Why Do Couples Grow Apart and What Can You Do About It?
When we all seem to be spending considerable energy trying…
Living With Anxiety- Tips for Helping Calm Anxiety
Living With Anxiety Over 40 million adults in the…
Adult ADHD- Can you get diagnosed as an adult? Is that even helpful?
How can I get evaluated for ADHD as an adult?…
Why We Love Horror and True Crime
It’s that time of year again where we (pre-COVID) should be lining up outside of haunted houses, spending hours crafting scary costumes and hosting Halloween III movie parties. All to scare ourselves (and others) silly. But why? Why do we like being scared? What draws us to the dark side of things where people are stalked, maimed or even killed? This delight in discomfort goes waaaay back. Clearly the Victorians were having a heyday with it with stories of Jack the Ripper, Frankenste […]
Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM) — Beating Stress, Loneliness and Isolation While Sheltering In Place
These are surely trying times. I have been in practice for 25 years and never seen the level of interest in therapy that I see now. Everyone is stressed, isolated, lonely and frustrated. Some folks are scared or worried.And yet access to our usual supports– churches, synagogues, mosques, neighborhood BBQ’s, family reunions, book clubs, bowling nights, even date nights are on hold or have changed so drastically that they are hardly recognizable. But as humans our need to connect persists […]
Why do people lie? Is Lying Normal?
When my son was little he told whoppers. And not just occasionally. At one point it seemed that every other sentence that came out of his mouth was pure fabrication. As a parent I have to admit I was a bit concerned. So I did some research. And felt a lot better…Here’s the good and bad news. About half of us lie. A study done in 2009 showed that lying does vary– some people don’t really tell any, some tell a few and some tell many. The good news is that the prolific liars are rare– ab […]
What is Narcissism?
Many of us have heard of the myth of Narcissus– the Greek hunter who saw his reflection in a body of water and was so overcome by his own beauty that he fell in love with the image and could not bear to leave it. He ended up dying, although the means vary from one version to the next. But the basic idea is that Narcissus could not love anyone other than himself.Fast forward to now, 2019, and we can all attest to the longevity of the Narcissistic character. So I thought I would try to shed some […]
Highly Sensitive People- It’s In The Genes!
It should be no surprise with the rapid advances in genetics these days that they have identified a gene that may help to explain what a lot of folks call the Highly Sensitive Person. A researcher at the University of California Berkeley, Dr. Levenson, postulates that a variation of the serotonin transporter gene on chromosome 17 may may account for people who feel their emotions very acutely. This serotonin transport gene can have two common variations– the “short allele” or the “long a […]
How to Expand Your Emotional Capacity
First I need to give credit to the originator of this metaphor, a friend and mentor Dr. Stephen Finn. Dr. Finn is a psychologist in practice here in Austin, Texas and is on faculty at UT Austin. He has mentored many psychologists over the years and is a world-renown expert on psychological assessment. If you are interested in psychological assessment you may find his website, www.therapeuticassessment.com, of interest. Now that I have given credit, let me explain what “saucering” […]
Your Brain During Arguments– Article by Stan Tatkin, PsyD
The following article appeared on time.com last month and is a HUGE topic in my work with couples. One of the first things I try to teach couples is that memory is faliable and so the “he said/she said” fight where one person opens with “when you said/did _____” and the other person fires right back “THAT’S NOT WHAT I SAID/DID!” to which the other now disbelieving partner yells “Oh my gosh YES IT IS!” followed by something like “I remember EXACTLY what you said, it was Tuesday and we […]