“Why didn’t I say something? I was so stupid! Why didn’t I stop the abuse?” Allison is crying as she recounts a painful memory that affects the way she relates to men in the present. Often, my patients who are involved in processing painful wounds from childhood have trouble forgiving themselves. They feel they should [...]
Once when I was a little girl, my father said to me, “Stop crying. You’re too smart to have feelings.” He was my perfect dad (until adolescence anyway) so it seemed he must be right. He never stopped trying to get everyone in the house, my mother, my brother, my sisters and me, to stop [...]
People often ask what happens in psychotherapy. Sometimes, although more rarely than you might imagine, therapists give good old fashioned advice, and famously, we listen intently. Often we teach skills that people missed in childhood such as how to communicate or manage angry feelings. Therapy involves getting better in touch with your emotions, or helping [...]
After an important insight into why you act the way you do, the long process of changing your behavior begins, one action at a time. Most people find it difficult to change without outside support, and if that is you, it doesn’t mean you’re weak or wrong in some way, merely a member of the [...]
Back in the days when Freudian lying-on-the-couch therapy was all there was, insight into one’s problem was considered enough to provide a cure. However, insight-as-cure didn’t turn out to be the case – we’ve all heard about Woody Allen in treatment for decades, his neurosis only growing. Many people walk around with great insight into [...]
