Stop! Just stop! Stop using the phrase “ugly cry.” I’m a body-oriented bioenergetically trained psychotherapist, and I’m asking us to quit using this phrase. What’s wrong with it, you might ask? “I don’t like how I look when I cry: my face gets red, my nose gets snotty, I make…

Traditional psychoanalysis has identified client resistance as a force to be acknowledged and addressed in analysis. Resistance is related to the ‘shadow’ that Jung articulated, the unconscious parts of the self that are replete with negativity and aggressive impulses. …

Why and how to use movement in a therapy session There are jokes about the therapy couch, but people expect to sit and talk during therapy. As I’ve said before, talking as the only healing path is limiting. Somatic therapists have other tools. Movement is an important one. Movement facilitates the process of therapy. Muscular and joint activation increase access…

Perinatal therapists work with issues that arise during pregnancy and the postpartum period, including mood disorders like postpartum mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), but our expertise isn’t limited to PMADS. There are many other kinds of situations in which a perinatal therapist can be helpful. …

Our self-narratives are expressions of our somatic experiences — We all have stories about our lives. This includes the Big Stories about how we got to be the way we are, and the little ones, like traffic during school drop-off. We experience something and we tell ourselves and others about our experience. …

Anyone can be struck by a wave of impostor syndrome. It is that wave of shame and self-doubt that washes over you when you have stuck your neck out, or made a statement of some kind, or have taken a social risk. Generally it happens in the context of your…

I have been a practitioner of mindfulness and of mindfulness meditation since accidentally tripping over some lectures by Pema Chodron about twenty years ago. My interest was piqued, but I found the actual practice of sitting in meditation was difficult: far more difficult than the marathon I had run the…

I now see my clients on a video screen. How do we create a container for therapy when we are not in the same space as our clients? Therapy offices are contained places. They are spaces in which people can feel and express and experience themselves in a safe and protected way, held safely by the space and the therapist. Clients come to therapy because something isn’t working in their lives. They feel miserable, or empty, or distraught…