Category: Crisis

  • > You married the Wrong Person.

      You totally married the wrong person. We all did… … and here’s why.   We are social animals; so if you are human and have a heartbeat, you are will absolutely live through many versions of yourself based on your experiences shaping you over the course of a marriage. The person you are and…

  • >Strapped In

    >Strapped In

    Balancing both feet on a thin wire strung high up between two trees, even my pinkie fingers are shaking. I’ve gotten almost to the middle without looking down.. . But when I see how far I could fall, I see only certain death coming if I continue. I feel only the fear. I freeze. Static…

  • >When there are no words…

    >When there are no words…

    Around now, I generally write about getting through the holidays without throwing a can of Who-hash at your mother-in-law’s head… But in light of what happened in Newtown, such a rant seems misguided. I can’t even speak as a therapist about this – the Mother Bear inside me is growling and protective. I draw my…

  • >How Sandy could save us

    >How Sandy could save us

    We all come together in a disaster – the nightmare we are living strips us of our defenses and forces us to face our shared humanity. In speaking that common language of humanity, we show how much we need each other – this is vulnerability, which we normally spend most of our time trying to…

  • >A moment of …

    >A moment of …

    We as a country search for meaning in the tragedy – imaginary lines are erased and we join in the pain of the families who lost their loved ones… and the inevitable torment of the survivors and their loved ones in the days to come. In a moment, they were gone. If you knew you…

  • >…Bittersweet Symphony

    >…Bittersweet Symphony

    Something that occasionally enters my head as a client is speaking is the line from a song: “I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me, yeah…*” The thing that makes our pain so much more unbearable is the sense that we are alone with it. Very few of us are actually…

  • >My computer and your marriage MAY have this in common…

    >My computer and your marriage MAY have this in common…

    My laptop is dying a slow, painful death; I’m completely miserable, yet in utter denial about the severity of the problem… I’m also dismayed at the idea of spending thousands of dollars on a new one, although I know that it will inevitably make my life easier – it’s just a question of how long…

  • >This should piss you off…

    >This should piss you off…

    Men feel awful for not financially ‘providing’ in a down economy, and women despair over damage to their family from often unexpected changes, (generally speaking.) Rather than looking at how their “jobs” in the relationship might change in order to fit new situations, couples plow forward, with the idea that men should be the primary…

  • >Not your fault, Will Hunting…

    >Not your fault, Will Hunting…

    He shifts in his chair, nervously and talks about how his wife refuses to come to therapy; he “invited” her by shouting at her that ‘she’s the one’ who needs therapy, and if she didn’t show up, the marriage was over. He’s taking her absence today as a sign that she doesn’t care and the…

  • >Excitement? Arousal?

    I’m trying to think of good therapist-y words that will convey to you what I’m feeling about what I’m doing this week. “Therapist Porn” comes close, but the resulting spam is just not worth it… I’m in NYC, attending four days of intense training with the founder of Emotionally-Focused Therapy, Dr. Sue Johnson, and soooooo…