Personal Growth Topics

Handling Criticism

Criticism can be good for us, if it is wanted. But handling unwanted criticism is a burden in all our lives. A PERSONAL STORY I want to tell you about the least successful therapy I’ve ever done. A few years ago a woman was referred to me by her doctor. When I...

Hate

Are you hated? Who do you hate? WHY ARE YOU HATED? Print this topic. Then circle the words that describe you. Sex: Male Female Other Race: Black Brown Yellow White Red Mixed Schooling: Primary Secondary B.A. M.A. Ph.D Employment: None Employee Employer Professional...

Healing From Sexual Abuse: A Strategy

n all topics related to childhood sexual abuse, please understand that by using female pronouns I am definitely not saying that all abuse happens to girls. It happens about twice as often to girls, but abuse is abuse and it’s horrible in any form. If you are...

How Are You Spending Your Life?

TIME AND ENERGY Life is really no more than a certain limited amount of time and energy. We make choices – every second – about how we spend that time and energy. To have a better life we must make better choices about how we use our time and energy. WHERE...

How Does Abuse Happen?

As I write this, our country is rightly embarrassed and understandably shocked after learning about prisoner abuse and other atrocities committed by us, and against us, during war. As a therapist, I know that abuse doesn’t occur only in war. I hear nearly every...

How Happy Couples Stay That Way

Here is my personal list of the traits I admire most in couples. I’ve arranged them from “most necessary” on down. [Thanks to my two major “teachers” on this topic: Janet, my wife, and the couples I’ve met through therapy.]  TIME...

How To Have A Lousy Sex Life!

THE THERAPIST’S WARPED VIEW Therapists may not know much more than the average person about how to have a good sex life, but we sure do know a lot about how to have a lousy one! We’ve heard every bad idea in the book. Here, then, are the best bad ideas...

How To Play

There are only three possible ways to spend our time and energy. We can only work, rest, or play. We work to produce things of value. We rest to recharge our bodies and minds. We play just for the fun of it. Ideally, we should spend about one-third of our awake time...

How To Talk About Feelings

How can we talk about our feelings? How much is too much? How much is not enough? THREE DECISIONS Whenever we talk to anyone, we make three quick decisions. Whether To SAY What We Feel. Whether To EXPRESS The Feelings. Whether To WORK AT PROBLEM SOLVING. We usually...

Knowing #1: How Do You Know?

What do you know? How do you know it? How sure can you be of what you know? DIFFERENT WAYS OF KNOWING We’ll be looking at these four ways knowing: Logic based on observation. Logic based on belief. Emotions alone. Emotions based on observation and belief. LOGIC...

Knowing #2: How Smart Are You?

How smart are you? How dumb are you? How do you know? DIFFERENT KINDS OF INTELLIGENCE Here are five ways to evaluate intelligence: I.Q. – Intelligence Quotient E.Q. – Emotional Quotient Speed of Comprehension Retention Usable Intelligence I.Q. –...

Knowing #3: Your Core Beliefs

If you’ve read the first two topics on “knowing,” you can see that there are many things we don’t know and never will know. And yet we survive. How do we do that? We do it by adopting a few core beliefs that we use to explain all the things we...

Knowing #4: Making Educated Guesses

I’ve been trained in psychology by some of the best. But one of the most helpful things I ever learned came from an undergraduate statistics course. It was about estimating probabilities. But please don’t run away screaming, “I hate math!”...

Life’s “Craziest” Beliefs

A QUICK MENTAL HEALTH TEST Ask yourself if you believe any of these three statements: “The world is a scary place.” “I am only alive to please other people.” “I cannot change.” If you find that you do believe any of these...

Living With Alcoholics

THE PROBLEM Alcoholism is still the scourge of this country. Earlier identification of the problem and better treatment programs have improved things, but the number of lives damaged and all of other costs involved remain immense. Much of what will be said here...

Loneliness

We are all lonely sometimes. One of the best things we can do for ourselves is to arrange our lives to be sure it doesn’t happen regularly. Everyone needs regular doses of attention every day. DAILY LONELINESS Daily loneliness comes from ignoring our natural...

Making Decisions

We are all indecisive sometimes. It happens whenever there are two things we want almost equally but we can only have one of them. This topic will help you decide with confidence when you think you can’t decide. We’ll look at seven ways we get confused....

Mistakes Every Good Parent Makes

“DRIVERS” “Drivers” are phrases most parents say to their children very, very often – at least once most days. They can be stated kindly or callously, quietly or loudly, but the message is always the same: “If you want to please me...

Motivation

BASIC ASSUMPTION Every physically healthy person has plenty of energy, so every physically healthy person has plenty of motivation. Nobody is lazy. We are all just motivated toward different things. Calling someone lazy is like calling them any other nasty name. It...

My Wishes For Real People

I get irritated about media hype, especially around the holidays. You’d think we are all perfectly happy people, from white-bread, socially-appropriate, “intact” families, with perfectly happy kids who are continually thrilled-to-pieces about how...