I read a startling statistic recently: that over 25% of Americans said they had no one in whom they could confide or share a personal problem. While I haven’t yet tracked down the original source of this factoid, I did find out it was from a survey done in...
Picture this cartoon: a squirrel is lying on a psychoanalyst’s couch, a bearded bespectacled man with a notepad sitting next to it. The squirrel is saying “When I learned that you are what you eat, I realized I was nuts!” There is no doubt that what...
It is common knowledge that exercise is good for your health, but did you know that exercise is just as important for your mental health? The human body was simply not designed to do as much sitting as most of us now do, between our jobs, commute, and time spent in...
I don’t like Daylight Saving Time. This is not just a personal opinion, but also my professional one, because I know how disruptive even minor changes to the sleep-wake cycle can be – to mood and emotion regulation, memory and cognitive function, as well as...
In my 25 years as a psychotherapist in private practice, I have preferred to keep politics and religion out of the therapy session, in order to create a safe space for people to work on their issues, without feeling the need to defend their beliefs. And I have taken...
Today, the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere) is a good day to talk about seasonal depression. At my latitude, there are fewer than ten hours between sunrise and sunset. That’s bad news for people like me, who have a hard time getting up before...
Looking for ideas to help you deal with a drinking problem, or other problematic substance use? Have you stopped and are finding it’s a struggle to stay stopped? Are you seeking an alternative to AA? Or just searching for some additional tools? Let me tell you how...
We are living in turbulent times. If you are paying attention at all, it’s hard not to feel anxious about the state of the world we live in and the fate of humanity. While violence, war, and natural disasters have occurred throughout human history, we seem to be...
It is possible to live a full and satisfying life even when your life has been turned upside down by chronic pain and/or illness. Recently I’ve been learning more about how, from the experts: three people who are doing it themselves, and are pointing the way to...
