The New York Times features a blog column about the experience of psychotherapy called “Couch.” Recently, they published a very intimately written and because of that intimacy fascinating account of one person’s journey into psychotherapy. The piece, written by Said Sayrafiezadeh, who is himself a writer, is a very personal account of the obstacles he […]
To honor the memory of Robin Williams, who died tragically this week by suicide, I thought I would repost a blog piece I wrote about depression and add some comments. In response to the utter shock and horror of Mr. Williams’s death, there has been a more open discussion and examination of depression in the […]
Tony Kushner’s play, “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures,” like its title is sprawling, broad in its reach and immensely thought provoking. I was fortunate to see it at Berkeley Rep (playing till the end of June). There is a lot that one can say about it. […]
This morning while driving to the office, I heard a radio commercial for yet another energy drink on the market. This one is guaranteed to give one energy and vitality. And I thought to myself about psychotherapy and how it too provides energy and vitality to one’s life, only with many fewer calories and no […]
I am fond of blogging about the wisdom that clients share with me. There is not a day that goes by without someone saying something that is so wise, so truthful, particularly about the psychotherapeutic process, the process of healing. Such a comment came just the other day. A client talked about the slow process […]
“…analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient’s ego freedom to decide one way or the other.” — Sigmund Freud, “The Ego and the Id” I recently came upon this quotation and I was very drawn to it. Here Freud, writing nearly a century ago, is defining what […]
The other day, a client said a very beautiful, true and I think profound sentence. We had been talking about healing, the healing that is often at the core of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, that is, healing the soul, healing fundamentally deep within oneself. And in recognition of that work, the client said, “It takes a […]
Psychoanalysis and its chief tool, the couch, certainly evoke a lot of images. New Yorker cartoons come to mind. (A large fish is lying on the couch, the analyst in his chair behind the fish. The analyst asks: “So can you give me a metaphor for how you feel?” Presumably ‘Like a fish out of […]
I’d like to close out the year with a poem. It is a habit of mine to include a poem in this blog posting at the end of the year. Unfortunately, a practice I’ve gotten away from in recent years. Poetry and psychotherapy (and psychoanalysis) have much in common. Both mediums are focused on words. […]
The following article is also available on Psyched in Sf. With the help of my clients, I have been thinking lately about transcendence. Generally when people talk about transcendence, they are talking about some exalted spiritual state. In both Eastern and Western religions, there are concepts that connote an experience of a realm that is […]
