mark schenker phd

Mark D Schenker

Psychologist , phd.

My Practice at a Glance

Mark Schenker, Ph.D.

549 Beale Road

Blue Bell, PA 19422

• Individual Sessions $200
• Sliding scale: apply if you may be eligible
• Pay by Cash, Check
• Out of Network

Qualifications

• Verified by Psychology Today Licensed by State of Pennsylvania / PS3958-L Mark D Schenker
• In Practice for 42 Years
• Membership with Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists Board of Directors, Member At Large
• Certificate from Family and Couples Psychotherapy Harry Aponte, ACSW / 1984
• Attended Temple University , Ph.D. Clinical Psychology , Graduated 1985

Specialties and Expertise

Top specialties.

• Personality Disorders
• Substance Use

Endorsement

Client Focus

Participants, treatment approach, types of therapy.

• Experiential Therapy
• Family / Marital
• Interpersonal
• Psychodynamic
• Recovery-oriented

Primary Location

Nearby areas.

• Blue Bell, PA
• Philadelphia, PA
• Philadelphia

Neighborhoods

• City Center West
• Logan Square

Schenker, Mark PhD

I am a licensed psychologist with 35 years of experience. My special expertise is working with people struggling with substance use problems, as well as family members of those with substance use disorders. I have an open-minded approach and see many options to dealing with these problems. I provide a motivational approach, and avoid confrontational tactics in working with people.

I hold a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Temple University and have had post-graduate training in Family/Marital Therapy. I've maintained a private practice in psychology and addiction psychology since 1982 when I first because licensed. I have published in the field of psychology and addiction treatment, including "A Clinician's Guide To 12-Step Recovery" and a chapter on Addiction Treatment Settings, in the "APA Handbook of Clinical Psychology". I have served as Clinical Director of several local programs, have taught at the undergraduate and graduate level, and have trained professionals nationally and internationally. I received the 2017 "Addiction Professional" Award from Caron Treatment Center, and have served on the Board of the Society of Addiction Psychology.

Mind Diagnostics is user-supported. If you buy through a link on the site, we earn a commission from BetterHelp at no cost to you. Learn More

Psychologist, PhD Mark D Schenker

Philadelphia , pa.

Mark D Schenker is an experienced, licensed Mental Health Professional based in Philadelphia, PA. Conveniently located, Mark specializes in addiction, depression, and personality disorders. Contact them today to overcome the challenges you are facing.

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Dr. Mark D Schenker

Ph.d. | clinical psychologist.

• Psychology Clinics
• Neurologists
• Neurology Clinics
• Psychiatrists
• Psychiatry Clinics

Active Pause

The Proactive Twelve Steps book

This highly-praised book outlines how you can take a proactive approach to life, gradually stepping up from feeling stuck and powerless to enjoying a balanced and happy life. It offers a new take on the original Twelve Steps. It describes the steps as a mindful program instead of a mystical experience in which change somehow happens to you.

This book reflects a deep understanding of behavior change, codependency, stress, and trauma. It presents a clear roadmap for self-compassion and mindful self-discovery. It provides specific step-by-step instructions and a broader context that helps readers make sense of the healing process.

In short, this book is “a user-friendly guide to the application of mindfulness in everyday life” .

See bottom of the page to buy this book online .

Praise for this book (in alphabetical order)

This innovative revisioning of the Twelve Steps program gives the reader a practical, time-proven structure for making important life changes.  Prengel’s extensive clinical experience is reflected in his compassionate voice and the clarity of his guidance.

Judith Blackstone, PhD , Author, Trauma and the Unbound Body and Belonging Here

11 years ago, I decided to get sober, and as I am not a religious person, I could not get to grips with the AA 12 steps or the big book, and it was your version of the 12 steps (proactive 12 steps) that saved me. Thank you for my new life.

Miss Emma Marnie Burchill

In this book Serge Prengel not only harnesses the power of a traditional 12-step model but offers a broader non-religious prescriptive path for healing and change that goes beyond addressing addictive behaviors. It offers an in-depth perspective and specific instruction.

Eva Gold, PsyD , Author,  Buddhist Psychology and Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Psychotherapy for the 21st Century

This clear and well-written book presents a road to recovery in more modern, process-based terms that is, on the one hand, deeply resonant with 12-step traditions and, on the other, a fresh and uplifting reworking of the 12-step model.

Steven C. Hayes, PhD , Co-developer of  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Compassionate and supportive, this new approach offers mindful ways to disentangle ourselves from our addictive patterns without shame or judgment. The Proactive Twelve Steps are a welcome gift to the world of recovery, offering healing to the body/mind/soul wounds that occur with addictive processes.

Suzanne Noel , Founder, Recovery Focusing

This book invites both self-compassion and a deep dive into conversation with the self around the experiences of addiction, recovery, relapse, and healing, opening the door to including current understanding of the impact of stress and trauma on all of us as we struggle with being human.

