Several years ago I was seeing a young woman in my practice who was struggling with depression following the recent death of her mother. In spite of how sad and distressed she looked, she seemed to be struggling to let herself cry. 

When I commented that she seemed to be having difficulties letting her feelings show, she responded that this was not actually the problem for her.  Rather, she was concerned that if she truly expressed what she was feeling, other people in the building would hear her and wonder if something was wrong, if perhaps she was being attacked. Continue Reading

Imagine someone picking up a book, perhaps one of the great classics, but they cannot read. All they see is black squiggly lines on white pages. This book is meaningless for this person. Because it is meaningless it has no value and can easily be discarded.

Now imagine a highly skilled reader picking up that book. That same book now has a wide range of qualities that it didn’t have for the first person. There are characters and events that generate a complex and fascinating world of images and meaning and will probably generate a wide range of emotional responses that did not and could not exist for the first person. In this way it has become something much more, something very different, and something of much greater value. Continue Reading

My experiences with those couples and individuals I see in my practice and in my daily life suggests most individuals in relationships are not operating in a manner conducive to promoting their own or another’s spiritual growth. Within the definition of love I have been using, most relationships are not loving.

More accurately, what most people are identifying as love seems to be directed primarily at providing comfort and security.  Even if both individuals are reasonably content with this, it is the crucial step beyond that which I have been trying to define and which seems to be so consistently lacking.  Why, if I am correct in my observations, do our relationships not offer us more ? Continue Reading

In several of my preceding articles on love and couples therapy, I have argued that our greatest source of suffering arises when our emotional and psychological, and thus spiritual growth is impeded. If we are not clear about the source of that suffering when it arises, our confusion as to what is actually causing it leads to numerous misguided efforts to reduce that distress. Since these efforts invariably lead to continued or increased suffering, further confusion and frustration develops, along with a growing senses of pointlessness and futility. Ultimately this can lead to depression and despair. In relationships it leads to conflict and often, to separation.

In Part I and Part of II of this series, I have described how we can view love as the action which serves as the vehicle for nurturing and enhancing that growth, and looked at what that action actually means within the context of one’s relationship with another. In this article I provide a brief description of three basic types of relationships that can develop relative to the state of health or unhealth of the individuals within that relationship. Continue Reading

I often see adults in my practice who cannot tell me what they are experiencing. Inquiring into the nature of their depression, anxiety, or stress is like asking them to close their eyes, stick their hand into a bag and tell me what they think is there. Their answers often sound like guesses. Or, they might say they are sad but smile and chuckle as they describe their thoughts and feelings. Others seem to have a relatively good idea of what is going on, but are too afraid or embarrassed to say. As a psychologist, I am very curious as to what may have happened in the lives of these individuals to create such uncertainty and/or discomfort in being able to talk about themselves. This article looks at one of those possibilities. Continue Reading