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How do I choose the right therapist?
Question: I have tried psychotherapy in the past without as much success as I would have liked. I would like to try again but how do I find a better therapist? Not every therapist is right for every...
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How do I get my partner into therapy?
Question: My boyfriend and I are fighting a lot and he refuses to go to a therapist with me. I love him, and don’t want to leave, but I can’t handle all the fights. He says a stranger can’t help us –...
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Why get mad at my parents?
Question: It seems that when my friends go to therapy, they end up being mad at their parents. I don’t see why this has to happen; I love my folks and think I had a good childhood. Relationships are a...
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Are You Getting What You Need From Your HMO?
Every so often someone comes to me for therapy who has already been through counseling at their HMO. Often they blame themselves for not feeling resolved about what it was that they went to a...
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How Therapy Helps You Get The Happiness You Want
This is the first entry in a series : How can therapy help me? Wouldn’t it be great to be happy all the time? Life doesn’t dish out constant happiness, but all of us should be happy, joyful really, at...
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The Therapist’s Commitment
Lately I’ve been thinking about this work, and what the therapist owes her/ his clients. Therapists often say that they don’t want to be doing all the work, (meaning that the client must apply him or...
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The Bottom Line on Therapy
So what is the purpose of therapy, anyway? What is it supposed to do for you? Therapy gives you choice. It allows you to have choices instead of automatically thinking/feeling /acting from what your...
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Reluctant to take Medication for Depression, Anxiety or Bi Polar Disorder?
You are justified in your concerns about “putting strong drugs in my body,” as many of my clients put it. How do you decide if it is the right thing to do? It depends on how severe the depression,...
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Evaluate Your Therapist
Are you dissatisfied with your therapy? Is it you or is it your therapist? Let’s evaluate and find out. First I will tell you what is reasonable to expect from a competent, experienced therapist. In...
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Fall Depression – Seasonal Affective Disorder
We are moving into winter, and daylight savings time has come and gone. If you are sensitive to light, you may well be having less energy, have a low mood, trouble with mental acuity, and many other...
View ArticleMore Common Questions
I’m afraid of not liking my parents if I find out they hurt me when I was little. I want to be able to love them and be close to them. Maybe it isn’t worth finding out what happened to me, or is it?...
View ArticleThe “Not Good Enough” Therapist
I have answered a number of questions on Quora; many from people asking specifically for my response. A large percentage of them speak of variations on the same theme. They are either blaming or at...
View ArticleThe Therapist / Client Relationship
Snakes live in the forest. Every day they travel over rough ground – pebbles, rocks, fallen trees with uneven bark. Every Spring they get a new skin, and it happens this way: the old skin stretches...
View ArticleWould a Therapist Ever Just Give UP on a Client?
That’s a very important question – in that it could be devastating to a client to be “fired” by his/her therapist. It’s tantamount to having your parent dis-own you, because of the transference. After...
View ArticleRe-parenting in Psychotherapy
I think therapists are re-parenting all the time they are in session with a client, and being keenly aware of that is part of using transference. Recognizing that transference is going on all the time...
View ArticleHow Can I Overcome My Fear of Being Vulnerable in Therapy/
You are absolutely right, you are vulnerable in therapy. Even when your therapist works to gain your trust, as she / he should, you can only know then that the therapist will do all they can to protect...
View ArticleWould a Therapist Ever Give Up on a Client?
That’s a very important question – in that it could be devastating to a client to be “fired” by his/her therapist. It’s tantamount to having your parent dis-own you, because of the transference. After...
View ArticleThe Therapist’s Commitment
Lately I’ve been thinking about this work, and what the therapist owes her/ his clients. Therapists often say that they don’t want to be doing all the work, (meaning that the client must apply him or...
View ArticleDo therapists pretend to care about their clients?
Some people don’t want to try therapy because they believe they are paying someone to pretend to care about them. They think therapy is a fake relationship. I disagree. The therapist is paid for her...
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