jenn founded Better Life Now LLC while working full time in hedge funds. After over a decade of coaching clients, Jenn started Salad with a Side of Fries Podcast to help pay it for

This month is Mental Health Awareness Month, and as SelfWork has been named one of the ten top podcasts for depression by VeryWellMind for 2023 – I wanted to focus on just that. Depression. I’m pulling from a talk by Dr. Michael Yapko, an expert on depression, as he lists the five most common mental mistakes that people struggling with depression tend to make – those mistakes can cause depression to be increased, and can start a negative spiral that, given the right circumstances, could lead to depression or worsen it. But, as I heard Michele Obama say to a group of young women the other day, “You become what you practice being.” I couldn’t agree more. So today we’ll talk about the habit of rumination. What’s that? It’s when you have one thought – a negative thought or a string of thoughts – that repeat themselves over and over again. I’ve heard it called a negative spiral or “letting myself drown in the past.” We'll compare it to the much healthier habit of self-reflection which isn't solely a "m

In the month of May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re focusing on five different mental habits that you can have or adopt that either worsen depression, create depression, or are part of a relapse occurring. Last week, we focused on what is termed “internal orientation” – meaning that you fall into the habit of believing what your depression is telling you, either through your thoughts or your emotions. And depression often lies to you frankly. Today we’re focusing on what's termed “stress generation.” What is that? When you’re actually making choices and decisions that cause more stress for you. We’ll talk more about it! It’s when the “don’t care” or “don’t know” of depression leads to even more stress which then leads to more depression. And it’s a bad habit. The SpeakPipe voicemail today is from an older woman who says that her grown adult children don’t see her as a “person.” She doesn’t feel included in their lives as important or viable. I hear this from all ages so it could be ageism…

Sometimes the very decision on what to talk about here at SelfWork seems difficult, as the possibilities are endless really. And since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I wanted to do something special – although any month is mental health awareness month for me! To help get me organized, I turned to an old teacher of mine who’s an internationally known expert on depression - Dr. Michael Yapko. I listened into one of his YouTube presentations on the current research in depression and what the best thinking is about its causes and its treatment. He mentions the five most common mental mistakes that can lead to depression or to a relapse. So, this month in May, I’m going to present those to you;  I’ll add in some of my own experiences and stories so that hopefully you can try and see if you’re making any of those mistakes – whether or not you consider yourself “depressed” or not. For the listener email  “response” this week, I’m going to comment on a review for SelfWork that was left on Apple – a kind of, “

I love answering your questions and hearing your comments! In fact, it's one of the most favorite things I do here on SelfWork! Sharing perspectives is more than welcome.  Today I'm answering two listener voicemails: One is on the topic of what exactly IS vulnerability... is it a choice you make - to be vulnerable? Or is it a state of being,  where your vulnerability is something that needs to be protected? And why is that even important?  Because how you answer that question reflects your perception - and whether you'd want to learn to be vulnerable or it's the last thing that would every occur to you.  Enmeshment isn't well-understood by many. It looks like closeness in a family or relationship. Loyalty. But... there can also be an rigid expectation of what kind of identity outside of the family you're allowed. A listener from Jordan calls in to talk about his anger and frustration with this - but also his fear of losing his family.  Thank you as always for being here! And thanks to

Today on SelfWork we’re going to focus on self-sabotage – when you are doing things or not doing things that seem to get in the way of achieving something or creating the life you say you want. I want to talk more about the fear that’s underneath self-sabotage. Because one way of looking at sabotage is that it’s not sabotage at all. It’s really one part of you – the part that’s afraid – protecting that fear or avoiding it. So, what can seem as if you’re “getting in your own way” can actually be your mind working to keep you safe from a fear that you may be conscious of, or not conscious of at all. Let's focus on a quartet of players in the self-sabotage realm: procrastination, perfectionism, a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, and of course, imposter syndrome. And as always, we'll talk about... what you can do about it. The Speakpipe voicemail for today is from a woman who’s realized that, in order to have a sense of control, that she not only lives out her plans for today, but tries to complete thin

I'm very excited to introduce SelfWork listeners to Ananta.  I get a lot of requests from people who want to present to my SelfWork listeners,  and they introduce themselves as experts in what they term transformation. Now, it's a good word, mind you, transformation, but so much of the work isn't backed up well with exercises or there's a lot of expense. Ananta Ripa Ajmera is an author and spiritual teacher of Ayurveda, Yoga, and Vedanta, and her new book takes you every step of the way to begin to wonder and access and absorb what might be really helpful for you using those three practices in your own life.  So we're going on a different kind of journey today. Let's hear from a NTA in her own words, and I quote her, 'I'm inviting you on an enchanted journey from embattled darkness to hope'. My new book, The Way of the Goddess: Daily Rituals to Awaken Your Inner Warrior and Discover Your True Self is written as a hero's journey from a profound feminine perspective. In

I love when an author reaches out to me personally – and that’s what Brooke Siem did. I didn’t have to talk with a bunch of publicity or marketing people. She knows exactly what her message is – and who needs to hear it. I was mesmerized by her evocativeness of her writing  her book, May Cause Side Effects,  is worth the read for that fact alone. This is the first memoir on antidepressant withdrawal to hit the mass-market, a notable milestone in the journey to bring global awareness to antidepressant withdrawal. As you know, not everyone on antidepressants wants to stay on them forever, and it's imperative that both patients and doctors recognize antidepressant withdrawal and practice safe deprescribing. Brooke’s mission is to shift the narrative of depression as a chronic ailment to one that frames depression as a temporary human experience. Let’s make sure no one is hearing “You shouldn’t be on anti-depressants.” That’s not the case. They can be very helpful. And it’s hard to tell in Brooke’s memoir ho

If this post triggers you in any way, here are the International Suicide Prevention Hot Lines. Sometimes meeting someone is meant to be. I felt that way about my best friend. I felt that way about my husband. And I felt that way when I first exchanged emails with Dr. John Sommers-Flannagan. He’s the real thing. A great guy. Easy-going. Smart. Supportive. Humble. And his book, Suicide Assessment and Treatment Planning: A Strength-Based Approach is a must read for mental health clinicians. He's a professor of psychology at the University of Montana and the author of many other books. I don’t say "must read" that often. Even rarely. But it’s a must read. And not just for clinicians. It could be meaningful for anyone who has a loved one who struggles with suicidal feelings or thoughts - and how to approach them compassionately. As I said last week, you might be that one person who someone risks talking to. Last week's episode focused on the necessity and importance and publicly recognizing the fa