Blog
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It’s raining this morning. There is no need for rain here in Keene, New Hampshire. There is snow here, and there is ice; there is wet stuff on everything. I’m thinking about Australia, and the uncontainable blazes, and the animals, and the people, and I’m so, so sad that I cannot displace today’s rain from here to there. Sometimes there…
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The holidays are finally over, and I’m so relieved. New Year’s Day is consolation after the cacophany of noise that is the holiday season. This New Year’s morning is particularly still – there’s a considerable blanket of snow outside my New Hampshire living room window, there’s some (blessed) sun coming through the trees. The sky is blue – a gift,…
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In the therapy world, our ears become attuned to our own distinct language, one that we sometimes forget is our own. We throw around terminology like “transgenerational trauma” and “stress mechanisms” and forget that the rest of the world doesn’t routinely speak that way. We insulate ourselves with these terms, and tend to understand one another from the lens that…
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In the therapy room recently, a client shared her experience of the loss of a close family member. She reported that her grief, raw and tender, felt especially intense because the relationship had not been optimum when the person had passed. Because of this, she also carries guilt, remorse, and regret, along with the heaviness of her grief. As she…
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Therapists come up with all sorts of terminology to name this and that – we work with the same problems and ideas repeatedly, and need images and language to describe human experience. Sometimes we come up with our own labels and concepts. The Monster-in-a- box is one of mine. The Monster is the thing that we are carrying around with…
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Like many of my colleagues that feel deeply connected to the practice of psychotherapy, I believe that I was built for this kind of work. When in the therapy room, I feel capable, confident, and clear – this is what I have always done; this is what I do. When I attend trainings on methods and ideas that spark my…
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I recently received a text citing a friend doing something that was hard for him, and struggling with it. “It’s ok, though,” said the text, “he’s powering through it.” “Blech,” I thought to myself. Then I typed “Is that really actually good, though?”. And then I deleted it, because nobody was asking for my opinion and it wasn’t time to…
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There is a unique grief to the end of my thirties. In many ways, this decade has been liberating and exciting. Like many people of my generation, I’ve finally hit a stride in my career that includes feeling both competent and skilled and fairly compensated for my work. I live in a home with someone I love that is…
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I have a new favorite show. It’s called Modern Love, it’s on Amazon, and it’s based on the Modern Love column from the New York Times. It’s moving and it’s lovely. In one episode, Anne Hathaway plays a woman with bipolar disorder navigating relationships and work as best she can while swinging between her extreme mood states. As she…
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I kill all things green. This is my truth around gardening and, though I’m deeply unhappy about it, it’s factual. If you give me a plant I will kill it. Consider yourself warned- please don’t gift me plantlife. That said, my mother-in-law is here this weekend, replete with her very green thumb, and she’s graciously offered to help me figure…