Sarah Peyton , Author,  Your Resonant Self: Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing

Serge Prengel reframes the 12-step model into an efficient manual for self-initiated change. The model brilliantly and succinctly provides a map to disentangle the individual from the pervasive constraints that have resulted in self-destructive behaviors, which have limited opportunities to enjoy life and to experience feelings of purpose and satisfaction.

Stephen W. Porges, PhD , Distinguished University Scientist, Kinsey Institute, Indiana University Bloomington

This book is a meaningful roadmap for the recovery process, not just for those recovering from addictions but for all of us mortals.

Mark Schenker, PhD , Author, A Clinician’s Guide to 12-Step Recovery

The Proactive Twelve Steps  is a user-friendly guide to the application of mindfulness in everyday life.

Marjorie Schuman, PhD , Author, Inquiring Deeply: Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

I highly recommend this book to people in recovery as well as to anyone wishing to make proactive improvements in their lives.

Inge Sengelmann, LCSW, SEP, RYT , Author , It’s Time to EAT: Embody, Awaken & Transform our Relationship with Food, Body & Self

You cannot live your best life unless you embrace your fears and vulnerabilities. The Proactive Twelve Steps show you how to do just that.

Kristen Ulmer , Author, The Art of Fear

Prengel’s objective is to take the powerful 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous and translate them into an accessible and secular-friendly program for change of all kinds. I was particularly moved by his descriptions of the healing power of community and compassionate listening.

Jeff Warren , Co-author, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics

Serge Prengel’s book offers a much-needed update of the Twelve Step tradition in addiction treatment. For those who are struggling with the limitations of the twelve steps this book can provide the best of an old tradition with a fresh, agnostic methodology.

Jan Winhall, MSW, FOT , Author,  Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model

Buy this book online

Mind Diagnostics is user-supported. If you buy through a link on the site, we earn a commission from BetterHelp at no cost to you. Learn More

Psychologist, PhD Mark D Schenker

Philadelphia , pa.

Mark D Schenker is an experienced, licensed Mental Health Professional based in Philadelphia, PA. Conveniently located, Mark specializes in addiction, depression, and personality disorders. Contact them today to overcome the challenges you are facing.

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• Career difficulties
• Bipolar disorder
• Coping with life changes
• Compassion fatigue

Cynthia Marcolina

• Cynthia can help you with: Stress

Dante Bruno

• Dante can help you with: Stress

Mark D. Schenker, PHD

Contact and address.

I am privileged to have collaborated on cases with my colleague Dr. Mark Schenker, a nationally known expert in treating addiction with over 30 years experience in both inpatient and residential settings. He combines best practice approaches in the treatment of addiction and mood disorders with a warm, compassionate approach that many patients have consistently benefited greatly from. Dr. Schenker genuinely cares about his patients and upholds the highest ethical standards in his practice and delivery of care. I highly recommend him to anyone seeking counseling support for addictions, mood disorders as well and any general life issues...

Mark Schenker is one of the few psychologists in the state of Pennsylvania with expertise in treating drug and alcohol addiction. His wealth of knowledge and clinical skills is matched only by his professionalism. More importantly though, he's very easy to talk to and has the type of down to earth style any prospective client would want in a therapeutic relationship addressing addiction. I have sent several people to his practice, myself treating addiction as a psychologist, and they have all been very happy with his services. I simply cannot recommend him highly enough to you!

Mark Schenker is an accomplished and thoughtful clinician and an expert at helping people resolve their problems with drug and alcohol abuse. He has worked as a licensed psychologist in the Philadelphia area for over 30 years with respect, caring and dedication. He believes in the power of collaborating with each individual to create a unique path to recovery. In addition to his clinical work he has trained professionals on a national and international level and has written widely on topics related to the treatment of addiction. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Society of Addiction Psychology. Dr. Schenker is a first-rate therapist and I'm happy to recommend him as a friend and colleague.

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‘I had to choose between my education and my safety’: How Yale’s Withdrawal and Readmission Policies Leave Students No Choice But To Stay.

"I had to choose between my education and my safety"

How yale's withdrawal and readmission policies leave students no choice but to stay..

Content warning: This article contains references to suicide and self-harm.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with a certified listener, call 1-800-273-8255.

Crisis Text Line is a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7 and confidential.

To talk with a counselor from Yale Mental Health and Counseling, schedule a session here . On-call counselors are available at any time: call (203) 432-0290. 

Students who are interested in taking a medical withdrawal should reach out to their residential college dean.

Additional resources are available in a guide compiled by the Yale College Council here .

As is explored in the following story, Yale’s systems for withdrawal and reinstatement are surrounded by misconceptions and confusion. For clarity, much of the policy for Yale College — which differs from policies across the University, is included at the bottom of this story.

Before the start of the spring semester in 2o21, Serena Riddle ’21 and her therapist were at an impasse. Riddle had been living with depression since her sophomore fall, and she wasn’t doing well. Her therapist voiced concerns about her wellbeing and laid out her options: do an intensive outpatient program, start medication or go to the hospital.

