Blog
“Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys”
When supporting a loved one through an intense experience, we need to remember: “Not my circus, not my monkeys”. “Not my circus, not my monkeys” is one of my favorite expressions. Coming from Polish, the phrase, simply put, means, “Not my problem.” What I like so much about the expression is that its particular metaphor indicates that something—in this case, monkeys—has escaped and is now running…
Nov 29, 2023
Shame as a Defense Against Shame
Quickly jumping to express shame can be a defense against real shame. “I screwed up.” “I’m so awful.” “I’m terrible. I feel bad about everything.” These statements, at a basic level, convey shame. However, in our struggle to tolerate having committed real harm to someone around us, they can also be used as a defense against, quite ironically, real shame. They can be tools to hurry these feelings…
Nov 27, 2023
Going Home for the Holidays: Advice From a Therapist on Not Just Enduring Your Crazy Family
Painful family dynamics reemerge during the holidays: Reflect on them rather than just enact them. Every year around the holiday season, patients shrug and say to me, “My family is crazy,” or, another variation, “My family is weird,” before setting out to simply endure the holidays. Of course, those little words—“crazy” and “weird"—can stand in for a whole lot of harm. Crazy sometimes indicates…
Nov 21, 2023
Anxiety Isn’t Just Normal: It’s Essential
Anxiety and panic are signals that something is amiss and needs attention . Though they cause discomfort, anxiety and panic are more than just emotional experiences to be endured and tolerated. Anxiety is a signal that activates a certain amount of energy toward action (think of athletes feeling nervous in the locker room before the big game who, then, bring that energy to their actions on the…
Nov 20, 2023
What to Do After a Breakup: The Case Against the Rebound
People love a rebound after a breakup. It’s understandable; it’s a rush to find a relationship that feels better, new, or different. However, in order to get that, you can’t go searching with the same set of eyes you were using in the last relationship. Speaking from their experiences providing individual therapy after breakups, our Director Heather Mayone and Director of Supervision and Training…
Nov 17, 2023
Therapy-Speak is Everywhere: We Should Consider How We Use It
Therapy-speak is our collective emotional language . Boundaries, narcissism, trauma, anxious, manic, neurotic, so OCD—it seems impossible to escape therapy-speak these days. Earlier this year, The New Yorker dedicated an issue to therapy, observing, “The language of the therapist’s office percolates in our everyday conversations.” They’re right—therapy-speak is our collective emotional language.…
Nov 16, 2023
Is the Patient the Expert in Therapy?
“The patient is the expert,” but therapists should not overlook the misguidedness of individuals trying to resolve their own suffering. Most therapists claim, “The patient is the expert” (Actually, they’d almost surely say, “The client is the expert,” which I consider part of the same problematic). On the surface, this is a fairly uncontroversial statement. A therapist has a remarkably limited…
Nov 13, 2023
Feeling Bad in a Useful Way: An Argument Against Comfort
Avoiding pain is a primary motivation for all humans—therapists included . One needn’t read Freud or Darwin (both of whom have a lot to say on the subject) to understand that avoiding pain is a primary motivation for all human beings. Pavlov can suffice: I touch the hot stove, it hurts, and so, I avoid touching the stove again.It is understandable, then, for therapists to align themselves against…
Nov 09, 2023
The Real Issue with Boundaries in Therapy
Boundaries are needed in therapy, but we should also consider what we are walling out. Like all relationships, boundaries are necessary in therapy. When I consider navigating boundaries as a therapist, I often think of Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” best known for its line, “Good fences make good neighbors”: “Before I built a wall I’d ask to knowWhat I was walling in or walling outAnd to…
Nov 06, 2023
Troubled Teen Programs Should Be a Last Resort: Less Authority Is More for Teens
Troubled teen programs are the logical, furthest extension of authority. A recent New York Times editorial, “The Troubled-Teen Industry Offers Trauma, Not Therapy,” argues for more regulatory oversight and best practices for troubled teen programs, some of which have been exposed in recent years for abuse. The troubled teen industry, the teen wilderness treatment industry, and teen residential…
Nov 01, 2023
Feeling Safe and Being Safe Aren’t the Same Thing (And It’s Often Hard to Tell the Difference)
There is an important distinction between feeling safe and being safe. “Everyone has a right to feel safe.” “I want you to feel really safe in my office.” These are things I often hear from other therapists and I find myself cringing in response. While there are worthwhile underlying values of safety inherent in these statements, there is also an unhelpful conflation between being safe and…
Oct 27, 2023
This Happened to Me, but It Isn’t Who I Am (Or Is It?)
It was just so unlike me, my life. [caption id="attachment_6825" align="alignleft" width="238"] Tina Turner, 1970 (Photo: Al Kaplan)[/caption]In the opening scene of HBO’s 2021 Tina Turner documentary, Tina, the Queen of Rock settles in for her interview with a reluctance observable throughout the film, one that characterizes, seemingly, her very participation in the film itself. If viewers know…
Oct 26, 2023Browse all Tribeca Therapy topics
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