The Work Isn’t Finished After Depression Much of the focus of depression therapy is on alleviating the pain that dominates your life. During depression, pain takes over in a way that creates a sort of linear existence. Things that hurt less, you do; things that hurt more, you avoid. Because of this, emotional pain drivesRead more
Therapy For Cutting: How To Talk With Your Teen And Help Them Talk About What They Are Feeling
Often when parents seek therapy for teens who are struggling with depression or anxiety, they are also looking for therapy for cutting. Cutting is when someone is takes an object such as a knife (dull or sharp), scissors, a paper clip or another sharp object and cuts themselves with it to create a painful butRead more
Bone-Chilling Loneliness In Teens
Why Bone Chilling Loneliness? Bone-chilling loneliness is a phrase I’ve been thinking about recently in my NYC therapy practice as a way to categorize depression. I prefer the phrase because it gets to the heart of the lows that someone with depression feels. The term and diagnosis depression are so prevalent in both psychotherapy andRead more
The Shared Experience of Depression in Relationships
I have observed both in and outside of my NYC therapy practice a growing dialogue for mental health issues like depression. What often seems absent, however, is the ripple effect of depression and how it can affect couples, family units, and those in close proximity to it. When one person in a unit is strugglingRead more
When It Comes To Asperger’s, Does Diagnosis Matter?
With Therapy for Asperger‘s, a Conundrum A common conversation that I have in my NYC therapy practice concerns Asperger’s. Many people wonder if they have Asperger’s or if their parent or spouse does. There are people whose life matches the diagnosis of Asperger’s, more or less. Some find that discovery a relief and some findRead more
The Big Antidepressants Question
As a psychotherapist, I often confront the debate about using medication to treat depression and anxiety in my NYC therapy practice. It is a big question. There’s a perception at times that because we practice a non-diagnostic approach, are critical of the medical model and express concern about how antidepressants and other psychiatric medications are marketedRead more
“We Got This”: A Conversation On Pain And Intimacy In An NYC Therapy Practice
I met Rachael six years ago, in the early stages of working to expand Tribeca Therapy into a group practice. She has a quality that is difficult to describe, but known well to everyone on our staff and certainly to her patients. I asked her some questions about this in an attempt to better understandRead more
Beyond The DSM And Diagnostic Language In Therapy
I recently began thinking about the DSM-5 and the language we use in my NYC therapy practice after listening to a Philosophy Bites podcast with Dr. Steven E. Hyman. In the podcast, Hyman discusses the limitations he sees in the “rigid and arbitrary” boundaries set up in the DSM between what is considered “healthy” orRead more
Therapy for depression: A collective therapist conversation on the limits of words
We’ve been continuing our series of conversations, this one exploring the construction of depression: the ways those seeking therapy talk about their experiences, the many meanings of the word and the ways that depression is so often insufficient as a term to capture these experiences. Matt: It’s probably the case that therapy for depression isRead more
Adult Coloring Books: An Intro to Art Therapy
In my NYC art therapy practice, I come across lots of adults who struggle with burn out and who would benefit from making more time for themselves in the day to day. Yet it can be hard to find something replenishing with packed schedules and limited resources. Enter adult coloring books! Coloring books are the perfectRead more