Postpartum Depression: A Multifaceted Problem
Many people believe that postpartum depression is caused by the hormone shifts that occur in a woman after she gives birth. In our culture, we attribute women’s emotions to sex hormones, while we attribute men’s emotions to whatever situation they happen to be in (this link opens a PDF). But these myths, and the biological determinism that it is part of, actually make matters worse. People who assume that emotions are primarily caused by biological changes that are outside of their control tend to... Read More
Anger in its various forms, shapes and guises is a doozy of an emotion. Few of us would count anger as a preferred, let alone favored, emotion. Yet for survivors of trauma it is a well known and sometimes frequently experienced emotion.
Before getting any further, a quick moment of clarification is necessary. The word anger encompasses many different experiences—from a quickly passing irritation to longer lasting indignation, to being irate, having resentment, harboring exasperation, or having hate. If you are interested in an in-depth discussion of the various forms of anger, I encourage... 
Are you moving through the day on autopilot? Do you sometimes feel as if life is passing you by? Do you find yourself reacting to situations, events, and people with anger and frustration? If you responded yes to any of these questions you’re not alone.
Many of us will face challenging situations in our lives that make us want to retreat from life or lash out at the world. Some of these situations will be life changing, and some of it will be the small stuff.
I actually experienced living on autopilot last week as I was driving to the office. I was coasting along, following my normal route... 
“I have tried everything and cannot lose weight!” How often have you heard this from clients or patients? How often are they contemplating extreme diets or surgery as the last ditch effort? Upon further inspection, how long have they tried to make changes before giving up? A week? A month?
The more restrictive the diet, the faster people quit. Dieting in our society has become a four-letter word. People treat diets like they are being sent to prison. It seems like this is for good reason. Looking at 99% of the diets available, they are full of restrictions. No flour, no sugar, no fat, no... 
Last month a couple of my readers expressed an interest in my take on the fear of change and in guidelines for dealing with it. So that’s the topic for this month’s article.
I thought a lot about change and our reasons for fearing it. There’s a great deal of literature out there on the subject from diverse points of view, ranging from a spiritual perspective to a business perspective of wanting to help employees deal with changes to the status quo.
Since I’m by no means an expert in all of these different perspectives but have been through a few changes of my own in the course of... 
My own grandma, who was 96 years old, died at the beginning of February, and my husband’s grandma of 95 years died on this day, February 24, 2012. In between those events, my son turned 1 year old, which was a blessing. He does not know anything about grief because he is too young, but one day I will need to explain it to him.
For many of us parents, it is hard to explain grief to our children. Sometimes we have difficulty understanding it ourselves. I am writing this in hopes that others may come to a greater understanding and be able to explain and talk about grief with their children.
Grief... 
In sex therapy and couples therapy, the importance of full disclosure is a very important one. Many people come to therapy with the notion that their problem is isolated from the rest of their lives, and so they sometimes omit the most important pieces of information. Even the most thorough of intake sessions by the most seasoned and discerning therapists cannot weather the fact that clients often hold back very important information during treatment.
I see this in sex therapy and couples therapy quite often. People will like to leave out very important details, such as their profession and/or... 
This is the second part in a series.
We met two or three times during his stay in rehab; I encouraged him to follow the program, praising his courage in agreeing to treatment. He believed, sincerely and with much relief, that not smoking for 30 days was a good idea. But he expressed anger towards his family, mom especially, for the intervention, and resentment towards the treatment center, for being “so ridiculously expensive.” I detected some resentment towards me, perhaps for recommending an interventionist in the first place. Stan denied it, although I was skeptical, as he had trouble... 
I have a brand new definition of controlling behavior: It takes away civil liberties.
Let’s take an example. Suppose a couple is arguing and the husband blocks the doorway. Do you think he violated the Constitution? Well, let’s say a guy decides to rob someone coming out of a building and blocks his exit. What then? Do you see that it’s the same thing? In America, the first man’s wife should be able to leave if she wants, regardless of whether he wants to finish the discussion.
I once worked with a couple, Lizbet and Emilio. Emilio was a big, powerful man, a tough-looking guy who... 
The contenders in the GOP election process are presenting themselves as devoutly religious people. But what lies within these candidates beneath their religious presentation? Often in life we don’t get to see what lies beneath a person’s “good self” presentation, also called a mask. We don’t get to find out if that person really is religious, kind, caring or not. The discrepancy is often hidden.
How does this occur? When we’re children, often, but not always, in response to trauma or abuse, we experience our own mean-spiritedness and our own destructiveness. It may even start out... 
I’ve seen quite a few articles discussing the integration of 12-step and recovery concepts into models such as cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, or other clinical orientations. Rarely if ever have I seen a discussion that goes the other way, addressing the problem of what happens when a recovery-based approach fails to motivate or engage a client struggling with addiction. In this article I attempt to describe the leap of faith I took in working with a young adult who did not respond positively to a recovery, motivational or cognitive-behavioral based approach, leading me to alter my therapeutic... 
What Christmas gives to the family, Valentine’s Day offers to partners; a chance to revel in our romantic ideal versions of relationship. Both holidays are fraught with intense expectation and grave peril.
Thoughtfully matching all our feelings about our partner with a single, intensely meaningful gift is an impossible task. Even as we try to understand our partner's predicament, we can be left nursing an overriding sense of disappointment. How have you chosen to punish your partner for his or her fallible gift giving?
Whether or not your Valentine’s Day hopes have been gratified or crushed... 
We don’t really know yet what caused Whitney Houston’s death. Many people are deeply moved by her life and her death. Some are wondering “what was the real cause of her suffering and her death”? Others are mourning the increase in pharmaceutical deaths by celebrities. Some people are blaming her friends for colluding with her drinking champagne and beer that last day, even though she was on prescription medication. Others are considering the responsibility hers.
During Piers Morgan’s interview earlier this week, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds and David Foster both stood firmly in their... 
After 5 years of sobriety, in 1985, I began to notice a pattern in my sexual relationships: Even if I really liked someone, I couldn’t go more than 3 months before my attraction to them fizzled. I would then find some reason to end the relationship, although I never really understood why, and it made me feel bad. Thankfully, while I was leading a weekend retreat on Spirituality in Recovery, one participant pressed for bringing the subject of sex into the process.
Although I was unprepared, it gave me the opportunity to address the issue, and I shared my struggles with the group. When I asked... 
