Anger is a common and universal emotion, which is often referred to as a secondary emotion, because it serves to protect us from other vulnerable feelings. Clinicians and researchers believe that anger covers a primary emotion such as sadness, fear, or anxiety. Our behavioral therapists also believe that children and adolescents with anger issues are […]
As a psychotherapist, I’m in the business of hearing how people, especially women, talk about their bodies using hateful and disparaging terms. They aren’t alone. I’ve done the same myself, and so I know how hard it can be to make peace with our imperfect bodies (are they ever anything else?) let alone feel loving […]
Before we became parents, many of us had an ideal image of what that role would look like. This image is often based on our own experiences of being parented. Consequently, we might decide to parent our children similarly, or we might enter into parenthood with a determination to parent in a dramatically different way, […]
Clients come to my office for a number of reasons. For example, when they’re feeling depressed, when they’re feeling anxious, and when they are experiencing conflict in their relationships, but also when they’ve become bored with their lives. For these people, meaning and engagement in life seemed to have disappeared without conscious awareness, and not […]
As soon as I stole one glance in his direction, I knew I’d love him forever. He looked at me from the corner of his eye and I was sure he was feeling the same way. I was so excited because I didn’t know if I could ever feel that way again after my last experience. […]
For many women, their female friendships have been a source of comfort, support, laughter, and joy. For others, they have been mired in betrayal, mean-spiritedness, and competition. But for most of us, they’ve been a combination of these two extremes, and typically, even before we reach the age of twelve! But, by the time we […]
I grew up with several negative beliefs that I later began to understand were myths because they were simply never true. Negative beliefs, on the other hand, can sometimes be true to some extent, but often, they too, can have a long-term detrimental impact on the way you view yourself. And, if you actually believe […]
June is convocation month, and all around the world students are celebrated as they make their way out of their post-secondary, and often, personal, nests as they fly toward the next phase of their lives. Most of us watch them cross the stage with joy at the possibilities that we imagine for them, as well […]
From the moment we’re born until the day we die we are continually absorbing messages that tell us who we are, what we’re worth as human beings, what we should be doing at any given time, how we should look (and especially how we shouldn’t look), what we should eat, what we should buy, what […]
As a psychotherapist, I often meet individuals, couples and families who at first describe the relationships that matter the most in their lives as ‘very close’, ‘tight’, and supportive. But later, after understanding the issues that brought them to my office, I view them more as insular systems that nurture – or even demand – […]
