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People come into therapy because of some degree of emotional discomfort. The well-known psychotherapist Irv Yalom wrote that often he begins a session with the question: “What ails?” And while the causes – the stressors – of that suffering are often the focus of therapy, so too are the feelings themselves. And sometimes having these […]

Recently a friend asked me about my experience working with couples. He wondered if the biggest issues people bring in concern sex and money. It’s true of course: those are often the issues that bring people in. Couples, married or not, straight or gay, often come into therapy because these and other troubling issues seem […]

I am in the process of revising my website. One page that I will be adding is an introduction to myself so that prospective clients can begin to get a sense of me. I thought I’d share what I have written to date of that intro: The psychotherapeutic process is an extremely personal one. At […]

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (“No Joke: Group Therapy Offers Savings in Numbers,” March 24, 2009, by Kevin Helliker) indicates that, given our economically challenging times, more people are turning to group therapy, some for the first time. The article correctly points out that group therapy is less expensive, “at least 50% […]

I don’t believe in laziness. I don’t believe that it exists. And my clients know this. Quite often it comes up: we are talking about why a client doesn’t do something beneficial for him or herself, or why he or she is procrastinating about something, and the client will say “I’m lazy.” And I will […]

The National Institute on Health estimates that approximately 5.7 million American adults, or about 2.6 percent of the population age 18 and older in any given year, have bipolar disorder. Although that is a large percentage of the population, in my experience, the disorder is not well understood. And quite often people dealing with this […]

The other day a client and I were discussing the similarities and differences between psychotherapy and insight-oriented meditation. It was a very interesting discussion, and I thought I would share some of our conclusions. The basic act of meditation is to notice what happens in the moment. While the meditator is seated, thoughts, feelings, and […]

There is a very interesting article in today’s SF Chronicle. In “Social Isolation: A Significant Health Issue,” Katherine Seligman talks about the prevalence and stigma of loneliness. She sites a study that finds that 20 percent of all individuals are at any given time unhappy because of social isolation. She indicates that more and more […]

Before moving on from my discussion of depression to write about other disorders, including bipolar illness and anxiety disorders, I wanted to present the following list of symptoms for Major Depressive Disorder, or clinical depression. This information comes from the National Institute of Mental Health. It is a very concise list of symptoms, many of […]

I have written previously about the most serious form of depression, what is called Major Depressive Disorder and sometimes referred to as clinical depression. But another type of depression is important to note: Dysthymic Disorder. This type of depression is characterized by long–term (two years or longer; 1 year in adolescents and children) but less […]