This episode is the third in a series of podcasts that I have been recording on the subject of shame. I think it’s a really important area of investigation because, as the neurologist Stephen Porges points out, the strong emotions that human beings contain drive our actions, our thoughts, our behaviors, and our decision-making. There…
One of the reasons that I focused on shame this week is because of how amazed I have been at its capacity to suck emotion, thoughts and visceral feelings into an abyss. At the heart of good enough emotional functioning is a kind of relatedness with oneself that allows for a fluidity of internal and…
More and more people who walk into my office are sharing with me that they get to know me here in this space and feel in some ways that they already know a bit about me before they walk through my door. It’s an interesting feeling. In some ways, it’s kind of nice to have…
Welcome to episode 28. As many of you who listen to the podcast know, I just came off of a really intense, creative journey with some colleagues and friends from a number of different countries. We all met in Sweden to work on a project which is tentatively called the Boris Project or Boris’s map.…
Today is another special episode that links back to last week. If you listened to last week’s episode where I met and interviewed and talked with my fellow artists and collaborators, then you’ll recognize some of the melodies in today’s episode which we recorded in the great synagogue in Stockholm, this beautiful art deco sanctuary…
I spent the week creating with friends from around the world. We used as our source material letters, videos, and documents from my grandfather’s journey throughout the second world war and his subsequent emigration to Canada. He lost his entire family and then spent the post-war years becoming a dentist in Europe. Upon his arrival…
This episode is inspired by a letter that was written by my great grandmother to her son, my grandfather, in 1941. These would be the last letters that she would ever write or he would ever receive from her. I am exploring this material in Stockholm, trying to take something from these artifacts of a…
One of my dear couples clients came in today, it had been a few weeks since we met. As one of them opened up, she began to speak in binaries about what their partner was and wasn’t. I immediately knew that she was in pain. After I slowed her down and gently remarked that…
When I was thinking of creating a podcast or some of the books that I’d like to write, one of them is to go in this direction of “Confessions of a Couple’s Therapist.” If you’re new to the podcast, you can go back and listen to me do a session with a couple live, which…
There is a tremendous cliche about men not opening up about their feelings. Over my time as a therapist, I would agree that things have trended in the direction of men often being more reserved, but there are many many exceptions. Men are often significantly more comfortable opening up, taking the lead and providing…