2008 has been quite a year. Most of the people I come into contact with are eager for it to be over. I must admit that I join that group. Of course, the turning of the calendar doesn’t promise that anything novel is about to occur — it simply gives us the sometimes needed illusion that we have been given permission to start anew.

So, I asked myself, what exactly has made the last year so painful for me, personally. I think, that when I scrape everything else away, it is the realization that I cannot shield some of the people I love the most from harm.

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Ruth Gordon is licensed clinical social worker in both Massachusetts and Florida. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

Beginning a new year often brings forth a review of our expectations and I thought it might be a good idea to briefly examine this topic.  As with many concepts in our culture, we tend to fall well short of fully appreciating what these terms truly suggest and at times, the apparent contradictions that they may evoke. This is certainly the case with the word expectations. Are they to be valued and embraced or do they impede us and distort our life experiences? The answer depends on a host of things.

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Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist with offices in Westport Ct and NYC. For more information, please visit his listing on the Therapist Directory or his website. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

Adolescence is a time of change. Of primary importance to adolescents is their developing independence and autonomy, being heard, their friends, and their developing interests. For example, my neighbor’s fourteen year-old son is a drummer. She reports how there are times she feels he lives and breathes for his drums, and how when he is playing, nothing else matters. He has his moments of being self involved, where it is as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. However, when a social opportunity is offered to him, he will compromise what he is doing as that social world is of utmost importance to him.

She also describes how in the midst of this burgeoning independence, there comes moodiness and volatility. One moment he appears to be calm, and settled and peaceful. He is happy to be part of the family. Another moment, he cannot tolerate the sight of his sibling or parents, and wants to get as far away as possible. It’s as if he fears he will be engulfed by these beings that are in a sense “cramping his style.” There are times he describes that he doesn’t know what he feels. Her descriptions sound like he may experience his inner moods like Chicago weather; volatile and forever shifting from sun to wind to snow, and on from there.

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Lisa Baron, LCSW is a therapist in private practice in Northbrook, Illinois. Lisa sees adults, adolescents and children in her practice. Lisa is in the process of earning her Doctorate in Clinical Social Work from the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago, Illinois. Lisa is also the proud parent of three spirited teenagers. For more information, please visit his listing on the Therapist Directory.

This evening I went to see the movie, “Rachel Getting Married”. If “Caddy Shack” is your idea of a great film , this one is definitely not for you. The film is devastating and human and joyful and touching and hopeful all at the same time. I enjoy a certain amount of emotional wreckage, especially when my doses come from a distance, so for me, I feel that my movie money was well spent.

One of the sub-themes of this movie was the realization of the joy and comfort available to us when we are able to expand our ways of thinking so that we include other cultures and points of view in our value system. I will not reveal plot points, but this is story-telling that possesses wisdom and an attitude of respect. See it if you can.

What I experience over and over in my life and practice is the belief held by many that it is impossible to be emotionally intimate with someone who sees the world through a different lens. We seem to be living in a time where we expect others to “twin” with us. If they fail to do that, we immediately brand them as the “enemy”, and close our minds and hearts to all kinds of wonderful possibilities.

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Ruth Gordon is licensed clinical social worker in both Massachusetts and Florida. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

The words, order and chaos, are particularly value laden. We tend to embrace order and avoid chaos at all costs. I’ve come to wonder why that is so. And more to the point, what do we mean by order or chaos? Let’s start by examining what these terms suggest.

The notion of order is equivalent to a sense of predictability. Predictability in this form lets us know what we can expect. It speaks almost of a range of motion. A pendulum, unaffected by friction, will follow its predetermined path. We know just how far it will travel to either point in its arc before beginning its return. Predictability relies upon certainty and measurable outcomes. It has been a major tenet of our culture and our science since Newton introduced the motif of determinism in the 17th century. This range of predictable order is known as equilibrium.

In our lives, order suggests that we know the parameters of our experience, as though the boundaries and limits are determined in advance. The emotional and psychological highs and lows are familiar. The rules of relationship are understood. Knowing the range of our experiences provides a sense of order. As such, order creates a comfort zone as we can be assured of familiar terrain, even if that familiarity doesn’t serve us.

Chaos, on the other hand, suggests an absence of predictability. It triggers the unknown, which for most people is very problematic if not outright daunting. It is a venturing into uncertain territory, far from the familiar zone. Sometimes life’s transitions or crises present chaos in the form of illness, death, divorce, job loss, etc. These events are thrust upon us and we do the best we can to cope with them, aided by family and professional support. Occasionally, we buffer the roller coaster ride through chaos with alcohol, medication and/or therapy.

