[As I was about to publish this post, it occurred to me that its intellectual subject matter was a way to escape from the intensely emotional focus and interactions with readers from my last post — a defense mechanism at work!] As I’m thinking ahead to the the participatory research project I have planned for… Continue reading From Intellectualization to Depersonalization: A Spectrum
Category: Unbearable Emotion
From Heartbreak to Redemption
On the occasion of my new book’s launch, I’d like to tell you a story about something that happened to me nearly 13 years ago; it will help to explain why today means so much to me and why I’m experiencing the publication of this book as a kind of “corrective emotional experience” for an… Continue reading From Heartbreak to Redemption
Projecting and the Law of False Attribution
I’ve been meaning to write this post for more than a year now; from the beginning, I’ve had this particular title in mind although I’m not 100% sure that it’s the right one. If anyone has a better suggestion for how to name this particular mental process, feel free to submit a comment. I call… Continue reading Projecting and the Law of False Attribution
Empathy for the Psychopath
The New York Times magazine ran a chilling article yesterday about psychopathic children, and how the features that lead to anti-social personality disorder and sociopathy may be identified as early as age five. If you haven’t already seen it, I suggest you give it read. Researchers uniformly focus on lack of empathy as the best… Continue reading Empathy for the Psychopath
Vacation Breaks in Psychotherapy and Defenses Against Need
Clients often react to their therapists’ vacation breaks as a kind of “abandonment”, responding in ways that shed light on their feelings about neediness and dependency.