In the last post, the subject was how to awaken emotions. In this one, we discuss what to do when emotions are already active and causing distress. Working with painful, uncomfortable, and overwhelming emotions is a large part of what we do. Sometimes strong emotions are what bring...

An interesting way to focus on the processes of psychotherapy is to ask what immediate objective we are pursuing at a given moment. As we work, we are generally aware of trying to accomplish something specific. By naming our objective, we can focus more clearly on the processes...

One of my best summer reads was Amir Levine and Rachel Heller’s 2010 classic, Attached. Maybe I should be embarrassed for coming to the party late and even more from learning about it via my patient’s dating coach, but this book, aimed at a popular audience, goes beyond...

How a Lack for Primal Love can Heal

A reader writes: “I feel like I’m done with therapy but not done with my therapist. The only reason I’m still going after many years is that I am so deeply attached to him and can’t imagine life without him in it. I’ve...

The idea of primal love comes from working with clients who have been deprived in early life. Many of the people who responded to posts (on the howtherapyworks.com blog) about attachment to your therapist have found themselves looking for something their therapist could not give them....

For the therapy consultant there is usually one easy answer. When therapy is stuck it’s a transference problem. Yes, there are exceptions. Enabling, whether from family or the an institution, can guarantee that no change will happen. I’m sure there are others, but in the vast...

This is a post I have wanted to write for some time. It is not new, but a reminder of the power of the conscience. A significant portion of cases in my practice arise from what has been called the “sick sibling syndrome,” where the well child internalizes the value of caring, not only...

In In TIFT #25, “The Quest in a Question,” we looked at how questions can engage three basic human systems: interpersonal connection, motivation, and the nonconscious problem solver’s impressive power to point towards the answer. In this post, we look at how to know...

Anne, in her mid 50s illustrates several common problems and how they can be resolved. She grew up with an alcoholic father who was physically abusive to her mother and hypercritical of his children. Her mother died when she was seven.  She started therapy in her twenties,...

In the early 70s, I was taught mostly to keep my mouth shut when doing psychotherapy. In fact, one residency didn’t select me because they saw (correctly) that staying quiet would be a real challenge. Fortunately I did match with a great residency, Albert Einstein, where my best...

One of the best summer reads in memory was the late Jaak Panksepp’s Archaeology of Mind. This eye-opening description of our mammalian emotional brain is technical, but fresh and different than anything I have come upon before. Dr. Panksepp, who passed away in 2017, makes a...

How do you tell your patients what you aim to do and how it will work? The old-fashioned answer was that it depended on what therapy you were practicing. Times are changing. Today, we are more likely to try to match the therapy to the patient, but that only highlights the confusion in our...