How to Choose the Right Therapist

Choosing the right therapist may feel overwhelming. Here are some tips to help guide you.

Survivorship Bias: Missing Planes and Missing Data

Survivorship bias is like the WWII military only looking at bullet holes in planes that returned, while ignoring the ones that crashed. In the same way, we copy the 'hustle' of famous billionaires and think it’s a blueprint, forgetting the thousands of people who did the exact same thing and failed. If you only look at the survivors, you’re missing the full picture of the risks you’re actually taking. To truly survive, you have to stop obsessing over the winners and start looking at the planes that never made it home.

Fundamentals of Trauma Recovery, Part 5

If you feel ashamed in relation to any part of your trauma, you deserve to connect with others and experience the relief that comes with dissipating shame.

You and Your Body

Your body is not all of who you are, but it is a constant. You are in relationship with your body always.

On Today's Menu: Corona Sandwich

I am overwhelmed with guilt as I can’t be with my parents on a daily basis to help them navigate this challenging time in their lives. At the same time, I also feel guilty that I can’t help my kids while they struggle in raising their children and I can’t be there to help babysit or just spend time with them. I miss my grandchildren and virtual visits just aren’t doing it for me or them anymore.”

Opening the Emotion Valve: Challenges and Strategies

Emotional growth is hard-won, but with the right approach, it is within anyone's reach.

Showing Up Just The Way You Are

As we approach the holiday season and celebrations are upon us we can feel very…

Hope and Healing: From Warsaw to Jerusalem

It was amazing how the strength of the comradery of the women enabled them to shift their view of themselves and their experience of MRKH from one in which they were hard done by and less of a woman, to feeling special. They were able to explore the possibilities that having MRKH presented to them. They also recognized the hope and possibilities that lay within their situation, on many levels. When the women started the workshop, many were nervous and fidgety. By the end, they were sitting up straight with big smiles on their faces and hope in their eyes.

What I learned was that we can all be hope experts, as we have all experienced life challenges. The more we recognize the challenges that we endured, remove the shame connected to those challenges and celebrate the accomplishments, the better able we can help others feel more hopeful too.

Is Anxiety Killing Your Chances of Finding Love?

Anna, a 35-year old, slim, petite and attractive brunette woman from Miami Beach had been…

The Flip Side of Stress

Research has shown that when we are able to regulate our emotions in a stressful situation we are able to not only feel calmer but to also become more collaborative, creative and thrive.

Fundamentals of Trauma Recovery, Part 8/8

By tackling pieces of your recovery to tackle that are ever-so-small, you ensure your success; this will build greater self-confidence and foundations for each further success.

The Emotion Valve

When someone is friendly, capable, and well-liked yet can't seem to make a relationship work, the answer may lie not in who they are today, but in who they had to become in childhood.

Who's Afraid of Retirement?

Navigating retirement is not only about filling your time or learning new skills. There is value in looking back, at what was, in addition to what’s next. There are relationships with others that will be impacted by retirement, and more than that; there is also the relationship with yourself.

Caring for the Caregiver

As a clinical social worker and therapist for over 30 years and having myself been a caregiver for over 10 years, I have observed that caregiver stress is the single most underreported source of stress for people ranging from 45 until their 80’s.  While caregiving can also be a source of blessing and provide the feeling that you are doing the “right thing” for your elderly loved ones, it is tinged with a multitude of other emotions.  To your friends and family, you may not want to openly express these emotions and feelings. A trained therapist, an expert in these matters, is needed.  

On Becoming a Personal Scientist: Beginnings

As the baby gains enough safety and security via his attachment systems with the significant people in his life, he is able to identify and then befriend the familiar within the strange.

Communicating for Connection

A key task for couples is learning to express their needs explicitly, rather than expecting their spouse to read between the lines.

Dying at a Distance: Grief During Covid

Humans are incredibly resilient. I am constantly in awe of the people that I speak to, in my role as a bereavement therapist, who are creating amended rituals to help them cope with their painful losses. There is no correct answer to our predicament. It feels unfair to be deprived of the comfort of our traditions that help guide and heal mourners. However, we can try to creatively engage in meaningful adaptations of our rituals during this crisis to help us process our grief.

PERFECTIONISM is the Enemy of FREEDOM

It's getting close to Pesach and I'm thinking: what do I want to focus on at my seder table with my adolescent children who can now carry intelligent conversations and think about things in a deeper and more complex way? Afterall, our exodus from Egypt is not just a historical event and with kids, the way to facilitate spiritual connection is through relatable modern-day experiences. The obvious answer would be to focus on what each of us finds ourselves enslaved to in our lives and how we can access our personal freedom, but we've been down that road before and it hadn't hit home the way I'd want a good juicy introspective theme to do. So, I came up with IMPERFECTION

What is Somatic Experiencing (SE) ?

As a body-mind practitioner and clinical psychologist, I have found that incorporating principles of Somatic Experiencing (SE) into my practice has provided me with a whole new way of helping people move on with their lives when stressed, anxious, depressed, traumatized, or otherwise in pain (including living with chronic pain). So what then, is Somatic Experiencing, and how does it work?

Grief for the Loss of our Parents

Those of us granted life have to face the loss of the most profound of all our relationships. The relationship a person has with a parent, affects every stage of our life. Therefore, losing a parent at each stage in life has unique challenges.