First Comes the Hard Work
November/December 2013
Romantically infatuated with the idea of psychological revelation—aka the therapeutic “breakthrough”—therapists too often ignore the fact that a life’s worth of habitual behavior often trumps, for good or ill, all the insights and emotional fireworks that we like to see as the key to therapeutic “progress.”
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The Nitty-Gritty of Lasting Change
November/December 2013
Changes in the habitual attitudes and behaviors that shape our lives rarely happen as the result of psychological epiphanies or emotional catharsis. Most therapeutic progress comes from the painstaking process of continual practice that reinforces some behaviors while actively discouraging others.
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What’s the Difference?
November/December 2013
Some people can drink to excess for years without experiencing the negative consequences that can destroy their lives. So when does someone cross the tenuous line from habit into addiction? And what’s the difference between the two anyway?
Do We Really Choose How We Live Our Lives?
November/December 2013
When routines and habits become as lifeless as the manner in which one brushes one’s teeth, when the choreography of one’s existence resembles a blindfolded slog through quicksand—rather than the Jets and Sharks leaping across the streets of the Upper West Side—something must be done.
Breaking Free of the Habitual
November/December 2013
Most clients have automatic habits of thinking, feeling, and verbalizing experiences that imprison them in a world of gray sameness. How do we help them escape? The most immediate way is to ditch your logical analysis and help them experience a felt sense.
How to Succeed at Self-Sabotage
November/December 2013
Making yourself profoundly unhappy takes tenacity and creativity. But the real art of it is to behave in ways that allow you to claim yourself to be an innocent victim, ideally of the very people from whom you’re forcibly extracting compassion and pity.
A Group of Tibetan Refugees Find their Inner Guides
November/December 2013
How do you help 200 teenagers who’ve had to flee their country find a path to peace in a new place? A psychiatrist who’s traveled across the world to help traumatized refugees from Tibet guides them to a source of wisdom and hope within themselves.
Psychotherapy vs. Placebos * Frontline Psychotherapy
By Garry Cooper and Kathleen Smith
November/December 2013
Garry Cooper and Kathleen Smith
Hearing the Body’s Truth: Three Steps to Connecting to Felt Sense
November/December 2013
Although the idea that the mind and body are inextricably linked is widely accepted in our field, many clinicians remain too focused on words to hear the truths that their clients’ bodies have to offer.
The Black Shadow: Facing the Taboo Issue of Race in the Consulting Room
November/December 2013
Raising the issue of race in therapy can help African American clients connect their personal struggles to an enduring cultural legacy that many insist isn’t supposed to matter anymore.
Grief as a Gift: Carrying on the Legacy of Kübler-Ross
November/December 2013
David Kessler has spent his career helping people all over the world deal with death. In the process, he’s learned that—as much as we may resist experiencing it—grief is a gift that helps us heal.
Love and Terror: Penetrating the Heart of Evil
November/December 2013
Pilgrim's Wilderness
A new book examines how one man, under the guise of religious faith, kept his family isolated in a world of abuse and brutality, and how another family broke boundaries to help them escape.
Permission to Sleep: Accepting a Long Road to Love
November/December 2013
A woman discovers that giving someone permission to sleep can be a deep expression of love.