“She said that preferably, more than one of these things would need to be true,” Riddle recounted.

If she chose none, her therapist said she would hospitalize her involuntarily. So, Riddle looked into her options. Could she do the intensive outpatient program while being enrolled? Absolutely not — it is impossible to do both , she realized. What if she started new medication? Her therapist felt she was too unstable to gamble on the possibility of side effects. Several people recommended that she withdraw from school, but that didn’t seem like an option for financial reasons. Riddle decided to enroll and spend the first few days of the spring semester in the hospital, hoping that she would be okay afterward to power through her last semester at Yale. 

Had she known that she would later have to completely withdraw from the semester, and navigate the murky waters that would come with that decision, she may have chosen differently, she said.

Last semester, I spoke to six students about their experiences with Yale’s withdrawal policy and spent over two months retracing their steps, searching for answers to their lingering questions about what Yale’s policy actually is. Whether because of specific University policies, failure to communicate these policies to students or longstanding rumors, many feel they have no choice but to remain enrolled, even when it might not be in their best interest. As a reporter, I’m trained to find and sift through documents, to comprehend and explain them to people. Still, despite  hours spent on policy websites, calls and long email exchanges, I was constantly redirected and confused by the contradictory information I was finding. 

At one point I was attempting to determine whether students can receive financial assistance for funds spent on community college classes necessary for reinstatement — Riddle is still unsure if she can get reimbursed for the $1,200 she said she spent on Gateway Community College classes. 

But when I called the financial aid office to clarify their policy, the representative who answered the phone redirected me to the withdrawal policy website. She said that the financial aid office could not answer questions about how students would be billed in case of a withdrawal or if their aid would cover those bills. According to her, that is a question that would involve contacting the registrar’s office, bursar’s office, Yale hospitality and a student’s residential college dean. When asked how a student could find out what specifically would happen with their financial aid if they withdrew, she said, “you wouldn’t know that until you withdraw.” When I sought to clarify further, she hung up on me. Alexander Muro, the associate director of financial aid, declined to comment about the lack of information. 

The hoops I jumped through seeking information about Yale’s policies are just one element of the issue, though. Because once someone does come to understand the policies, they are often more intimidated. 

A 2018 paper for the Ruderman Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on disability advocacy and inclusion, graded schools’ leave of absence policies with the help of national college mental health experts. No school received above a D+, and Yale received an F, which was one of the worst grades in the report.

(Isaac Yu, Production & Design Editor)

“This is a problem that’s plaguing higher education in general,” explained Miriam Heyman, one of the coauthors of the paper and senior research associate at Brandeis University’s Lurie Institute for Disability Policy. Heyman and her coauthor concentrated on the Ivy League hoping that as leaders in higher education, if they started making strides on this issue, other institutions would follow.

Taking a break from Yale

At Yale, students can take time off in two ways: through a leave of absence or withdrawal. Students “in academic good standing” can petition to take a leave of absence for any reason on or before the fifteenth day of each semester. According to the Yale College Programs of Study , students who opt for a leave of absence may return at the beginning of the next semester without further application and have the right to stay on the Yale Health Plan during their time away. But after the 15th day of each semester, students who need to take time off must withdraw, and they’re permitted to do so for disciplinary, financial, personal, medical or academic reasons.

As soon as the withdrawal is in effect, students have 72 hours to move out and are barred from reentering campus during their time away unless they have explicit permission from their residential college dean. According to the Programs of Study , students are required to remain away for at least one semester, not including the semester during which they withdrew. When a withdrawn student wishes to return, they are subject to a reinstatement process which involves taking two courses at another college or university as well as submitting an application, a personal statement, letters of support and a letter from a clinician in the case of medical withdrawal. They must also be interviewed by the Committee on Reinstatement.

A wide variety of unforeseen circumstances can leave students with less emotional or physical capacity to do the work needed to continue their studies. Death in one’s family, accidents, sexual misconduct/stalking, mental health symptoms and chronic illness diagnoses don’t operate on the academic calendar. For many students, the circumstances which make it hard for them to stay in school happen in the middle of the semester, so they can’t choose to take a leave of absence. These students have to navigate a complicated process to take time off.

Choosing between Yale and your life

“It totally freaked me out,” Griffin Wilson ’24 said of the reinstatement process. As an international student from Canada, he worried that he wouldn’t make the grades he needed during his time away to be reinstated. Grades of B or higher are required for reinstatement.

“I felt like I had to choose between my Yale education and my safety — my Yale education and my life,” Wilson said. After he was hospitalized following a panic attack, his father flew to New Haven to stay with him. At this point, he was severely depressed.

“I was self-harming and suicidal,” he said. “I felt like if I was going to keep going with school, then there was a good to fair chance that I would end up dead.” 

