Blog
The New York Times on Positive thinking: A therapist's response
"Think positive" is one of those adages that comes in and out of favor in the therapy room and beyond on a roughly 20-year cycle. We're coming down from the zenith of another wave on that curve, it seems, and the New York Times is ready, as always, to chronicle the ebb.A focus on "thinking" as the point of intervention for psychotherapy is as old as psychology itself, and takes the form of…
Oct 30, 2014
The end of psychology? So says the Onion (Or: Because science...)
Like the best satire, this piece from the Onion lends itself to at least a few interpretations.The mock headline reads, "Psychology Comes To Halt As Weary Researchers Say The Mind Cannot Possibly Study Itself." Perhaps it's a critique of a critique of Cartesian dualism (and therefore a defense of psychology) or perhaps the Onion really is calling out the most fundamental supposition of research…
Oct 15, 2014
New York Times on Drug Therapies for Depression
The New York Times Retro Report looks back at Prozac, the first successfully marketed medication of the class of medications known as SSRI's used to treat depression.Check out the 9-minute video and then let's talk.I discuss depression and the various therapies used to treat it almost everyday. Some of my patients take medications to treat depression, many have in the past, some struggle and…
Sep 26, 2014
Rain falls down
I'm given gifts of stories and anecdotes in my NYC therapy practice that I can't help but share (with appropriate anonymity for the therapy patient, of course). Being a therapist in Lower Manhattan, as you might imagine, the stories are often from the world of finance. This one of a business professor--a successful New York financier who taught a popular course in value investing which my therapy…
Sep 17, 2014Q: What do you say to someone who repeatedly treats you poorly?
A: Nothing. You say nothing.You pack your things and head for the door. That is all.
Sep 08, 2014
What to do when you're in (emotional) pain. (Hint: Act like a baby!)
I don't turn off my awareness of emotional pain when I leave the therapy office. Here in New York we see people expressing their troubles on the street or on the subway (or on the internet) in all sorts of ways. For most New Yorkers, overhearing someone screaming and yelling on the A train is just another Tuesday.Strange as it may seem, there's a sense in which I actually find a lot of that…
Aug 06, 2014
If I kicked you in the shin...
...your shin would hurt. And you'd probably be pissed at me. You might even curse. Or kick me back.And if that happened, it wouldn't make much sense to say that you had:A shin problemA pain problemAn anger problem orA kicking problemYou'd have--well, you'd have a some-jerk-just-kicked-me-in-the-shin problem. Which would be a real problem. There's a metaphor here, of course. A therapy metaphor. It…
Apr 02, 2014
I didn't say we _wouldn't_ be talking about your mother in therapy
We have something of a reputation here at TriBeCa Therapy for being therapists who aren't overly invested in the psychoanalytic method of excavating the past. It's accurate, and it's a reputation that's been well earned on our part.We take exception to two corresponding assumptions underlying the dominance so often placed on the past that many therapists make:That understanding the…
Mar 18, 2014
What getting rid of mold can teach us about depression, anxiety, therapy and growth
There's a lot to be learned about attacking sadness and anxiety in therapy and in life from taking a look at the ecosystem of mold. Really.Imagine the following: You've moved into that great NYC apartment only to discover, just after hanging your newly-unpacked soft, white towels, that behind the bathroom door is a sprawling colony of mold. You could grab a bottle of the most toxic,…
Nov 05, 2013
Many shapes of trauma, many forms of pain
I was reminded this afternoon that there is still work to be done, in the media and in our therapy offices, to remind one another (and make the case) that trauma (and its cousin, pain) can take many forms.PTSD, the diagnostic label under which most trauma is captured, was historically a diagnosis most commonly given to men, in particular soldiers returning home after experiencing or witnessing…
Nov 04, 2013
You can't work on the PTSD until the TS is P
I started graduate school in New York City, studying to become a therapist, just a few days before September 11th, 2001. Like a lot of New Yorkers, that day included a long walk home. After connecting with my fellow therapists-to-be, some of us turned around and headed back downtown to see about volunteering our help. We were all in shock and, like so many, overwhelmed with a desire to be…
Oct 14, 2013
Gray is the color of human
It's so often the stuff of therapy: People piss us off. They hurt our feelings. Lie. Deceive. Over promise and under deliver. Ex-boyfriends cheat. Former bosses withhold money we're owed. People do bad things. In NYC you hardly have to step outside for someone to rub you the wrong way. It sucks, and when that happens we have a right to expect compassion and respect from our friends.We also need…
Sep 27, 2013Browse all Tribeca Therapy topics
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