The Field
From Attachment to Creativity
Highlights from the 2016 SymposiumAt 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... Read more
Therapists reflect on the terror attack in Paris. 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
Losing Our War on Stress
It’s time to reconsider our approachPsychologist Kelly McGonigal believes that stress isn’t the public health menace it’s usually made out to be—our compulsion to avoid it is often the... Read more
The View From Black America
Listening to the Untold StoriesMany poor, young, black people see themselves as trapped behind a wall-less prison with no exits. They know all too well that their daily experience—whether... Read more
Community Mental Health Today
Encompassing the Big & the SmallThe promise of the community mental health movement of the 1960s, providing high-quality psychological and social services to poor families, remains unfullled... Read more
Questions have been raised about whether the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy, the field’s most researched treatment model, has been overstated. Read more
Destigmatizing Autism
The Future of NeurodiversityAuthor Steve Silberman discusses what it means to view autistic people as individuals seeing the world in a different way, rather than just a checklist of... Read more
What the Financial Crisis Reveals About Our Psyche and Values
Confronting our Definitions of Wealth in the Therapy RoomThe current economic crisis may be no more than a rather large bump in the golden road of endlessly self-renewing American prosperity. Still, it's hard not to... Read more
Reflections on the Divorce Revolution
Assessing Our ImpactAre you a therapist that's "marriage friendly?" It's the inclination towards helping clients in good relationships stay together. Read more
America’s Opportunity Chasm
A Noted Scholar Documents Our Decline in Social MobilityRobert Putnam documents the myriad psychological, health, and political consequences of the ever-growing disparities between rich and poor in America today. Read more
IFS for Self-Compassion
Some Forms of Self-Love Are Harder than OthersIFS founder Dick Schwartz believes a genuine state of self-compassion entails a journey into multiple parts of yourself that may include the good, the bad, the... Read more
Moments of Meaning
Unexpected Lessons from PracticeThree clinicians share stories of challenging cases that show how the most surprising outcomes often have nothing to do with therapeutic brilliance or... Read more
Life after Trauma
What are the possibilities for post-traumatic growth?The new emphasis on the transformative power of trauma can be a template for false assumptions about the “gift” of suffering and the meaning of recovery. Read more
Personality and Habit Change
Are You an Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, or Rebel?In her first book, The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin tried to answer the question “How do I become happier?” With her new book on changing the habits... Read more
How Psychotherapy Helps Us Recover the Beauty in Our Lives
Questions for Helping Therapy Clients Reclaim MeaningMany walk into the therapist's consulting room exactly at the moment that they have been stripped to the core of their being. While not at the physical... Read more
Uncovering the Source of Suicidality with Brain Science
Are Serotonin Levels the Key Factor in Suicidal Depression?I'm at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in northern Manhattan. My guide, Victoria, has been studying the brains of people who committed suicide, and... Read more
Since it was introduced as an anesthetic in the 1970s, ketamine has occupied an uncertain pharmacological status. It’s been used as both a Vietnam-era... Read more
Rediscovering Happiness
The Use of Positive Childhood Triggers in PsychotherapyTo create deep change, we need to help people mine the sources of intense pleasure in their lives, wherever they may find them. Read more
Brave New Couples
What Can Science Tell Us about the Changing Face of Couplehood Today?Susan Johnson, developer of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, discusses what the science of love says about what couples can expect when they rebel too much... Read more
Getting Over Weight?
A Critic of our Cultural Obsession Goes Too FarA critic of one of our central cultural obsessions goes too far Read more
Spitting in the Client's Soup
Don’t Overthink Your InterventionsIn our profession, it’s often more alluring to explore new gimmicks than to acknowledge that our success largely hinges on simple, commonsense factors. Read more
What clinical, ethical, and legal issues should we be considering as distance therapy becomes a more common form of practice? Read more
The State of Our Art
Do Our Old Ways Fit the New Times?While the number of people in psychotherapy keeps declining, surveys reveal that potential clients would still rather talk to a therapist than fill a... Read more
It’s time we address the psychological toll of the daily bombardment of information that permeates our lives. Read more
To move forward, our profession needs a more consistent message about what we have to offer. Read more
Manualized psychotherapy is squeezing out people on the margins of mainstream society. Read more
To stay relevant in a changing world, we need to address the engagement styles of today’s prospective clients. Read more
Mary Pipher on Leaving Our Biases outside the Consulting Room
Finding Respect for All ClientsFrom the moment I met the Correys in my waiting room, I was baffled about why they were together. Frank was tall, good looking and suave; Donna dowdy and... Read more
Stronger Medicine
Anti-Depressants Haven't Made Therapy ObsoleteAmericans have a history of valuing quick-fix solutions to difficult problems. But the simplistic psychopharmacological approach to depressive disorders... Read more