There has been news recently of increasing depression in young people, and particularly anglo teen girls, whose rates have risen the most.

Self-attack is a common defense against change. Someone disgusted with a mistake or moral failing might feel intense anger or shame and lash inwards, as in “I’m such an idiot!”

We navigate the present moment through our accumulated learning, habits, intentions, and evolutionary drives responding to other people and the world.

The ideal goal in any conflict is to get back to love in seconds. This requires both partners to immediately recognize conflicts as they arise and shift instantly into mutual understanding.

Whatever mode of therapy you’re using, it’s beneficial to keep influencing clients to install missing capacities in their personalities and take responsibility for problems stemming from maladaptive personality traits. It’s always a good idea to help people be more flexible, adaptive, and appropriate. This is both especially difficult and crucially important with personality disorders.

In the 57 years I’ve been studying psychology there have been three schools of thought about where psycho/emotional/social suffering comes from—nurture, trauma, and nature.

An Integral understanding of personality disorders, and how they fit into the mass formation distortions that currently seem to be happening everywhere.

Joseph Campbell studied 114 cultures to find common mythic themes, and a central one was the Hero’s journey—how people are challenged, meet challenges, and are transformed by their struggles. We are on different Hero’s Journeys all the time.

One of my favorite definitions of love is to be at-one-with. Developmentally, when it comes to self-love, we progress through stages.

Narcissism is characterized by self-absorption, self-centeredness, the objectification of others, and a constant hunger for attention and praise—narcissistic supply. People with pathological narcissism—seeing others as merely objects for gratification—can also hunger to enjoy the suffering of others. This is where narcissism sinks into psychopathy.

Narcissism is characterized by self-absorption, self-centeredness, the objectification of others, and a constant hunger for attention and praise—narcissistic supply. People with pathological narcissism—seeing others as merely objects for gratification—can also hunger to enjoy the suffering of others. This is where narcissism sinks into psychopathy.

An Integral understanding looks for deeper dynamics and practical approaches to identifying and addressing narcissism and gaslighting, and positions these problems as developmental challenges for everyone concerned—those dealing with narcissism as well as those suffering from narcissistic wounds.

How relevant is spirituality to normal development? According to a number of epidemiological findings and much neurobiological research, spirituality is of central importance to healthy development.

Humans are ultrasocial, and most of our interactions fall into three categories, dependent, independent, and interdependent. Just like most everything else, there are healthy and unhealthy versions of each.

Trauma is an increasingly popular field in psychology, psychotherapy, and the world in general. Through countless studies in interpersonal neurobiology and social psychology, we now understand trauma more than ever before, and have many approaches to help resolve trauma into growth and development.

Excerpt: Have you ever been bored with your partner and think that the solution is him or her becoming sexier or more interesting?

We tend to respond better or worse—and be influenced more or less—by different sequences of social engagements. For example, first impressions stick, and the last interaction in a sequence more heavily defines the whole social encounter. 

The challenge of therapy (and development) is to turn shame which trashes our worth and moral fiber, into regret which has more of “I wish I knew then what I know now, so I could have behaved better and caused less damage.”

In the HEXACO 6-factor personality system, the H factor reflects how humble/honest or arrogant/dishonest a person is. I find this fascinating, with a lot of potential ramifications for other types and world views. 

It’s astonishing how many human miseries can be resolved through forgiveness and radical acceptance. Never forgiving is taking poison to punish someone else—the more you punish the sicker you get. 

Blending the principles of martial arts with the practice of psychotherapy was central in my early development as a clinician, and I still find the material invaluable in my healing work.