Psychotherapy Blog

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...

In a recent debate about mental health services in Britain’s House of Commons, a Member of Parliament paused and laid aside his prepared notes, departing from the abstractions of rhetoric, the lingua franca of all legislative bodies since antiquity, and spoke at length in concrete terms of his own past experience with debilitating depression. The very next speaker, possibly prompted by his colleague’s candor, decided to see and raise the ante on a past history of mental health challenges, revealing...

“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...

As a therapist and theatre instructor, I hear many stories about creativity. It usually goes something like this: Creativity is something you either have or don’t have, and if you have it, you’re probably manic, anxious and neurotic. Certainly, very few clients come to me complaining that they don’t have enough creativity in their lives. However, I’ve come to experience that healthy creativity (and yes, I believe that this exists!) can help in the process of emotional healing. For the past...

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...

As a master's level graduate student at the University of Missouri, St. Louis I was very fortunate to have Dr. Patricia Jakubowski as my advisor. Pat was not only a recognized behaviorist, but she was also a pioneer in the assertiveness training movement. Best of all, she had befriended a psychotherapist who was very close to Dr. Albert Ellis. That's right the Dr. Albert Ellis. At the time, it was virtually impossible for a student such as myself who didn't own...

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...

For years solution-focused therapy approaches have been all the rage; the popularity of this distinctively brief therapy method is unarguable. Beginning in the 1980s, solution-focused therapy hit the mainstream and many mental health providers (and third-party payers) continue to sing the praises of its brevity and effectiveness. For example, in a 2009 book chapter Sara Smock claimed, “. . . there are numerous studies, several reviews of the research, and a few meta-analyses completed that showcase [solution-focused therapy’s] effectiveness.” Solution-focused counseling...

“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...