“ I felt like I had to choose between my Yale education and my safety — my Yale education and my life .”

But after looking into his options, he realized that he’d missed the leave of absence deadline, and he didn’t want to withdraw. On top of the reinstatement process, he would be required to remain away for an entire year, which was longer than he thought he needed. “I couldn’t do what was in my best interest without risking something that I had worked so hard for,” he recalled.

Last March, after a first-year student died by suicide, many students expressed grievances with Yale’s medical withdrawal policy. Students shared their fears about involuntary withdrawal and how that impacted the ways they sought treatment, the financial barriers created by Yale’s policies, their worries about not being able to return and their experiences of having their reinstatement applications denied.

Melanie Boyd, dean of student affairs, declined to comment for this article, but she wrote in an email to the News last semester that involuntary withdrawals are “exceedingly rare.”

“ Stepping away from college to focus on mental health is the right decision more often than not, even if it may not seem so at the time,” Risa Sodi, assistant dean of academic affairs and chair of the Committee of Reinstatement, wrote in an email to me. “Yale College wants all withdrawn students to return to Yale when they are ready.”

But students can only return from withdrawal once. Yale’s policy stipulates that “A student is eligible to be reinstated only once; a second reinstatement may be considered only under unusual circumstances, ordinarily of a medical nature.”

Authors of the Ruderman Foundation’s white paper criticized minimum leave time policies and the capped number of withdrawals and reinstatement. “Trajectories of mental illness vary from one person to the next,” said Heyman, the paper’s co-author. Many students, she said, “get their sense of identity and purpose from being students. If that’s taken away, then it will take away a guiding structure in how you see yourself…. Any sort of finite number of three leaves or three months is completely arbitrary. And it’s counter to what we know about the individualized trajectory of mental illness.”

Tweaks but not comprehensive reform

Yale College Dean Marvin Chun oversees withdrawal policy. He isn’t directly involved with setting reinstatement policy, but major policy changes for both withdrawal and reinstatement are only made with the help of college-wide input in the form of a committee appointed by the dean.

When asked if there were any inconsistencies or problems he saw with the current policy, Chun said that he worries that “there’s this perception out there that withdrawal is scary and that reinstatement is scary, and I think students feel discouraged from taking a withdrawal because of these perceptions.”  Chun asserted that over 90 percent of students who apply for reinstatement are reinstated. I was unable to independently verify this statistic, but in an email, Sodi put the figure at approximately 80-90 percent. 

“I’m very willing to keep thinking about improving our policy so that students don’t feel that,” Chun continued. 

In his time as Dean, Chun has never made major changes to withdrawal policy — though there were some tweaks due to COVID-19 — nor appointed a committee to review the current policies.

The last committee formed to review the policy was appointed by Jonathan Holloway, Chun’s predecessor, in the fall of 2014. After meeting 11 times, the committee produced a 4,300-word report with recommendations to clarify and refine the process, including changing the name of the “readmittance process” to the “reinstatement process” to clarify that temporarily withdrawing does not nullify one’s initial acceptance. 

But the committee didn’t address the root of current student complaints. For example, the committee proposed “a clarification of the time such students have to leave campus, which is no more than 72 hours” but didn’t address the more fundamental requirement that gives students three days to pack, move out, arrange travel — in some cases internationally — and leave.

When asked for the reasoning behind this 72 hour policy, Mark Schenker, dean of academic affairs and member of the committee, declined to comment. 

“I don’t think we would extend the time,” said Chun. “It’s just good to have deadlines, so that students can know what to expect, and so that we know what to expect.” Extending the time, Chun said, “just drags on the move out process.”

According to a 2018 article about Yale’s reinstatement policies, Holloway endorsed all the 2015 recommendations, which means they could be enacted as policy, but while some changes were put in place immediately, others are still to be implemented. For example, the committee recommended that withdrawn students be given the right to petition for the use of the University library. But in 2021, this is still absent from the withdrawal policy website. The committee also recommended that all materials for the reinstatement application be made available on the Yale College website. As of January 2022, the application form is only available upon email request. 

When asked about further implementation of the now six-year-old recommendations, Chun pointed to the progress that had already been made. In response to the committee’s findings, Yale College extended the last day to take a leave of absence from ten to 15 days, eliminated the $50 reinstatement application fee, offered a teleconference option for reinstatement interviews (which students previously had to fly to New Haven for), and altered the role of the residential college deans in the reinstatement process. He said, “If there were to be further changes to be made, I think we would appoint a new committee.”

The need for transparency

“Regardless of how fantastic or horrible things are on the ground, knowledge is power,” Heyman said. In response to the white paper, many administrators told her about specific support they have for students, like a point person who could answer questions about the withdrawal process. “If that stuff isn’t written out in a transparent way, then students don’t know that they have the right to access those things,” Heyman continued. “And then [the universities are] not doing all they could to empower students.”

“ Regardless of how fantastic or horrible things are on the ground, knowledge is power .”

