Subscribe to Blog via Email
Tags
- budget
- corporate ethics
- death
- delusions
- fallling
- falls & disaster
- guns
- hallucinations
- health
- impermanence
- incarceration
- medicine
- mental health
- opioids
- Pain
- pain health psychotherapy
- panic attacks
- paranoid
- Poetry
- point of life
- prisons
- psychoanalysis
- psychotherapists
- psychotherapy
- string theory
- taxes
- transience
- war on drugs
Recent Comments
- Suzanne on About Mark Maginn
- Occupy Human Rights on What’s something a therapist knows that would scare most people?
- left0089 on (From Quora) Why is there not more help for those with borderline personality disorder, (BPD)? These people hide their diagnoses. My last girlfriend was diagnosed and screamed in denial after reading this site.
- left0089 on (From Quora) Why is there not more help for those with borderline personality disorder, (BPD)? These people hide their diagnoses. My last girlfriend was diagnosed and screamed in denial after reading this site.
- Erika Martinez on (From Quora) Why is there not more help for those with borderline personality disorder, (BPD)? These people hide their diagnoses. My last girlfriend was diagnosed and screamed in denial after reading this site.
Pages
Mark Maginn
Categories
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Archives
- April 2019
- March 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- August 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- April 2017
- October 2016
- September 2016
- July 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- May 2011
-
Recent Posts
- How does one acquire a “Thicker Skin” in dealing with highly emotional taxing careers such as a Psychologist or Psychiatrist?
- Should a psychotherapist be completely transparent in patient interactions? More specifically, should they openly express or conceal their emotions and reactions to the patient?
- I’ve been told that all personality disorders are egosyntonic, and that therefore if I wonder about having BPD I don’t, and should not see a doctor. Is this true?
- I think my therapist is retiring.She knows I have abandonment issues.I think she is testing me.Something about the way she is acting makes me feel she’s getting ready to tell me she will be leaving. Do therapist test their clients? How can I tell?
- Should there be a government agency dedicated to reducing the number of psychopaths, sadistic people and people with anti-social personality disorders to improve public health and the overall quality of life?
Archives
Categories
Recent Comments
- Suzanne on About Mark Maginn
- Occupy Human Rights on What’s something a therapist knows that would scare most people?
- left0089 on (From Quora) Why is there not more help for those with borderline personality disorder, (BPD)? These people hide their diagnoses. My last girlfriend was diagnosed and screamed in denial after reading this site.
- left0089 on (From Quora) Why is there not more help for those with borderline personality disorder, (BPD)? These people hide their diagnoses. My last girlfriend was diagnosed and screamed in denial after reading this site.
- Erika Martinez on (From Quora) Why is there not more help for those with borderline personality disorder, (BPD)? These people hide their diagnoses. My last girlfriend was diagnosed and screamed in denial after reading this site.
Meta
Category Archives: Uncategorized
How does one acquire a “Thicker Skin” in dealing with highly emotional taxing careers such as a Psychologist or Psychiatrist?
“Thick skin” is a provocative notion about which all new therapists should consider, then reject. In my work and with those younger therapists with whom I’ve taught and consulted, I do the opposite. I try to help them become even … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Should a psychotherapist be completely transparent in patient interactions? More specifically, should they openly express or conceal their emotions and reactions to the patient?
The answer depends on the patient, her/his diagnosis, and the state of the relationship between us. No, in general, I am cautious about many of my thoughts and feelings as I treat them as speculative. However, if what I am … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
I’ve been told that all personality disorders are egosyntonic, and that therefore if I wonder about having BPD I don’t, and should not see a doctor. Is this true?
Ask yourself this, Dan. Would you find the following egosyntonic: afraid that everyone despises your very presence. How about this: you fear close emotional relationships based on the “crazy” closeness that you experienced as a small child. Add to that … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
I think my therapist is retiring.She knows I have abandonment issues.I think she is testing me.Something about the way she is acting makes me feel she’s getting ready to tell me she will be leaving. Do therapist test their clients? How can I tell?
No, I can’t imagine a competent/ethical therapist “testing” any patient. The best way to handle this, and likely a good step for you, would be to talk to your therapist about your fantasies of being abandoned by her. I suspect … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Should there be a government agency dedicated to reducing the number of psychopaths, sadistic people and people with anti-social personality disorders to improve public health and the overall quality of life?
In short, no. I can’t imagine giving that kind of intrusive power to the state. It smacks of the worst sort of authoritarianism. Education about mental illness and providing sufficient public funding for mental health services would be wondrous. I … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Yuya, this is an insightful question that seems to trap most inexperienced therapists. I welcome such communications. It often reveals a benchmark of change when the patient can challenge me. This challenge is exquisitely dangerous to the patient as s/he thinks I will become angry, withdrawn, maybe rejecting, haughty or even narcissistically demand that they the retract the objections if they wish to continue working with me. These are usually transference based expectations. However, many patients run into inexperienced or un-analyzed therapists who’ve yet to resolve their issues in this fragile domain. When this happens, the rule is thus for the therapist: do not attack, do not withdraw from the patient. Accept the patient’s point of view and search for the truth of it. Once the therapist can acknowledge the delicate parts of the patient’s experience as real and crucial, then, with great tact and skill, the therapist might inquire into the transference aspects of the communication. A competent therapist will acknowledge her/his contribution to the interaction. S/he will then be able to assist the patient in looking at the historical antecedents of the criticism,, and the patient’s fears of stating her or his truth to the therapist whom they feel, rightfully, injured them.
Without knowing a great deal more about you and what you consider “paranoia” I would be taking huge liberties with you. Those liberties would be crummy psychotherapeutic help; in short, no help at all and very possibly misleading and unethical. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Do therapists ever have sessions with clients who tell you that you’re not doing a great job and you’re not helping them? How do you feel and what do you do?
Yuya, this is an insightful question that seems to trap most inexperienced therapists. I welcome such communications. It often reveals a benchmark of change when a patient can challenge me. This challenge is exquisitely dangerous to the patient as s/he … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Do therapists ever get severe depression? How do they cope with it?
In a word, yes, we therapists are human and are like everyone else subjected to the vagaries of life: divorce, death, illness, etc. For the better part of my nearly 1/2 century career, I have struggled with the debilitating and … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
If you’re a practicing psychologist or therapist, and the methods for treating certain conditions change to the point where you know you could now do a better job for one of your prior patients, can you call them back in for more therapy?
No, never. That is our desire, not the desire of a former therapist who has moved past us.
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Whither God
WHITHER GOD My parents raised me Catholic. My mother, an Episcopalian—the word uttered by the nuns of my youth as if “Episcopalian” was a horrid vulgarism—had signed a statement upon marrying my Catholic father that she would not stand in … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment