Sigmund Freud’s “signal theory” of anxiety conceptualizes this emotion as a safeguard protecting us and others from the emergence of threatening intrapsychic and interpersonal material. Freud saw anxiety signaling the presence and press of threatening psychic content – oftentimes aggressive or sexual impulses. Contemporary evolutionary psychology supports Freud’s formulation. Biopsychosocial analysis considers anxiety a legacyContinue Reading: Repression, Anxiety & CBT
Religion, Spirituality & CBT
Religious observance, spiritual practice and cognitive-behavioral therapy are fellow travelers. While each covers its own ground and has its particular vocabulary, all share a common destination: life lived in accord with the way things really are. In a recent meeting of our weekly online consultation group, All Things CBT, senior faculty took up the questionContinue Reading: Religion, Spirituality & CBT
The Socratic Method
Listen in on one of our All Things CBT sessions this week to experience a powerful cognitive therapy method that comes to us from one of the West’s great thinkers. We also look together at errors therapists make that would lead this method to fail
Poems For A World Yet To Be
Please join me in celebrating this month’s release of a wise and wonderful new book, Poems For A World Yet To Be. It’s the first book by Nancy Mintie, executive director and poet in residence at Uncommon Good in Claremont California. In this interview Nancy speaks to her experience of low-intensity CBT, redwood trees, skidContinue Reading: Poems For A World Yet To Be
Therapeutic Misalliance
A warm, loving connection between therapist and patient is the cornerstone for our doing life-changing work together. Sadly, such a bond can go missing, leaving both parties confused, dispirited and alone. I recently spoke with my All Things CBT colleague Heather Clague MD about ways in which therapeutic misalliance crops up in our work –Continue Reading: Therapeutic Misalliance