psychotherapy & spirituality
I met Elizabeth Dickson in the mid-1990’s and her impact on my life and career has been beyond measurable. The combination of her worldliness, her passions, her integrity and her authenticity allowed her to form very real, warm and eminently helpful relationships with clients and colleagues alike. Read more…
Irvin Yalom, master therapist
How pleasantly surprised I was recently to see Irvin Yalom’s article in the New York Times’ Sunday Review section. Reading it brought tears to my eyes—partly because the article itself was so moving but mostly because it brought to mind the span of Yalom’s long and mighty career and the profound impact he’s had on so many of us. Read more…
relationships require emotional creativity
Emotional creativity involves relating to your own negative emotional reactions as raw material with which to build and create. Once you take this perspective, you will no longer see yourself as a passive victim of your own negative emotions. Nor will you allow yourself to believe that your partner is “making you” feel this way. Read more…
helping men be more needy
There’s a particular challenge to discussing emotional needs in therapy with men because our social conditioning so often idealizes being macho, playing it cool, being detached and above it all, etc. In reality this hyper-guarded and aloof posture that men are explicitly and implicitly trained to assume turns into a private hell over time. Read more…
codependency & personal power
Far too many people have learned to automatically and habitually give away their personal power. Without realizing what they’re doing, they repeatedly idealize other people (particularly authority figures and romantic interests) and then subjugate themselves to those people. Read more…