Getting angry…is easy and everyone can do it; but doing it . . . in the right amount, at the right time, and for the right end, and in the right way is no longer easy, nor can everyone do it. —Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (II.9, 1109a2 Managing Conflict Rather than Eliminating Conflict Conflict is inevitable […]
How Lifestyle Changes Can Be Therapeutic—And What To Do When They’re Just Too Hard
How Lifestyle Changes Can Be Therapeutic—And What To Do When They’re Just Too Hard The October 2011 issue of American Psychologist featured an article on how mental health professionals significantly underestimate how unhealthy or missing lifestyle factors—for instance, nutrition and diet, or service to others— contribute to many emotional health problems. It also discussed how […]
Being Playful Gives Freedom from the Restrictions we Put on Ourselves
Gerald Heard visited Georgia O’Keeffe at Ghost Ranch in 1937. He had an interest in Eastern religions and metaphysics. One morning, O’Keeffe found Heard’s footprints around the tree where he had been dancing as well as a cryptic inscription he had etched into the earth at the base of the tree. “Gerald’s Tree was one […]
140 Characters or Less: The Three-Sentence Rule in Communication
Couples frequently come to therapy complaining of communication problems. Conflicts don’t get resolved. Intimacy has left the relationship. They lead parallel lives. The focus is on the kids, or their work or friends, but not each other. During the first session of couples counseling, I take a history of the relationship and ask them to […]
Powering off to reboot your internal drive
Irritability, Fatigue, Lack of Enthusiasm? Time to Power Off When your iPad or smartphone is having issues—unresponsive, randomly crashing, or just running sluggishly—it’s time to power off and reboot the system. When do you power off so that you can reboot your drive? When you are having issues such as irritability, fatigue, or lack of […]
