Blog
What Is Existential Therapy?
I became an existentialist in high school. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, just that I was caught up in what the point of being alive was. That question and similar ones (“Why are humans the way we are?” “Am I real?”) drove me for the next 20 years. Then, when...
How Does Brainspotting work?
The neuroscientific foundation of Brainspotting is based on functions in areas of the brain below the prefrontal cortex, partly in the limbic system. This part of the brain is crucial in processing emotions, including ones related to difficult experiences and traumas....
What Is Brainspotting Therapy?
Brainspotting is a somatic (body-based) therapy based on concepts from neuroscience, mindfulness, and other body-based therapies. Brainspotting therapy uses eye position and bilateral stimulation to access and release memories, feelings, and sensations that are stuck...
Severance: An Internal Family Systems Adventure
Severance, on Apple TV, is a bizarre psychological thriller (and darkly comedic). It is also a fun way to explore Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapeutic modality. Quick overview of the premise of the show: some people opt to be severed—to have their...
Are You Having an Existential Crisis of Authenticity?
Most people have some sort of existential crisis around authenticity, often but not always in our teen years, when our brains have developed enough that we find ourselves thrown into a complex world full of risks and choices. It is during these years when we first...
Surviving an Existential Crisis with Six Feet Under: Authenticity
The characters on Six Feet Under are contending with the biggest questions we have: Why am I here? What’s the point of life? Of death? Am I a good person? Do I know how to love? Their internal and outward struggles ground the plot in existential matters of...
Are You Having an Existential Crisis of Isolation?
When we’re short on connection, we end up isolated. The pandemic accelerated an already-growing epidemic of loneliness in the US. According to that linked Harvard study, chances are that at least 1 in 3 people reading this are experiencing serious loneliness—a lack of...
Surviving an Existential Crisis with Six Feet Under: Isolation
Existential crisis gets at the core of what it means to be human and how we manage it all. The characters on Six Feet Under contend with the biggest questions we have: Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the point of life? Of death? Am I a good person? Do I know how to...
