When a client has been sexually abused, it can be difficult to find the balance between creating safety and challenging old patterns.

If we don’t open up the one-on-one therapeutic cloister, trauma sufferers may never learn how to engage in the give and take of real-life relationships. By failing to include their families, we too often fail to help them weave change into their daily lives.

As the status of therapist has shifted from an oversized figure with Svengali-like powers to an overworked and underpaid service provider at the mercy of the client-consumer...

- Disputing the vaccine-autism link - The continuing furor over DSM-5 - Psychologists fact-checking Wikipedia - Therapists who talk too much

Readers whose preferred clinical stance is one of safe therapeutic neutrality be forewarned—this provocative issue on the growing debate over the legacy of trauma doesn't make for comfortable reading.

There's no more emotionally demanding work than that with an incestuous family. A therapist offers an uncensored look at the fear, loathing, and fascination of the struggle to help a family emerge from the transgenerational legacy of abuse.

Warring Therapists * An increasing placebo effect * The argument for preventing depression * The unanticipated consequences of cancer treatment * Is child abuse always traumatizing? * The therapy-science debate * Advances in treatment for borderline personality disorder

The Family Dialogue Project grew out of my attempt to help therapists, abuse survivors, and their families caught in the meshes of terrible conflicts from which there seemed to be no relief or exit.

One way or another, all therapists face similar questions about therapeutic boundaries: Should we accept the gift? How much do we self-disclose? What do we do when a dual relationship can't be avoided? How do we safely negotiate the currents of sexuality? Moved by our best instincts, our weaknesses or simply by the sheer ambiguity of the situation, we can often find ourselves striking out on our own and coloring outside the lines.