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Many of my clients have had their minds taken over in childhood. This situation is not one that might be reflected in a B horror movie – though there is something horrible and sad in it. Rather, it is a too often common experience from childhood of growing up with a dominant figure who infiltrates […]

What is all this focus on emotions in psychotherapy anyways? Sometimes I wonder if my clients are wondering that. Sometimes they ask me directly. And indeed there is a lot of focus on feelings ones feelings. Often in a session, when a client is getting in touch with feelings –sadness, anger, joy – I will […]

I’m sure you have had the experience that when engaged in a conversation, you realize something that you had not realized before. Or when conversing with someone else, you have thoughts that you hadn’t quite had before. This is the power of relationship – and it is the essence of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is about the […]

Last week I wrote about psychotherapy as a process of memory – the act of remembering what is painful but which has gone unremembered and thus remains lodged in the body. Some more thoughts about memory. As I mentioned last week, Freud’s patients presented with mysterious illnesses and disabilities for which no organic cause could […]

Over a hundred year ago, one of the astonishing discoveries that Freud made was that through the act of psychotherapy a person heals through memory. Freud, working with patients with physical symptoms for which no organic cause could be found, discovered that these symptoms were the stored up effects of emotional and psychological trauma. His […]

Last night there was an interesting program on PBS that explored the life and teaching of the Buddha. Among the many points of interest expressed, one really sticks out in my mind. And that is the point that Buddhism becomes a vehicle for the practitioner to experience the miraculous in the everyday life. Through the […]

It is not uncommon in my psychotherapy practice to work with people who have very strong and severe inner critics. Sometimes I am just amazed at how prevalent this phenomenon is. In the course of our work, a client’s inner critic often reveals itself and its judgment is harsh and severe. In such cases a […]

I very much enjoyed attending a full day of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy conference on “Expanding the Relational Context” which was recently held right here in San Francisco. It is very exciting to see where the field of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy is heading. Two such areas of growth include how […]

Sometimes there is no telling what one can find when reading psychological material. I was very pleased this week to come upon a poem in one such publication. I have been thinking lately about the similarities between writing poetry and being a psychotherapist. Both obviously require a great deal of listening and attention to words. […]

It’s instructive during a therapy session to pay close attention to the words that people use. Words, of course, reveal a lot. Sometimes there are slips (as Freud so famously pointed out) that reveal some of what is unconscious. Other times there are words that exquisitely reveal the pain or pleasure a person feels. I […]