A Picky Culture
For better or for worse, the digital age has brought us immediate access to seemingly infinite amounts of information and access to a gargantuan amount of goods and services. You only have to stand in the toothpaste section of any major pharmacy to see a sectional representation ...
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Training The Mind To Heel
Recently, I was listening to a Sounds True podcast in which Linda Graham, author of Bouncing Back: Rewiring the Brain for Maximum Resilience, was describing some findings from neuroscience about how babies see and experience the world. It turns out the preverbal infant ...
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On Procrastination
At the end of a long week, I review my to-do lists of each day in my planner. Some days, I am relieved during this process, seeing that I have completed all of my daily tasks for the week and that I can finally relax. Other times, however, I look at my lists in dread ...
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The Impact Of A Book
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across ...
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How To Let Go
In my last post, I wrote about how the ACT model of therapy creates the conditions for growth and healing. I thought it would be useful to spend my next few blogs writing specifically about each component of the ACT approach in more detail. The 3 main components of ACT ...
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What’s Therapy Like?
This summer Netflix released the show Gypsy, which portrays a caring yet highly unethical therapist. It reminded me of how few honest, informative depictions of therapy there are available to the general public, (I think the best is In Treatment), so I thought it would ...
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Self-Esteem In The Face Of Rejection
Many people come to therapy seeking to develop a high self-esteem. Time and time again, I meet with people who, after some form of rejection – a break up, negative feedback at work, someone ghosting on one of several online dating platforms – experience a shift in ...
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Who Is In The Driver’s Seat?
A driving tenet of a type of therapy that I practice is summarized in one simple quote by the famous greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus. “[People] are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.” This powerful philosophy is anchored on thefundamental ...
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Avoiding Conversations
When I was a kid, whenever I wanted to confess to my mother that I had done something wrong or if I wanted to ask for her permission to do something, I would often feel paralyzed. I’d repeatedly rehearse what I wanted to say and I would imagine the words building up ...
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Understanding a Panic Attack
Sam is casually grocery shopping after having gone through another stressful week of the New York City grind. As Sam is navigating the fruits and vegetables section, something stops her in her tracks. Around her, nothing has significantly changed from a few moments ago ...
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Understanding Emotions
Hey there! In my previous post on depression I wrote that it’s mood and symptoms “stem from your beliefs about yourself, your goals and your appraisal of what a situation ultimately means.” I thought it would be useful to talk a bit more about the theory of emotions ...
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Creating The Condition For Growth
“All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.” – Buddha As a therapist, I’m clearly interested in what gives rise to mental health issues ...
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Searching For A Therapist
The process of finding a therapist can be daunting. Whether you are considering therapy or you are merely curious to learn more about its nature, this post will discuss important factors to consider when searching for a therapist. There are hundreds of therapists out ...
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MTA Delays & Your Mental Health
“Due to a signal malfunction, we are experiencing extensive delays in F train service. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Who would have thought that this one announcement would lead to an eruption of several different reactions across the train car? Some people ...
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Am I Depressed?
Let’s talk about depression. Did you ever notice how a loss like a divorce can be a catalyst for one person to be devastated, while for another person it can lead to a new, better life? Hell, it can even be both of those things for the same person! What’s up with ...
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