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Dr. Susan O'Grady

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Psychotherapy

 

The No Surprises Act of 2022: What it means for psychologists

January 26, 2022 By Susan J O'Grady Leave a Comment

The No Surprises Act of 2022 (H.R. 133) and the Good Faith Estimate (GFE) are important changes in how patients are ...

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Psychotherapy in the Virtual Space: How teletherapy has changed the way we give and get care

April 26, 2021 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

How the pandemic changed the way psychologists work and clients get care. Psychologists help people cope with change in ...

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Bittersweet and Everything In Between

June 24, 2020 By Susan J O'Grady Leave a Comment

Being able to hold opposing emotions is one of the hallmarks of good mental health. Something can be both bitter and ...

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Understanding Suicide: Why do people kill themselves?

March 8, 2019 By Susan J O'Grady 1 Comment

  The Interpersonal Theory of Suicide On the surface, suicide seems incomprehensible, ...

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When Strong Emotions Derail You: How to manage

March 1, 2019 By Susan J O'Grady Leave a Comment

How do emotions get us into trouble? Some strong emotions are enjoyable, but some can knock us off balance. ...

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Social Anxiety Disorder: (SAD) Looking at life from the outside

February 2, 2019 By Susan J O'Grady Leave a Comment

Nothing could be more fundamental than wanting to be liked. It is what leads us to seek and maintain relationships, and ...

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When a Beloved Pet Dies

August 27, 2018 By Susan J O'Grady Leave a Comment

My clients often feel ashamed of their grief following the death of a pet because it’s “only” a dog or a cat (or bird, ...

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Psychotherapy for depression helps people accept that we can't force happiness.

How to Be Sad: Acceptance and difficulty

January 24, 2017 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 10 Comments

There's a plethora of information about happiness. My literature search on this subject yielded over 13,000 scholarly ...

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Self-care and ethics for psychologists

Psychologists Need Self-Care Too: Professional ethics

January 9, 2017 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 7 Comments

Who Helps the Helper? Self-care and Professional Ethics Most psychologists get into this profession because we get ...

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Acceptance and suffering.

Suffering, Compassion, and a Skate Ramp: How mindfulness and acceptance help

August 2, 2016 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 4 Comments

Last summer my neighbor’s son built a huge skate ramp right next to our property line. (We’re on different streets, so ...

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Coping with depression and difficult emotions.

Waking up on the Grumpy Side of the Bed: Coping with difficult moods

February 23, 2016 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 4 Comments

“Yesterday all day a small gardenia was a great consolation.” Thomas Merton A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily ...

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Life brings ups and downs and finding a way through the stormy turbulence takes courage and grace.

Accepting Life’s Turbulence: Fasten Your Seatbelt

August 18, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 6 Comments

This dramatic cumulonimbus was captured at 37,000 feet over the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Pilots know to avoid going ...

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Psychotherapy: A Safe and Sheltered Space

August 5, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 6 Comments

One size does not fit all when it comes to finding a good therapist. Many variables influence the extent to which people ...

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We Fear What We Cannot Control: Acknowledging Pain and Suffering

April 15, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 2 Comments

The German airplane crash by a suicidal pilot, the Florida shootings, the Boston bombings. Every week, we read about ...

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Psychotherapy takes place by holding the space for healing to occur.

Psychotherapy, Love, and Healing

March 10, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 9 Comments

  Nothing is more natural than the urge to be held and comforted by someone who understands our suffering. ...

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“I’d be better off single”: Distress-maintaining thinking

March 3, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 5 Comments

How many times have you gone to bed thinking that you hate your partner, fantasizing how you would live on your own? ...

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MBCT exercise in confronting distorted thinking.

Standing Behind the Waterfall: Learning to Change Distorted Thinking with Mindfulness

February 24, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 7 Comments

Thoughts are not facts. When we’re upset, our thoughts seem valid—yet it’s exactly when our emotions get stirred up that ...

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Couples counseling to help cope with disappointments with partner.

Building and Keeping a Strong Relationship After Having Kids

February 17, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

  Marital conflict is bad for kids. While every marriage has conflict, especially after the first baby, ...

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Falling in Love Again with Your Partner: Love Maps, Friendship, and Staying Connected

January 20, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 2 Comments

When love is new, we ask questions to get to know our partner well. As Mandy Len Catron wrote for The New York Times in ...

