By Michael Greene - Virtual reality challenges some of our physical and emotional boundaries, altering our immediate experience of what’s real and blurring our sense of being separate from what we’re watching. Put on VR goggles and headphones and you enter a new environment, experienced from a first-person, 360-degree perspective. Researchers have already been tapping into this powerful sense of immersion to pioneer various types of VR-based therapies. But is VR really a game changer?

By Marian Sandmaier - Today, we’re entering a new and fast-expanding universe of emotional self-help—one populated by smartphone apps. They offer tools for everything from depression, social anxiety, and binge eating to phobias, postpartum problems, and substance abuse recovery. Since solace-by-app is here to stay, how might clinicians become a meaningful part of this mental health game changer, in ways that might benefit both themselves and their clients?

By Andrew Weil - Depression and anxiety should be as fully conquered as smallpox and polio. But more of us than ever aren't experiencing optimum emotional well-being. Why is the vast enterprise of professional mental health unable to help us feel better? I want you to consider the possibility that the basic assumptions of mainstream psychiatric medicine are obsolete and no longer serve us well. Those assumptions constitute the biomedical model of mental health and dominate the whole field.

By Jeffrey Kottler - Who has time to change the world when we already have our hands full trying to make a living and get through the obstacle course of a normal work week? It's not impossible. I now spend several months each year working in remote regions of Nepal, helping lower-caste girls, who are at the greatest risk of being forced into early marriage or trafficked into sex slavery. It's when I'm here that I feel most alive, and at least for the few months after I return, I feel a new clarity and focus about what's most important.

By Jay Efran and Rob Fauber - Over psychotherapy’s history, the search for new therapy techniques and fancier gimmicks has led the field lurching down one blind alley after another. But therapy is undeniably a form of conversation, not a medical treatment. It can never be fully scripted or manualized, and its value hinges on a few basic principles that have been known for a long time.

Poet, essayist, naturalist, teacher, polymath, and all-around creative genius, Diane Ackerman has for decades been writing extraordinarily rich, scientifically informed, and compulsively readable books of astonishing variety. In the following video clip, she describes the advancements, challenges, and insights for therapists in the new "Human Age."

By Hedy Schleifer - Many people wonder how therapists manage to do the work they do. Of the thousands of meaningful sessions that take place in a therapist’s office, certain ones stand out. In the following storytelling piece, couples therapist Hedy Schleifer shares a memorable moment from her own work.

In a moving closing address, Rick Hanson invoked the spirit of Mr. Rogers to help attendees better acknowledge their connection with each other and savor their most inspiring Symposium experiences at the meeting.

By Chris Lyford - Since its founding in 2005, the Give an Hour organization has created a nationwide network of nearly 7,000 social workers, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, couples therapists, and substance-abuse counselors who’ve committed one hour a week to doing free counseling with members of the military and their families.

By Alli Spotts-De Lazzer - If you're a psychotherapist who uses any portable device to communicate with or about patients, it's vitally important to assess confidentiality risks and implement data security before a theft or loss occurs. Although no security is 100 percent foolproof, you can make reasonable and appropriate efforts to protect confidential data.