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Judith Acosta

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Judith Acosta is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and speaker. She is also a classical homeopath based in New Mexico.

She is the author of The Next Osama (2010), co-author of The Worst is Over (2002), the newly released Verbal First Aid (Penguin, 2010) and the author of numerous articles on mental health and cultural issues. She specializes in the treatment of trauma, anxiety, and grief, working with people all over the country.

She has her practice in New Mexico with her canine therapeutic assistants. She has worked with trauma, anxiety and fear in patients for twenty five years. She has watched it, felt it, wrote about it, and helped heal people from it. As a result, she has learned a few things about fear, particularly that growing epidemic she calls VIRAL FEAR.

OpEd News Member for 906 week(s) and 6 day(s)

49 Articles, 0 Quick Links, 84 Comments, 0 Diaries, 0 Polls

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Wake Up America, From ImagesAttr
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Scandals and Sociopaths: The Psychology of American Politics Another scandal, another reason for mudslinging. Another tragedy, another opportunity for sociopaths. America is being waylaid once again by sociopaths and narcissists -- not just on the interpersonal level, but on the one that affects us all, the political one.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 9, 2009
I Fear, Therefore I Buy: A New American Economy What we buy may reflect what we fear as much as, if not more than what we think we want. This article describes how marketers seize the day by seizing consumers in the limbic system.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 25, 2009
PRIMUN NON NOCERE: First Do No Harm Primun non nocere is still the sacred promise of every medical school graduate as he or she accepts the diploma, the title and the rank of healer in our culture. However, in a world of unreasonable speed, in which new discoveries and new pharmaceuticals are measured in seconds, not years, it may be more than doctors can promise us. This article looks at the imminent risks in vaccination and failure of the AMA to do no harm.
(24 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 20, 2011
"What Am I Supposed to Do?" The Case for Self-Sufficiency Made Personal On Feb. 3, 2011, New Mexico ran out of gas. This was the last thing I would have imagined...but it led to a decision that will probably change my family's life forever.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Why Are We Still Trying to Conquer Nature? With all the understanding and data we have presumably gathered over the years about the incredible complexity of life, we still don't seem to have a grasp on our place in it.
(17 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Parents as Authorities? Why are parents so reluctant to be parents? What has happened in our culture and in our families that we are more worried about whether our kids like us than whether we properly prepare them for a life that is almost always challenging and sometimes damned unfair.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, July 6, 2010
"Kid Whispering": Keeping Your Kids Safe With Verbal First Aidâ„¢ By engaging the child's mind in the process of healing, we are teaching him how to heal himself, what his own body is capable of, how his thoughts, the pictures in his mind, and his expectations have a profound impact on how he feels and how he heals.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 17, 2009
The Objects of Our Devotion: Spiritual-Need Marketing When did Americans go from a devotion to God to a devotion to things? In advertising circles, which is essentially the crank shaft of our economy, it is a truism that the American is a demanding consumer. "Give us what we want," is the credo. But it appears that what they want is a product. We have gone from one nation under God to one nation under Wal-Mart.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Verbal First Aid and Attachment in Children Verbal First Aid could not be more important when we are speaking to the developing mind of a child. It Is not only helpful in calming a child after or even during a crisis, but it gives growing children the resources they need to develop into
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Verbal First Aid in the Face of The Unspeakable I have been teaching Verbal First Aid principles to lay and professional audiences since 1994. And somehow it always comes down to this. At some point during the talk, a hand slowly raises and the question--in one form or another-- is asked: What do you say when a parent loses a kid? What do you say when it seems like there's nothing you CAN say?
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 26, 2010
A New Tool for Risk Management in the Workplace: Verbal First Aidâ„¢ It has been repeatedly documented that the earlier the intervention, the more likely a positive outcome. When a person at work experiences a traumatic event, the quicker we address the fallout from that experience, the better that person will respond. What that means in business terms is a quicker return to work, less rancor, better productivity, and less litigation
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 1, 2009
