Mine That Feeling

“If I really let myself cry, I’ll never stop.” My college-age client looked out the window as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. I’d been seeing her for several weeks and today, we’d begun to discuss her painful childhood. It was just her and her mom. Her dad had left when …

Studying Anger

Last week, I talked about reading emotions, particularly anger. In fact, we need to do more than read our anger. We need to study. To study is to understand, to fit into an organized structure of information, to read and think and do experiments until we make sense of a subject. Libraries are written on …

Remember the Miracles

This week, Carrie Fisher, along with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, told her story on Oprah. Most famous for the role of Princess Leia of the Star Wars movies, Carrie suffers from serious mental illness that requires regular electroshock therapy as well as daily psychiatric medication. She described how the shock therapy “blows apart the cement” …