Society & Culture

Generations in Jail

When Crime Is a Family Value

A new book explores how criminal behavior gets handed down in families from one generation to the next. Read more

Here, we focus on today’s young adults (many of whom bristle at the label millennials). Not only have they ushered in many of the changes taking place in the... Read more

The Millennial Effect

How Young Clients Are Leading Therapists to New Places

As they’re about to surpass baby boomers as the largest generation, millennials are coming to dominate the population of therapy consumers. But their impact... Read more

After careful review of the usual stereotypes—technologically adroit, social media fixated, with a touch of narcissism—one 30-something therapist belatedly... Read more

Listening to the Next Generation

Are We Hearing What They Have to Say?

Admitting her bafflement with some of her millennial clients, a veteran therapist accepts her ignorance and gets advice from some of the young people in her... Read more

The Man Who Became an Adjective

No One Writes about Psychology Like Malcolm Gladwell

No one writes about psychology with more irresistible readability—and book sales—than 2019 Symposium featured speaker Malcolm Gladwell. Read more

My Clients and I Use the Same Dating Apps

Five Clinicians Give Their Take

A therapist recently joined a few online dating apps after finding herself newly single. She's seen several clients come up in these apps, and suspects they've... Read more

Supreme Testimony

What Christine Blasey Ford Could Mean for Survivors

By Lauren Dockett - As trauma specialist Mary Jo Barrett explains, Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony has been empowering for many survivors of sexual... Read more

VIDEO: Doing Therapy with MDMA

A Chat with Pioneer Marcela Ot'alora G.

What's it like to be a therapist on the front lines of treating trauma with MDMA? Psychotherapist Marcela Ot'alora G., a principal investigator in... Read more

The Suicide Epidemic

What Can We Do?

Author and therapist Kay Redfield Jamison explores what we can do to address the suicide epidemic. Read more

The Girl in the Railroad Pajamas

Lost Children and the Failure of Empathy

As a psychologist and a mother, I’m haunted by the children of immigrants we’ve all been reading about, stolen from their parents and callously detained... Read more

In the Shadow of Depression

How Can We Manage to Stay Well?

Most clinicians know that if a person has suffered one bout of serious depression, he or she is much more vulnerable to another one. But most therapists still... Read more

A Journey Through Fire

Surviving When Your Self Is in Ashes

At its worst, depression extinguishes your inner pilot light, depriving you of the substrate that makes you feel real. Sufferers complain of living in a fog... Read more

New policies are deepening the trauma of many immigrants, and heightening challenges for the therapists trying to help them. Read more

Developing Racial Literacy

How to Confront Our Unconscious Taboos

Howard Stevenson’s program promotes “racial literacy” through skills that help us confront unconscious taboos and more effectively read and resolve... Read more

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, men are reevaluating the way they approach courtship, relationships, gender roles, and love. Their therapists must switch... Read more

Athletes Get Real About Mental Health

What’s Behind the Recent Slew of Confessional Essays?

A growing list of professional athletes have begun going public with personal mental health concerns all on their own. They contain unflinchingly honest... Read more

The Symposium and the Psychology of Shopping

Highlights from Symposium 2018

In Networker editor Rich Simon’s introduction to the conference, he likened it to a deeply stimulating marketplace of ideas, where clinicians get an expanded... Read more

Our Myths about Sexuality

Highlights from Symposium 2018

Esther Perel called on the Symposium audience to challenge the various myths, especially those about male sexuality, that get in the way of deeper relational... Read more

How to give boys more choices about the kind of men they want to be. Read more

Taking on the largely unnamed complexities of the #MeToo movement for men, this issue explores how therapists can help men respond to women’s experiences in... Read more

Silent and Confused

Opening Conversations with Men in the Wake of #MeToo

Most men publicly support #MeToo, but privately—very privately, often too privately even to share with their intimate partners—some are disoriented and... Read more

The Retiring Rebel

Rethinking the Way We Help Clients Face the Midlife Crisis

Rather than thinking of midlife as an emotional unraveling, I believe it’s more helpful to reframe this stage of life in our early 50s and 60s as “second... Read more

Therapists Talk Gun Violence

Brainstorming Ways to Make a Difference

As an estimated half-a-million protestors poured into downtown Washington, DC for the March for Our Lives, therapists who were in town for their field’s... Read more

A New Stretch of the River

Navigating Life’s Final Stages

As we age, our bodies and relationships change, and the pace of change accelerates. At 70, we’re unlikely to be able to function as we did in our 50s. We... Read more

The Power of Apologizing

What It Takes to Really Be Sorry

Unlike the faux public apologies from men accused of sexual misconduct that 2017 will likely be remembered for, our private apologies have the potential to... Read more

A push to make mindfulness practices more racially sensitive. Read more

Life After Extremism

What It Takes to Renounce Hate

Review: Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into—and Out of—Violent ExtremismA look at how to help former skinheads, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and... Read more

#MeTooManyTimes

How the Latest Movement Against Sexual Predation is Rattling Some Therapy Clients

Many therapists who specialize in sexual abuse and trauma are reporting that the #MeToo movement and the ongoing accusations of sexual assault and harassment... Read more

Making Space for Race

Creating and Holding Connection with Black Teenagers

Therapy with teenagers has to be about creating and holding a connection. As a therapist, I'm like a spider trying to lure my clients into a web that will... Read more