Blog
Anger and the accident of Google
Last March I set about building this website. In the "age of the internet" I figured I'd write a lot to give prospective therapy patients in NYC a real taste of what my psychotherapy and group therapy practice has to offer. I wrote about therapy for depression, dating, drugs and alcohol, anxiety therapy--I covered the usual psychotherapy bases (and of course talked a bunch about the merits of…
Aug 29, 2011
Sometimes the body lies
I got an email yesterday from a one of my therapy patients here in NYC. She's leaving her job of several years to go into business for herself. It was a tough decision, but a good one for her, and she's taken the time to leave well.She was a wreck, though--full of nerves, feeling guilty for leaving, worried about whether the new venture would be a success. It was making her physically sick.I…
Aug 25, 2011Why's everyone picking on group therapy?
Group therapy just can't catch a break.Here's a video of animals from NYC's Bronx Zoo with a group therapist working through the difficult feelings they're having about the budget cuts New York City has proposed for its funding of the zoo: In politics, a reference to group therapy seems like a pejorative for politicians getting together and feeling sorry for themselves, as in this posting…
Jul 12, 2011
Start small? Hardly
Not once have I picked up the phone at my NYC therapy office and heard the words, "I'd like to make just a few small changes in my life." And yet so many people seem satisfied to pass along that age-old, conservatizing little adage: "start small."Start small?. It seems beyond question to me that this is precisely the opposite of what needs to happen. Perhaps it's easier to hear because taking on…
Jul 07, 2011Ordinary pain
"The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking. It is necessary to go through dark and deeper dark and not to turn." — Stanley Kunitz (The Testing-Tree)One of my favorite words is "ordinary." (Insert joke here: "Your favorite color is gray." "Your favorite NYC street is 3rd Avenue.")Yeah, yeah.I mean it, though.For one thing, it's the opposite of special, which I think is about the meanest…
Jul 05, 2011Worth
A few months ago one my therapy groups at my NYC practice got to talking about the subject of self worth. There's no reason this should have been surprising. Self-worth is seen as nearly synonymous with self-esteem, one of the cornerstones of just about any framework of psychological well-being. One of the earliest and most widely accepted definitions of self-esteem views the concept in terms of…
Jun 30, 2011
The world only spins forward
Last week, a friend of Huma Abedin, the wife of shamed Queens and Brooklyn, New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, reporting on Ms. Abedin's state of mind in the wake of her husband's scandal, offered this to the “She’s worrying about the bigger picture, her own family, her own life, the baby, how to get back to living a normal life.”The Times adds:"The couple is spending the weekend together in…
Jun 27, 2011"There's nothing wrong, but there is something more."
Most people come into therapy in some sort of crisis. Or, at the very least, there's some sort of "presenting problem." I figure this is as true in NYC as anywhere. Most people probably wouldn't imagine any other reason for seeing a therapist.The word therapy promotes this idea. After all, you get "therapy" for something that's wrong or broken: physical therapy for a knee injury, chemotherapy to…
Jun 21, 2011
Are you a consumer or a producer of your therapy (and your life)?
Like most New Yorkers, I enjoy going out for a nice dinner now and again. The big draw, of course, is the food. But it's also nice to be taken care of and have the night off from cooking and cleaning up. There's no expectation when you show up for dinner that you'll be asked to chop veggies or set the table. For a few hours, at least, you're a consumer. The restaurant is happy to oblige. They…
May 26, 2011"Just like me"
I got an email this morning from someone in New York who found my website searching for group therapy. He said a few things about himself, what he's struggling with, and then wrote, "I'm looking for a therapy group with people just like me."I was touched. It was clear that this guy spends most of his life feeling like the oddball. I could relate. For an awful lot of my life I felt the same way,…
May 24, 2011
Know thyself? Not so fast
Several months ago I wrote about the imperative of giving up your expertise on you. While there are certain things you know pretty well about yourself, there's a not-so-modest basket of things where you are in, perhaps, the worst position to see what's really going on. It's one of the things I love about group therapy--being successful in it means letting go of the need to be the final authority…
May 19, 2011Want to avoid disappointment? Ask, don't expect
People are disappointing. Really. I mean it.I think this is more of a comment on the one who's disappointed than on the one who's doing the disappointing.That's confusing. Let me put it another way: If you find yourself disappointed by someone, it's probably your fault. See, in order for someone to disappoint you, you first have to appoint them to some sort of position from which they can fall.…
May 17, 2011Browse all Tribeca Therapy topics
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