When therapists work with anxious kids and their families, they’re often solving immediate problems, not envisioning a clinical relationship that could last for decades. But that’s what happened for brief therapist Lynn Lyons. Here, she talks about the unexpected pleasures of being there for her youngest clients as they grow into teens and young adults.

By Betty Carter - In order to understand the particularity of almost any couple's personal experience, we need to adjust our lens to include not only their private domestic encounters, but the much larger political and social struggle about the politics of relationships beyond the walls of home.

By Evan Imber-Black - Decades ago, a family walked into one therapist's office and utterly destroyed her beliefs about keeping secrets.

By Terry Real - My own experience as a couples therapist has taught me that we aren't doing clients a favor by soft-pedaling difficult issues. More than adopting any particular methodology of change, we can be far more direct and challenging to clients who come to us than we've previously acknowledged. By and large, people are neither fragile nor stupid. If you show them how they're getting in their own way and what behaving more skillfully looks like, they'll be grateful.

By Dick Anderson - When you’re young, a car isn’t just a car—it can be a freedom machine.

A maverick and a visionary in the ’60s and ’70s, Salvador Minuchin put forth a brand new model of psychotherapy—family therapy. In the following video clip from the 2017 Symposium dinner event celebrating Minuchin's work, couples therapist Esther Perel shares her memories of working alongside Minuchin when she was just beginning work as a young therapist.

By Lauren Dockett - We live in a time when gender identity has gained a new visibility under the banner of #MeToo. But therapists are struggling with how to actually address the highly charged issues it can raise in the therapy room. The goal this time is a more encompassing conversation about the way society genders and is gendered that has profound implications for both men and women.

By Mary Jo Barrett - My very first case was the Byford family. The father was serving a six-month sentence for domestic abuse. During a home visit several months into treatment, the daughter, Laura, announced, “Dad is getting out of jail today! And he’s coming here!” My mind went blank. Her mother looked at me. Suddenly, it was as though I passed whatever strength I had to her, and she then passed it back to me.

By Alicia Muñoz - Sometimes family legacies can stir up complicated feelings and outright conflict.

By Roberta Israeloff - To my mother, who inherited the holiday after my grandmother's death, producing the seder was nothing short of a colossal chore—a feeling she'd communicate with every pot she slammed on the stove. Now, it's my turn.