Contributed by Jay Efran
Experiments In Being Someone Else
Can Fixed-Role Therapy Get Clients Unstuck?Trying on different personas can help clients step outside of their comfort zones and challenge their assumptions about themselves, others, and the world. Read more
Evoking the Inner Artist: May/June 2021
How to Replace Discomfort with CreativityVulnerability, doubt, fear, and uncertainty—feelings most people try to avoid—are essential to cultivating creativity. Read more
In Search of New Ideas
My Evolution as a TherapistA therapist reflects on a key lesson from his long career: clients don’t necessarily need new answers to their questions—they need new questions. Read more
VIDEO: What to Do When Your Client Cries
Making Tears Your Therapeutic AllyMany times, when clients cry, clinicians feel an urge to rush in and “fix things” that aren’t broken, which can actually make things worse. Watch as Jay... Read more
Spitting in the Client's Soup
Don’t Overthink Your InterventionsIn our profession, it’s often more alluring to explore new gimmicks than to acknowledge that our success largely hinges on simple, commonsense factors. Read more
Letting Go of Our Facade
To Tell the TruthTherapists aren't supposed to discuss personal problems, or even acknowledge having any. While preaching congruence, who among us has never pretended fondness... Read more
Get Out of My Life!
Working with Cut-off Family Members in the Consulting RoomHelping families heal cutoffs is painstakingly delicate work, with a high risk for stumbling over buried land mines. Read more
Whose Therapy Is It Anyway?
When Your Client Is Uncommitted to ChangeWhen we find ourselves haunted by a particular case, it may mean that we’re more invested in the client making changes than the client is himself. Read more
Evoking the Inner Artist: September/October 2013
How to Replace Pathology with CreativityWhen clients feel blocked, therapists can help them tap their inner artist and view feelings of vulnerability, doubt, and fear as part of a creative... Read more
Why We Cry
A Clinician’s GuideOur understanding of what happens when we weep hasn't progressed much beyond Freud's theory of catharsis. However, knowing how our nervous systems work can... Read more
In a memorable scene in Fiddler on the Roof, the main character, Tevye, pretends to have been awakened by a nightmare that he concocts to convince his wife to... Read more
Defining Psychotherapy
The Last 25 Years Have Taught Us That It's Neither Art nor ScienceAt last count, therapists could choose from among 500 different treatment techniques. But after all these years, there's still no evidence that the overall... Read more
Where's the science in psychotherapy? Read more
Jay Efran
Jay Efran, PhD, professor emeritus of psychology at Temple University. He received the Pennsylvania Psychological Association’s 2009 award for Distinguished Contributions to the Science and Profession of Psychology and is co-author of Language, Structure and Change and The Tao of Sobriety.