Feeling Stuck? Your Unconscious May be Trying to Tell You Something
Lacan suggested that the “unconscious is structured like a language”.
And for those of you who feel STUCK, it’s a language you may want to learn.
STUCK may mean that you can’t move forward with something in […]
Have you ever had the experience of feeling like someone kept pushing your buttons over and over until you finally exploded, even though you were trying so hard not to?
Or perhaps this is familiar to you: You keep getting blamed for something that you’re only doing because […]
Working with the Unconscious in Therapy
Often our dreams hide as much as they reveal. The unconscious is very smart that way; it protects us from what we don’t wish to know about ourselves. We each have our own personal taboos; things about ourselves that feel […]
Some of you may be surprised to know that even today there are people who attend psychoanalytic sessions 3, 4, or even 5 times per week! The type of work that can be done with this intensity can be much deeper and rewarding than a psychotherapy process that stays more on the surface.
This work can […]
Is “Three a Crowd” when it comes to relationships?
When I was in graduate school, the idea of using triangulation in relationships had a pretty bad rap. But there are healthy things about relationship triangles too. (As an aside, a great book that discusses triangulation […]
When You’re Tired of the Pain
If you’ve ever looked at the people around you and wondered, Why does everybody seem to have it so easy when I have it so hard, no matter how hard I try, then you might know what […]
To speak or not to speak?
Many people wonder why it’s a good thing to talk about problems, feelings, memories, and more, instead of just pushing them away and forgetting about them. This is especially true when the act of talking seems to dredge […]
Separating the Past from the Present; Transference and Projection
One of the markers of a healthy personality is the ability to be flexible about how we see things and to let in new learning about the world and our relationships.
Although all of us are constantly bombarded […]
Why I have embraced the “free association” technique at long last
“Free association”, a therapy technique (sometimes referred to as “the fundamental rule” in psychoanalysis) in which a person puts himself into a reflective state of mind and notices/talks about whatever seemingly random thoughts, feelings, images, and memories […]
Abandonment: Depression and Other Effects
Feelings of abandonment by people we need or love, even people who hurt us sometimes too, can be one of the most difficult experiences in relationships, calling up some of our most primitive survival mechanisms to manage the pain.
But we all experience […]