At Yale, the policies are anything but clear. Before starting to report this piece, I spoke to friends, three professors, a dean, and Amelia Davidson ’24, who wrote the News’ piece on medical withdrawal in March 2021, just to see where I should start looking. In ten separate attempts to get answers from administrators, I was repeatedly referred to either the reinstatement FAQs or the leave of absence, deferral, withdrawal, and reinstatement policy webpage. These are considered the authoritative and current documents for what taking time off from Yale will look like. However, they conflict — both internally and with each other — and don’t contain some vital information.

For example, several changes made due to COVID-19 are displayed at the top of the reinstatement FAQs, but those changes are not reflected on the policy website. The website says that online courses “do not fulfill” the reinstatement requirements even if they’re taken at Yale Summer Session. However, the FAQs say that synchronous online classes do count. According to the FAQs, students seeking reinstatement for Spring 2022 whose withdrawals were processed through Yale Mental Health & Counseling should have their clinicians submit a clinician’s letter to Amy Perry of MH&C. The next section in the FAQs directs those same students to have their clinicians submit letters to Paul Hoffman, director of MH&C.

According to Chun, withdrawal is primarily processed through the residential college dean’s offices. Their role, according to Chun, is to be a “portal” to connect students with campus resources and help them find the answers if they don’t know it themselves. 

For Riddle, the student who opted to spend the first week of what was supposed to be her last semester in the hospital, the lack of clear information was a deterrent to even considering withdrawal in the first place. From the time she was diagnosed with depression as a sophomore, she’d heard from other students that she wouldn’t have financial aid when she came back, or that she would be required to pay for the time she spent at Yale before withdrawing for the semester. As a student on full aid, that was not feasible.

Riddle’s health insurance, therapy and psychiatric care were covered through Yale. But could she stay on the Yale Health Plan if she withdrew? That information is nowhere to be found on the Programs of Study website or in either of the documents I was referred to. 

After returning from the hospital, Riddle felt worse, not better, so she looked into medical withdrawal just a few days too late to take a leave of absence. After meeting with her residential college dean and spending over three hours with her housemates reading the policy online, she still didn’t have answers.

“If I could h ave gone to my dean and asked all my questions or got them all answered, I could have had all the information I needed to make my decision in one day,” Riddle said. “But instead it was dragged out over like two weeks or three weeks.”

When asked about how deans might help students find answers to the questions like the ones Riddle was asking, Chun said, “To make it easier for students, deans usually have all that information.” I emailed Riddle’s dean twice and called the residential college office multiple times and never got a response. 

Riddle started calling and emailing around. Yale Health Insurance Member Services told Riddle she could stay on her insurance plan provided that she purchased it for “some thousands of dollars” but she doesn’t recall the exact amount. And after many redirections and incomplete or inaccurate information, she was told in an email by Muro, the associate director of undergraduate financial aid, that she would have financial aid when she got back and wouldn’t have to pay for the semester she withdrew from.

“I was misled at literally every step,” Riddle said. After filling out all the paperwork and not doing her school work in anticipation of withdrawing, Riddle had a meeting with Paul Hoffman to make sure she understood what withdrawal would entail. He informed her that she couldn’t stay on Yale insurance after all, contrary to the information she had received when she called.

When I called Yale Health Member Services to inquire about students’ ability to stay on the health plan during a withdrawal, I was told that once students have withdrawn, “their plan ends at the end of the term.” This is not only different from what Riddle says she was told, but it’s also not what happened. Instead, Riddle lost her therapist and psychiatrist almost immediately — she saw them each one last time — and spent two months without insurance or treatment during the pandemic.  

After digging around online, two phone calls and an email exchange with Ariel Perez, assistant manager at Yale Health Member Services, I found the policy laid out online , but it’s not easy to find. 

When asked about the discrepancy in information, Perez wrote in an email that he “could not speak to specific instances” but explained that while “the process for petitioning for a leave or withdrawal are similar…the coverage pathways and termination periods are significantly different.”

“When my office receives call [sic] from students we find that at times a student presents with questions about a leave, but it is really a withdrawal or vice versa.”

‘Horror stories’ deter students from even asking questions about withdrawal

Gaps in written policy which necessitate these phone calls sometimes act as a deterrent to students who are not ready or able to dedicate time and energy to call around in the first place. 

When a student, who is currently a junior, was in her first year at Yale, she went to a cast party for a play and drank for the first time. She doesn’t know what happened after that, but she woke up in the hospital with abrasions on her chin. Her doctor told her she might have fallen and ordered a CT scan to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.

 She didn’t. She had an unusual growth in her brain.

The student, who has been granted anonymity due to fear of professional repercussions for her health issues, took a week to process and grieve before telling her parents. They wanted her to come home for treatment immediately. She looked into the policy online and felt intimidated about asking her dean for help or taking time off.

