A reader emails that her husband harps on her to moderate her drinking, smoking, eating, etc. She knows he loves her, but she worries that his concern for her health isn’t enough to motivate her. She tries to cut back, … Continue reading →

“You can’t do that! It’s not fair! I never get a fair shake!” How many times have we heard (or said) these things? When one is especially frustrated about the timing of events or the pile-up of ordinary stressors, it’s … Continue reading →

People often make appointments with me to “fine-tune” some aspect of their life. For example, a reader emails that he and his wife want to attend marriage counseling to help make things “as vibrant and healthy as possible.” He goes … Continue reading →

People often say to me, “Why am I feeling down? Why do I feel sorry for myself?” It’s a perfectly reasonable observation, but it doesn’t get to the heart of why some people cope better than others. The key to … Continue reading →

I received an email from a reader regarding a recent column where I wrote that a fear of success could be a fear of being “found out” as a fraud – whether you earned the success or not. The writer … Continue reading →

Contrary to what the drug companies would have you think, anxiety can often be a useful and necessary thing; specifically, when that anxiety triggers a call to sensible action. For example, you feel anxious at the sight of an oncoming … Continue reading →

Pop-psychology loves to tout that the purpose of therapy is to “deal with the past.” I suspect that at least part of that comes from the feel-good prattle that pervades Oprah, Ellen, and the rest of daytime TV’s vast wasteland. … Continue reading →

It never ceases to amaze me how people can fire off a snippy email to me when it’s obvious that they haven’t even read my entire article. (I urge you to keep on firing, however – I get many of … Continue reading →

I get a lot of questions about hypnosis. The most common misperception is that it’s a state of unconsciousness, like sleep. Actually, most experts define hypnosis as a “special psychological state with certain physiological attributes, resembling sleep only superficially and … Continue reading →

Well, it’s just around the corner. Though most of us full-timers secretly look forward to it, we still grumble, “I’m sick of the traffic! What? More construction? Things aren’t what they used to be! Who are all these people!?” But … Continue reading →

A University of Wisconsin-Madison imaging study shows the brains of people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) have weaker connections between a brain structure that controls emotional response, and the amygdala, which plays a key role in the processing of emotions. … Continue reading →

People – divorced, widowed or single – ask me what it is that can prevent a person from finding a loving relationship. The answer boils down to a combination of factors, the first of which is simply not searching persistently … Continue reading →