emotional sobriety
Putting down the addictive substance (alcohol, cocaine, pills, pot) or activity (gambling, porn, shopping, hoarding) is where sobriety begins, not ends. In the absence of repeated intoxication, you are left to face yourself, your relationships and your life. This new set of conditions often unleashes a torrent of emotional chaos that sends far too many… Read More…
self-love: healthy or neurotic?
Some people seek psychotherapy in NYC with the following thought in mind: “I need to love myself more.” Who could argue with that? Well, Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau might. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that he would challenge us to philosophize—to unpack the term ‘self-love,’ reflect on its underlying assumptions and clarify… Read More…
toxic patterns in relationships
It’s natural for people to enter couples therapy or marriage counseling with very strong thoughts and feelings about what their partner or spouse is doing ‘wrong.’ This is one way that human beings react to the very deep pain that results from conflict/tension in relationships: we blame the other. Thus, at some point during relationship… Read More…
stay out of other people’s heads
In the world of addiction, recovery and therapy in NYC, it is common to hear people say: “What other people think of me is none of my business.” Reminding yourself of this can be a helpful antidote to the pernicious habit of obsessing about what other people are thinking about you. Of course we should… Read More…
approval seeking & people pleasing
Codependency is a term often used to name some of the self-defeating ways that human beings can participate in relationships, the major characteristics of which include being overly controlling and/or overly compliant. For today I’m thinking about the latter, that corrosive habit of engaging in excessive approval seeking and people pleasing that is usually followed… Read More…