Psychotherapy • Consultation • EMDR
“There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. You find that which is ineffable, ungraspable, and unbiased, that…
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It is so fitting that the week of Biden’s inauguration begins with Martin Luther King Day. It has been so hard to have hope during the past four years, and I feel that my own hatred and disgust for the Trump regime has exhausted and aged me. I want, for myself and for our country,…
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For those of us who were horrified and disgusted by the Trump administration, and even for some who supported it, the last four years have been a period of prolonged traumatization. Now that Biden has won the presidency, we are within sight of the end of this national nightmare. Like many of you, I have…
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I’ve been involved for over twenty years in the movement to bring mindfulness meditation and other Buddhist practices into the therapeutic process, so I was excited to learn about a new self-help addiction treatment program which is growing rapidly. Refuge Recovery describes itself as “a mindfulness-based addiction recovery community that practices and utilizes Buddhist philosophy…
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Background Urge surfing is a technique developed by Dr. Alan Marlatt, Director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington, as part of a program of relapse prevention for people recovering from addictions to alcohol and other drugs. The technique can also be used to help with any destructive impulse, such as…
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1. Definition: Forgiveness is a conscious, deliberate decision to let go of anger and the desire for vengeance toward those who have harmed us, regardless of whether or not we believe they actually deserve it. It is really three practices: forgiving others who have caused me suffering; being open to, or seeking out, forgiveness from…
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Anxiety is a fact of life. It evolved to protect us from danger and is built into the nervous system. That means that we cannot prevent ourselves from experiencing some anxiety in our lives. We cannot achieve complete control over it. When we try to control it or stop it we usually wind up making…
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It’s hard to believe that I’ve been writing this column, twice a month, for more than three decades. While at 71 I remain healthy and not quite ready to retire, I’ve also come to realize that I have said all that is in me to say, and that it’s time to let go. Endings can…
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In his insightful new book, Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives, clinical psychologist Walt Odets begins by asking “Are gay men homosexuals?” Who are we as gay men, and what happens when we identify ourselves as “homosexuals?” Gay men have been called “homosexuals” since the late nineteenth century, when the previously little-used term…
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Dr. Walt Odets, a clinical psychologist in Berkeley, has been doing psychotherapy with gay men for thirty years. His new book, Out of the Shadows, is a distillation of what he’s learned from us. It is a deeply thoughtful and insightful book, and I strongly recommend it. In his account of the last half-century, there…
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