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The New Year: Rebirth and obstacles

January 12, 2015 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 3 Comments

By the third or fourth week of January, many of us are reevaluating our lives. We’ve either made resolutions (and ...

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Every Ornament Tells a Story: Coping with holiday stress

December 21, 2014 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 1 Comment

Two weeks into December, and I had no holiday spirit. I had no desire to decorate or to do what I have done for the last ...

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Procrastination: Scratching Items off the Mental To-Do List

September 5, 2014 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

A lot of our stress comes from holding our undone tasks in mind; the more we have, the more they weigh upon us. ...

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Chronic Pain: Talking About Pain

August 21, 2014 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Treating pain is difficult for several reasons. Narcotic painkillers bring with them addiction and other problems, but ...

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The Present Moment and Transformation: Mindfulness and change

July 29, 2014 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 4 Comments

Research reported in the respected journal Science, in an article titled “Just think: The challenges of the disengaged ...

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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Post-traumatic Stress Injury

March 29, 2014 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 1 Comment

Responding to First Responders:    PTSD and PTSI in First Responders Psychologists sometimes treat first ...

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Couples therapy and Family of Origin.

Seeing How Childhood Patterns Affect Marriage

February 13, 2014 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

  When Mark and Judy came to see me for couples therapy, Judy felt frustrated by her husband’s constant ...

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Mindfulness Meditation

How to Survive a Rip Current of the Mind When Practicing Mindfulness Meditation

September 21, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 1 Comment

Ruminations and Worry Make Meditation and CBT Difficult Recently during a visit to Hawaii, I read a pamphlet on ocean ...

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Marriage Takes Work, Care, and Attention

July 3, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

“Marriage, the Job: The Hard Work in ‘Before Midnight,’ Amour’ and Other Films and Shows,” A.O. Scott points out that in ...

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Alternative & Complementary Treatment for Emotional and Physical Health

June 29, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

With changes in health care following the Affordable Care Act, providers will soon emphasize health promotion over ...

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Depressed, anxious, or both? Part Two

June 19, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Depression is a Treatable Illness According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 17 million adult ...

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Anxious, depressed, or both?

June 18, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Anxious people fret. Depressed people brood. Anxious people worry about what may happen, while depressed people ...

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Finding Happiness: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

May 21, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 2 Comments

  Grasping for Happiness may Lead to Depression Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object ...

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How Lifestyle Changes Can Be Therapeutic—And What To Do When They’re Just Too Hard

May 10, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

How Lifestyle Changes Can Be Therapeutic—And What To Do When They’re Just Too Hard The October 2011 issue of American ...

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140 Characters or Less: The Three-Sentence Rule in Communication

May 5, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 1 Comment

Couples frequently come to therapy complaining of communication problems. Conflicts don’t get resolved. Intimacy has ...

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How Mindfulness Can Reduce Stress

May 4, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction In 1979, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University ...

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Powering off to reboot your internal drive

May 3, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Irritability, Fatigue, Lack of Enthusiasm? Time to Power Off When your iPad or smartphone is having ...

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Do Opposites Attract in Choosing a Mate: How what once attracted us can begin to repel

May 1, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 2 Comments

We Seek Wholeness in Ourselves When we Choose our Mate The adage “opposites attract” is often true before marriage and ...

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Psychotherapy and Choice :The Journey to the Self

February 11, 2013 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

I often hike the trails below Mt. Diablo and am not a stranger to seeing snakes on the path, and have been told that in ...

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The fullest experience of the adventure of life: Eleanor Roosevelt, writing, and mindfulness

August 29, 2012 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 3 Comments

I just returned from Rhinebeck, NY, where I took an intensive professional training course in Mindfulness-Based ...

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Chronic Pain and Narcotics

June 2, 2012 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 4 Comments

A Behavioral Approach to Treating Chronic Pain and Medical Problems In the June 2 edition of The New York Times, the ...

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Psychotherapy and Change

April 30, 2012 By Dr. Susan O'Grady 4 Comments

I officially started my tenure as President of our association on January 1, but the gavel was passed at our annual ...

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Our Evolving Field

April 1, 2012 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Our Evolving Field For several years every spring I have spoken at Career Day at our local high school and middle ...

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Writing About Our Work: Psychologists as Writers

April 1, 2012 By Dr. Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Writing About Our Work: Psychologists as Writers The summer solstice has come and gone.  I hope that the long ...

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Dr. Susan J. O’Grady is a Certified Gottman Couples Therapist

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