Often psychotherapy embraces philosophical questions. The two practices of inquiry rely on thinking about fundamental questions of human existence. And while I do not profess to be a philosopher or to do the work of philosophy, I am familiar with one philosophical question which often arises in < a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy">psychotherapeutic treatment: what is the impact […]

The other day a client asked me a question — which is in fact the question – associated with psychotherapy. She asked, “Can one ever get over it?” The “it” in question could be a number of things – essentially, “it” stands for some aspect of the past that was traumatic or at the very […]

Psychotherapy is anachronistic. In this busily moving, rapidly firing world we live in, psychotherapy is about slowing down. In this day and age of speed and impulse, of constant movement, psychotherapy is about thinking. At its core psychotherapy is two (sometimes more) people sitting down and talking. It is about thinking together. (Who has time […]

It can be difficult to write about the essence of anything, especially something complex in nature. How does one describe the essence of a human being for example? Does one focus on the biological realities? On the emotional, psychological or spiritual dimensions that constitute a human life? The same challenge presents itself when attempting to […]

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 […]

It was with great excitement that I recently read Freud’s paper “On Psychotherapy.” The paper is taken from a 1904 lecture that Freud gave to a group of fellow doctors. This is Freud at the beginning of his career and at the inception of psychoanalysis (and subsequently psychotherapy). There are, of course, a lot of […]

Surely one of the most important of human needs is to be understood: To feel that another person really understands you, really gets you. And when you feel this sense of being understood, you feel less alone in life. It is an existential fact that to some extent we are all alone. It is a […]

If I were asked (and I’m glad I’ve not been; though I suppose I’m asking myself) if I could capture what psychotherapy is about in a word, I would say “repair.” It’s one of the best words in the English language. To repair. There are, according to an online dictionary, a number of meanings. I […]

While the exchange between the client and therapist occurs through verbal and nonverbal communications, it is fundamentally a relationship conducted through words. It is still “the talking cure” (Freud, 1910, p. 13), though I don’t think so much about “cure” as I do about “change” or “development.” [Interestingly, it was Freud’s patient who coined the […]

Often clients come to a session with something to talk about, some idea or topic to discuss. And, of course, that is fine, though not a requirement. Sometimes clients begin a session by saying “I don’t know where to begin” or “I don’t know what to talk about.” And that’s fine too. In fact, at […]