self development

How to Befriend Yourself: A Psychotherapeutic Approach to Living

In addition to training and experience, the ideal attitude of the therapist toward the client would best be described by the following adjectives: honest, direct, interested, inquisitive, warm, compassionate, non-judgmental, understanding and deeply feeling. In actuality, a person can learn to develop many of these same points of view towards him or herself. People can utilize… Read more »

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Understanding Cell Phone Addiction

I wake in the middle of the night and instinctively reach for my phone. I innocently tell myself that I just need to check the time. It’s still dark out and I will surely go back to sleep, but as soon as the iPhone is in my hand, muscle-memory takes over. Before I know it,… Read more »

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Empathy: How It Can Help Us All Right Now

In the aftermath of the most contentious election in recent history, many people are talking about the need for empathy in order to heal our divided nation. Facebook posts are flying around that charge us to rise above the rancor and offer empathy to those with whom we disagree. Just recently, Meryl Streep spoke to… Read more »

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Coping With Anxiety

7 Ways of Managing and Coping with Anxiety Millions of people are coping with anxiety. Whether our worries are global, political, or entirely personal, it’s easy to become consumed by them. This can leave us feeling powerless and paralyzed, a state which is never conducive to either finding peace or making change. In order to be the… Read more »

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You Don’t Really Know Yourself

Examining the persistence of our negative identity My life’s work has focused on understanding resistance in psychotherapy and more specifically, on people’s fundamental resistance to the formation of a better, more positive image of themselves.  For the most part, they are unaware that their lives are controlled and regulated by negative images and attitudes toward… Read more »

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The Many Benefits Of Self-Compassion

Our sense of self is often a divided thing. Most of us have a side in us that is “on our own team.” It encourages and supports us. It helps us fight for what we want and believes in what we can achieve. However, there is often an opposite force in each of us that… Read more »

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I Hate My Body: Dealing with Poor Body Image

In the age of selfies and social media, we hear a lot about the rise of narcissism in modern society. Yet, with this increased importance placed on appearance, we need equally worry about the epidemic of poor body image. A survey by Glamour Magazine found that 97 percent of women questioned had an “I hate… Read more »

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What Beyoncé Got Right About Forgiveness According to Science

Unless you live under a rock, by now you’ve likely heard a lot about Beyoncé’s latest triumph Lemonade, a visual album that artfully captures a raw emotional evolution. The album is bold in its head-on dealings with themes of betrayal, each track seeming to trace a progressive path from fury to forgiveness. Throughout, Beyoncé herself appears to… Read more »

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How to Tame Your Inner Critic

There are countless quotes, mantras and entire philosophies dedicated to telling us to find and follow our “inner voice.” This is a something I agree with wholeheartedly when it’s a matter of freeing ourselves from doubt and hurtful influences to discover who we really are. However, the inner voice can be tricky. Like pretty much… Read more »

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How to Stop Anxiety

Those of us who struggle with anxiety know how it can undermine us. We feel it impair our abilities, lower our spirits and limit the very quality of our lives. Yet, most of us have a hard time challenging our anxiety. Because of its evolutionary purpose and instant, almost instinctive intrusion, we tend to trust… Read more »

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