Psychotherapy • Consultation • EMDR
Q: I can’t stop hating my father. He was a violent man who beat, bullied and terrorized the whole family. He figured out I was gay years before I did, and thought it was funny to call me “the faggot,” even in front of strangers in public. I left home twelve years ago and have…
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Attachment theory is a discipline in psychology which studies how people form intimate bonds with one another. The research has identified three primary attachment styles – secure, avoidant, and anxious. If you have difficulties in your intimate relationships, understanding you and your partner’s style may provide valuable insight into the root of the problem. For…
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In his first session, Andy tells me a horrific story of abandonment by his mother and regular beatings and verbal abuse by his alcoholic father. He tells this story with a bland nonchalance that I find chilling. I ask him what happened to his hurt and rage. He responds with clichés: “That was a long…
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Do you think of yourself as a selfish person? Over the years I’ve been surprised to learn how many people harbor the same “secret” about themselves — “If people knew what I’m actually like inside, they’d be surprised to find out how selfish I really am.” An age-old tactic of exploiters and oppressors plays on…
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When I left home at age eighteen, my first independent act was to look for a psychiatrist to cure me of being gay. I found one, too — not in Mississippi, not in Kansas — but right here in progressive San Francisco. It was 1967, and “reparative therapy” – now discredited as quackery — was…
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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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