As a therapist, I am often asked the question, “Why therapy?” As I was creating my website, www.jenniferpsmithlmft.co I attempted to answer this question in a succinct manner. The following is my belief about one’s need for therapy.
•  As human beings, in our imperfect state, we all have challenges of one type or another that may overwhelm us and affect our personal functioning and relationships.  
• We all "get off track" at one time or another.

No matter how difficult our challenges, we all have the ability to change for the better.  The healing or resolution of our issues will require shifts in our thinking  about ourselves and about the circumstances we face, as well as new behavior on our part, and possibly on the part of the family system in which we operate.

We may not be able to meet these challenges alone, and will need the help of an objective, trained ear that can lead us to better ways of functioning and health, and therefore help "get us back on track."
Therapy is a joining of client and therapist insight that can lead to practical solutions and healthier functioning.  The result can be a more peaceful and fulfilling life and enhanced relationships.

There was no sense of mystery or confusion when hospital surgeons found 16 foreign items inside Dick Schroeder, a 74-year-old German man, during a recent surgery. In fact, they weren’t surprised at all
...because they had left them there.
Sixteen pieces of medical equipment were left in one man, including “a needle, a 6-inch roll of bandage, a 6-inch long compress, several swabs and a fragment of surgical mask,” according to England’s Daily Mail.
A fragment of a surgical mask?
Did a nurse eat part of the mask during the surgery, only to stuff the rest into Herr Schroeder for a snack later in the procedure?
OK, wait; take a step back before you judge. How many times have you accidentally put the remote control in the fridge (or something similar) when you had other things on your mind?
That makes it alright... right?
Anyway, Schroeder began to think that something was wrong when he experienced discomfort while attempting to sit up.
After discovering the nature of the “stabbing” pain, it took two further surgeries to remove the items from the man, who only wanted the docs to work on his prostate in the first place.
I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the hospital charged Schroeder, not only for the last two operations, but also for the tools that they “lost” in their patient.
Unfortunately, Schroeder lost his battle against prostate cancer last year, but his family is still seeking reparations from the Hannover hospital that stuffed their pappy like a piñata.
Allegedly the family is asking for approximately $127,000 from the hospital, who was ready with a counteroffer: $660.
Not acceptable.

Printed in the January 24, 2013 edition.

The 2013 legislative session started smoothly on Jan. 14th with the House re-electing Speaker David Ralston and Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones. Our 47 freshmen members (out of 180, a fairly large class) started introducing bills with the usual excitement– the excitement that comes from the first opportunity to act on ideas they could never do anything but talk about before. There will be some interesting committee hearings in weeks ahead!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week you’re probably aware of the confessional interview Lance Armstrong had with Oprah Winfrey in which he revealed that he had been “doping” in order to gain a competitive advantage (or perhaps simply leveling the playing field as it has been reported that 20 of 21 top-3 finishers from 1999 to 2005 were also doping http://goo.gl/avtsa ). In another recent story HSBC was fined a record $1.9 billion by the US Justice Department due to violation of several anti-money laundering statutes http://goo.gl/eZTjT .

Part of the reason for the recent fiscal cliff debacle was President Obama and his fellow Democrats insisting the rich were not paying their fair share, and had to pay more. He won– raising rates on over $400,000 income. Let’s take a hard look at that assertion. This same old saw is how they conned America into amending the constitution in 1913 to allow income taxes in the first place. Our original Constitution prohibited levying any taxes on a per capita (individual) basis. Federal revenues were all expected to come from tariffs, excise taxes and fees. The first income tax rate was to be 1 percent on incomes up to $20,000 (truly rich at the time), up to 7 percent on incomes over $500,000 (zillionaires and robber barons). This Revenue Act of 1916 also gave us the predecessor of the Estate Tax–tax you when you make it and tax you when you leave it–10 percent for estates over $5 million. The rates and limits on both began to grow immediately. Obama just raised the estate tax to 40 percent.

Today’s liberals back up their desires to further soak the affluent by reminding us that income tax rates had progressed to a max rate of 91 percent by the 1950s, and America was prospering like it never had before. We know, of course, that John Kennedy cut rates slightly in his term, and Ronald Reagan, with bipartisan support from Tip O’Neill, cut them drastically to two basic rates– 15 percent on the lower income and 28 percent on the wealthy.

But we hear little about the fact that in order to accomplish this, they eviscerated or eliminated numerous tax shelters available to the super rich at the same time. With the Reagan changes, the rich could no longer offset most of their earned income with these dubious tax shelter losses. Clinton later raised the max tax to 39.6 percent, but George W. Bush lowered it again to 35 percent, with a ten year sunset provision. Thus, we had the 12/31/2012 problem.

Not long ago I was asked, “What magazines do you read?” The better question may be, “what magazines do you purchase?” My husband would tell you I subscribe to every food, home décor, fashion, and lifestyle magazine on the planet. He would most likely divulge that magazines are used as decorative accessories in our home, not reading material; they litter every tabletop. It’s true. Maybe some of you can relate; it’s the fear of missing something interesting or useful that has me in a subscription renewal death-grip.
Magazines are as tempting to me as chocolate is to a chocoholic. Walking by airport and bookstore newsstands is not an option; pretty, glossy, photo-shopped pictures, and catchy headlines, have me dropping $6 on the counter lest my brow breaks into an embarrassing cold sweat. Grocery store checkout lines are even less of an option; impulse, magazine-buyer marketing works on me. If a subscription lapses I find myself buying it, and adding it to the stack of un-read glossies on the beside table, or slipping it in my travel bag with several other, yet unopened, periodicals. Finding time to skim through the pages, much less read the articles, is where the ink meets the page; each issue I get further behind. Currently, Thanksgiving recipes from November 2011 and 2012 summer fashion tips have reached the top of the pile. I wish I were kidding.
As applied to my weakness for periodicals, there’s irony in the definition of magazine; it comprises both publication and storehouse of ammunition. The meaning also includes arsenal, which is further defined as storeroom, storehouse, repository, and stockpile. I’m just saying.