“My hope was just that I could take a leave until Christmas break and then come back in January,” she explained. But under the withdrawal policy, that wasn’t possible. “I was worried about coming back. I’ve heard so many horror stories of people that had issues that were even worse than mine and then being asked not to come back.”

Concerns about her financial aid, the reinstatement process, and not being able to live with her suitemates in the next year swirled in her mind as she went through a month of MRIs and doctor’s visits to try to diagnose what she now knows to be a cyst in her brain. At the time, she didn’t know if it was malignant or benign, how big it was, if she’d need surgery, or what signals to look for to indicate that her situation was serious.

“Every time I had a headache or brain fog or anything, I would get really worried,” she said. 

Bureaucracy and change

As the chair of the reinstatement committee, Sodi does not handle or influence withdrawal policy. These are separate processes. Yale University also doesn’t have a unified policy. Yale College, the graduate school, and each of the professional schools have their own individual policies. 

The representative from the financial aid office w ho hung up on me said she couldn’t speak to how withdrawal would impact what a student pays because billing doesn’t happen there. Financial aid only determines how much aid students receive to help with the bill.

According to Heyman, the researcher at Brandeis, needed changes include removing the prohibition on visiting campus during students’ time away and allowing withdrawn students to access campus resources.

Students and alumni are pushing for change. And according to Jasmine E. Harris, a professor and expert on disability and antidiscrimination law at the University of Pennsylvania, the changes that have been made were student-driven.

“The reason we’re doing much better is because students have made it a priority,” she explained. Students, she said, are “best positioned” to understand their needs and know if proposed modifications would be helpful, so solutions should start with them and keep the lines of communication as direct as possible. Playing a “game of telephone” with administrators to change or even just clarify policy can be a huge disincentive for students to seek help and is “completely inefficient,” she said.

“By the end of that game of telephone,” she said, “you’ve wasted time that the student may not have.”

Editor’s Note: Here is the information we could find to clarify Yale’s withdrawal and reinstatement policies.

When a student withdraws from Yale College, their financial aid is adjusted proportionately to the adjustment of their tuition. These adjustments are determined based on the time in the semester when the student withdraws, and more information can be found in Section D. on the Financial Services page of the online publication of the Yale College Undergraduate Regulations . This may or may not result in a balance due to Yale depending on their financial aid package and the point in the semester they withdraw. 

Once a student has withdrawn, they have 72 hours to leave campus. Withdrawn students cannot visit campus without permission from their residential college dean. 

Withdrawn students cannot stay on the Yale Healthcare plan. According to Yale Health’s website, students who withdraw from the University after the fifteenth day of the semester will be covered by Yale Health for 30 days after their withdrawal date or through the last day of the term, whichever comes first. 

“Fees will not be prorated or refunded. Students who withdraw are not eligible to enroll in Student Affiliate Coverage.” the website continues, “Regardless of enrollment in Yale Health Hospitalization/Specialty Coverage, a student who withdraws from the University will have access to services available under Yale Health Basic Coverage (including Student Health, Athletic Medicine, Mental Health & Counseling, and Care Management) during these thirty days to the extent necessary for a coordinated transition of care.”

• Cross Campus

© 2014 Yale Daily News

Proactive 12 Steps

The Proactive Twelve Steps book

This highly-praised book outlines how you can take a proactive approach to life, gradually stepping up from feeling stuck and powerless to enjoying a balanced and happy life. It offers a new take on the original Twelve Steps. It describes the steps as a mindful program instead of a mystical experience in which change somehow happens to you.

This book reflects a deep understanding of behavior change, codependency, stress, and trauma. It presents a clear roadmap for self-compassion and mindful self-discovery. It provides specific step-by-step instructions and a broader context that helps readers make sense of the healing process.

In short, this book is  “a user-friendly guide to the application of mindfulness in everyday life” .

See bottom of the page to buy this book online .

Praise for this book (in alphabetical order)

This innovative revisioning of the Twelve Steps program gives the reader a practical, time-proven structure for making important life changes.  Prengel’s extensive clinical experience is reflected in his compassionate voice and the clarity of his guidance.

Judith Blackstone, PhD , Author,  Trauma and the Unbound Body  and  Belonging Here

11 years ago, I decided to get sober, and as I am not a religious person, I could not get to grips with the AA 12 steps or the big book, and it was your version of the 12 steps (proactive 12 steps) that saved me. Thank you for my new life.

Miss Emma Marnie Burchill

In this book Serge Prengel not only harnesses the power of a traditional 12-step model but offers a broader non-religious prescriptive path for healing and change that goes beyond addressing addictive behaviors. It offers an in-depth perspective and specific instruction.

Eva Gold, PsyD , Author,  Buddhist Psychology and Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Psychotherapy for the 21st Century

This clear and well-written book presents a road to recovery in more modern, process-based terms that is, on the one hand, deeply resonant with 12-step traditions and, on the other, a fresh and uplifting reworking of the 12-step model.

