Depression
What We Believe, What We Remember, What We Inherit Families, relationships, and communities shape us in ways both obvious and invisible. Jonathan Spector’s This Much I Know explores how our personal histories, inherited beliefs, and the stories we tell ourselves collide—sometimes painfully, sometimes with unexpected insight. In this beautifully acted play, competing truths coexist, challenging…
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Imagine your older sister—tattooed, disheveled, possibly drunk, and definitely uninvited—showing up on your doorstep with emotional baggage and a grudge. Now imagine she’s a character on a glossy streaming series. Two of the buzziest shows this month—Sirens (Netflix) and The Better Sister (Amazon Prime Video)—lean into this exact setup. On the surface, they’re frothy and…
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The results are in: Mikey Madison has officially taken home the Oscar for Best Actress, capping off an incredible awards season where she also won the Independent Spirit Award and the BAFTA. In a historic night, Anora dominated the Academy Awards, proving that its raw intensity and indie roots were no barrier to Hollywood’s top…
Read More Therapists, especially relationally-oriented therapists, often attempt to help clients in therapy to improve their relationship choices. The pattern of fear of commitment is a widely acknowledged phenomenon in popular culture. Most of us understand fear of commitment as a conscious hesitation to take a healthy relationship to a higher level of commitment. But sometimes conflicts…
Read More If only we therapists could concoct a reliable strategy to help our clients prevent affairs. If only we could convincingly illuminate the heartbreak and damage and devastation in advance to help motivate adults who find themselves deep in the throes of an intense crush to carve out a different path. The trouble typically is that…
Read More Early adulthood is a rich psychological time when personalities develop more deeply, and individuals begin to cultivate what systems therapists describe as a more grounded sense of self. Early adulthood marks a wonderful but often fraught stage of life full of pondering, pain and possibility. Illinoise, a stunning musical directed and choreographed by Justin Peck,…
Read More If your young adult children are home for the holidays, consider bonding while viewing The Holdovers which is available to stream on multiple platforms. The attached New York Times review captures a lot of what makes the film heartwarming and worthwhile. As a therapist, what the review leaves out that will be relevant to viewers…
Read More Tomorrow and, Tomorrow and, Tomorrow’s book jacket describes a “love story you haven’t heard before”. This provocative welcome offers a fitting invitation to enter the page turning journey of Sadie, Sam and Marx – three super smart college students at MIT and Harvard, making their way in the gaming industry. The love story is new…
Read More “Be where the client is at.” This phrase – despite and because of its grammatical flaw – was written and spoken and repeated by several social work professors in my early graduate training. A willingness to refrain from my own agenda in order to respect and deeply probe the psychological space and experience of my…
Read More The book jacket for Diary of a Mad Housewife describes the novel as “a classic of urban women’s fiction that gave a wry voice to the nascent feminist stirrings of the 1960s.” I’m not sure how I missed it on my mother’s bookshelf while growing up in the 70s, but she confirms that it was…
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