I was renewing my membership at the ADD Resources website.  Afterward I decided to check out those nifty podcasts in their Members Only section that they keep mentioning in their newsletter emails.  Podcasts of all of the cool speakers that I keep missing because I haven’t figured out how to be in two (or three or four) places at once.  So there’s this really great long list of podcasts, sooo long that I have a hard time deciding which one I want to check out first, but for some reason, as I click on the titles one by one, I can get descriptions of the speaker and the talk, but the illusory podcasts seem to prevail and I can only guess that since I have just paid online for my renewal within minutes, maybe my access is limited until the bank opens on Monday morning.  While I’m reading the description of a podcast, I see an interesting website, GiftOfGabConversation.com and BEHOLD! I have stumbled on to a GREAT FIND!  And I’m anxious to share this with those of you who might be interested in learning more about working with ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome. 

Karen L. Roe writes the Gift of Gab website to address the needs of people who experience ADHD and AS.  Karen states she got her undergraduate degree at UW, then went on to take extensive Coaching Training at Coach University, specializing in ADHD Coaching.   Karen’s experience includes having a son with AS, being a past-Board member of the Autism Society of Washington, and she has founded and leads an AS support group which is also open to parents, educators and professionals. 

You know, for quite a while, many professionals would have said that ADHD could not occur in conjunction with Asperger’s Syndrome.  I suspected something like that was happening in a young client in 2006 and was delighted to go to the ADD Resources Parents of Children with ADHD Support Group that meets on Mercer Island; and to hear a couple parents introduce themselves as parents of children diagnosed with ADD and Asperger’s Syndrome.  Finally it is being recognized that these two can co-occur!  It’s out in the open and that is good news for some parents who have been pulling their hair out and unable to figure out how to help their children.  As these conditions become recognized and acknowledged, then people start finding strategies to better work with and help their children, and THAT IS exciting!

 You’ll find information about Karen Roe’s AS Support Group that meets in Greenwood at her website.  The “schedule” link takes you to a list of the fine speakers that have or will be speaking there.  I’m looking forward to the August meeting when Lindsey Sterling and Jen Varley of the UW Autism Center will be discussing current research.  I hope that I’ll see some of YOU there!

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Exciting news!

Now you can come to New Hope Counseling and Services in the Bellevue area at a new location!  Since the last building was scheduled for demolition to make room for upcoming improvements by the D.O.T., I am pleased to announce the new address:

In Forest Office Park

14535 Bell-Red Rd. Bldg B.Suite 202

Bellevue 98007

This is a delightful wooded park-like setting, centrally located off of 148th Ave. NE and easy to find.  The building is fresh and inviting, and filled with charm.  Parking is fair and looks like it could be a challenge on a busy day.  

I’m including a link for Mapquest showing the new location.

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I have GREAT NEWS! 

The PowerPoint presentation titled “How To Help Our Kids Get on the Right Track With Communication and Social Skills” given at the Issaquah Middle School Seminar is now available online.  (Just click the title above, and another box will open up with the presentation.) 

I’m so glad because I’ve included so much information that I frequently give in parenting classes and counseling sessions that often gets forgotten quickly because there is SO MUCH TO LEARN! 

It’s hard to change our style of relating when there is so much to remember. 

This is the nuts and bolts information that offers alternatives to reacting and opens up opportunities for connection, modeling, and developing skills for you with anyone.  With the open-ended questions, we can help others with processing difficult situations and feelings, or help with learning from their mistakes.  (Mistakes are SUCH GREAT opportunities to LEARN!)  And we can model respectful communication instead of reinforcing with our behavior the very behaviors that we want others to stop doing.  We can foster deeper relationships which is the greatest protection we can give against promiscuous sex, addictions, and the rise of crime.  (A blog about connecting and the positive effects on self-esteem will follow on another day.)

By contributing to our little community, which could be our family or our workplace or our team, we help others find the importance of communication (connecting), of working together (cooperation), of being open to trying new ideas or focusing on solutions instead of problems (creativity), and of giving to benefit others (contributing), and this is a GREAT way to counteract our culture of self-centeredness (propelled by low self-esteem) which leads to unhealthy competitiveness and materialism (and probably many other negative outcomes.)

One might think – what is so special about THIS information? 

But these very basic principles are applied by communicators throughout many different settings, from homes, to schools, to the workplace, and even in the efforts toward global reconciliation.  These simple-appearing skills have phenomenal possibilities.

So take a look at that PowerPoint presentation and please feel free to let me know what you think of it.  You can email me at skosh@skosh.org or leave a comment below.  I’ll look forward to hearing from you!  And thanks for coming to Hard Wired!

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I love to go to YouTube.com.  There are so many interesting videos there, I suppose as many different types as there are movies and people in the world.  I go there from time to time to look up videos about different techniques and theories used in counseling.  I actually uploaded a video there myself.  (NO! I’M NOT IN IT!)

