Work & Career
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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Remember the old song about making new friends and cherishing old ones? “Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.” That lyric came to mind as I watched ART, the hit Broadway revival now playing at the Music Box Theatre. The show, starring Bobby Cannavale, James Corden, and Neil…
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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 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 A friend recently introduced me to Bandle – an app that invites users to play name that tune with a twist. The app introduces only one component of the song at a time. With each failed guess, the app splices in one more instrument at a time. I’m a wiz with name that tune; unfortunately,…
Read More Freudian theory has many limitations and a lot of the original ideas are so sexist they are not even worthy of serious discussion. Nevertheless, Sigmund Freud was the very first to identify and explore the existence of the unconscious mind – a concept that has become central to modern psychology and to understanding human motivations…
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 Practically speaking, preparing for foot surgery feels surprisingly like preparing to have a baby. I stopped taking new therapy clients two months prior to my surgery date in an attempt to mold my work/life balance into the most manageable place during the 3 to 6 month recovery period. Not since giving birth two decades ago…
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