Kenneth Cunningham, Ph.D, LISW-S, LMSW, ACSW

 

                                       The Talking Cure!

 

People often question how talking helps but we all commonly know when we are in the company of someone who understands, listens and says something right to us; we feel better.

 

People are beings of experience and memory, and the need to talk, to be listened to and to be understood is fundamental to human functioning. We believe that adults impact children, why would we imagine these basic needs to be heard and understood leave us as we age? The talking cure takes its course as people learn to relax, talk honestly, reflect, develop introspect, and situate life, sometimes making new decisions, re-defining the self and finding the way through troubling things.  

 

People enact what is real with a therapist.  The enlivening of what is real with a trained observer helps correct that which is problematic.  Most people enter therapy saying aloud, "I don't know what is the matter with me." "I don't know what to say." The more relaxation that occurs, the more self direction and awareness take place, and as the therapist understands, the "talking cure" occurs. 

 

Some believe that people find a new or different way as people hear themselves talk aloud.  Acceptance often follows, a quiet, silent turn. Clients arrive at the ability to accept, and say, "okay" to circumstances that were not so easy to accept. Sometimes a new direction covers over the old, although not forgotten.  Sometimes life change is inevitable.

 

We all know when we are in the company of someone with whom we find understanding, comfort,  listening, humor and comradery, and the "talking cure" takes its course.  Keep with it, and it works.

 

Dr. Cunningham has been trained by some of the finest clinicians available in Southeastern Michigan and Chicago in individual and family therapies, cogitive behavioral therapy, child play therapy, family therapy, group therapy, and other modalities of treatment for children and adults.  His generalist history continues from 1983 to the present, as he continues to see adults and children, couples, families and groups. He has worked in clinics and has significant knowledge of mental health medications. His trainings took place at the University of Michigan, The Institute For Clinical Social Work and The University of Chicago and beyond.  His naturally, dynamic style leads to the enactment of "relationship therapy" based theory and assessment, combined with many years of mentoring by other refined therapists, and having treated thousands of people.

 

Dr. Cunningham is licensed in Michigan since 1983 and in Ohio since 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

Acceptance is the silent turn in the self, in which people collide with truth and learn to say "okay."