7 Clinicians Share Their Best Strategies
Cloe Madanes, Courtney Armstrong, Frank Pittman, Kirsten Lind Seal, Lynn Lyons, Ron Taffel, Steve Andreas • 5/13/2022
In this collection, master therapists share how they’ve used humor in ways that both enliven and enrich the work of therapy.
Magazine Article
Friends Celebrate His Life and Legacy
Esther Perel, Jay Lappin, Mary Jo Barrett, Mary Pipher, Richard Schwartz, Ron Taffel, Terry Real • 3/2/2021
Sharing how Rich Simon impacted our lives—and the field as a whole.
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How Young Clients Are Leading Therapists to New Places
Ron Taffel • 11/9/2018
As they’re about to surpass baby boomers as the largest generation, millennials are coming to dominate the population of therapy consumers. But their impact goes beyond sheer numbers. With sometimes startling directness, they’re demanding that their therapists become even more “real” and disclosing, whether therapists are comfortable being that unguarded or not.
Magazine Article
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 Therapists Seeing a New Kind of Attachment?
Ron Taffel • 9/11/2014
We used to think that disordered attachment was the result of early parental neglect or abuse. But today, has a paradoxical mix of parental overinvolvement and inattention led to a social epidemic of pseudo-attachment?
Magazine Article
The Search for the Unspoken Self
Ron Taffel • 9/1/2012
When we trust in ourselves to follow the signals of life that the patient emits in seemingly casual conversation, we increase chances of stepping outside the stable confines of our theoretical models to enjoy an unexpected encounter.
Magazine Article
and What Therapists Can Do About It
Ron Taffel • 1/1/2012
American parents today face a perfect storm of cultural and social circumstances that undermine the very foundations of parental authority. In response, mothers and fathers are beginning to see therapists as irrelevant and to challenge the entire social, educational, and economic context of childrearing.
Magazine Article
Treating the Nonhierarchical Family
Ron Taffel • 9/1/2009
Parenting and childhood today often seem to have more in common with abstract expressionism than with Norman Rockwell. But is this transformation of the nature of family norms and values such a bad thing?
Magazine Article
Inside the World of 21st Century Teens
Ron Taffel • 11/26/2008
For decades before and after World War II, children all over the United States hung out, had slumber parties, made crank phone calls, and played sports unsupervised. They didn't need the help of adults to set up play dates or hand out certificates of participation. As we know all too well by now, we no longer live in that world. What's less apparent is that, despite the appearance of greater parental involvement and psychological sophistication, most adults are just as clueless about the "second family" of their children's peer group and adolescent pop culture as they ever were.
Magazine Article
How Therapists can Help Today's Fearful Kids
Ron Taffel • 11/10/2003
Teens and preteens today pulsate with anxiety in a pressure-cooker youth culture and an explosive world, ever at the edge. Not that you'd know it when you first meet them. For the most part, they don't act particularly scared. But for all their apparent bravado, kids need the felt presence of adults—the undeniable evidence that we can be emotionally there for them, keeping them safe and providing them with the structure and guidance they crave in a frighteningly chaotic world. Nothing less seems to hold their anxiety, or capture their digital-speed, supersaturated attention.
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