An unscheduled – and free – session with the neighborhood curmudgeon leaves a New Jersey psychologist feeling surprisingly enriched.
After the Diagnosis: Helping Patients Cope With their Emotions
Psychotherapist Gary McClain discusses the importance of understanding clients' reactions to new diagnoses, the three main responses they have, and advocating for them with healthcare providers.
Howard Kassinove on Anger Management
Anger management expert Christian Conte, PhD, interviews fellow anger management expert, Howard Kassinove, PhD, on the history of anger management treatment, the fundamentals of practice, the importance of humor and the woefully inadequate programs offered to violent offenders in most states in the U.S.
Fear and Consciousness: What I Learned from a Bike Accident
“Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” — Thich Nhat Hahn I got doored on Saturday night. I was riding my bike out to dinner with my husband and a guy in a big SUV opened his car door into the bike lane without looking and knocked me over. My face hit the pavement, I still don’t really know how my teeth weren’t knocked out, but my lips were cut and bleeding and my forehead was gashed and scraped. It happened so quickly…
I’m Rubber, You’re Glue
“I’m rubber, you’re glue, what bounces off me sticks to you.” Recently one of my colleagues taught me this childhood taunt and response to name calling. It is one of the simplest and most accurate descriptions of projective identification that I have ever heard and makes me think of my client Nancy. Nancy and I occupy different ends of the political spectrum. It is interesting to me that I can work comfortably with clients who are different from me in very…
Psychotherapy with Alien Beings: Cultural Competence (and Incompetence) in Psychotherapy Practice
Psychologist Laura Brown critiques the limited and limiting methods so often used in psychotherapy training programs to promote cultural competence, and offers a model of intersectionality and integration that honors the full complexity of modern identities—including those of psychotherapists.
Eduardo Duran on Psychotherapy with Native Americans
Native American psychologist Eduardo Duran shares his long road to finding a place for himself and other Native Americans in the field of psychology.
Listening as Meditation
In 1975, Herbert Benson of Harvard University wrote that to achieve a “relaxation response” you only need four ingredients. These included (a) a quiet place, (b) a comfortable position, (c) a mental device, and (d) a passive attitude. Benson’s relaxation response was, of course, roughly equivalent to the meditative mental state. His work presaged the mindfulness movement in psychotherapy. He identified a psychological place of exploration, discovery, and acceptance. His research linked the relaxation response to a variety of physiological…
The Thousand-Armed Therapist
A typical desire for most therapists (at least at some point in their training or career) is “to save people;” because let’s face it: the majority of us are in this business because we care a great deal about others. There comes a moment, however, when almost all therapists eventually learn that trying to save people is exhausting. Actually, even trying to help others gain small amounts of awareness on a daily basis can be difficult and draining. Therapists are…
Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships
In this excerpt from her most recent book, Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships, EFT founder Sue Johnson offers tools for couples and their therapists to repair wounded bonds and navigate the cycles of disconnection and reconnection that can make—or break—relationships.