Steven C. Hayes, PhD , Co-developer of  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Compassionate and supportive, this new approach offers mindful ways to disentangle ourselves from our addictive patterns without shame or judgment. The Proactive Twelve Steps are a welcome gift to the world of recovery, offering healing to the body/mind/soul wounds that occur with addictive processes.

Suzanne Noel , Founder,  Recovery Focusing

This book invites both self-compassion and a deep dive into conversation with the self around the experiences of addiction, recovery, relapse, and healing, opening the door to including current understanding of the impact of stress and trauma on all of us as we struggle with being human.

Sarah Peyton , Author,  Your Resonant Self: Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing

Serge Prengel reframes the 12-step model into an efficient manual for self-initiated change. The model brilliantly and succinctly provides a map to disentangle the individual from the pervasive constraints that have resulted in self-destructive behaviors, which have limited opportunities to enjoy life and to experience feelings of purpose and satisfaction.

Stephen W. Porges, PhD , Distinguished University Scientist, Kinsey Institute, Indiana University Bloomington

his book is a meaningful roadmap for the recovery process, not just for those recovering from addictions but for all of us mortals.

Mark Schenker, PhD , Author,  A Clinician’s Guide to 12-Step Recovery

The Proactive Twelve Steps  is a user-friendly guide to the application of mindfulness in everyday life.

Marjorie Schuman, PhD , Author, Inquiring Deeply: Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

I highly recommend this book to people in recovery as well as to anyone wishing to make proactive improvements in their lives.

Inge Sengelmann, LCSW, SEP, RYT , Author , It’s Time to EAT: Embody, Awaken & Transform our Relationship with Food, Body & Self

You cannot live your best life unless you embrace your fears and vulnerabilities.  The Proactive Twelve Steps  show you how to do just that.

Kristen Ulmer , Author, The Art of Fear

Prengel’s objective is to take the powerful 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous and translate them into an accessible and secular-friendly program for change of all kinds. I was particularly moved by his descriptions of the healing power of community and compassionate listening.

Jeff Warren , Co-author,  Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics

Buy this book online

At Amazon.com:  As a  paperback  or as a  Kindle ebook

Please note: The above links are to the US site. In other countries, search your local Amazon site for 1892482363 (paperback) or B09C16T79V (ebook).

Spirit Centered Sober Living

Spiritual principles behind step ten: acceptance, what are the spiritual principles behind step ten, continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it..

Other spiritual principles that apply to Step Ten include discipline, humility, patience, mindfulness, persistence, self-restraint, honesty, willingness, forgiveness, fair-mindedness, tolerance, love, and kindness.

Acceptance defined

Acceptance is a person’s assent to the reality of the circumstances of a given situation. Acceptance is recognizing a process or condition as present and real without attempting to change it or protest it. The context of acceptance in a given set of circumstances, situation, process, or condition is often a negative or uncomfortable one. It must be confronted and embraced, not avoided or pushed aside for later.

Related: The seven times acceptance is mentioned in the AA literature (164andmore.com)

This maintenance step is vital to our sobriety because it helps keep us grounded in reality. When we continue to take personal inventory on a day-to-day or even hour-by-hour basis it is much easier to remain free of anger, frustration, self-righteousness, and other fear-based negativity. The practice of daily self-examination goes a long way in preventing new resentments to form and take root.

The Tenth Step can be a pressure relief valve. We work this step while the day’s ups and downs are still fresh in our minds. We list what we have done and try not to rationalize our actions. This may be done in writing at the end of the day. The first thing we do is stop! Then we take the time to allow ourselves the privilege of thinking. We examine our actions, our reactions, and our motives. We often find that we’ve been “doing” better than we’ve been “feeling.” This allows us to find out where we have gone wrong and admit fault before things get any worse. We avoid rationalizing. We promptly admit our faults, not explain them or defend them. We work this step continuously. This is prevention — and the more we do it, the less we will need the corrective part of this step. This is really a great tool. It gives us a way of avoiding grief before we bring it on ourselves. We monitor our feelings, our emotions, our fantasies, and our actions. By constantly looking at these things we may be able to avoid repeating the actions that make us feel bad. Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, Chapter 4/Step 10

Eckhart Tolle (author of The Power of Now , A New Earth , and other excellent spiritual books) defines acceptance as a this is it response to anything occurring in any moment of life. There, strength, peace, and serenity are available when one stops struggling to resist, when one ceases hanging on tightly to what is so in any given moment. What do I have right now? What am I experiencing at this moment?

This holds true for feelings and emotions as well as situations and conditions. Can one accept being sad when one is sad, afraid when afraid, depressed when depressed, happy when happy, judgmental when judgmental, overthinking when overthinking, serene when serene, and so on?

