Lianne Domingo is our stupendous Logistics Coordinator, making sure all of our facilities have their I’s dotted and their T’s crossed, and also well-stocked with everything we need. One of the things I adore about Lianne is her infectious personality and sense of humor. She can make the mundane fun and she brings light and laughter into everything she does, even if it’s simply loading the printer with paper. Throughout the years, Lianne has worn many hats at Visions, and as a result, she understands the deep inner workings of what makes us tick. She is the ultimate problem solver …

Roxie Fuller is a remarkable Mental Health Recovery Mentor who brings a sense of calm compassion and kindness to everyone she engages with. Roxie has the innate ability to carry a sense of serenity with her wherever she goes, regardless of circumstance. There’s something truly wonderful about Roxie: her quiet calm, the gleam in her eye, and her subtle, yet hilarious, sense of humor. Roxie is really a gem of a human being. We are grateful to have someone of this caliber as part of the Visions team. The staff wholeheartedly agrees with me:   Roxie is the sweetest old …

Dr. Omar Manejwala is a an addiction psychiatrist, SVP/CMO at Catasys, former Hazeldon Medical Director and the author of the new book Craving: Why We Can’t Seem to Get Enough. He is an addiction expert, with a strong background in psychiatry and addiction medicine, making him a remarkable resource for mental health professionals. In Craving, Dr. Manejwala digs deeply into the phenomenon of craving and provides real insight into what makes the addictive mind tick in a way that is accessible to everyone from the layperson to the mental-health practitioner.   Craving is that biting sensation in the mind and body, …

Aleksandra Petrovic, LMSW, is a trauma specialist, coming to Visions via New York where she worked with underprivileged children and their families. Aleksandra’s work led her to a hospital outpatient program for dual-diagnosed adolescents, which used DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) as their primary modality of treatment. Continuing to help underprivileged youth, Aleksandra went on to work at a state-run adolescent recovery center with children ages 5-16 who had been shuffled through the foster care system until they could no longer be placed due to their behavior. Aleksandra earned her B.A at Columbia University, double majoring in psychology and French literature, …

When we come to recovery, one of the toughest realizations is the discovery of family dysfunction and the work it takes to heal those relationships. Sometimes when we heal, our families don’t heal with us. Being the addict or alcoholic or person suffering from mental illness typically makes us the focal point within the dysfunctional family. So when the healing process begins, it’s not uncommon for a family to try and divert their loved one back to their old behaviors or at least to their old emotional responses. It is what’s familiar, after all. It’s what allows the family to …

Addiction and mental health are deeply woven into the fabric of our culture. Rather than stigmatizing those suffering from the confines of their minds and addictions of their bodies, it’s clear we need to provide wider ranges of treatment for recovery. Over the Visions has broadened our treatment base, continued to step away from the prohibitive nature of limited thinking, and are continuing to encompass the whole person in treatment. I just read an article that talked about the use of antiquated treatment methods circa 1950, and I was pleasantly reminded of how forward we are in our treatment programs. …

A while back, I wrote about a child of 8 years old who was showing early signs of disordered eating behaviors. As noted at that time, the behavior was fueled by a father with his own poor relationship around food and a mother who is also victimized by his negative body and food talk. I’ve watching this child over the last year, hoping I was wrong, but knowing more and more that the signs I was seeing were none other than an eating disorder being nurtured and fed by self-hatred, stress, and a negative environment. Her organization of food has …

Recently I was asked, “What’s the difference between forgiveness and compassion?” Unearthed from a discussion about childhood trauma, recovery, and parents, the discussion had evolved to spirituality and Buddhist practice and the ways in which we can make space for the trauma and hurt of our pasts. There is an answer, of course, but I often find that questions such as these are best answered via experiential stories. Both forgiveness and compassion require that we practice some level of self-acceptance; in order to be forgiving or able to show compassion to others, we have to be able to provide ourselves …

It’s the end of the year, and for recovering addicts, alcoholics, and those suffering from mental health issues, it can be a frightening time. We place on onslaught of expectations on others and ourselves as we seek perfection and immediate change via resolutions and hyped up promised to ourselves. In many ways, this can be a set up for failure, especially for the addict/alcoholic who has to do everythingallatonce. You know, who else wants to join a gym and work out every day for 3 hours with a trainer 7 days a week while also giving up meat and going …

New trauma and despair is front and center in the US as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting unveiled the deaths of 20 children and 6 adults. The death of children is always shocking. The innocence and futures lost are rapidly exonerated from our grasp, leaving us breathless and frozen in grief. Families will begin to face the emptiness of their loss and the depth of their grief as the days continue. Additionally, the survivors, both children and adults, will potentially suffer from PTSD as a result of seeing and surviving such horrors. There will be deep sadness, depression, and …