Articles

I don’t think in-person therapy will ever become obsolete and I can hardly wait to get back to it. But I’ve been very surprised by the effectiveness and outcomes I’ve seen with video therapy as well as my own reaction to it. I’ve been trying to evaluate why it’s working so well, and have come up with a few ideas that may help people decide to seek help this way.  When I’m doing video therapy, the most important ingredient is still the therapeutic relationship, and this is not diluted through ... Continue Reading

We've all been through situations in which we've wished someone handled an ending of a relationship more effectively. Whether it's an intimate relationship or one with your boss at work, people often don't know how to end relationships. When done well, endings can help people leave relationships with a sense of well-being, closure, and self-respect. There are so many ways people can cope with not wanting to be in relationship with someone anymore. For example, when someone doesn't want to be ... Continue Reading

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" is a question we ask children. Ask that question in Silicon Valley, though, and it feels like many adults will fumble for an answer. A better question might be "Who do you want to be when you grow up?" In a place where 25-year-olds are becoming CEOs and where friends are making millions, it's easy for someone not on a rocketship ride of success to feel filled with pain, struggle, anxiety, and doubt – to wonder, "why am I not 'there' yet?" and ... Continue Reading

High-tech professionals know that their inner critic can be their best friend or their worst enemy. That inner critic is at the forefront for risk taking and innovation while also front and center for making mistakes. Evolution has led us to a default mind-state that focuses on "what's not OK?" which can be helpful in high-risk situations to protect us. However, it also can undermine us if we let thoughts take control without awareness. There are a lot of names for this mind-state, such as the ... Continue Reading

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that involves convincing someone their intuition is wrong when it is actually completely accurate. The term comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight in which a husband tries to manipulate his wife into believing that she is going crazy. As portrayed in that old film, gaslighting unfolds when one partner (the gaslighter) tries to overwrite the other partner's reality by denying things that happened, often by presenting information to make that partner doubt ... Continue Reading

High-tech professionals are often very anxious and worried they will never have enough money. They become preoccupied with what they need in order to think they are successful, believing that they will "arrive" when they have a certain total in the bank. What happens, though, is that the target shifts. If one company is sold, it may seem like the only path to success is to sell another one more quickly and for even more money. No dollar amount can end up being enough. Someone else has always ... Continue Reading