The Therapy Beat

Fifteen years ago, psychotherapist Jeffrey Kottler never imagined he’d be stuffing nine duffel bags full of antibiotics and suture kits for a return trip to... Read more

With some clients, issues, or circumstances, an hour is not quite enough time to dig in. That’s why it’s great to have an “Intensive Option.” Think of... Read more

When clients get immersed in their problems, they often suffer from a kind of tunnel vision, focused on a small range of experiences, with their bad feelings... Read more

Many walk into the therapist's consulting room exactly at the moment that they have been stripped to the core of their being. While not at the physical... Read more

I'm at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in northern Manhattan. My guide, Victoria, has been studying the brains of people who committed suicide, and... Read more

Throughout history, for most people it was just expected that work was a difficult, tedious, underpaying, and often soul-killing grind. But in today’s world... Read more

Jessica, a counselor in her mid-30’s, works at a large, public mental health clinic in a major metropolitan area. Her workday begins early, the alarm... Read more

It’s not exactly a state secret: most of us become therapists because we want to help people. We want to help them feel less alone with their pain and find... Read more

Since it was introduced as an anesthetic in the 1970s, ketamine has occupied an uncertain pharmacological status. It’s been used as both a Vietnam-era... Read more

It can be hard to get around your young clients’ defense systems so that the good, therapeutic information gets through. Charlotte has a way to get around... Read more

As therapists, we must recognize the complexity and ambivalence at the core of human experience. People run into problems when their lives are dictated by... Read more

Shame is an emotion that isn’t healthy. Unlike guilt–which causes remorse for something you did wrong–shame can cause someone to feel as... Read more

According to Patrick Dougherty, the biggest problem men have in psychotherapy isn’t that intimacy and the language of emotion is such foreign territory, but... Read more

There’s been a decline in the public’s utilization of psychotherapy as a consequence of the rise of what might be called the Gang of Three: DSM, Big... Read more

While the number of people in psychotherapy keeps declining, surveys reveal that potential clients would still rather talk to a therapist than fill a... Read more

To move forward, our profession needs a more consistent message about what we have to offer. Read more

Manualized psychotherapy is squeezing out people on the margins of mainstream society. Read more

Therapists are far more impressed with clinical fads than they should be. Read more

Let’s unite to stand up to vested interests that have taken over the mental health system. Read more

To stay relevant in a changing world, we need to address the engagement styles of today’s prospective clients. Read more

In our profession, it’s often more alluring to explore new gimmicks than to acknowledge that our success largely hinges on simple, commonsense factors. Read more

Anticipating endings may encourage us to grasp the present with greater vitality. Read more

What clinical, ethical, and legal issues should we be considering as distance therapy becomes a more common form of practice? Read more

When an adult is in your consulting room, it’s understandable if you use adult language and logic. But at certain points in the healing process, you may need... Read more

Intense emotion in the consulting room can leave some clients overwhelmed; others shut down. Either response can derail your session. Now here’s some help... Read more

From the moment I met the Correys in my waiting room, I was baffled about why they were together. Frank was tall, good looking and suave; Donna dowdy and... Read more

Marianne Walters didn't invent a brilliant new therapeutic paradigm, publish a large and magisterial body of research, or establish her own unique school of... Read more

Americans have a history of valuing quick-fix solutions to difficult problems. But the simplistic psychopharmacological approach to depressive disorders... Read more

Anxiety attacks anything and everything in a person's life. Sometimes the targets are the mundane activities that others take for granted. At other times, it... Read more

Over several thousand years, different cultures have discovered how to nurture the seed of a specifically human capacity—a saving grace, as it were—for... Read more