If you are the organizer of a party, one of your responsibilities is to set the ground rules with respect to things such as attire, gifts, food, etc. It permits your guests to plan more comfortably if they know the ground rules and the expectations when they get an invitation that specifies any of the…
When I see patients in therapy, one of the questions that I use the most is, “How will that get you there?” My orientation in therapy is future-focused. We set goals and use therapy as a means of building skills to achieve them. When patients are stuck or resistant or do things that are regressed…
As you know, I’ve often compared mental fitness to physical fitness – suggesting that the same principles apply. People who desire to stay in good physical shape don’t stop exercising or eating in a healthy manner just because they’ve achieved certain fitness or weight goals. Staying in shape becomes something that they do as regularly…
In his book, The War Of Art, Steven Pressfield provides a blueprint for overcoming resistance and fostering creativity in a productive manner. He uses the term, Professional, for those creative people who are effective in doing so. Those of you who have worked with me as a psychologist have probably heard me use the same…
In line with cultural expectations at the time when I was growing up, English Literature was not my favorite subject. Math, Science, and Phys Ed were “guy subjects”, although history was also acceptable – event though it was a verbal subject that was really in the female domain in those days. Things changed for me…
All of us sometimes do things that we regret. Those things can be relatively minor – such as getting an unflattering haircut, buying an article of clothing that we learn to quickly dislike, or going to a movie that lived down to its poor reviews. Some regrets are more serious than that: moving to a…
A football game that ends in a tie is rarely satisfying. It may be acceptable if one of the teams was a serious underdog or if a team can earn a playoff spot with a tie but not with a loss. In many cases, however, football coaches of tying teams open themselves to criticism of…
The tragic event of early January in Tucson, Arizona, was one of those occurrences that have been happening all to often. As a society, we’ve gained quite a bit of experience in reacting to crises, and we’ve developed a set of predictable responses. Of course, our thoughts and prayers go out to the innocent victims…
I don’t know exactly when it happened. It’s not the kind thing that occurs dramatically enough to note on a calendar. A few years ago I realized that I had reached the point of no return, and I was never going to catch up with everything that I have to do. I’ll never be able…
The field of psychology got turned on its head a few decades ago as cognitive-behavioral therapy became the dominant treatment orientation. Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, and numerous others developed or tweaked theories and approaches to practice that emphasized changing the thinking process as the first step in changing feelings and behavior. CBT approaches typically begin…
Time frames are often built into our expectations. We know what to expect if we apply for a job and the prospective employer says s/he will make a decision by the end of the month. Or if a real estate agent tells us that the seller will respond to our offer within 24 hours. Or…