By Melissa Groman LCSW
on 6/27/13 - 1:22 PM
I once took an informal survey of clinicians to find out a) where in their office they keep their clocks and b) how they ended their sessions. I found out we are a crafty lot indeed. Clever too. Some of us keep a big round clock somewhere behind where the client sits, so it can be seen either directly or with peripheral vision at all times. Some of us rely on our wrist watches. Some of us sport large analogues and...
By Catherine Ambrose, LCSW
on 4/16/13 - 7:15 PM
Once upon a time and many years ago when I was a very new therapist, I worked with a client who had completely made herself up. A lot of things never added up with her. For starters, there was her presenting problem. Some days she would report a diet of jelly beans (not many) and carrots, and yet she was never low weight. But since clients with eating disorders are so often metabolically out of sync, it didn’t seem completely unbelievable...
By Pete Walker, MFT
on 3/19/13 - 4:37 PM
In my work with clients who were severely traumatized in childhood, I sometimes feel hopeless in helping them to address and deconstruct their inner critics. I feel daunted by the viciousness and incessancy of their self-attack. When a child is relentlessly rejected by contemptuous parents, she mimics them and learns to obsessively scorn herself. Like them, she focuses only on her defects and deficiencies; like them she radiates hate and scorn at herself. Her superego grows into an outsized critic as...
