The type of people attracted to LA has always been of a different breed. It began with some of the first white people to hit California: the hundreds of thousands of ambitious young men dreaming to make it rich in the Gold Rush. They left behind in the East and Midwest families, traditions, stability, and values prescribed by
I visited my sister and her family during the year in London her husband pursued graduate work in play directing. My nephews hated British school, their American ways considered freakish and weird by the other kids. It was hard to eat well there as the produce offered in the grocery stores was at least a week old, but I loved visiting the places I’d dreamed of: Buckingham Palace, the Tate Modern, wherever it was the Bloomsbury crowd hung out, and Carnaby Street, the center of ‘60’s fashion. I cried at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey seeing the memorials of Chaucer, Blake, Keats, and other great literary figures, comparing the reverence paid
The pain in their eyes is chilling. The baby monkeys cling desperately to their mothers-made-of-wire for up to eighteen hours a day. They barely have appetite for food; they are starving for affection and warmth. If you search YouTube for “Harlow monkeys,” you can view the old videos from the 50s and see what I mean.
When Dr. Harry Harlow began his work in the 1930s, he set out to conduct experiments on the nature of love. Child-rearing
The young woman sitting in front of me in my psychotherapy office is articulate, intelligent, well groomed and attractive. Jessica has also thrown up her food three times a day, every day, since puberty. “I have to be prettier,” she says. “I just can’t go on looking like this.”
We might think Jessica’s anxiety is all in her head, but a disturbing
A popular post circulating Facebook recently posited that the signs of spiritual progress are about becoming increasingly upbeat, positive, and blissful, a common new-age misconception. Spiritual progress is not about entering an eternally ecstatic state -- that’s called being high. Instead,
A lot of people call me who can’t afford to pay for therapy. It’s true that many of the most powerful ways to work on yourself cost a lot of money. Psychotherapy, high priced seminars, bodywork, yoga classes, nutritional supplements, and seeking advanced training in your field will all improve your life but take significant financial commitment. I personally don’t regret a dollar of the many thousands I’ve spent on the above, but some people
People often ask me how transpersonal therapy differs from mainstream counseling. It differs in three major ways: how transpersonal therapists are trained, the context in which we hold therapy, and in some cases, the techniques we use or recommend to facilitate change.
Transpersonal therapists receive training in the same mainstream psychology as other therapists that is necessary to pass licensing exams. However, we are not
Sometimes in therapy it can feel like you’re going backward instead of making progress. Sometimes, it might appear that you’re much sicker than you thought. Well, you might be, but then again, you probably aren’t. It’s just that when you finally catch a glimpse of all the stuff you’ve been avoiding, you may be shocked at what you see.
It’s like turning on a light and going down into the basement: You had no idea that
Philip Larkin, one of the great poets of the twentieth century, famously wrote:
Your mum and dad, they fuck you up,
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the fears they had,
And add some extra just for you.
Everyone could benefit from identifying where their parents “f*cked” them up and working through it. In fact, being clear of non-useful parental programming is an essential milestone on the psychological and spiritual path. If you’re stuck with pain, upset, or
The thing that makes the holidays the most difficult is the widespread idea that they shouldn’t be. We’ve been seduced for years by pictures of smiling families passing the turkey and opening their flawlessly wrapped presents. Everyone is easy to get along with and everyone is perfectly happy.
Nothing could be further from the truth for most people. We are far more complicated creatures than that. All families have their areas of dysfunction which are less likely to politely stay