"Give Palin credit. She has a gift for attracting attention," says Allison Steele, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. With all the discourse about Sarah Palin among Republicans as well as Democrats, I believe that most would agree.

True to her narcissistic core, Sarah Palin is masterful at taking...

Here we are once again confronted with yet another public figure who postures one way and acts another. Thursday night, after becoming the target of an extortion plot, David Letterman confessed, "Sure enough, contained in the package was stuff to prove that I do terrible things."

In a glib...

Syndicated columnist Susan Estrich recently pondered about why so many women admit to not liking Michelle Obama. Mind you, many of these referenced women are Democrats, so party politics don't seem to be a significant factor. Estrich asserts that race may play a role but not a major one, because...

How is one to make sense of a new move by state governments to regulate yoga teacher training? I have been a student of yoga for over fifteen years, and for the past ten years, have been leading weekend workshops on Calming the Inner Critic at the Kripalu Center for...

Soon we will discover if Sarah Palin's shocking move to abruptly resign as governor of Alaska was for political or personal gain. Regardless of the answer, we can confirm that this decision is one of self-interest, not the dominion of a leader concerned with supporting and sustaining the people she...

Less than 24 hours since the news broke announcing the death of 50 year old Michael Jackson, and many of my clients are expressing all kinds of emotions connected to him. Michael embodied trauma and his actions reflected an inner structure based on compartmentalization and dissociation. The abuse he experienced...

How do we learn those things that mothers pass on to their daughters once our mothers are no longer alive to do their job? I was one of the lucky ones. How ironic a statement for someone who lost her mother just before her nineteenth birthday. But yes, I was...

A few weeks ago my buttons got pushed. Oh yes, I sure did get triggered. In March, I was invited to be a guest on the NPR radio program, "Voices in the Family," hosted by Dan Gottlieb. I am a psychotherapist with 30 years of expertise in treating trauma,...

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of hearing Jane Fonda speak to 700 psychotherapists at a conference sponsored by the Renfrew Center Foundation. This venue, filled with experts in the field of eating disorders, was a most fitting audience for Jane's talk on "The Tyranny of Perfection."

Recently a client talked with me about wanting to work for the Obama campaign but found herself held back by an inner voice telling her that she couldn't because she was "not a persuasive person." As we explored this senseless yet spellbinding message, we uncovered the strategy that her oppressive...

This morning in yoga class, I glanced over at Judy, and remembered that she went back to law school many years ago. Automatically I thought "Oh, I could never have done that; I'm not smart enough." Fortunately I've reached a point in my life where I realize that it's not...