The most prominent psychological defense mechanisms, including repression, denial, idealization, splitting and projection. This is the category for you.
This past week, one of my clients returned from an exotic vacation and told me he’d felt almost nothing during the trip. He took no pleasure in any of his adventurous activities, and when there was a guide involved, my client felt preoccupied with the impression he was making upon the other person rather than […]
Nearly four years ago, not long after I first launched this site, I wrote about a client who coped with unbearable feelings via her eating disorder: when she could no longer endure a painful emotional state, she would binge and then purge in an attempt to evacuate it. I discussed this as a form of
The Evacuation of Pain Read More »
Many years ago when I was just starting out as a therapist, I briefly worked for a large group practice. At the end of my tenure, the managing partner in this group, a respected psychoanalyst, refused to pay what he owed me. When I pointed out to him that he was contractually bound to pay
The Self-Serving Lie Read More »
My recent posts got me to thinking about the term mental illness and how stigma-laden it remains to this day. As a society, we’ve come a long way from the bad old days when most people were too ashamed to admit going to a psychiatrist, when families kept those members with obvious psychological problems hidden
The Shame in Mental Illness Read More »
First of all, I’d like to thank those of you who visit the site often enough to have noted my absence this past month and written to me with concern. It has been a trying time, in part because of unexpected challenges that have come along but also because I haven’t taken care of myself
Respecting Your Personal Limitations Read More »
About 30 years ago during analytic training, my good friend Tom Grant was describing a difficult case in seminar — a man in his mid-30s whom Tom had already been treating for quite some time. Tom’s client came from a severely dysfunctional background that had restricted his ability to feel for and depend upon other
During several recent sessions, one of my clients has been struggling to make an important decision in her life that’s causing her considerable anguish — whether or not to leave her husband. I don’t normally give advice in such cases, but based on my lengthy relationship with this client, I strongly believe that she ought
Lying to Our Clients Read More »
On Saturday, I made a short new video, making use of what I’d learned in media training. I felt very good about that video because I’d confronted some underlying shame and the related wish to remain invisible — that is, relying on a blank facial expression and little modulation in my voice in order to
Diary of a Shame Attack Read More »
I haven’t heard it in a number of years, but every once in a while, a client will ask why we talk only about “what’s wrong” in therapy. It’s a valid question. Australian blogger Evan Hadkins, who frequently comments here on After Psychotherapy, has chided me for over-emphasizing the painful aspects of the work I
Accentuating the Positive Read More »
So my book will finally be available on Monday, I’m caught up on all the work I’ve been neglecting and now have some free time to focus on other things, such as continuing my video series on psychodynamic psychotherapy. This is the fourth installment and it deals with resistance in the early phases of treatment.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Video #4: Resistance Read More »