Can we intentionally learn to be less self-critical and more self-compassionate? Psychologist Kristin Neff believes that we can. Based on her pioneering research, she has identified three basic elements of self-compassion: self-kindness vs. self-criticism; common humanity vs. isolation; and mindfulness vs. over-identification; and she has developed techniques for strengthening each of them. This week’s subject…
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Can we intentionally learn to be less self-critical and more self-compassionate? Psychologist Kristin Neff believes that we can. Based on her pioneering research, she has identified three basic elements of self-compassion: self-kindness vs. self-criticism; common humanity vs. isolation; and mindfulness vs. over-identification, and she has developed techniques for strengthening each of them. This week’s subject…
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Can we intentionally learn to be less self-critical and more self-compassionate? Based on her pioneering research, psychologist Kristin Neff has concluded that we can, She has identified three basic components of self-compassion: Self kindness vs. self-criticism, common humanity vs. isolation, and mindfulness vs. over-identification, and has developed practices for teaching and learning each of them….
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Lucas arrives for his weekly therapy session in an agitated and unhappy state. It’s confusing, hee tells me, because his life is going great. It’s been just two weeks since he succeeded in getting a big promotion at his job, the culmination of a year’s work of effort on his part. Just one week earlier…
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Last time I described a process for letting go of unproductive thoughts and habits in 2019. This time I want to discuss why it is also especially important to cultivate hope for the new year. But first a little about how psychology understands hope: Since Freud, virtually all psychological theories have assumed that the causes…
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The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions is ancient: it can be traced all the way back to the Babylonians. I think it has survived because it can be a very helpful practice. It seems to work best when the resolutions involve concrete and measurable goals (such as “lose a pound per week,” rather than…
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In the days following the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, I talked with women and gay men who had been re-traumatized by the whole spectacle. I heard stories of rape, beatings, threats, and bullying, almost always at the hands of young men. Some said that they had never told their stories before, and almost all said that…
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In order to make sense of our lives, we humans tell ourselves stories which provide a sense of the context and meaning of our experiences, and labels are the short-hand terms we use to refer to our stories. We refer to people as “victims,” for instance, when other people have harmed them, but the term…
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Q: I’ve been depressed for a long time and finally started getting treatment for it last year. I’ve been taking anti-depressants and seeing a therapist for eight months. I am feeling better, but I’m still down a lot. I’ve never meditated, but I have friends who do, and they say it could help me be…
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This month my mind has been wandering back to memories of the San Francisco Pride celebrations of the late 1980s and early 1990s. That period in our history was such a radically different time. Then, as now, I worked as a psychotherapist near the Castro with a predominantly gay male clientele. During those years, half…
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