How Therapists Can Help Clients Move Toward Forgiveness
Psychotherapy often explores family dynamics, unresolved trauma, developmental issues, and the unconscious conflicts that interfere with a client’s ability to optimally cope. Psychotherapy is practiced in many forms with many underlying theories of how change occurs. Self-knowledge and key insights can often unravel unhealthy patterns from the past. Disputing irrational thoughts can help clients reduce […]
Therapists, It’s Time to Try AI Before You Dismiss It
Just last week, a client told me she woke up in the middle of the night with her mind racing. Instead of spiraling for hours, she opened ChatGPT, something we’d already talked about in session, and started interactive journaling. Within 15 minutes, she was falling back to sleep. That’s not a replacement for therapy. That’s […]
Finding a Culturally-Relevant Therapist
Long before I became a psychologist, the idea of Mental health as an Asian American was fraught with complexity. For many cultures, the very idea of admitting that we have mental struggles goes against every fiber of our being. The stigma of having a “mental illness” is something that is pathologized and shunned. Many suffer […]
Are Therapists Behind the Rise in Family Estrangements?
Source: SHVETS / Pexels As family estrangement gets more media attention, some have suggested that therapists are causing—or at least encouraging—many of these family cutoffs. This criticism has been made of adult children’s therapists by the media (see Barry, 2024), estranged parents, and their therapists and advocates. Yet while it’s true that some adults decide […]
How Undocumented Therapists Are Serving Other Immigrants
When Mayra Barragan-O’Brien was 14 years old, she and her mother were smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border in a truck. What she remembers most about the 1,300-mile journey from Guadalajara was the sweltering heat. It was so hot that the bottom of her mother’s black tennis shoe melted from hiding underneath the backseat, and she […]