Psychology Today Blogs

A gestalt therapy chair session changed my life.   Are anxiety and depression the small tip of an iceberg? If so, what lies beneath the surface? Could that large bottom part be made of repressed feelings? When I was a child, I was never allowed to fully express...

How to use imagination to appreciate what we have.   Why do we often only appreciate what we have after it’s gone? Why can’t we appreciate what we have while we still have it? Is there a recipe to do so? When I was married to my late husband, Steve, we had a very...

Physical ailments can arise when you don't pursue cherished dreams and values.Are you sick all the time without your doctors finding why? Do you have low energy while all your blood tests, radiology, and physical exams are normal? There are numerous explanations for...

Intimacy can improve mental and physical health in middle age and beyond.   As we move from middle age into old age, we tend to have sex less often, if at all. But that doesn't have to be true for you. A study conducted by Stacey Lindau, M.D., and colleagues,...

2. Be open to discovering who your partner really is.   Research from Elizabeth Lawrence and colleagues published in the Journal of Happiness Studies (2018) shows that single people live less long and are less happy and healthy than people who are happily...

2. Listen to what people say about you.   The percentage of adults with recent symptoms of anxiety or depression increased from 36.4 to 41.5 percent in the U.S. between August 2020 and February 2021, with the largest increases among adults 18 to 29, according to...

"There is no important reality other than inner reality." An ever-growing body of research shows that trauma can bring post-traumatic growth. In a 2019 study published in Health and Social Works, for example, 99 percent of survivors of serious road trauma reported...

Personal Perspective: Interviews that touched us the most on our way to Ukraine As my husband, Eric Haseltine, and I left Los Angeles last month to interview Ukrainian refugees in Germany, Poland, Czechia, and Ukraine, we had no idea that this trip would make such a...

Personal Perspective: There are many health benefits associated with hugs.   To reduce anxiety, a lot of people self-medicate with alcohol, drugs, or prescription anti-anxiety medications, but they forget about a built-in tool everybody has, a superpower hidden...

Examining medical conditions that partially overlap with a mysterious illness.   On February 10th, 2022, the UT Southwestern Medical Center's Peter J. O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute organized a day of conferences on the condition known widely as "Havana Syndrome,"...

Several techniques, all using imagination, can help us feel less anxious.When I was a child, alone in my room at night, I had a lot of anxieties. To decrease these anxieties, I learned to fantasize about having an extraterrestrial friend with me. I was the only one...

A Personal Perspective: The Gestalt therapy session that helped me the most.  When I was at my lowest point with intense anxiety and depression, a Gestalt therapy brain exercise changed my life for the better. Steve, my husband of 12 years, had passed away eight...

Here's a reverse aging tool I learned from my neighbors' dog.  My next-door neighbors said to me last week, “You brought our dog back to life,” which touched me deeply. You may think that because I am a physician, I applied my medical skills to their dog, but...

The story behind the story of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.   Talented people who want to innovate often see their innovations fall into the "valley of death," which means that their innovations don’t result in successful commercial products. Why is that?...