​ARE WE COMPATIBLE: How to Measure

7 HEALTHY BEHAVIORS OF COMPATIBLE COUPLES Don’t Confuse Similarity With Compatibility.  We’ve all heard new lovers exclaim, “We’re soul-mates.  She likes everything that I liked”!  Indeed, similarity or sameness is a powerful driver. Across all spectrums, people seek others who come from the same country of origin, who are the same race or religion, who…

Read More...

​SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? Helping You Decide

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE MARRIAGE IS WORTH SAVING .  .  .  Help with answering this question is called Discernment Counseling, servicing the couple that has not yet decided, and needs help making this decision.    DISCERNMENT COUNSELING IS NOT MARRIAGE COUNSELING   Discernment Counseling recognizes and respects that the struggling couple is most…

Read More...

​WHAT IS PSYCHOANALYSIS: 7 Principles

Distinguishing Psychoanalysis From Other Mental Health Treatments Strong empirical evidence supports the thinking that psychoanalysis brings about positive outcomes, including symptom remission, increased psychological and emotional flexibility, strengthened view of self, and improved capacity to engage in healthy and mutually satisfying relationships.   Not only is there evidence to show the efficacy psychoanalysis, evidence also points…

Read More...

MARRIAGE COUNSELING: How It Really Works

Taking a Look Behind Closed Doors What is marriage counseling? What should you expect from marriage counseling? How does it help? Can marriage or couples counseling save a failing relationship? It’s mysterious—what goes on behind the closed doors in a marriage counseling office. Is one partner getting a scolding for not taking out the garbage?…

Read More...

INFIDELITY: Understanding Why

LOOKING DIFFERENTLY AT INFIDELITY Why do partners in committed relationships cheat? I’d like to consider, here, the proposition that in some instances, when one partner cheats, it’s one part of a corresponding set of messages that both partners are transmitting back and forth between themselves. When a relationship is failing, much is at stake. The…

Read More...

​MORE OF THE SAME FIGHT: Why We Do It

EXPLORING MORE OF WHY COUPLES ARGUE Who Do We Marry?  And, why?  When marriages fall apart, the resentments often sound like this: “ .  .  . He was as self-involved as my father and they both mostly put their own needs before mine.  How was I blind to their similarities”?   .  .  . or “. …

Read More...

​THE SAME FIGHT: Why We Do It

THE DARK TRUTH ABOUT FALLING IN LOVE Couples in conflict: they have the same argument over and over.  They trigger the same resentments, provoke the same painful responses from each other and engage in the same awful behaviors as they did in their last fight. Why? And, how to stop fighting the same fight?  We…

Read More...

SUPERVISION: Working on the Leading Edge

It would be a hard thing to do—to over emphasize the importance of satisfaction in clinical work.  Your patient’s satisfaction.  And yours! If we’re talking baseball, it’s that sweet spot on the bat.  If we’re talking sex, well—you know that place!  The contact just feels right.  Couldn’t feel better.  And wow—something amazing happens! So yes! …

Read More...

​BEING ALONE: The Complexities of Self

I’ve written previously that being alone brings us face to face with important questions about self—what is the core inclination of self, and how has the lived experience diverted or required compromise of the core self?  I’m connecting these questions to the experience of being alone because I think these are question that persist within…

Read More...

BEING ALONE: Inner Self – Outer Self

I’d like to try to capture, here, something of a description of what it feels like to be alone with the self and to explore why this is both an important but also difficult experience. As I consider this question, it becomes apparent to me that when we inquire about being alone, we are also…

Read More...