Editor's Note
November/December 2015
This issue of the Networker is an attempt to explore what we can contribute as a profession to the “conversation about race,” which, as lame and ungainly as the phrase often sounds, keeps heating up around us, even as most of us have done our best to ignore it. The intent is not somehow to analyze racism as yet another clinical problem that we can solve through our good intentions, insight, and therapeutic ingenuity, but to recognize the hard and uncomfortable truth of how racist oppression, explicit or implicit, doesn’t just harm “them.” Ultimately, it harms us all.
Magazine Article
Bonus - Read the entire article FREE!
Family Matters
Saturdays Lost: Revisiting a Bittersweet Ritual
November/December 2015
A son remembers a distant father and the bittersweet ritual that bonded them.
Magazine Article
In Consultation
Breaking the Chain of Resentment: How to Help Clients Move Past Old Wounds
November/December 2015
How do you strike a balance between validation and empowerment in helping those afflicted with chronic resentment?
Magazine Article
Lessons from the Love Lab
The Science of Couples Therapy
November/December 2015
The pioneers who birthed couples and family therapy never paused to scienti cally study the relationships they treated. Now, after systematically observing and doing therapy with thousands of couples, two of the field’s leading researchers summarize what they’ve learned about successful relationships and effective couples therapy.
Magazine Article
Point of View
Destigmatizing Autism: The Future of Neurodiversity
November/December 2015
Author Steve Silberman discusses what it means to view autistic people as individuals seeing the world in a different way, rather than just a checklist of deficits.
Magazine Article
The View From Black America
Listening to the Untold Stories
November/December 2015
Many poor, young, black people see themselves as trapped behind a wall-less prison with no exits. They know all too well that their daily experience—whether it’s going to underfunded schools, succumbing to drug use and abuse, or being the victims of police brutality and economic disparities—doesn’t matter unless it disrupts the lives of the white mainstream.
Magazine Article
Bonus - Read the entire article FREE!
Bookmarks
America’s Opportunity Chasm: A Noted Scholar Documents Our Decline in Social Mobility
July/August 2015
Robert Putnam documents the myriad psychological, health, and political consequences of the ever-growing disparities between rich and poor in America today.
Magazine Article
Reflections on the Divorce Revolution
Assessing Our Impact
July/August 2015
When it comes to helping couples considering divorce, therapists have a hundred ways to ask “What’s right for you?” but often find themselves tongue-tied when it comes to asking “What’s right for the others in your life?” Is it possible to talk about interpersonal responsibility without shaming clients and driving them away?
Magazine Article
Bonus - Read the entire article FREE!
Bookmarks
Life after Trauma: What are the possibilities for post-traumatic growth?
September/October 2015
Review of Upside: The New Science of Post-Traumatic Growth
The new emphasis on the transformative power of trauma can be a template for false assumptions about the “gift” of suffering and the meaning of recovery.
Magazine Article
Case Study
It’s Not about the Diet: Building a healthy relationship with food
September/October 2015
Too often both clinicians and clients fall into the trap of pursuing weight loss as a therapeutic goal.
Magazine Article
Clinician's Digest
The Emotional Emancipation Movement
September/October 2015
After the unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore, the Emotional Emancipation movement offers a different way to address racial issues in the African American community.
Magazine Article
Editor's Note
September/October 2015
Over the course of their careers, most psychotherapists discover that to be genuinely helpful they must learn to do something more than simply wield a set of highly specialized professional skills. But what exactly is this “something” that’s both the bedrock of therapy and the energy that propels it forward?
Magazine Article
Bonus - Read the entire article FREE!
Facing Our Dark Side
Some Forms of Self-Compassion Are Harder than Others
September/October 2015
Achieving a genuine state of self-compassion is a more challenging undertaking than many realize. Far from a little feel-better incantation you offer yourself when stressed, it’s a journey into multiple parts of yourself that may include the good, the bad, the ugly, the confused, the frightened, and the abandoned.
Magazine Article
Bonus - Read the entire article FREE!
Family Matters
A Palm under the Moon: A grandpa’s love story
September/October 2015
A young child’s bedroom is a place for magic and enchantment.
Magazine Article
In Consultation
Don’t Hit Your Sister! Understanding the complexities of moral development
September/October 2015
How to help the concerned parents of aggressive kids understand the complexities of moral development.
Magazine Article
Inside the Heart of Healing
When Moment-to-Moment Awareness Isn't Enough
September/October 2015
As the mindfulness movement sweeps through our field, many therapists are discovering that traditional contemplative practices grounded in detached self-observation have limits. When we’re overwhelmed with intense and disturbing emotions, just observing moment-to-moment experience is often not enough.
Magazine Article
Bonus - Read the entire article FREE!
Moments of Meaning
Unexpected Lessons from Practice
September/October 2015
Three clinicians share stories of challenging cases that show how the most surprising outcomes often have nothing to do with therapeutic brilliance or technical wizardry.
Magazine Article
Point of View
Smart Growth: Developing a mindset for life
September/October 2015
A conversation with motivation expert Carol Dweck on the importance of the “growth mindset” and how to enhance people’s ability to tackle adversity and persevere.
Magazine Article
The 5 Myths of Self-Compassion
What Keeps Us from Being Kinder to Ourselves?
September/October 2015
There’s now a growing body of research demonstrating that relating to ourselves in a kind, friendly manner is essential for emotional wellbeing. More pointedly, research proves false many of the common myths about self-compassion that keep us trapped in the prison of relentless self-criticism.
Magazine Article
Case Study
The Challenge of Open Relationships: Can They Ever Work?
July/August 2015
While many therapists are skeptical of open relationships, some believe that, with the right couple, they can work.
Magazine Article
Clinician's Digest
Therapists without Borders
July/August 2015
It’s the rare therapist who’s willing to leave the comforts of ordinary practice to face the hardships of working in the world’s most troubled places.
Magazine Article
Bonus - Read the entire article FREE!
Editor's Note
July/August 2015
At this moment in history, we seem to be in a divorce-busting mode, relatively speaking, and so fewer therapists are likely to tacitly encourage divorce as many of us once did. This shift certainly has the weight of traditional morality behind it and probably isn’t likely to begin swinging the other way again any time soon. But this issue of the Networker features some intrepid authors who explore, with an unusual degree of transparency, how difficult it can be to determine what’s in the best interests of clients on the brink of making perhaps the most momentous decision for which therapists regularly have a front-row seat. It’s intended as a reminder of how powerfully we can influence the process, all too often without acknowledging it, even if we don’t have the deciding vote.
Magazine Article
Bonus - Read the entire article FREE!
Family Matters
We’ll Never Be Here Again: Stopping to Listen on a Late-life Passage
July/August 2015
A sexagenarian contemplates the sobering knowledge that she’s got “a tiny little future and a great big past.”
Magazine Article
In Consultation
When a Partner Has Alzheimer’s: Alternatives to Toughing it Out
July/August 2015
Helping the traditionalist generation care for their aging partners.
Magazine Article
