Toxic Habits of the Mind

Thanks to Martin Seligman (founder of the movement called Positive Psychology), therapists have a much better understanding of three of the most common self-defeating habits/patterns of the mind. In response to challenging situations in our lives, we often fall into habits/patterns of thinking that are excessively: Personal Pervasive Permanent To illustrate, let’s take a look [...]

Comfort, Discomfort, and Being Fine

Anxiety is incredibly prevalent among disregulated eaters. One of the ways to reduce and eliminate it is to know you’ll be fine no matter what happens. Being fine means you’ll handle whatever comes your way even if it’s not to your liking. After talking with a client recently about this subject, I began to see [...]

Emotional Pain Cannot Be Killed

A recent NY Times article stated that “Drug overdose fatalities in New York City tripled between 1990 and 2006, a new study reports, and most of the increase came from the growing abuse of prescription pain medicines.” These statistics simply reinforce what we already know anecdotally: medications designed to alleviate physical pain are increasingly being [...]

Bodies Die But Connect Spirits Forever

My birthday has never been celebrated in the traditional sense because there was always a Lent and Easter celebration. I suppose as a child I felt left out but as an adult my birthday is meaningful in a non traditional way. A long time ago I started a tradition of giving my mother a gift [...]

The Complexity of Wanting

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. St. Paul, Romans 7:15, New International Version How many times have you found yourself in a state of wanting what you don’t want to be wanting? Too many to count? Welcome to [...]

Worth the “Weight”?

I never thought I could learn so much about myself from a cactus! Upon a recent trip to Arizona, I learned something about the Saguaro cactus (the really tall ones that can have a bunch of “arms”, once they are 75 years old). They can shrink and expand, based on how much moisture they hold [...]

Releasing Emotion Can Set You FREE!

Is it just me, or does it seem as if violence in our country has reached a pace at which it is the ONLY topic of news these days?  I must admit that I am almost frightened to leave my house some days, in anticipation of being a victim myself.  What’s almost MORE scary to [...]

addiction & mindfulness

There are layers of emotional pain that underlie addiction. Thus, recovery from addiction requires that we learn to manage and deal effectively (i.e. in healthy and growthful ways) with emotional pain, rather than trying to numb ourselves or escape from it via addictive substances/activities. Let’s pause for a moment to think about and reflect on [...]

How Movies, Music and Books Help Us Be Happy

This Guest Post graciously submitted by Allison Moody Though depression is a serious medical condition and is difficult to fight, there are things that people with this diagnosis, or people who just feel depressed from time to time, can do to alleviate their pain. Art is Not Just Some Pretty Pointless Pastime Many people consider [...]

deciding to live consciously and creatively

Effective therapy in NYC and beyond is about helping people create new realities in their lives—internally AND externally. And creating new realities starts with a decision to participate consciously and creatively in the present moment. Deciding to step into a conscious/creative mindset is so subtle as to almost be unrecognizable as an action that we [...]

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