Earlier this month, I attended the Evolution of Psychotherapy. Billed as the world’s largest psychotherapy conference, it is held every 4-5 years and attracts over 6,000 people. I first attended the Evolution conference …

In the “Love Lab,” researchers claim they can predict with 91% accuracy whether a couple will thrive or fail after watching and listening to them for just five minutes. The Love Lab is actually …

In Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, Ellen Langer, a psychology professor at Harvard, says that “knowing what is and knowing what can be are not the same thing.” Langer’s research over …

This month’s theme of savoring got me to thinking about how the concept of savoring can be used by my clients with eating disorders. I work with people who struggle with emotional eating, compulsive overeating, …

In the Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook, emotion regulation is included within the classification for self-regulation. Self-regulation is conceptualized as self-control, or “how a person exerts control over his or her own responses so as …

Looking back on my sessions with clients, I notice that I find humor and laughter refreshing and it helps strengthen the bond I feel with my clients. Recently after an intake with a new client, my supervisor said, “I heard a lot of laughter in your office. Must have been a good session.” Sometimes my clients bring humor into the session, lightly poking fun at themselves. Other times, I use gentle humor to help bring awareness to issues with which they’ve been struggling.

Growth occurs not through the suffering itself, but through the individual’s struggle and reconstruction of shattered assumptions. Many people then make dramatic life changes and shift priorities based on this new way of seeing the world. In doing so, they can also change the world.

When clients come to us, whether in a coaching or counseling relationship, we assume they are ready to change. But what if you find they don’t yet appear ready for change. What can you do to get your client to talk more about change? There is a counseling approach called Motivational Interviewing (MI) that can be defined as a “client-centered, directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change…”

I look forward to the day when the word “positive” is no longer needed to describe psychology or psychotherapy because the association will automatically be there. How is the field of psychotherapy integrating with the positive psychology movement to re-gain its original focus on helping people to achieve their potential?