Blog
We Teach Our Kids Not to Talk About Difficult Topics—That’s a Mistake
Kids know more than we think: Leaving them alone with fears risks them becoming adults skilled at forgetting scary things . Kids know and observe a lot more than we imagine, from fairly benign topics to scary ones. There is a sort of unconscious deal that parents make with children. Parents pretend kids don’t overhear their arguments, notice their moods, and pick up on conversations about work…
Dec 06, 2023
Making Meaning From Antidepressants
Antidepressants can be examined in therapy just as we examine everything else in our lives. Many people seek both therapy and medication when in emotional distress. However, they both exist in completely different systems. Few psychiatrists do therapy. Conversely, psychotherapists who aren’t physicians (and the vast majority of us aren’t) aren’t allowed to provide medication (the American…
Dec 04, 2023
Remote Therapy Is Bad for Therapists: Why You Want Your Therapist at the Office
Remote therapy is easy, but working entirely remotely is bad for therapists. As COVID has become less of a concern, many therapists still only provide remote therapy. Understandably so—working remotely saves money on office costs and cuts out the commute for therapists and patients alike. It also helps that therapy is one of the easier jobs to do remotely. Unlike most medicine, therapy doesn’t…
Nov 30, 2023
“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
Climate Anxiety: What Role Do Therapists Have to Play?
Climate change is an emotional issue that raises questions about what therapy is for. A recent New York Times Magazine article, “Climate Change Is Keeping Therapists Up at Night,” documents how therapists are confronting patients’ anxiety related to the present and pending horrors of climate change. As the article makes clear, climate change is very much a problem that creates a great deal of…
Nov 10, 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…
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