Resistance is Fertile

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Resistance is Fertile

One of the biggest questions in modern therapy is how to most-effectively work with what’s known as a “resistant” client.  The idea of resistance is a simple one that belies a complex reality: some clients wont respond well to what the therapist is doing, and progress will be slow or nonexistent.  It’s a little hard for me to write about any of this - resistance, progress - without throwing quotes on every other word, but since that looks awful in print please assume I view all of this askance.  It’s worth noting that the question of resistance is a question that has only shown up in the modern era of therapy; Freud and the analytic gang not only weren’t worried about “resistance”, they didn’t have even have a concept of it.  Why is that?

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How to Keep Your Heart Beating

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How to Keep Your Heart Beating

Before I went to sleep last night I reminded myself that I had a blog to write, and ran through the general outline of my idea for this week.  I woke up, enjoyed some breakfast, sat in the sun for a bit, and checked facebook.  Suddenly I didn’t have a plan anymore - my calendar was immediately and coldly cleared, as my hopes for the day were suddenly pulled and distorted into the black hole of tragedy.  Lucky as I am to not know anyone personally involved in the shooting at Pulse, I can’t keep the pain of such a horror from entering my chest.  This is the reality of tragedy, that it is impersonal in its ability to cross boundaries, insatiable in its ability to demand attention, and implacable in its ability to cause pain...

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Questions of Medication

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Questions of Medication

As a non-prescribing therapist, I find myself being asked to counsel people on using medication to effect their mood very, very often.  People want to know if I think medication might help them, if it might harm them, what kind of medication might be useful, as well as how much.  The most frequent question I get from clients and others, though, is simply about whether or not I agree with the idea of medicating a person’s mood.  Make no mistake, this is a very popular topic in the therapeutic community.  And while I think the answer is simple, I don’t think it’s obvious...

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What Lies in the Shadow

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What Lies in the Shadow

Clients offer a lot of reasons for coming to therapy, but at the bottom of all of them is this: it’s hard to be yourself.  The world we live in can seem like a dangerous place, and there are plenty of forces out there that want you to be just a piece of yourself, or something you’re not at all.  And though many of us were lucky to be told to just be ourselves when we were young, many people have a difficult time letting that lesson really sink in.  The truth is, we’re all made up of disparate internal elements; our personalities are complex...

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To Be Righteous and Selfish

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To Be Righteous and Selfish

Earlier today I was talking to my roommate, and he seemed like he was in a rough spot.  His cat was missing, his job was up in the air, and, most present, he was desperate for sleep.  I told him to get some rest, take care of himself; we’d talk later.  It was a funny sort of thing to say, considering the morning I’d had.  I was just coming home from seeing my own therapist, to whom I’d whined gloriously and had my expectations for what reality owed me properly reset.  My advice to my roommate, as is so often the case with advice, was the sort of thing that I needed to say to myself instead.  But it begs the question: how does a person take care of themself?

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