Today’s writing comes after attending a blockbuster online conference* organized by Tian Dayton, a psychodramatist, who spent 90 minutes with each of five leading thinkers on trauma: Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, Stephen Porges, Ed Tronick, and Richard Schwartz. What made...

*Notice:  I would like to discuss therapist's most troublesome cases. Email or use the communication form.

The New YorkTimes recently published an article on the adolescent mental health crisis. They cited many factors but missed the center of the problem. Yes, puberty comes...

This post started out with curiosity about why fathers are often antagonistic towards their children. There isn’t much talk about this often unjustified anger, so why is it common? One important answer came when that observation connected with the way self-made successes tend to look upon...

Until very recently, psychotherapy’s future has been obscure. Just as in the early years, schools and orientations have continued to build their private troves of findings and techniques, while hoping to recruit new acolytes and ultimately triumph over the others. Every year, new...

This post was originally published six years ago and is updated here. As indicated in TIFT #1, I continue to be impressed with the value of seeing people as a kind of sandwich with an adult self layered on top and a very active child. Once open to the concept, it is remarkable how often one finds...

How can we observe what goes on outside of consciousness? When we humans do things clearly against our own best interests and even against own free will, we can safely surmise that some other agency in the mind is at work. I call that agency the "nonconscious problem solver."...

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...