Projecting and the Law of False Attribution
I’ve been meaning to write this post for more than a year now; from the beginning, I’ve had this particular title in mind although I’m not 100% sure that it’s the right one. If anyone has a better...
View ArticleSnobbery and Pretentiousness
Twice within the last six months, I’ve heard the 18-year-old son of friends use the expression “put to shame.” The first time, he told me that Lea Michele’s rendition (Glee) of “Don’t Rain on My...
View ArticlePsychodynamic Psychotherapy Video #4: Resistance
So my book will finally be available on Monday, I’m caught up on all the work I’ve been neglecting and now have some free time to focus on other things, such as continuing my video series on...
View ArticleAccentuating the Positive
I haven’t heard it in a number of years, but every once in a while, a client will ask why we talk only about “what’s wrong” in therapy. It’s a valid question. Australian blogger Evan Hadkins, who...
View ArticleDiary of a Shame Attack
On Saturday, I made a short new video, making use of what I’d learned in media training. I felt very good about that video because I’d confronted some underlying shame and the related wish to remain...
View ArticleLying to Our Clients
During several recent sessions, one of my clients has been struggling to make an important decision in her life that’s causing her considerable anguish — whether or not to leave her husband. I don’t...
View ArticleSelf-Loathing
About 30 years ago during analytic training, my good friend Tom Grant was describing a difficult case in seminar — a man in his mid-30s whom Tom had already been treating for quite some time. Tom’s...
View ArticleRespecting Your Personal Limitations
First of all, I’d like to thank those of you who visit the site often enough to have noted my absence this past month and written to me with concern. It has been a trying time, in part because of …...
View ArticleWhat Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Gender Identity Disorder Have in Common
Earlier this week while on an elliptical trainer at the gym, I watched a portion of The Doctors airing on the TV monitor above me, all about a 33-year-old man, Toby Sheldon, who has spent more than...
View ArticleThe Shame in Mental Illness
My recent posts got me to thinking about the term mental illness and how stigma-laden it remains to this day. As a society, we’ve come a long way from the bad old days when most people were too ashamed...
View ArticleThe Self-Serving Lie
Many years ago when I was just starting out as a therapist, I briefly worked for a large group practice. At the end of my tenure, the managing partner in this group, a respected psychoanalyst, refused...
View ArticleThe Evacuation of Pain
Nearly four years ago, not long after I first launched this site, I wrote about a client who coped with unbearable feelings via her eating disorder: when she could no longer endure a painful emotional...
View ArticleThe Risks of Joy
This past week, one of my clients returned from an exotic vacation and told me he’d felt almost nothing during the trip. He took no pleasure in any of his adventurous activities, and when there... The...
View ArticleLying to Our Clients
During several recent sessions, one of my clients has been struggling to make an important decision in her life that’s causing her considerable anguish — whether or not to leave her husband. I don’t...
View ArticleLying to Our Clients
During several recent sessions, one of my clients has been struggling to make an important decision in her life that’s causing her considerable anguish — whether or not to leave her husband. I don’t...
View ArticleSelf-Loathing
About 30 years ago during analytic training, my good friend Tom Grant was describing a difficult case in seminar — a man in his mid-30s whom Tom had already been treating for quite some time. Tom’s...
View ArticleRespecting Your Personal Limitations
First of all, I’d like to thank those of you who visit the site often enough to have noted my absence this past month and written to me with concern. It has been a trying time, in part because of...
View ArticleThe Shame in Mental Illness
My recent posts got me to thinking about the term mental illness and how stigma-laden it remains to this day. As a society, we’ve come a long way from the bad old days when most people were too ashamed...
View ArticleThe Self-Serving Lie
Many years ago when I was just starting out as a therapist, I briefly worked for a large group practice. At the end of my tenure, the managing partner in this group, a respected psychoanalyst, refused...
View ArticleThe Evacuation of Pain
Nearly four years ago, not long after I first launched this site, I wrote about a client who coped with unbearable feelings via her eating disorder: when she could no longer endure a painful emotional...
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