I’ve looked up E.M.D.R. (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), E.F.T. (Emotional Freedom Technique), Play Therapy, and Adlerian Psychology (that is where the video I created can be found.)

I was looking up Play Therapy and watched a video of a child with cancer doing hand motions to music.  It makes us rethink our messy houses from healthy children running around.  I found a number of other videos about cancer; informative and embracing.

Sometimes I just go there for a chuckle, to lighten my day.  It’s another avenue of technology to find new ideas, information, and even amusement.  I hope that you get a chance to go to YouTube.com and check out some of the wild and warming videos there.  Thanks for coming along today at Hard Wired!

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Hard Wired!

Here we are, welcome to the New Hope Blog, Hard Wired, with wit and wisdom from none other than Skosh Jacobsen, therapist by day, researcher by night, always perusing the planet for nifty news and views to enrich the culture.

I was hoping to set this up so that when you click on the link and the blog page opens, you would smell a delicious pot of Mountain Hope Coffee brewing in the background and hear Pacalbel’s Canon in D playing, but I’m setting this up all by myself and I haven’t been able to figure out how to add all of those features – yet.. (Give me some time…)

Why a blog?

I want to contribute to the wealth of information out there in the electronic world. I want to give “Counseling” a face – in hopes that people who are unfamiliar with professional care providers’ services can get a small flavor of what they might be getting in to, that maybe this could take away some of the stigma, and unpack some of the possibilities to open up a way for – – New Hope.

Something new has been added?

So let me start with introducing the new features that you’ll find on the newly remodeled New Hope Counseling and Services Website (which you can now access easier with skosh.org.) First of all, if you’ve ever been here before, you’ll notice right away that the old self-published (lame, yes admit it, they were LAME) web pages created by none other than “Moi” are gone [whoops, mostly gone!] (Oh let us REJOICE!) They never did fit the screen and the tile effect was just not something to brag about.

There’s a story about that –

You know, when I created the original website, I liked the idea of font over photo and picked some lovely scenery that I or someone near me had photographed…I wondered what that layout reminded me of, and one day, when I was up in the balcony at church singing, I looked down at the small square projector screen hanging at the front of the sanctuary with the song lyrics and BEHOLD! — it looked remarkably like a monitor screen with a webpage, MY WEBPAGE! and I realized it was the EXACT layout of my web pages! (So much for novelty!) Dancing Ant Designs

A wonderful web designer at Dancing Ant Designs has created a whole new look, utilizing the provocative penguin photo as the logo, which I purchased from a French photographer over the internet. I have to give my Number One Son credit for that! He knew I liked penguins and found the picture years ago, and I spent years locating that French photographer and cutting a deal. You’ll notice numerous penguin and other Arctic photos from time to time at the website, and those are the artwork of Guillaume Dargaud (www.gdargaud.net/). (Isn’t the internet amazing!)

Speaking of the Internet

That brings me to another exciting part of this web blog – - I read a lot, listen a lot and am learning all of the time, so often I will be writing about news in research or interesting subjects having to do with Psychology in our world today, or anything else that might be interesting to share with the blog-reading world that might have something to do with enriching one’s livelihood, embedded with links to the resources as much as possible in upcoming blog articles. I may throw in a movie review or music lyrics, or a poem, if I think it is meaningful in a way that helps others to look at life-learning.

On the new home page

On the new homepage, you’ll find a link to upcoming events, speaking engagements and parenting classes. Sorry, but I’m not planning any cruises to Baja or anything like that (leastwise, not for now). There is now a link from the home page to a web page that announces the insurance companies which are being added, or that may be in process to become effective in the near future. Paneling with insurance companies can take two to three months and updating web pages takes some time, so feel free to call if you need to know about progress on an insurance company that you don’t see.

Things to come –

A new feature at the website will be a photo page for those who are interested, so that you can see where you will be going and know a little bit more of what you can expect when you get to the counseling office. And those of you who have been there before will be able to catch up on the waiting room remodel – many of you have been so encouraging while we stepped around open beams, leaning door casings and stacks of moulding and complimented the construction as my husband worked his day job and then went and worked until all hours of the night to take the BIG room of the Marysville Office and create a waiting room that allows for confidentiality as you enter and leave. What a guy!

Soon and very soon -

Soon to be added will be an FYI/FAQ page to help sort out some of the ideas about coming to counseling.

Available now – Client Comments Page

And another item you can peruse if it interests you is a page with “true confessions” of satisfied clients. I have been fortunate to have a few delighted patrons who have written a little bit about what has been useful for them while coming to counseling.

Through it all

It is my greatest hope that you will find a place to share with others what has been meaningful for you, and that you might find resources that will bring you New Hope.

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