Culture & Society

"The larger forces shaping our communities, our clients, and ourselves"

Wrestling with a Daughter's Faith

An Agnostic Mother Learns the Challenge of True Acceptance

Is Honesty the Best Policy?: A Review of 'You Hurt My Feelings'

A New Film on Flattery, White Lies, and Nondirective Therapy

From Grind Culture to Work Malaise

The Cultural Trends Driving Our Clients' Careers

Organizational Management at Home

An Interview with Eve Rodsky on Workplace Tools for Couples

The Anxious Warrior

Fighting Fear with Krav Maga

The Heart of Gladness

Why Joy and Sorrow Need Each Other
Article February 5, 2025

Pulling Our Teens Back from Internet Addiction

A Family's Nightmare Search for Help

A family confronts the reality that parents alone are ill-equipped to protect their children from online dangers. Read more

Article January 23, 2025

Can True Love Be Designed?

Transforming How We Experience and Express Love

Discover two models of love and how distinguishing between them can help therapists support clients in designing a conscious relationship. Read more

Article January 13, 2025

9 Top Apps Therapists Recommend to Clients

From Mindfulness to Your Natal Chart

Discover the top therapist recommended apps to improve your mental health and well-being, including an app that rates mental health apps! Read more

Article January 10, 2025

Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency

When Helper’s High Goes Too Far

Many therapists believe their intense care and concern for clients is a form of selfless love. Maybe it’s time to rethink that. Read more

Article January 10, 2025

The Beauty of Longing and Melancholy

Susan Cain Celebrates the Sensitive Client

"Bittersweet" invites us to better understand and celebrate the wistful, sensitive people in our lives—and in our therapy practices. Read more

Article January 10, 2025

The Sacred Work of Heartbreak

Relinquishing the God-like Fantasy of Love

In a society where most people spend more time on dating apps than in places of worship, the pursuit of a romantic partner has become a holy quest. Read more

Article January 10, 2025

5 Therapy Trends to Watch in 2025

The Future of Diagnosis, Trauma Treatment, Psychedelics, and More

These hot takes from Steve Hayes, Nadine Burke Harris, Ruth Lanius, and others will keep you informed and prepared for what's changing in the field of... Read more

Article January 10, 2025

The Spiritual Therapist

Healing and the Secular Priesthood

Most therapists don’t shy away from discussing charged topics like sex and drugs. But religion and spirituality? That’s a different story—one that a... Read more

Article January 10, 2025

Listening as the Ultimate Spiritual Act

From Passive Process to Active Practice

How do we change our habit of defensive listening and make emotional presence our practice? Read more

Article January 10, 2025

The Silent Treatment

What I Wish I Could Tell My First Therapist

A teenage boy being bullied at school experiences a life-saving version of manhood with a patient, quiet therapist. Read more

Article December 2, 2024

A Diary of Precious Time

When Even Good News Is Hard News

When cancer recurs, there's no easy way to cope with the sense of loss that accompanies a growing awareness of mortality. Read more

Article November 26, 2024

Easing the Pain of Political Polarization

What Do We Worship as Therapists?

Being in relationship with those who are different from us can be difficult, but it’s what we need to build bridges that support connection and unity. Read more

Article November 25, 2024

6 Podcasts Therapists Are Listening To

New Perspectives from Comedy to Psychiatry

We can all derive mental health benefits from podcasts. We asked a handful of therapists which mental health podcasts like best and why—here’s what they... Read more

Article November 19, 2024

The Funny Therapist

Dismantling Stigma, One Joke at a Time

What do therapy and comedy have in common? Therapist and comedian David Granirer has spent over two decades helping aspiring stand-up comics—many in... Read more

Article November 11, 2024

4 Things Therapists Should Consider About Political Polarization

Maintaining Client Trust in a Divided Nation

Unless we want to let down our clients and lose public trust, therapists need to figure out how to navigate a politically polarized world. Read more

Article November 7, 2024

Saving No-Fault Divorce

What's at Stake for Women in Abusive Marriages?

The current political push to eliminate no-fault divorce is dangerous, particularly for women in abusive relationships. Read more

Article November 7, 2024

When Your Client Goes to Family Court

The Truth about Documenting Sessions

How you document sessions with clients in emotionally abusive relationships can either help or harm them in family court. Read more

Article November 7, 2024

Male Abuse Survivors

Bringing a Fuller Picture of Suffering to Light

Why aren't we doing more to support male survivors of intimate partner violence? Read more

Article November 7, 2024

Grandma Chin's Funeral

Reflections on Grief and Belonging

A bicultural daughter of immigrants struggles to make sense of her identity as she mourns a grandmother she barely knew. Read more

Article November 7, 2024

Just because a relationship isn't physically violent doesn't mean emotional abuse won't turn violent. Read more

Article November 7, 2024

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Is My New Therapist

The Podcast That Changed Me

In 'Wiser Than Me,' Julia Louis-Dreyfus's podcast, accomplished older women generate a free-floating sense of shared sisterhood—like an all-girls slumber... Read more

Article November 7, 2024

Healing the Covert Narcissist

When Early Trauma Meets Entitlement

Entitlement, the characteristic that best indicates when coercive control is narcissistically driven, makes treating perpetrators challenging—but not... Read more

Article November 7, 2024

Parenting with a Coercive Controller

Repairing Attachment When Children Get Weaponized

The arrival of children in a coercively controlling relationship adds a complicated abuse accelerant. Read more

Article November 7, 2024

The Neurofeedback Question

100-Year-Old Miracle or Runaway Train?

Many people who've tried neurofeedback say it's the closest thing therapy has to a silver bullet. So why aren't more therapists using it? Read more

Article November 7, 2024

Black Women and Intimate Partner Violence

When Seeking Help Isn’t Safe

Seeking protection from a violent relationship is difficult enough on its own, but for Black women, the problem is compounded many times over. Read more

Article November 6, 2024

Terry Real Responds to Trump’s Reelection

Facing the Reality of Patriarchal Dominance

The Founder of Relational Life therapy Terry Real offers his reflections on how to make sense of Trump's reelection, and what we can do to promote an... Read more

Article November 6, 2024

Beliefs and Misbeliefs

Countering the Illusion of Explanatory Depth

Understanding what's at the root of dangerous misbeliefs like conspiracy theories is the key to countering them. Read more

Article September 27, 2024

Therapists Are Superheroes

Seven Ways We Go Above and Beyond

Therapists may not don red capes, or travel faster than a speeding bullet, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t superheroes in our own right. We occupy a... Read more

Article September 20, 2024

Discarding the Binary

Talking Sex and Gender with My Ever-Changing Child

His generation of kids almost had to be gender- and sexuality-questioning to be cool, right? Maybe he was just mirroring what was happening around him. Read more

Article September 10, 2024

The Video Game Therapist

A Creative Approach to the Male Friendship Crisis

Making friends isn’t easy. But amid unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and trauma, and in the middle of what the Department of Health and Human... Read more