The word healing means to make whole, but coming to a sense of wholeness after a significant loss is a difficult process that can’t be rushed.

By Deb Dana - The three elements of our autonomic nervous system act as our largely subconscious surveillance system, working in the background to read subtle signals of safety or threat. Here's how to help clients become aware of their patterns of response to ease and distress.

In the past, resilience was thought of as an immutable trait: something we're born with that predetermines how well we can tolerate stress. In reality, Linda Graham explains, “resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity.” It's something that can be developed with training, like a muscle.

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By William Doherty - Are therapists more like shamans or family doctors? Explorers of human depths or more like Siri on your iPhone, just directing you from one place to another? I'm a skeptic about whether any clinical approach is good at getting clients consistently to the promised land of transformation. Maybe therapy is better understood as being about breakthroughs—small, medium, and large—rather than about transformation.

By Martin Seif and Sally Winston - We can’t guarantee certainty about anything, really. But some of us become haunted by needing to know for sure. We call this unrelenting need the Reassurance Trap. Here's a strategy for getting out of it.

I work at a school for elementary- and middle-school kids in New York City. Counseling children and families affected by homelessness is a rapidly expanding segment of my work. Providing trauma-sensitive care for them has become a cornerstone of my approach, but I’ve learned that it doesn’t take fancy interventions to help displaced families feel better.

When it comes to addressing systemic racism and injustice, “therapy’s not enough,” says trauma expert Mary Jo Barrett. But that doesn’t mean therapists can’t be a part of the effort to create change.

Andrew has started showing symptoms of OCD. He’s struggled with anxiety for a while, but the pandemic seems to have been a tipping point for him. His therapist, who works in a rural area and doesn't specialize in treating OCD, doesn’t have many options for referrals and isn't sure how to help. Five clinicians share how they'd handle the situation.

Even the best therapists rely on advice from peers. In the spirit of building community, we're introducing Clinician's Quandary, a new forum where you can weigh in on how you'd handle a particular clinical quagmire. Here's this month's Quandary.

Too often, therapists working with anger focus on controlling and preventing it, rather than finding constructive ways to use it. Bioenergetic therapy regards anger differently, providing tools that can help clients access and express anger in safe ways.

If you could go back in time and give advice to yourself as a beginning therapist, what would you say? Worry less? Train harder? Practice more self-care? Renowned trauma expert Janina Fisher shares the five things she wishes she’d known when she first began practicing.

Rick Hanson describes how becoming more mindful of our body and thoughts, and the link between the two, can make us happier and less afraid of life's uncertainties.

When working with a young client who's struggling with self-harm, how should clinicians navigate the practical, emotional, and ethical difficulties surrounding how to involve parents and caregivers?

In my years of working with myself and my clients around self-care, I’ve learned that there is no such thing as perfect self-care. Instead, I’ve found authentic self-care, which is anything but perfect.

Becoming a parent gives us a chance to grow by attending to old wounds, including many that we may have forgotten. The aim is not to deny our history, but to understand it and develop a new relationship with it, bringing self-compassion to ourselves in those moments when we lose it. Here's a seven-step process that can help.

When COVID-19 hit and many of us began stocking up on food and sheltering in place, I grew deeply concerned for my clients. How were they going to handle the endless hours of isolation, or conversely, the stress of too many people at home at once? As a therapist who specializes in eating issues, here's the approach I use to help them.

Couples therapist and bestselling author Esther Perel explains how life in quarantine is changing the dynamics of romantic relationships, and what this means for couples therapy.

When kids are learning remotely, it can be tough on parents also working from home. Here's how a therapeutic approach that takes into account the larger systems and societal forces in a client’s life can help families get back on track.

Therapist and author Ken Hardy speaks on the toll that micro and macro assaults on dignity take on the lives of people of color, challenging therapists to think more deeply about how they've been racially socialized.

The coronavirus pandemic is testing us all. But what do we do when our anxiety, loneliness, or grief gets overwhelming? Therapist and author Deb Dana shares what Polyvagal Theory can teach us about helping ourselves return to a calm, centered place.

Week after week, a client’s sessions focus on her issues with her partner. Her therapist thinks couples therapy would be tremendously helpful, but the partner refuses to attend. The therapist worries her client is just spinning her wheels in individual therapy, since all she talks about are the changes she wants to see in her relationship, and isn't sure how to help her. Five therapists share how they'd proceed.

Clinical psychologist and author Jack Kornfield has been instrumental in bringing mindfulness to Western audiences. With candor and humor, he shares a moving story about how mindfulness can make us more patient, compassionate human beings, and explains what it means for therapists to be "heart-holders" in today's society.

As experts in any field will tell you, the secret to honing your craft is practice, practice, practice. But a little advice doesn’t hurt either. Here, four therapists well acquainted with the ins and outs, highs and lows, and successes and challenges of practicing psychotherapy share the most valuable lessons they’ve learned during their years in practice, as well as what they wish someone had told them before they ever sat down with a client.

By Lauren Dockett - Many therapists know their way around family systems. But what if they could create three-dimensional experiences to help clients shed the pain of lingering traumas that can get passed down through generations? As research into the epigenetics of trauma develops, a reporter looks into an unusual approach to healing.