Thoughts from a Therapist

Helpful tips on How to Expand your Personal and Relational Wellness

Category: Therapy Explained, Simplified, and Un-Jargoned

  • What is Transference in psychotherapy – placing emotional reactions related to another onto the therapist

    Quick summary: Transference = when you transfer an emotion meant for one person onto a different person. Transference is unconscious = the person is not aware that they are doing it (though they can be made aware). Transference happens in psychotherapy when a client places an emotional reaction that is related to someone in his…

  • Structural family therapy summary

    Quick Summary: I am providing a summary of Structural Family therapy. I will define all relevant terms and offer an explanation as to what structural therapy might typically look like.

  • Tips for getting your Attachment needs met in your adult relationships

    meeting the needs of your partner is a great way of meeting your own needs… having your partner meeting your needs is a great way for them to meet their own needs… meeting your own needs is a great way to make yourself more able to meet the needs of others… meeting the needs of…

  • Do Therapists get Therapy? | Controlling bias and counter-transference in counseling

    Quick summary: Many psychotherapy programs mandate that their students receive their own psychotherapy services… in my opinion it should be a requirement for all psychotherapists. Therapy is an effective way for a therapist to resolve issues such as personal bias, prejudice, ruminating, and emotional reactivity so that they can be fully present and non-judgmental with…

  • How do you find the right therapist for you?

    Quick summary: To find a therapist listen to your gut… just like most things in life your intuition tends to be correct… if it feels like a therapist can be helpful to you… then they probably will be. The research has found that the therapeutic relationship is the most important component to successful therapeutic outcomes……

  • ‘The Good Enough Sex Model’ (Metz and MaCarthy 2007) – a review and summary

    Quick summary: I am offering a review of – Michael E. Metz; Barry W. McCarthy. The “Good-Enough Sex” model for couple sexual satisfaction. Sexual and Relationship Therapy; August 2007; Volume 22 No. 3 Pages 351 – 362 – this is by far my favorite article of the subject of human sexuality… I am very thankful…

  • The Science behind Emotional Intelligence: literature review

    Quick overview: The studies I reviewed were basically trying to find a consistent definition of emotional intelligence so that the topic could be scientifically investigated. The researches end up concluding that emotional intelligence became so ‘trendy’ so quickly that the theory was never able to ground itself with a consistent definition… in all the definition…

  • Narrative therapy: the externalization of perception

    Quick summary: By talking with a therapist and re-experiencing emotions, thoughts and emotionally significant experiences, a client can show his/herself that occurrences can be narrated and therefore separated from the concept of self… narration is freedom as we find ourselves to be the author of our own reality. Resiliency naturally emerges as our identity ceases…

  • Michele Weiner Davis’s ‘Divorce Busting’ – a response

    Michele is applying a brief solution-focused intervention specifically to the issue of avoiding divorce (I enjoyed the consistency in that her book is literally and figuratively brief and solution focused).

  • Solution Focused Therapy simplified

    Quick summary: Solution focused in based on the idea that if you get people to start solving and to stop over analyzing the problem they will be more likely to reach a resolution in the present and they will be more likely to seek out solutions or to put the majority of there perceptual energy…

  • Empathy – nature and nurture

    Quick summary: Empathy comes from nature and from nurture… from perceived positive and negative experiences. Empathy is something which is advantageous to the social human animal… there are many ways of augmenting this ability.

  • A subtle difference between Narrative and Cognitive psychotherapy

    Quick Summary: Narrative and Cognitive therapy both help people to think about their world a bit differently. Cognitive therapy helps people to look at and to change disruptive beliefs and Narrative therapy helps people to put more attention on the positive storylines that make up their reality. Both hold that positive thoughts and a positive…

  • 'narrative means to theraputic ends' – book summary and review

    Quick summary: Below is a book review for ‘Narrative means to therapeutic ends’ written by Michael White and David Epston. I use this opportunity to highlight the major themes of Narrative therapy in general. This is a great book!

  • Rogerian (or Person Centered) therapy summary

    Rogers maintains that if a therapist offers a setting in which he/she is genuine, empathetic and can offer unconditional positive regard to the client, then the client will naturally grow into an effective, affectionate, empathetic, accepting, self-aware, secure and happy person.

  • Postmodernism – making an ‘out there’ philosophy useful

    Quick summary – By allowing yourself to investigate how your relationships, actions and emotions are governed by your perceptions you may find that by offering yourself a freedom of perception you can change the way in which you are impacted by your reality. – By using open-mindedness and an adaptability in relation to your beliefs…

  • Gestalt Psychotherapy – an overview

    For this post I will give an overview of Gestalt psychotherapy, which is popular for both its’ experiential nature and its large amount of techniques.

  • the 7 things you need to create meaningful change – precursors of change

    Quick summary: Dr. Fred Hanna did some excellent work on identifying the variables which must be in place in order for a person to experience change. He not only studied these 7 variables he also came out with specific techniques to encourage those variables into existence. according to him the seven precursors of change are…

  • Attachment – why we say and emote one way when we truly feel and think a different way

    Quick summary: I was just re-reading some articles on Emotionally Focused Therapy and on Attachment Theory and I thought I might offer a noteworthy piece of information. Often we say what we don’t mean and we offer an emotional response which is different from how we truly feel in order to protect ourselves from attending…

  • The Talking Cure for Trauma – holding freedom – you are the lotus

    Quick overview: There are many aspects to the trauma recovery process such as support, empowerment, finding new meaning, and engaging in techniques which help to ‘rewire’ the brain. In this blog I will talk about the benefits of talking to a trusted, supportive and safe person such as a therapist (or to your loved ones…