Psychotherapy • Consultation • EMDR
At first, Kevin’s focus on having safe sex seemed to him a reasonable and healthy concern, since he was, after all, a gay man in a city where many men are HIV positive. Gradually, though, his fears became increasingly intense, until he reached a point where, after every sexual experience, he felt terrified that he…
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At 42, Stewart finds himself single again. “I’ve fallen in love almost once every year since I was twelve,” he tells me, “and by now I’ve had at least twenty ‘soul mates.’ But I’ve never had a relationship last longer than six months. It always starts out so great, but in every relationship I’m the…
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The subjects of this and the next column are the nature of anxiety and what we can do to manage it. It’s a big issue. Every year anxiety disorders affect about 40 million Americans, or 18% of the population, and the rest of us are certainly no strangers to it. We’ve all known sleepless nights…
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Last time, I wrote that the human brain is hard wired to experience a certain amount of paranoia. The brain isn’t an organ for dispassionately perceiving reality: it evolved to overcome threats and solve problems, so problems and perceptions of danger are what capture its attention. Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson writes that the human mind “scans…
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“What will make me happy?” Since everyone wants happiness, it would make sense to give this question some serious attention. But my impression is that most people don’t really think about it much, probably because most of us assume that we already know the answer. Most people seem to take it for granted that getting…
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Are you on our own side? I don’t mean are you on your own side against other people, but rather: Are you consistently loyal to your own well-being and highest good? Are you self-forgiving and patient with yourself when you make mistakes, or are you more inclined to be angry and self-punitive? When you go…
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