Psychotherapist and object relations expert, Jill Scharff, distills pearls of wisdom from her extensive career working with couples and families.
Hide-and-Seek in Online Therapy
I thought we had our session today… My client Jane was right, I had just missed the therapy session we had booked. It had not happened to me before, and I felt guilty. Online therapists know how the virtual and body-less nature of the encounter makes it easier to fail each other, be it for the client, or for the therapist. The precious relational tissue seems even more fragile. I always attend to mending these ruptures as well as I can, but…
Statistics Don’t Lie…Except When They Do
As I was working on my doctorate I became interested in home stereo amplifiers. Armed with a fellow doctorate student who possessed infinite knowledge in this area I began the search for the perfect amplifier. My interest rapidly escalated into what could arguably have been diagnosed as a full-blown obsession. I visited stereo stores near and far. I read an endless stream of articles in the stereo magazines. I spoke with salesmen, saleswomen, and manufacturer’s representatives. I attended stereo conventions. But…
Lynn Grodzki on Building a Successful Private Practice
Psychotherapist and business coach Lynn Grodski describes the challenges that many clinicians face in private practice, and the necessary steps to building a flourishing business.
Losing Faith: Arguing for a New Way to Think About Therapy
Psychologist Scott Miller, who has spent years researching what works in psychotherapy, details the dark days after losing his faith in the profession, and his long journey back to loving and believing in his vocation once again.
Our Psychological Crisis: Making Sense of the American Psychological Associations Collusion with Torture
The recently released Hoffman Report, the independent investigation conducted by former Inspector General of Chicago David Hoffman into the American Psychological Associations (APA) collusion in the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo and other CIA “black sites,” has sent shock waves through the psychology profession, whose members are not at all happy to be the public face of torture in America. Listservs around the country are erupting with consternation and outrage, with demands for accountability and justice and reform and cries…
Brian McNeill on the Art of Supervision
Psychologist and supervision expert Brian McNeill explains his developmental approach to supervision, the challenges that all therapists face while learning their craft, and what supervisors can and must do to support beginning therapists in navigating these challenges.
In Bed With Your Therapist: The Paradoxical Intimacy of Online Psychotherapy
Psychotherapists Anastasia Piatakhina Giré and Joseph Burgo, who conduct therapy with clients around the world over Skype, share about the unique aspects of being let into the intimate spaces of their clients homes.
Birthplace
There are places I’ll remember all my life. —I was born in a small Russian town, a very cold and dirty place. This was one of the first things Anna shared about herself in a long introductory email reaching out to me for online psychotherapy. In this description of her native town, I could sense her sad childhood: a lack of emotional warmth and possibly some neglect. The way people describe their early surroundings usually tells something significant about their life story. We developed early…
Allan Schore on the Science of the Art of Psychotherapy
Psychologist Allan Schore shares his research on the neuroscientific underpinnings of psychotherapy, the art of integrating neuroscience and psychoanalysis, and recent scientific attempts to “find” the unconscious mind.