Patience, Maturity, Therapy, Life

Will this posting, with its weighty and abstract title, break the blog’s rule by being long-winded? No. How Long Is Therapy? At the point that a couple begins couples therapy, I am often asked about the duration of treatment. It’s a reasonable question; treatment itself is perceived by many to be arduous, unpredictable as to […]

Saying Goodbye, Or Not

Every therapist has had the experience where a client discontinues treatment by not appearing for a scheduled appointment and then not responding to follow up calls inquiring about the client’s overall status. Termination Of Treatment Every so often, clients with whom I’ve had this experience re-contact me, sometimes years later. When I’ve asked about how […]

Time, In Life And In Therapy

Back in 1968, I was fortunate enough to go to a dance at a neighboring high school where a newly popular band had been hired to play. The band probably contracted for the date before they released what turned out to be their most famous and successful song. So we kids got to see a […]

Treating Depression

As a follow up to the post about creative/productive depression, I think it’s important to also address the question of depression as it might affect couples therapy, not just individual therapy. Depression case example This presents in the form of one “depressed” (“D”) partner who has some combination of lethargy,  unresponsiveness, passivity or hopelessness, sometimes with irritability, […]

Was Today’s Appointment Helpful?

Some years back, near the end of most appointments, I began to ask my clients, “Was today’s appointment helpful?” Asking this question was not an original idea of mine. I was at the time reading professional literature about brief or short term therapy, a model in which this question is practically a staple (partly to see […]