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Often people come into therapy in a lot emotional distress and having great difficulty being with those upsetting feelings. So it might sound paradoxical, perhaps a little strange, that often our focus in psychotherapy is just that: to be with and feel that pain. The aim of therapy is relief from that suffering, which starts […]

Recently a friend sent me a copy of a blog that she found on SF Gate about research into the act of giving thanks. Just before Thanksgiving, I had written on the subject. So I’m excited to report what science has found. The article by Doc Gurley, entitled “How Giving Thanks Improves Your Health,” reports […]

On this Thanksgiving day, it seems appropriate to say a word about gratitude. It’s true that most people come into therapy because of some distressing issues. And much of the work of psychotherapy is to talk about those issues and express one’s feelings. Although this can be a painful process, hopefully the end result is […]

Does this seem familiar? In the course of a normal day, you check your work email and your box is full of messages, some urgent. You check your personal email, perhaps you have more than 1 account, and there are many people awaiting replies from you. You have one phone, sometimes two, dangling from your […]

People come into therapy for various reasons. There are some people who have what are diagnosable mental disorders. People with severe depression (known as Major Depressive Disorder), Bipolar Disorder, and eating disorders suffer from such mental illnesses. Usually treatment for these clients requires a combination of psychotherapy and medication management. While these disorders are serious […]

While there are a lot of factors that go into working with couples on their relationship, often a basic building block that I focus on is communication. Couples, married or otherwise, straight or gay, come into therapy because of troubling issues. Often underlying these issues – be they about sex, finances or trust – is […]

Often a prospective client will ask me what type of psychotherapy I practice. My answer is always the same: talk therapy. There are these days many different types of therapy with many different acronyms (it is sometimes difficult to keep up with the latest practices). So it feels a little strange and old-fashioned to be […]

Psychotherapy often involves quite a bit of time talking about one’s past, often the very past going back to one’s childhood. It’s not uncommon then for a client to wonder about this. After all, he or she has usually come into therapy because of some disturbing issues in the present. What does the past have […]

Recently a client of mine told me about an old episode of Star Trek that she happened to see. (I vaguely remember the episode from many years ago.) In the show, Captain Kirk, through a mishap in the transporter system (the one that “beams down” humans to other planets and ships), becomes split in half. […]

From time to time I like to write about the different healing aspects of psychotherapy. Today I’d like to focus on what is called “transference.” What is meant by this technical term? Basically, transference applies to the belief that we learn patterns of relating to others and ways of seeing ourselves and others from our […]