Clients may experience and respond to trauma in any number of ways, so the first step to determining how to best help them work through their trauma is to understand their growth cycle.

The shadow of a smile in the midst of tears, a momentary crinkle of the eyes in the wake of anger—hints of vitality such as these can be powerful clues to essential truths that a client may be totally unaware of.

Recently, I was invited to Dharamsala by the Men Tsee Khang Institute, a school of traditional Tibetan medicine sponsored by the Dalai Lama, to give a talk on the scientific basis of the mind-body connection and the techniques of self-care and mutual help that my colleagues and I at The Center for Mind-Body Medicine are using with war- and disaster-traumatized populations.

Much can be made of the power of positive thinking, but the real question is, why do we tend toward the negative in the first place?

Josue Maymi, Esther Kane, Belleruth Naparstek, and Bill O’Hanlon—these are just a few of the many therapists from around the world who’re implementing the Multiple Streams of Income for Therapists model.

What do you say to someone who’s lost a loved one, or is facing the terrifying imponderables of a terminal illness? How do you choose the right words, find the right tone?

“Symptom coherence” is how we refer to the view that there always exists a well-defined, cogent set of personal themes and purposes that necessitate a symptom. The moment there no longer exists any purpose requiring a symptom, the person stops producing it. This view informed the development of a clinical methodology called Depth-Oriented Brief Therapy.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we all regularly have our moments of being caught off guard, feeling ineffective, and being filled with more questions than answers.

In 2005, a complex trauma task force began working on constructing a new diagnosis called Developmental Trauma Disorder, which, they hoped, would capture the multifaceted reality experienced by chronically abused children and adolescents.

Though psychotherapy is a relational field, it’s not uncommon for therapists to struggle with a sense of professional isolation. Faced with the difficulties of everyday practice, therapists can feel lost and alone when tackling challenges and unanswered questions about how to best meet their clients’ needs.