I present my work with a woman who was constantly suicidal for a year, frequently phoning me from the equivalent of “the ledge.”  I felt overwhelmed with guilt, worry, and responsibility. I eventually was able to understand what was going on and how to...

I review three aspects of Trump’s psychology—First, his need to lie all the time in order to ward off humiliation, Second, his inability to separate his personal and public lives, and third, the ways that his need to denigrate women comes from his fear...

Sexual fetishes refer to situations in which someone is sexually aroused by either an inanimate object or by a part of someone’s body or personality.  They include such sexual interests as high heeled shoes, leather,

Therapists seem to routinely blame parents, particularly mothers, for everything that goes wrong in a child’s development.  Following WWII there was a rise in so-called “child experts” (like Benjamin Spock) who laid responsibility for development at mo...

Trump Fatigue refers to the experience of being beaten up and enervated by President Trump’s paranoid and narcissistic behavior.  The fatigue results from having to constantly fight against feelings of helplessness and the experience of being gaslighte...

There is a popular misconception about “spoiling” children.  This belief is that the spoiled child is overly gratified by parents who can’t say no, a problem that results in the child growing up to be an entitled and self-centered adult.  In fact,

Trump, Republicans and the NRA always speak out about the problem of mental illness following a mass shooting, obviously a distraction from gun control and, lately from the problem of white supremacy.  But they are hypocrites or liars.

Psychotherapy is hard to study.  It’s particularly hard to study what it is exactly that helps people in therapy get better.  Some schools of thought, like psychoanalysis, are uncomfortable even declaring therapeutic aims to be the primary consideratio...

The Happiness Trap is a self-help book written by Russ Harris and is based on the ideas of Steven Hayes who developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT.  ACT is based on the premise that our attempts to fight or flee from uncomfortable feelings...

Psychotherapy can be understood as the process by which the therapist and patient work to disconfirm the pathogenic beliefs that the patient acquired growing up, beliefs that cause the patient to feel distress.