Healthy adults are independent AND dependent. Most of us have anxiety as we shift between what we fear is dependency on one side and isolation on the other. Health isn’t overcoming the temptation towards either, but instead it’s learning to thrive in the tension between them. This week I have had several conversations around loneliness…
Hey everyone, I’m excited to show you an early and very rough first draft of the new project that I’m working on- and share with you how you can get your hands on a copy before anyone else! It’s a project sort of working with the popularity of bullet journaling, adult coloring books, and graphic…
When I took the class on family therapy in grad school, I fell in love with the visual language of genograms. Since making this genogram chart at the start of that course, it has been one of my most shared sketch notes across multiple platforms. Scroll to the bottom of this post to purchase a…
Research papers are one of the most time-consuming parts of school. When I went back to school after 10 years as an entrepreneur, both my time and my patience for agonizing through writing research papers was limited. Since I’ve been back in school, I’ve developed a method / “hack,” inspired by the creativity and necessity…
In last week’s post I introduced readers to a concept called a “visual vocabulary”. In this installment of this series on developing a psychology-related visual vocabulary, I will be showing you how I doodle one of the staples of my psychology visual vocabulary: a mother and child. Mother and child, or parent and child, relationships are a…
Travel journalling is HARD. Every time I try to keep a regular journal on the road I give up- it’s way too much effort. Bullet Journalling, though, has been a perfect companion to travel. Most of us take lots of photos when we travel, but I created this layout to record the experiences and memories…
One of the best parts about bullets journaling is that your bullet journal can take whatever shape you need it to. As you become comfortable your bullet journal, you’ll probably find that your journal begins to look nothing like the complex and artistic spreads posted on social media (in fact, minimalist bullet journaling is an…
Preparing for print a selection of my psychology sketchnotes for my Patreon subscribers each month has been a fun experiment as I sort through sketchnotes old and new and learn the in’s and out’s of the best way to convert doodled sketchnotes to print-ready worksheets. This month I included in the PDFs this page of…
The truth is, the majority of people who are “artists” have a limited ability to reach into their visual memory and draw an object. Instead, we rely on using models, still lifes, photos, or even Google image search to base our art on. When it comes to sketchnotes, bullet journalling, and classroom doodles, these resources…
This is a continuously updated post about art therapy* prompts and activities for groups. To my knowledge, these are new ideas not otherwise published or included in manuals. These are appropriate for art groups in all sorts of contexts- from therapeutic groups to artists’ meetups and “paint and sip” style get-togethers. Adapt the prompt and your…
Memorization can be frustrating but is sometimes necessary. As much as I want my education to be a process of digesting and integrating new learning, sometimes it’s essential to simply memorize a list of facts, dates, or names. In this post, I’ll be showing you how I use multiple memorization techniques based on intersecting…
I began bullet journalling while in school for my masters in Counseling Psychology. In one of the bullet journaling forums I followed, a visitor posted about possible ways to track triggers and got zero responses- so I set out to take what I’d learned in grad school about trauma, mindfulness, and the value of self-advocacy…
Many families that are struggling will identify one person as “the issue.” Having one person to care for (or rage against) soothes the family by allowing them to create a place where they can locate their pain. When the family locates their problem in this “identified patient,” the sense of helplessness is eased as the…
This doodle depicts a visual way of conceptualizing the difference between personality disorders, and how those disorders tend to line up with interpersonal styles that I’ve found really helpful. Graphic adapted from Dr Jeffrey J Magnavita’s Evidence-based treatment of personality dysfunction: Principles, methods, and processes. It was interesting to engage the feedback on this post when…
You don’t have to have an uncanny ability to create outline letters in order to create bold outlined texts in your sketchnotes and bullet journal. This post (part of a series of posts on ways to create dramatic subject-specific content during a live lecture or presentation), shares my favorite method for creating bold, tidy outlined…
I found this vintage speedball hand lettering instructional tutorial tucked into a weathered cardboard fountain pen case in a flea market in Missouri. I’m a sucker for vintage things, hand lettering, and pens, so I knew I had to buy it- as much for the tattered old piece of paper as for the actual pens…
It can be hard to hammer down what actually IS mental health or mental illness, and how treatments work. Paradoxically, this sometimes feels even more confusing in the middle of graduate school as information from many different theoretical orientations flows out with the volume and velocity of a broken fire hydrant. Yesterday as we had…
