To some people, psychiatric medication seems like the simplest way to help alleviate negative feelings. Why bother with “talk therapy” when one can allegedly just take a pill and feel better? Undoubtedly, some medications have been shown to reliably help many people with mental health problems including psychosis, mania and severe depression. However, whereas medications act only to reduce momentary symptoms, psychotherapy aims to help people improve across myriad aspects of life.

I believe we work most mindfully and meaningfully when we have come to an understanding of why we do what we do throughout our workdays. Here are my reflections on why I do what I do throughout mine. I anticipate I will add more content to this entry over time.

Doing what could be good for us to do when we feel unmotivated or uninterested is one of the most vexing tasks we often face in psychotherapy. Although there is no “silver bullet” for quickly and effortlessly overcoming psychological inertia, a number of tips might help some of us start doing things even when wanting to do them is not happening for us.

Sometimes we have bad feelings, and sometimes we have bad feeling about our bad feelings. These “secondary” emotions often lead to unnecessary additional suffering during unfortunate or troubling situations.

Spoiler alert: because it almost never works and often makes things worse.

How might a popular video game reinforce a proactive approach to handling mistakes?

Difficulties falling and staying asleep often go along with depression, anxiety and burnout. Here are some relatively simple strategies to help us set the stage for better sleep from night to night.

Let’s talk about what psychotherapy usually tries to do for people.

For people who have never been in psychotherapy, it can seem mysterious. Here are some ground rules for what a person can expect in quality psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy can take many forms. The best psychotherapy is one that is research-supported and tailored to the person’s wants and needs.

There are as many reasons to consider psychotherapy as there are challenges in life.