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People compare many things to therapy: hikes in nature, talks with a good friend, meditation, and even confessions to a priest.

To start, the question shouldn’t be if you need therapy, but if it would benefit you. Few people need therapy, and only in a few circumstances.

Finally, diagnostic Anxiety qualifies for medical marijuana use.

I never imagined myself a perfectionist.

Trump is making lots of us feel crazy.

You can’t all be bad. Or at a minimum you cant be only bad. We walk in the same streets with you.

Even as adults, we can worry if our parents are disappointed in us.

Some folks fear they are going to be asked to hate their parents by their therapist.

Therapist-client relationship

Philadelphia psychotherapy practice Full Living specializes in making thoughtful matches between clients and skilled experienced therapists in the Greater Philadelphia Area.

Finding a Therapist

Therapist credentials, education, training.

Long term psychotherapy gets a bad rap in the age of managed care and evidenced based concrete treatments.

Up-selling is a term borrowed from the business world.

It is a reasonable question. “Does my therapist like me”?

Liam Neeson recently revealed that some 40 years ago, after a friend was raped, he found himself entering predominantly black neighborhoods, seeking out black men, hoping for an altercation in order to channel his rage.

Some basic policy questions: How do you or your agency determine service fees? Do you or your organization offer a sliding scale? If, so, to whom, under what circumstances? What is your or your agency’s late cancellation policy?

Lena Dunham didn’t get it just a little wrong. She got it massively wrong. She did a truly horrible thing. She protected a man accused of sexual harassment because she didn’t want to believe he did it.

While there are lots of ways to describe and define emotional, mental, and psychological health, there is one consistent theme; Integration.

Kavanaugh’s tears were real. He was devastated that his good boy, church-going, sports and beer loving, devoted son, persona was being brought down. It is part of his true self. A part of himself he is very proud of.

Boys will be boys. Rough-housing.

I know I know…the motto is “strike when the iron is hot”.

It isn’t sustainable. The ongoing shock, panic, horror and emotional devastation resulting from the daily barrage of thoroughly unbelievable atrocities and absurdities promulgated by Trump and his administration.

When I woke to the reports of Anthony Bourdain’s death by suicide Friday morning, I was visibly upset.

We are currently involved in a national dialogue about sexual harassment, abuse, rape, and molestation, of young people, employees, job applicants, and others who are vulnerable to the abuses of power.

The events and dialogue surrounding this month’s march by white supremacists, KKK, skin heads and neo Nazi’s in Charlottesville have left many of us shocked by the display of such blind hatred and aggression towards whole populations of people.

Making this one change prepares the foundation for all kinds of growth and change.

We judge each other as dispositioned towards negativity or positivity, scarcity or abundance, as if it is a chosen disposition.

An element of a good psychotherapy, the one which requires the most skill and psychological strength from the therapist, is our work at uncovering early childhood dynamics (archeology) impacting our daily patterns (dances).

Ok. So you may not be used to hearing the words erotic or fetish in a sentence with zits and popping, but that is surprising.

When we are considering giving up, on our relationship, or on life itself, our thoughts become narrowed to whether or not we are going to give up, and how we would leave if we decide we are done.

Of all the many bridges we cross in our work to join our clients, isms can not only significantly compromise our ability to empathize, sympathize, and understand where are clients are coming from, but they can literally reduce our interest or capacity.

and how you should run, not walk, to begin your therapy journey.

It is both hard to turn away and unbearable to watch.

As during most weeks of this past year, social media has been rife with commentary related to issues of race, justice and protest.

Current national political debate is so divided and contentious that most of us aren’t listening to one another’s points, or concerns.

For both seasoned clinicians and beginners alike, getting unknowingly sucked into enactments with clients is par for the course of long-term work traversing the world of the unconscious.

Psychoanalytic theory pays plentiful attention to the role mothers play in early childhood development.

In a letter penned in defense of a light sentencing for his son, Brock Turner’s father described him as “happy go lucky” prior to the events one night in January 2015.

I am a large woman, who worked for a decade on size-activism.

When we tell someone at a party that we are a psychotherapist, they inevitable ask “Don’t you get bored hearing about everyone’s problems”?

As parents, a lot of us have our fingers crossed.

Sometimes clients express their wish that we could be friends.

It is true that no analyst or analytically oriented psychotherapist worth seeing is interested in anything else as attentively as our moms*.

Internships rock. They are a great way to test out a type of work without the commitment of a job.

Sigmund Freud postulated that for psychoanalysis to be effective, the client must share with the analyst all that crosses their mind during the course of the clinical hour.

“What is wrong with me”? “Why do I do this to myself”? “Why do I keep making the same mistakes”?

Most folks make New Years resolutions about their most core issues.

If you want a future for you kids that reflects a fantasized “good ole days".

Parenting is hard. I know parents are supposed to be consistent.

When folks struggle with ongoing depression, anxiety or bi-polar symptoms, serious action is required.

Here is my current contribution to the perennial debate about why some folks hate feminists, the concept of feminism, and consistently see them as “angry feminists”.

Couples fight. And when we do, partners expose our most vulnerable, panicky, hateful selves.

Hate gets a bad rap. Yet real love doesn’t exist without it. Hate and love always live next to each other.

It is not just Jews and school-bound kids that are gearing up for the new year.

My big celesbian sighting (that is a celebrity lesbian-sighting), was in a hotel lobby in upstate New York, and Alison Bechdel was in her sweatpants version of pajamas.

Often given as a graduation gift, Dr. Seuss’s Oh’ The Places You’ll Go is a masterpiece reminding us of the natural ups and downs of life and the dangers life entails.

This is a text I received from my 7 year old son one morning upon realizing I wasn’t going to the zoo with his class that day.

The TV show Hannibal is the most internally consistent psychological drama on TV.

I have a client who sometimes starts a session saying “I don’t want to talk about Rwanda”.

As an analytically oriented psychotherapist, I am always thrown a bit by “attachment theory” and “attachment parenting”.

When couples fight, the need to be right can easily distracts us from the damage that insistence does to our relationship.

When I first entered 12 Step recovery in my early 20’s I was faced with the daunting task of identifying a “Higher Power”.

I am a large, body-positive, feminist, who worked with in the Eating Disorder field as both a clinician and educator.

Most of us start thinking about New Year Resolutions the morning after Christmas.

What could possibly compare to the expectations for Christmas?

Communication skills are key to turning couples fighting into vehicles for relationship growth and change or just increasing injury and disconnection.

The short answer to if you should go to psychotherapy is Yes!

Most clients know that some of their best sessions happen when they don’t know what their therapy topic is going to be.

Our unconscious minds are filed with truths about our history, hopes, fears, struggles and triumphs.

Here is a new feature of my blog…book recommendations.

I want to be thankful on Thanksgiving; I really do. It is just that the build up is so big, the expectations so high, the demand for joy, and gratitude so relentless.

Both my client and I sat with such a strange mixture of feelings tonight. In the past 2 weeks his life has radically changed for the better.

It is completely routine for couples to say and ask random things about the chores and business of the running of a house and life in the middle of otherwise lovely conversations.

Psychotherapy myths about therapists, clients, why people go to therapy, and the therapy itself prevent some folks from using this uniquely potent tool for crafting a better life.

Many folks, including some clinicians, use the terms counseling and therapy as if they are interchangeable.

I don’t mean arguing right before we go to sleep. While it sucks when that happens, sometimes it happens and makes most sense to have the fight then.

A blog about psychotherapy Folks compare a lot of things to psychotherapy, like hikes in nature, talks with a good friend, meditation, and even confessions to a priest.