Clinical Skills & Experience

Sue Johnson shares how EFT helps couples get and stay closer. Read more

James Gordon shares a technique he uses with clients to help them get out of hopeless thought patterns. Read more

As a growing body of research shows, deep change doesn’t come when clients just talk about their problems: it results from the impact of an emotionally... Read more

The more we learn about the emotional brain, the clearer it becomes: to have real therapeutic impact, we need to create experiences that help clients learn to... Read more

Given their arrogance, condescension, and lack of empathy, narcissists are notoriously difficult clients. The key to working with them is being direct and... Read more

Recently, therapists have begun to use simple, no-mat yoga practices to help clients whose minds are racing or fogged. Read more

There are some clients who yell at us, manipulate us, go broodingly silent on us, have uncontrollable emotional breakdowns in session, disappear for weeks at a... Read more

With all the recent developments in research, theory, and practice, we have more treatment options to choose from than ever before. Why then do so many... Read more

When we’re spinning our wheels from one session to the next, the key to progress often lies in shifting the therapist-client relationship. Read more

Inevitably, given their history of trauma, many borderline clients will trigger their therapists from time to time. But forgoing the urge to blame these... Read more

When therapy goes wrong, it’s typically because we’ve entered our clients’ trance, joining them in their myopic misery. Once there, our job is to break... Read more

Networker movie critic and contributor Frank Pittman delighted in pointing out the follies, foibles, and excesses of the therapy world, especially anything he... Read more

The word psychopath distinguishes hard-bitten predators. Research shows a treatment center—run by shrinks, not wardens—has reduced new violent offenses by... Read more

Few cases offer as eerie a therapeutic challenge as a suddenly noncommunicative child, lost in a dissociative shutdown. Read more

You’ve probably worked with men who’ve been dragged, kicking and screaming, into therapy by their partners. But how do you work with a client who doesn’t... Read more

More than 60 years after its Broadway debut, a classic play continues to cast a haunting spell. Read more

Do childhood trauma and a chaotic family environment cause adult borderline personality disorder (BPD)? Common clinical wisdom says yes, but new results are... Read more

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo knows a thing or two about tough guys. In 1971, his notorious Stanford prison experiment, originally planned for two weeks, had to... Read more

In this era of medical necessity and evidence-based therapies, it’s easy to lose sight of a basic truth. We heal not through prescriptions and procedures... Read more

When we trust in ourselves to follow the signals of life that the patient emits in seemingly casual conversation, we increase chances of stepping outside the... Read more

It’s probably fair to say that most teens loathe the very idea of therapy. Yet, with confused and troubled adolescents needing our help more than ever, the... Read more

Men with anger problems are generally highly reluctant clients who come to our offices only because they’ve gotten “the ultimatum” from their wives... Read more

Sometimes the places we long to visit speak to needs that go much deeper than our appetite for exotic sights. Read more

The hallmark of the therapeutic encounter is that the therapist is an expert, trained in a particular skill-set to conduct a rather odd, rarified conversation... Read more

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... Read more

The revolution in communication technology has created a new set of ethical dilemmas, which are invading our sessions, whether we know it or not. Read more

The ways we disclose, read cues from our clients, and dialogue about what’s been divulged are the keys to whether therapist self-disclosure helps clients’... Read more

A therapist–lawyer on what most often gets clinicians in trouble with the law and everything you need to know about the duty to report, to warn—and more. Read more

When something is coming at you that may cause pain or self-doubt, it’s natural to want to duck. Read more

With stalemated cases in which the task of self-acceptance feels impossible, the therapist needs to offer more than compassion and encouragement. Read more