Psychotherapist's Journal - Thoughts and Tools to Inspire Wellness in Mind and Body - by Karen Gorrin

Now Accepting Premera Blue Cross and LifeWise

Effective today, I am now an in-network preferred provider for Premera Blue Cross and LifeWise Healthplan of Washington.

Great news! I now bill directly to Premera and LifeWise insurance carriers, offering my psychotherapy clients an added convenience. In some cases, such as for Microsoft employees and their families with 100% in-network coverage, this also means no out-of-pocket expenses for most psychotherapy services. (Of course, please always contact your insurance carrier directly to verify your benefits and coverage amounts.)

For clients with other insurance plans, I will continue to provide detailed statements that can be used to request reimbursement for psychotherapy services. I will also continue to accept all major credit cards as an added convenience to clients with co-payments and others who choose self-pay or are without mental health coverage. Please contact me directly with your questions about these changes.

In the News: Compassion

Why do some people roll with life’s punches, facing failures and problems with grace, while others dwell on calamities, criticize themselves and exaggerate problems? This is the question asked in an article posted this week at physorg.com

I appreciated reading this article, which I found fascinating and very valuable to my work as a psychotherapist. The answer, according to recent research from Duke and Wake Forest Univeristies, may be our ability to self-soothe with compassion. Referred to as self-compassion, it is the ability we hold to be kind to ourselves, even when things are going badly.

In one of the first major studies of self-compassion, Duke and Wake Forest Universities published the results of their research in the May 2007 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In my psychotherapy practice I often encourage my clients who are experiencing distress to imagine compassion gently flowing over themselves. To feel a sense of compassion for the pain and dis-ease we are experiencing often helps to lessen the pain, and returns our attention to a still and calm place within ourselves.

“Life’s tough enough with little things that happen," says Mark R. Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke and lead author of the paper, which includes five peer-reviewed studies. "Self-compassion helps to eliminate a lot of the anger, depression and pain we experience when things go badly for us.”

The Buddhists have long understood the virtue of compassion for thousands of years. In fact, there is even an entire meditation tradition devoted to the practice of compassion and loving-kindness known in Pali as Metta. (I'll write more about this practice in an upcoming post.)

“American society has spent a great deal of time and effort trying to promote people’s self-esteem,” Leary said, “when a far more important ingredient of well-being may be self-compassion.”

Read more about this research at by clicking here.