Insight-Oriented Therapy
Two Paths in Therapy: Skills and Insight Broadly speaking, therapies tend to fall into two categories: those that focus on building skills and those that foster insight. Skills-based therapies assume that psychological problems arise from a lack of coping skills, and they attempt to remedy this by teaching skills. A CBT therapist might teach you […]
Starting Therapy
Before Our First Session You’re beginning therapy because, in some way, you feel bad and want to feel better. Before our first session, I encourage you to consider what exactly “feeling bad” looks like and what “feeling better” would mean. Feeling Bad. What image or metaphor captures this feeling? Does it have a bodily sensation? […]
How to Choose a Therapist
If you’re considering therapy, I think there are three important questions to ask yourself. Question #1: Do you really need therapy? Not everyone does. And even those who benefit from therapy at some point in their life don’t usually need it indefinitely. If you’re generally content with life, and if your current resources feel sufficient […]
Emotion Matters
The Appeal of Pure Reason I entered adulthood believing that emotions were more bothersome than helpful. I remember reading Plato’s Republic my sophomore year of college and feeling an instant kinship with the man. In order to live a good life, Plato wrote, we must subjugate our emotions to the rational part of our mind. […]
Unconscious Thoughts and Feelings
How the Brain Forms Associations The mammalian brain constantly forms associations, linking thoughts, feelings, and experiences in ways we rarely notice. Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux gives the example of a rabbit that encounters a fox at a specific watering hole and barely escapes. The watering hole and the fox become linked in the rabbit’s brain through […]
‘Bad Therapy’ Review
“When we were little, my brother and I were spanked. Our feelings were seldom consulted when consequential decisions about our lives were made — where we would attend school, whether we would show up at synagogue for major holidays, what sort of clothes fit the place and occasion. If we didn’t particularly relish the food […]