Patricia Papernow, an expert in working with stepfamilies, helps us understand the fundamental issues and unique hurdles most stepfamilies must navigate.

By Gregory Samuels - My daughter has a broken heart. She’s 6,000 miles away, across an ocean, on a semester abroad, and she’s stricken. I was about the same age as Erin is now when I first had my heart broken, and I can’t help but wonder if, along with bad love-karma, I’ve somehow passed along some terrible predisposition. Was there a way to raise her so that she’d be impervious to love turned sour?

By Chris Lyford - Back-to-school season can be one of the most stressful periods of the year for a child, no matter what age. From making new friends to handling a new workload, the challenges that come with the new school year are plentiful. Here, three veteran therapists, all of whom know quite a bit about back-to-school anxieties, share the clinical lessons they learned—and a few stories.

By Rick Hanson - Motherhood isn't, in itself, a psychological or medical problem. But the challenges inherent in childbearing and childrearing can lead to clinical consequences, with studies showing that mothers are more likely to have depressive moods, more stress than fathers, and frequent conflicts with their partner. Here are five ways to help them cope.

By Katy Butler - Five years ago, my 79-year-old father had a stroke, and my family entered a new life stage. Every family wound I thought I'd outgrown and every trusted defense that had seemed to work emerged again, carrying with it danger, and an opportunity for redemption.

By Cara Brendler - Bridging the gap between fathers and daughters is one of the great challenges for family therapists. The most familiar dynamic we see is estrangement: fathers and daughters orbiting in separate worlds, each invisible to the other. Here are five approaches that I’ve developed and used throughout the years that have proven to be effective in many situations like this.

By Barry Jacobs - A lot of blended families don’t really blend: the new “relatives” at first try to join together, but then they quietly distance themselves, however awkwardly, as differences and conflicts emerge, even as they try to pretend otherwise. My stepfather, Steve, and I made no such pretense—we were enemies from the start.

By Sandra Wartski - Any therapist who's worked with eating disorders knows that treatment can be a rocky journey. While it can be unpredictable, scary, and slow, my work with one client helped reinforce my optimism that recovery is possible.

By Lynn Lyons - OCD, like other anxiety disorders, is like a cult leader, demanding acceptance of a skewed view of reality. It shows up and makes an announcement that’s distressing--the obsessive thought. It then posits a solution to the distress, some action, either internal or external, that offers temporary relief---the compulsion. But by including parents in therapy, it demystifies the disorder and allows them to be part of a family plan to deal with it.

By Barry Jacobs and Julia Mayer - The bedraggled, beleaguered, and bereft family caregivers who come to us for therapy have a common litany of complaints. They feel overburdened by caregiving tasks, unacknowledged by those they’re caring for, and unsupported by family members who take their herculean efforts for granted. Here's how to help them approach the caregiving experience more positively.