We don’t like to hurt.   Why would we? Hurting… well, hurts. As a species, we have learned to adapt to avoid things that cause us pain. Burn your hand on a pot? Next time you use an oven glove. Hit the car in front of you? Next time you leave more space between cars. It makes sense that we do the same thing with our emotions. After all, many emotions feel terrible. Guilt, shame, loss, self-hatred, doubt, loneliness, worthlessness… these are not feelings most of us want. So, we learn to adapt. One way we do this is by examining the values of our culture and deciding if we agree with them. In the western world, the message about unwanted emotion is [...]

There’s a prevailing belief that exploring your past in therapy is pointless. A complete waste of time. After all, talking about past circumstances doesn’t change them. It’s also self-indulgent and narcissistic, right? And it takes too darn long. You can talk about your childhood for years and not get anywhere. Plus, rehashing the past means blaming your parents for everything, and perpetuating the role of victim. In actuality, these are all common myths and misconceptions. Psychotherapist Katrina Taylor, LMFT, pointed out that there’s a difference between blaming and accountability. “If your parents have hurt you in the past, it’s important to take an honest look at how that’s affected you.” Doing so might spark a productive, healing conversation with your family and stop [...]

In the opening pages of her memoir, No One Tells You This, Glynnis MacNicol is single, has no kids, and is about to turn forty. She describes herself as “someone who was now spending the last hours before her birthday seized by the belief that she was being marched to her demise.” By the closing pages, she was still single with no kids, but “quite thrilled with who I’d turned myself into, and quite up for the task of navigating whatever came next, whatever it was.” The pages in between are the beautifully written story of her transformation. The year or so following her fortieth birthday belied every stereotype of the single person as selfish or self-centered. MacNicol was there for her mother [...]

Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship, is itself a triumph. Thanks to journalist Kayleen Schaefer’s unstinting insistence that female friendships can be the most significant relationships in women’s lives, women can unapologetically declare their love for their female friends. People who become passionate about a topic can often trace their passions back to their childhood. Not so for Schaefer. Early on, she saw her female friends as competitors “for boys or grades or who looked the prettiest in group pictures.” In college, she joined a sorority not for the friendship but for her career; she had heard that sororities were good for professional networking after graduation. At work, she wanted to be the “Cool Girl” [...]

How can couples therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder help to overcome splitting behavior? Can couples therapy help BPD? Those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are usually depicted as having stormy relationships. One moment, the person with BPD can’t wait to leave their relationship, and the next moment, things are all good in their relationship. The relationship can feel very confusing for their partner, who gets mixed messages when they feel pushed away, and then pulled back into the relationship again. They may feel blamed or accused of not loving their partner, and then expected to forgive and forget when the person with BPD gets over an emotional episode. How can couples counseling for Borderline Personality Disorder overcome these behaviors? Why does the person with [...]

Bipolar disorder is a difficult illness. For Arden Tucker, an episode of depression can be especially debilitating. Like many who experience bipolar disorder, Tucker fears she won’t recapture the essence of who she really is, the person she was before the depression began. “My bipolar depression can feel insidious,” she said. That’s because even though Tucker takes medication, her depression is cyclical, so it’ll return “again, and again, and again.” Her partner of 35 years is a tremendous support. One of the most important ways Tucker’s partner supports her is by checking on her when she starts to get depressed. She asks Tucker if she’d like to share how she’s feeling, and if she can identify the trigger for her sinking mood. Colleen [...]

Lovenheim stumbled on attachment theory while skimming his daughter’s college textbook several months after the end of a significant and tortuous relationship in his life. It was too late for his relationship, he writes, but curiosity triggered a quest to understand how John Bowlby’s significant and groundbreaking theory — later advanced by the research of Mary Ainsworth — plays out in venues from romance to parenting, sports to politics to religion. Attachment theory proposes that the way we relate to other people develops according to how responsive and reliable our earliest caregivers are. The holy grail of attachment is secure—the result of caregivers who are responsive and available and who support independence while also providing safe harbor. Insecure attachment can be anxious, which [...]

Imagine going through your morning routine, getting the kids up and ready for school while also trying to get yourself and partner ready, when the rug is suddenly pulled out from under you and your world is changed. Rather than having a partner to help you, you are now alone. You are now a single parent. In Robert Beeson’s book, Going Solo, he discusses his experience of going from having a partner to going it alone to help other single parents navigate the same situation. Whether you have become a single parent through divorce, death, or you have never been married, there is helpful information in here for every situation. The author is honest, explaining his part in the divorce, what went wrong, [...]

If you love what you do, it’s all-too easy for it to consume your identity—especially if your career is demanding and fast-paced. You find yourself checking email after hours, and thinking about work. All. The. Time. You find yourself falling asleep with a laptop in your bed. It’s also all-too easy for work to consume your identity when money is at stake. For instance, therapist Erin K. Tierno sees clients in New York City, where in order to survive financially, they must prioritize work—“because there will always be another person eager to fill their position.” It’s common for young professionals to feel so emotionally drained by their work that they have zero energy to dedicate to dating, hobbies, friendships and everything else, said [...]

Parenting involves a lot of minutiae, and from sunup to sundown, the days can feel crammed. And amid all the details—changing diapers, potty-training, making meals, driving everywhere, helping with homework, doing bedtime—what can get lost is the bigger picture. Even if your kids are older and don’t need as much hands-on attention, your days are likely quite full. Which means it can be tough to pause and reflect on your role in raising your children. Yet, knowing your role as a parent is vital. It’s like a writer knowing the theme of their story. It’s the infrastructure for everything that happens, driving their plot and what their characters do. Your role as a parent guides your actions and the choices you make in [...]