Is There Life After Therapy?

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I recently heard an interview on NPR with the film director and documentarian Werner Herzog whose newest film “Into the Abyss” focuses on the ripple effects of criminal acts on both the perpetrators and victims of murder.

In the interview, Herzog says that when you ask inmates who have been sentenced to life or who are on death row about their life’s regrets and their conclusions as to - “how should we conduct our lives? How should we raise our children?” the remarkably similar thread you hear from them is how important small family values are, how much family matters. They talk about how important it is that we listen to our children, attend to them and be present for them and that this is what matters in the end. Many of them have learned from what they didn't have in their own upbringings or from the poor choices they've made as parents.

The convicted are teaching us that beyond all the isolation one must feel in jail, it is also a place that provides a great deal of distance from one’s life-  from which observation, reflection and pausing can take place. Inmates have an imposed pause. We don’t. So it takes some intention, discipline  and motivation to create this space for ourselves in our own lives.

Facebook is amazing on many levels. You can connect with old friends you never knew how to locate, look up an ex-girlfriend you might want to reconciliate with, find people to date from your friends’ lists of friends (not so much) and connect socially even when you’re home sick or having a lonely weekend.

A stage of sorts, Facebook is a place where you can strut your stuff when you’re in the mood, get support from people on your accomplishments, experiment with projecting how you want to be seen, test out a joke, find out you’re actually funny etc.  But, like anything else- it can also create some turmoil in your emotional life depending upon what mood you’re in and how you use it.

Welcome to my blog! I am a manhattan based psychotherapist,  passionate about my work with people. In addition to the many trainings I have had in psychotherapy practice, I spent a decent amount of time (and money..) as a psychotherapy patient which was invaluable for personal growth.

Knowing what it’s like to be a client (sometimes fun, sometimes maddening… sometimes the most powerful experience ever..) and constantly refining my own development as a therapist since I believe life is always about continued growth (even if you're a therapist who has a lot of answers), I have had a lifelong interest in finding ways to help us take what we learn in therapy and learn how to practicalize it into in our daily lives.