Psychotherapy Blog

The couple in my office is connected mostly by the spaces they hold between them. Sitting on the loveseat in my office, they do not touch, although their arms, legs, and elbows and hands shift in an unconscious echo of each other’s movements. They are not so much mirroring each other as performing an elaborate dance of avoidance and retreat, their bodies’ dialogue spoken even through their many silences. On a larger scale, the same thing happens where they live:...

Many marketing professionals point to the 900 million worldwide users on Facebook and say you must have a strong presence there to have a successful practice. They discuss the myriad ways you can use Facebook: your profile; a business page; advertising and frequent posts. They tell you how to get more “Likes” and “Fans” and the referrals will come. As a psychologist who has experimented with everything Facebook has to offer a private practitioner, I totally disagree with this common...

“Who cares about creativity? I have real problems to deal with!” This is a common reply that I get from clients (and sometimes from colleagues!) when I bring up the topic of creativity. However, the more I have a chance to write and reflect on the subject of creativity, the more convinced I become that creativity is an essential part of the healing process. I recently had an opportunity to interview Dennis Palumbo, a therapist and writer in private practice in...

Last Sunday night I dropped a pot of boiling water on my hand. My quick thinking teen aged son who was standing near by promptly grabbed me, led me to the sink and held my burned wrist under perfectly tepid running water. Shortly there after we took a quick trip to the ER where they wrapped me up and sent me back home. I’m healing nicely. But the white bandage around my left hand has been good fodder all week in...

A while back, when I opened my afternoon snail mail I received a card from Dr. Thomas W. Clawson, CEO of the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC). Dr. Clawson asked in his correspondence if I knew why the words counseling and counselor are spelled with a single "L" in the U.S., while in England and Canada the words are correctly spelled with two "L's” (i.e., counselling or counsellor). He then went on to answer his own question. The mystery, he...

I admit that I really do like to see breakthroughs now and again. I suppose they help me hang in better when all those feelings come through my door, whipping up my own like a wind gust on dry leaves...

“I was okay until I met you!” she said and slammed the door of my office as she left. I have never forgotten that moment. I was shocked, not just by the vehemence, her incandescent anger, but by my complete failure to anticipate her reaction. I thought I was a good judge of character and I had got this woman badly wrong. I had invited her husband to attend the previous session and, instead of supporting her jibes and scarcely...

A woman wrote to me, having heard me on a radio programme. She had picked up my concern that not enough attention was being paid to the quality of the therapeutic relationship (as opposed to techniques) and wondered how her 25 year-old son, who was seeking a psychotherapist, could assess that in advance of therapy when neither of them knew any therapists where they lived. The obvious answer is that he should wait until he and the therapist meet. Therapy...

Maggie began the session by telling me that she had been diagnosed by three different psychiatrists. The good news was that all three agreed on the diagnosis. The bad news was that each psychiatrist told her she was schizophrenic. "So, what brings you here today?" I asked. "Well, I saw something in the newspaper and it said you wrote some books on mental health and teach in the field so I thought you might know something these psychiatrists don't." (Wow. How refreshing. A...

I was getting ready to close up shop and leave my practice for the day when my secretary announced that one of my clients was in the waiting room in a hysterical panic pleading for a session with me. This came as somewhat of a shock to me inasmuch as I felt this client was actually progressing quite well.  I told my secretary to send her right in.

The client was crying so hard I could barely understand her...