There are some formal ways to work this Step, such as writing it down throughout the day or at night. My own sponsor suggested that I take a few moments each night, take out my notebook, and document my assets and liabilities throughout the day in two columns simply marked with a plus sign (+) for assets and a minus sign (-) for liabilities. It’s an excellent way to prevent a new set of mistakes from building up, risking falling back to a pre-Step-Four condition wherein we’re once again loaded down with unresolved issues. Such a practice requires persistence, willingness, honesty, and humility at the very least.

Maintaining an ongoing awareness of one’s impact on others is one way to keep the slate clean. It is suggested that AA members review their day each evening for any signs of unfinished business, both with others and within themselves. This calls for a classic combination of honesty and humility. While some pieces may be obvious, others may be hidden under rationalizations and other defensive maneuvers. For some people, a printed list of reminders is useful in reviewing the day. Similarly, beginning each day with a review of the day to come can help prevent problems before they begin. Mark Schenker PhD, A Clinician’s Guide to 12 Step Recovery, p.54

An ideal Step Ten might be remaining mindful of the present moment throughout the day such that we’re addressing items when they come up, a practice that implies a consistent moment-to-moment awareness of our thoughts and behavior. When we are mindful and honest, we are less able to sit with our suffering for very long and are usually prompted by our conscience, our innermost selves, the Holy Spirit, or our Higher Self – whatever one may choose to call it – to take the appropriate action: admit we are wrong and make the amends before we proceed with anything else.

We need the consistency of repeating an action on a daily basis for it to become a habit and to solidly internalize the related spiritual principles . As our days of continuous abstinence turn into weeks and months and years, the personal inventory comes to be second nature. Consistently tracking our spiritual fitness then comes naturally, and we tend to notice right away when we’re headed for trouble.

The spiritual axiom

It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about “justifiable” anger? If somebody cheats us, aren’t we entitled to be mad? Can’t we be properly angry with self-righteous folk? For us of A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p.90

An axiom is an unprovable rule or statement accepted as true because it is self-evident or particularly useful. An axiom typically serves as a premise or starting point for further discussion, reasoning, or contemplation. In AA we treat the spiritual axiom described above as a principle — a simple, universal truth to understand, practice, and take in to the depths of our being.

When I am angry, resentful, afraid, anxious, depressed, judgmental, frustrated, or bothered about anything within our outside myself , that means there is something wrong with my thinking . There’s something to which I need to pay close attention and meditate upon. There is something I need to do, one or more actions I need to take, to settle the restlessness — the emotional waves within myself — and this is where Step Ten comes into play.

The spiritual axiom is advanced spirituality

The spiritual axiom is one of the toughest, if not the toughest, spiritual meat to digest. The spiritual axiom is without a doubt a rather advanced spiritual teaching which perhaps cannot be consistently practiced until one has had a spiritual awakening. Although the premise is simple to understand intellectually, it can be quite difficult – especially in early recovery – to fully assent to the idea that ANY disturbance in our mood or well-being we EVER experience represents a problem in our own thinking, perspective, or attitude. It is even more difficult to put that idea into practice on a consistent, moment-to-moment basis in our everyday lives. But this is what we must do if we are to remain sober and fully undergo a significant psychic change.

Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering. Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Even so, as imperfectly as we will practice and apply the spiritual axiom in early stages of spiritual development and even in our sustained, active recovery, it is nevertheless critical to keep it in mind as much as possible and to keep trying to apply it anytime we are less than content.

Specifically, what should we be monitoring in and about ourselves as we continue to take personal inventory?

• Physical condition
• Relationships

Exactly how do we monitor all those things?

Here are a few good ways recovering people have actively performed Step 10 over the decades.

• Do a quick spot check anytime, anywhere.
• Perform a daily written review in the form of an assets and liabilities list. The assets would be spiritually principled actions of the day, and the liabilities would be the actions you would not have taken in retrospect, or things you failed to do.
• Create a daily to-do list either at night (for the following day) or first thing in the morning.
• Keep a journal or diary.
• Check in with a trusted friend in recovery, either in person or by phone.
• Do a group wrap-up at night. While in treatment or LTR, this can be done in the van on the way home if you’ll be getting back late.

Intro: Spiritual principles behind the 12 Steps of AA

Practical spirituality in addiction recovery, part 1/2, practical spirituality in addiction recovery, part 2/2, spirituality in addiction recovery, part 1, spirituality in addiction recovery, part 2, the spiritual principles behind step one: honesty, spiritual principles behind step two: hope, spiritual principles behind step three: faith, spiritual principles behind step four: courage, spiritual principles behind step five: integrity, spiritual principles behind step six: willingness, spiritual principles behind step seven: humility, spiritual principles behind step eight: discipline & self-discipline, spiritual principles behind step nine: forgiveness, spiritual principles behind step eleven: spiritual awareness, spiritual principle behind step twelve: service, exploring the core of alcoholics anonymous: unveiling the 12 spiritual principles that guide recovery, the foundation of healing: a comprehensive list of aa’s spiritual principles, journey to wholeness: how aa’s spiritual principles foster lasting transformation, leave a reply.

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