Therapist Elizabeth Sullivan explores the similarities between mothering and “therapizing.”
Psychoanalysis is Alive and Well
Although we have evolved many schools since Freud articulated psychoanalytic theory at the turn of the 20th Century, in almost all of them conspicuous analytic features remain. These are so familiar that for the most part they exercise their dominance without our being aware of them or their origins. We may think psychoanalysis has been discredited and that almost no one practices it any longer, but there are ways psychoanalytic theory is present in our listening and thinking because of…
Vanquishing the Inner Critic
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…
Through the Anger Looking Glass
On this past Sunday’s broadcast of “Weekend Edition” on National Public Radio, the focus was on the 50th anniversary of Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique. In this book Friedan raged against the status of women in the 1960s. Although millions of people have read this feminist manifesto, it seems very few presently understand how anger in general and Friedan’s anger in particular could be a source of insight, motivation, and personal and social transformation. Anger is an emotional state that has…
When East Doesn’t Meet West: Buddhism and Psychotherapy
Two statements from the Dalai Lama suggest a conflict between the approach of Buddhist meditation and the type of self-awareness we develop in psychotherapy. The first statement has fascinated and puzzled me for decades. A friend, who meditates regularly, repeated to me that the Dalai Lama had said the following in conversation with an American psychiatrist: “When someone has been shot with an arrow you psychologists ask how the arrow got there, who shot it, how long ago, with what…
Michael Lambert on Preventing Treatment Failures (and Why You’re Not as Good as You Think)
Dr. Michael Lambert's groundbreaking work on tracking client outcomes has revealed a huge blindspot for psychotherapists: We don't notice when our patients are getting worse. But he's got the solution if you're willing to try something new.
The God of Psychoanalysis
A psychotherapist shares the agonies and ecstasies of being in psychoanalytic group therapy and asks: Is psychoanalysis a religion after all?
The “L” Word
Lisa hefts herself heavily up the stairs to my office. She must come up two feet to a stair, like a small child. She is breathless by the time she gets to my office and has to take a few moments to collect herself. As she settles in, I realize she has gained even more weight in the few weeks since I last saw her. She is huge, solemn, powerful, inert. Once she is seated, nothing moves but her head and…
Seeing Medusa in Every Client
Anger management expert, Christian Conte, PhD, who works with the most violent offenders, uses the Greek tragedy of Medusa to illustrate the necessity for compassion and open-minded inquiry when working with those on the margins of society.
Christian Conte on Anger Management
Christian Conte, PhD, shares his passion for counseling violent offenders, the radical empathy techniques that help him overcome judgment, and his unique tools for working with some of the most marginalized people in our society.