In The Therapy Room

A therapist struggles to help an obsessive client with whom she develops an unusual preoccupation. Read more

How do you get family members to talk together productively? Enactments can be among the most valuable tools for getting a family's communication going. But... Read more

Four steps to help clients take new practices learned in the consulting room back into their everyday lives. Read more

Instead of viewing midlife as a time of emotional unraveling, therapists can see it as an opportunity to help clients gain a fuller sense of purpose in... Read more

A leader in expressive arts therapy explains why it’s increasingly being used to help combat vets find relief from trauma. Read more

We all know people who have the magic touch when it comes to relating to others. They can instantly connect with strangers and put people at ease without even... Read more

In past decades, the only alternatives to involuntary celibacy in a relationship were affairs or divorce. But more and more therapists are recognizing... Read more

Although binge eating disorder is more prevalent than anorexia and bulimia, many people still don’t get the help they need for it. Read more

Motivating couples to do their therapy homework may be the key to successful outcomes. Read more

Although they make up nearly a quarter of the population, children are rarely a central part of therapists’ practices. Why? The most effective interventions... Read more

Helping families move past stalemates often means teaching parents to earn their children’s respect. Read more

Year after year, therapists have come to the Networker Symposium expecting to escape the turbulence of everyday life and the real world. But this year... Read more

With traumatized adolescent clients, it’s emotion that gradually changes emotion—not rational explanation or interpretation, not snazzy techniques or... Read more

Rather than just commiserating with clients’ misery, most therapists want to engage in more active forms of helping. So we try to persuade clients... Read more

Couples therapy can be difficult and dicey, especially when there’s an affair in the mix. To keep afloat in the emotional tumult, most therapists cling to... Read more

How to keep it real with teenage clients. Read more

Diagnosing and treating mood disorders can be tricky, especially when it comes to an often overlooked, subtle form of bipolar II. Read more

While research indicates that most anti-bullying projects don’t work, a disarmingly simple approach has shown promising results. Read more

When it comes to eating disorders, therapy can be a matter of life and death. Read more

It’s now clear that much of what therapists do for people suffering from OCD actually worsens the problem. Providing empathic reassurance, rational... Read more

OCD in children can operate like a kind of cult leader, demanding acceptance of an extreme view of a perilous reality and offering solutions that can’t be... Read more

As a therapist, how do you work with conservative parents struggling to parent their trans child? Psychotherapist Jean Malpas shares three keys to acceptance. Read more

Parents typically view their children in the largely gendered terms society lays out for them. Rearranging that internal mind map requires tremendous effort... Read more

Until very recently, most families with transgender children had never met another family like theirs. Now parents and children from the trailblazing Ackerman... Read more

An innovative way of working with people who are hypersensitive to criticism. Read more

A school counselor’s patient work with a sad, uncommunicative young boy demonstrates what a difference just being there can make. * Commentary by Janet... Read more

Porn is polarizing. Porn is confusing. Porn can be alarming. For therapists, porn can push us out of our comfort zone and trigger negative countertransference... Read more

A sex-starved marriage isn’t about the number of times per week or per month people are actually having sex. It’s one in which one spouse is longing for... Read more

Therapists too often ignore the importance of the longstanding, often unconscious stories that partners carry with them into their sexual relationship. Helping... Read more

If you’re like most couples therapists, you know how to help partners communicate more clearly, handle conflict with less uproar, and connect more... Read more