The Power of Embracing Vulnerability
Mary Sykes Wylie • 7/17/2020
A pervasive sense of shame makes many of us feel unworthy of human connection. Why the shame? Because in this perfectionistic culture, most of us believe we’re “not good enough." Professor and acclaimed TED speaker Brené Brown says that some people have escaped the shame trap. How? They let themselves be vulnerable.
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Jerome Kagan, Daniel Siegel, and Salvador Minuchin Weigh In
Mary Sykes Wylie • 4/30/2019
By Mary Sykes Wylie - In the world of psychotherapy, few models of human development have attracted more acceptance in recent years than the centrality of early bonding experiences to adult psychological well-being. What on earth could ever be wrong with emphasizing early bonding, connection, and relationship as the foundation of all good therapy? According to some critics, attachment-based therapy neglects a vast range of important human influences.
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...And the Transformative Session That Inspired Its Creator
Mary Sykes Wylie • 4/19/2019
By Mary Sykes Wylie - Cognitive behavioral therapy is arguably the most successful therapy ever developed. But where did this streamlined, efficient, practical therapy come from that would prove such a good match for our fast-paced, high-tech civilization?
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CBT Isn't as Manualized as You Think, Says Judith Beck
Mary Sykes Wylie • 3/29/2019
By Mary Sykes Wylie - Today, cognitive behavioral therapy is among the most widely practiced and promulgated approach in the world. But for all its mantle of scientific rigor and official approval, many therapists find CBT's "lab therapy" hard to love, if not downright dislikable. In the following interview, renowned CBT clinician Judith Beck explains how the method works, and why it's gotten a bum rap.
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Highlights from the Networker Journey
Mary Sykes Wylie, Dusty Miller, Esther Perel, Frank Pittman, Fred Wistow, Gary Greenberg, Katy Butler, Laura Markowitz, Molly Layton, Rich Simon, Ron Taffel • 1/1/2017
Out of all the hundreds and hundreds of articles that have appeared in the Networker over the past four decades, we’ve chosen a small sampling that captures the magazine’s most journalistic side, conveying not so much the eternal verities of our profession, but the sense of reading a first draft of the field’s history. Among other things, you’ll find therapeutic methods that, as exciting as they seemed at the moment, didn’t stand the test of time as well as initial forays into discussing complex issues we’re still struggling with today. We’ve also added in a few examples of writing so immediate and compelling that they have an air of timelessness. Prepare yourself for an interesting journey.
Magazine Article
Are Clinicians Still Turning a Blind Eye to a Key Factor?
Mary Sykes Wylie • 11/24/2016
By Mary Sykes Wylie - In the 1970s, no sooner had the definition of PTSD been signed, sealed, and delivered, than many clinicians began to realize that the new diagnosis by no means encompassed the experience of all traumatized clients. In the case of trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk, many of his traumatized clients shared one other feature: they all reported histories of childhood abuse.
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From Vulnerability to Daring
Mary Sykes Wylie, Rich Simon • 8/30/2016
With millions of people having seen her TED talks and read her books, researcher and bestselling author Brené Brown is a phenomenon. But aside from her talents as a speaker, teacher, and writer, why is she such a runaway hit? Haven’t therapists been writing about her professional specialty—the malign impact of shame—for decades? Perhaps her vast appeal has to do with how she’s turned the concepts of shame and vulnerability on their heads.
Magazine Article
Highlights from the 2016 Symposium
Mary Sykes Wylie • 5/6/2016
At a time in which our society seems immersed in a toxic stew of fear and anger, this year's Symposium provided a celebration of human values and ideas that seem to be vanishing from our public discourse. Here's a taste of a few of its particularly stellar moments.
- "Our Trichotillomania of the Soul" by Rich Simon
- "The Path of Surprise and Discovery" by David Whyte
- "The View from Black America" by Kenneth Hardy
- "The Dance of Sex" by Susan Johnson
- "The Wisdom of Mad Men" by William Doherty
- "How Hard Times Can Open the Heart" by Rick Hanson
Magazine Article
The Perils of Mainstream Acceptance
Mary Sykes Wylie • 2/8/2016
The explosive growth of mindfulness in America has inevitably triggered a backlash—a low, rumbling protest, particularly from Buddhists, who're disturbed by how much meditation in America appears to have been individualized, monetized, corporatized, therapized, taken over, flattened, and generally coopted out of all resemblance to its noble origins in an ancient spiritual and moral tradition.
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Finding Happiness By Learning to Pause in an Age of Distraction
Mary Sykes Wylie • 1/28/2016
Now, more than ever, we tend to greet every minute with demands such as: "I want this. I don't want this. I want more of this. I want less of that." We have ideas about what our minutes should or should not be. But if we are lucky, occasionally we experience a sparkling moment when we break out of our trance of self and are fully present. Sometimes these lead to epiphanies, which present us with aha moments of new understanding. Or our thoughts simply may be "Isn't this wonderful?" or "Isn't life amazingly rich and complicated?"
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