May/June 2016

View All Issues

Editor's Note

Rich Simon

At this year's Symposium, we invited veteran therapists to tell their true stories of their “most unforgettable session,” and those stories are the focus of this issue. Each takes you deep inside an experience with a client that turned that therapist inside out, jolting them out of their comfortable expectations into an interaction that allowed something extraordinary to take place. Prepare yourself for some unusually honest and probing explorations into both the pitfalls and rewards of practicing the therapist’s craft, including the occasional impossibility of distinguishing between the two.

Read More
A man at a desk leans back with his head resting in his hands

Symposium Highlight

What's Your Most Memorable Therapeutic Moment?

Six Master Clinicians Share Their Reflections

Marian Sandmaier

Of all the meaningful sessions that take place in a therapists's career, what makes certain ones stand out? We asked six widely respected clinicians to tell the story of a particular experience that lives on for them. This special feature collects those tales of taking creative leaps in the dark and stumbling toward insight."Crossing to Safety" by Courtney Armstrong"Happy New Year?" by Ron Taffel"Keeping the Faith" by Mary Jo Barrett"In the Valley of the Shadow" by Margie Nichols"The Uninvited Guest" by Hedy Schleifer"The Found and the Lost" by Terry Real Read More
A woman's face projected on screen in front of an audience

Symposium Highlight

From Attachment to Creativity

Highlights from the 2016 Symposium

Mary Sykes Wylie

At a time in which our society seems immersed in a toxic stew of fear and anger, this year's Symposium provided a celebration of human values and ideas that seem to be vanishing from our public discourse. Here's a taste of a few of its particularly stellar moments."Our Trichotillomania of the Soul" by Rich Simon"The Path of Surprise and Discovery" by David Whyte"The View from Black America" by Kenneth Hardy"The Dance of Sex" by Susan Johnson"The Wisdom of Mad Men" by William Doherty"How Hard Times Can Open the Heart" by Rick Hanson Read More
An illustration of a man running into a question mark

The Power of the Unexpected

In Therapy, Both Ritual and Novelty Matter

Jerome Kagan

The brain endlessly churns out predictions about what will happen next, and when it comes to therapy outcomes, these expectations matter. Read More

Departments