Chicken Tenders and the Decline of American Civilization There are many who would say that somewhere in the 70's and 80's a trend that has undermined the natural order of family structure began and has continued unabated. This is not a commentary on who composes a family, but of who runs it—the child or the parent.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Making the Case for a Real Cure: The Power of Homeopathy We are a culture of consumption and compression. We want more, we move fast and we’ll push things out of our way to get it. In this social and emotional environment, acute disease is damned inconvenient. Classical Homeopathy not only deals with disease differently, it offers us an approach that is counter-cultural, truly healing when conducted by a skilled practitioner, and inexpensive.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 15, 2010
Modern Medicine: Healing or Stealing? In one of my talks on Verbal First Aid, I make a point of bringing up the stethoscope as one of the inventions that truly changed medicine and the art of healing. Because where once the physician had to lay his or her ear on the patient's chest to hear the heart beating, now there was over a foot of distance between them. In our zealousness and fear, we have substituted machines for people, insurance forms and money for joy, a
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Giving Your Child Real, Life-long Survival Skills: Verbal First Aid According to military advisors, survival is a matter of thinking. It's not just a positive "attitude." It's precisely what we say to ourselves that can make the difference between health and illness, life and death. This is part one of a two-part series on the therapeutic potential of words.
Safe Babies and Verbal First Aid, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Giving Your Child Real, Life-long Survival Skills: Verbal First Aid Part 2 in the series from 7/12/10: Children develop working models of the world in their minds as they develop. This starts at birth. Emotional memories and experiences are formed into templates and stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. These templates then begin to form impressions of the world that determine how we respond to any given situation.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 6, 2009
Just Another Kid Losing It With a Gun—PART II What makes a baby murder his parent? Nearly every child born comes into existence with an instinctive dependence on his parents.It may not be “love” as adults come to know it, but it is emotional Gorilla Glue. I see it as the most unconditional and purest of loves.We are their survival. They NEED us. What on earth could destroy that most natural of bonds?
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, August 24, 2009
Letters on Forgiveness Can we forgive someone who doesn't deserve or even ask for it? Why should we? Perhaps to save ourselves... A very brief article based on the debate of two friends who have agreed to disagree.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, December 7, 2009
American Pathology Once again, I thought, Americans have been driven by the media right into a tree. But I might have thought too quickly. It may in fact be more symbiotic than I imagined and it horrified me to consider how much we might be driving the media. But I had to consider the possibility that it was in fact true.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, October 28, 2009
“Stop Shopping and Start Thinking”: The Writing on the Wall and Viral Fear Graffiti found in NY: Stop shopping and start thinking! This is particularly interesting since we are now approaching the season to shop and shop and shop and shop. It also made me wonder what he was suggesting we actually think about. And perhaps more importantly, what we were doing instead of thinking.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Stimulate This. What is occurring with our CEO's, the self-indulgence, the entitlement, and magical thinking (which in their cases has paid off handsomely) is also occurring at every level of society—from the states to the local governments to individuals.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, September 8, 2009
WHO's Not So Serious About Swine, So Why Are We? Despite statements by WHO that the epidemic is not as serious as they feared, Viral Fear is still spreading. Why?
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 4, 2009
The New Cold War: America v. America Hysteria and internments have a long history in America. But this time is the first time the enemy is us. Or rather, it's the germs that may be IN us. This is Viral Fear in its truest form.
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Life As A Reality Show If it is true that art reflects life, it must be equally as true that life reflects art. We are what we surround ourselves with and perhaps it surrounds us in the way it does because it is in fact a projection of our truest selves.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 11, 2007
The Right To Expect? The Demands & Disappointments of Infertility Do we have any "rights" when it comes to fertility? Have our expectations and ambitions gotten in the way?
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, November 5, 2009
Just Another Kid Losing it With A Gun – PART I On August 28th, a 10 year-old boy shot his 42 year-old father in Belen, a small, quiet town that lies just to the south of Albuquerque, NM. The man took one bullet to the head from a rifle around dinner time. This is not the first time a child has killed a parent or the first time lawyers, guns and money made it impossible to really understand what destroyed a young life.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 7, 2006