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Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist with offices in Westport Ct and NYC. For more information, please visit his listing on the Therapist Directory or his website. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

As a psychotherapist, I have worked with many individuals who are high powered, high income Wall Streeters. Even in the best of times, many of them are beset with emotional and psychological challenges in spite of their enormous wealth. Given the literal free fall of the economy that we’re currently experiencing, many are now facing the hugest hurdle of their lives; and I’m not simply speaking financially.

Those who are so fortunate to earn vast sums of money and accumulate enormous assets tend to place a disproportionate amount of their attention on what should simply be one facet of their lives. As unimaginable as it may be, billionaires may still suffer from self-esteem issues that plague many of us. Those who are driven to succeed in such a way are often compensating for other deficits in their lives. These may include challenges with interpersonal relationships and emotional intimacy. People who tend to be strong type A personalities are so inclined because they are very uncomfortable in the more intimate exchanges of relationships, so they default to the arena in which they feel more comfortable.

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Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist with offices in Westport Ct and NYC. For more information, please visit his listing on the Therapist Directory or his website. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

Years ago my mother used to say to me, “Gregory Peck can park his shoes under my bed at any time”. I felt the same way about Paul Newman.

Granted, I never met the man, but between his amazing good looks, generosity, talent and personal courage I do believe he was someone quite special. I have never heard or read a negative word about Paul Newman. He appeared to be down to earth, and humble to the point that he attributed his many successes to good luck.

One of the discussions I frequently have with clients is about their feelings of not being good enough. There is always a mention of someone, or several someone’s who “make” them feel inferior. This is what I have to say about that: Anyone who truly feels good about him/herself, who is comfortable in his/her own skin, would NEVER attempt to make another feel “less than”. There’s a adage I learned a long time ago — “under the arrogance lies the shame.”

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Ruth Gordon is licensed clinical social worker in both Massachusetts and Florida. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

From time to time, many of us tend to experience an occasional insight. An insight is simply the ability to change our filter and look at things differently. In moments of insight, there’s a sudden burst of clarity where there had previously been static; there is an epiphany of movement. It’s the a-ha moment. When we are firmly entrenched in our beliefs and rooted in our certainty, we’re not typically open to insights. To have an insight we need to temporarily suspend our beliefs and open to new possibilities. We’re not so much working on the insight as we are creating the groundwork for it to come forth. In other words, we’re getting out of our own way, and opening to new considerations. Without insights we’re shackled to a fixed and stagnating reality in which little changes. It tends to look as if life is just replaying itself, day in and day out.

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Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist with offices in Westport Ct and NYC. For more information, please visit his listing on the Therapist Directory or his website. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

A newly referred client came into my office some months ago and shared with me that she had struggled with anxiety her entire adult life. She had been in therapy with the same person for well over six years and had made little progress. I inquired as to what she had learned from their work together. If I actually had hair on the back of my neck, it no doubt would have stood straight up upon hearing her response. “He told me the best that we could do we be to try and manage my anxiety,” she offered. So many mental health professionals are literally trained to believe that matters of anxiety and depression can at best be managed, and often with the associated medication to achieve the lessening of symptoms. This speaks to their mindset of pathology and the absence of a deeper understanding of the relationship between thought and anxiety or depression. The limitations of such a worldview are limiting and produce a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

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Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist with offices in Westport Ct and NYC. For more information, please visit his listing on the Therapist Directory or his website. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.

It’s so tempting, when something goes wrong, to decide that someone, anyone, but us, is responsible for the fiasco. If the person we wish to be at fault is a stranger and if we can manage to ignore the little voice inside that knows that we‘ve bent the truth, I suppose it’s ok to take that stand. If, however, our problem is with someone close to us, we are facing an entirely different situation.

I see many couples in my practice, and, not surprisingly, I hear a lot of , “you did this” or “you made me do that”(rarely, by the way, does anyone “make“ us do anything). The reason such individuals show up at my door is that they get so caught up in who’s right and who’s wrong, that they keep going around in circles. What is really needed is a tactic that focuses on solution, not fault.

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Ruth Gordon is licensed clinical social worker in both Massachusetts and Florida. For more information, please visit her listing on the Therapist Directory. This article may not be reprinted, reproduced, or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent of the author.