A Manner of Speaking: Words That Heal, Words That Harm Sticks and stones CAN break your bones and so can WORDS. See how.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, August 3, 2009
How Much Information Do Kids Really Need? A commentary on the disordered state of the American Family and a couple of simple suggestions for getting it back on track.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 14, 2006
The New Language of Medicine The principles of Verbal First Aid can help heal and save lives. Learn what to say when you need words the most.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 21, 2009
There is No Help. Why, in a country surrounded by helpers, do we feel so helpless and hopeless?
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Insane Pursuit of Happiness Since Newton, we've come to believe that life--and happiness--follow an orderly and predictable path. It doesn't. Nor can we reasonably pursue it. What are we to do?
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 11, 2009
Thoughts On My Way To Ground Zero: A Memoir from the Days After 9/11. I wrote this almost 8 years ago shortly after the attack on the Twin Towers, but the events are as fresh as ever. I offer it in honor of the bravest men and women I have ever worked with.
From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 19, 2009
ANGIE: A Teacher in Life and Death In this piece, the author shares her thoughts on the death of her dog and the platitudes that provide little comfort in the face of absolute Mystery.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Redeemed Kennedy? With the scandals, the expulsions and the media circuses behind him, Teddy seemed to have remade himself as an idealistic, serious, passionate campaigner for the downtrodden. And he did his homework. He fought tirelessly for civil rights, for the disabled, for health care, and voting reform. His legislative history and his constancy to the cause truly speak for themselves. My question, however: Is that Rede
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Danger Inside: Denial Security has become America's largest and fastest growing new industry. But staying safe is more than a matter of locks, keys and surveillance systems. It's a matter of trust in our good judgment, our instincts, and our powers of observation, which for many is a poorly developed resource.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 7, 2009
Words Are Medicine: The Legacy of A True Physician and A Healing Between Father and Daughter Despite 40 years of debate and disagreement, a physician and his homeopath daughter have more in common than they thought as they rally around a dying pet.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 9, 2009
Shall We Trance? The common--though incorrect--perception is that hypnotherapists only put people INTO trance. But a vastly significant percentage of the work a good hypnotherapist does is help people OUT of the unhealthy trances they're in. Including the cultural delusions that plague Americans.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, August 3, 2009
Did Democracy Kill the Sabbath? Why do Americans work the way we do? What does that do to us? And how can we change it?
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 14, 2006
How To Know What You Know Do you listen to that small inner voice that tells you to turn right or turn left or stop and wait? Do you even hear it? This article teaches you how to be your own best mentor.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Viral Fear: The Disease of the American Soul There is a wonderful interpretation of mankind's fall from Eden by Scott Hahn. He asks the question so many of us forget to ask: While Eve was trying to fend off the serpent's temptations, where was Adam?
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 16, 2006
What Exactly Is An Enlightened Panic? And who are the people who justify viral fear by calling it an "enlightened panic?"
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 10, 2006
Viral Fear and The State of National Insecurity What makes media-induced fear so destructive? What makes us so susceptible?
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The Crumbling of theFourth Estate A Commentary on the Sad State of the News Media Commentary on the media
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 6, 2007
It Could Happen Tomorrow: Fear-Based Resolutions for a Happy New Year What's the point in making resolutions? What's the motivation? Are you better off with them or without them?
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 15, 2006
Dancing with Dogs: The Necessary Art of Leading What working with dogs has taught me about working with just about everything else.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 6, 2007
Viral Fear: The Disease of the American Soul What is the price we pay for being fearful -- mentally, emotionally, and physically? What has it done to the American spirit?
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, December 18, 2006
And What Exactly Is An Enlightened Panic? Can faith and fear exist in the same space? Can we be paralyzed by viral fear and still act to protect ourselves?

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