There is No Place Like Home

A Love Letter to the Expat in Me My childhood as an expat in high-risk countries has greatly shaped who I am today. As a child I lived in four different continents, changed schools seven times, and resided in my home country for seven inconsecutive years. Ambiguity, regular uprooting, or living in the outskirts of […]

READ ARTICLE

What State Are You In, Today?

Knowing where you are is an invitation to understand more about how you got here.

READ ARTICLE

Are you fueling your resiliency?

What do rubber bands, willow trees, and roly-poly dolls have in common? Answer: Flexibility under pressure and the capacity to bounce back after stress. In other words: resilience! The past two years have called for all kinds of resilience from us — as individuals, as couples, as families, as a nation, and as a world. […]

READ ARTICLE

Identifying burnout: the silent simmer

Work-related stress When we hear about burnout, we often think about outbursts of rage or someone storming into an office to hand in their resignation letter. But the truth is that burnout is often gradual. Whether we were raised to work to live or to thrive through our work, the truth is we are all […]

READ ARTICLE

Good Enough!

How Are You? Good enough! The first memorable time I heard that phrase was when my supervisor responded to my query “How are you?” I was surprised, delighted, and curious when he said, “Good enough!” with a delightful upward lilt and a chuckle. What does it mean to be good enough? Is it “okay” to […]

READ ARTICLE

How well do you (want to) know your partner?*

“The dreams that you have while you are asleep can provide a fascinating, revealing, and interesting window into your unconscious mind.  How much do you share and talk about your dreams with your partner? How much do you know about your own and your partner’s inner world? How much does each one of you know […]

READ ARTICLE

Why should I try men’s group therapy?

Recently, a wife of a man in one of my men’s groups said, “Dr. Siegel did you sprinkle pixie dust on my husband?  He’s even better than the man I fell in love with!”  For most of my 30 years as a psychologist, I have worked with men in group therapy because it is such […]

READ ARTICLE

Things to do to calm your inner yikes!

Desperate Times Just when we thought it was safe enough to live again, all of our hope, optimism, and relief were rudely yanked away. Just like that, we are back to living in the reality that there is little we can know with certainty regarding what will happen next in this time of pandemic-monium. In […]

READ ARTICLE

What is biology doing in relationships?

Would you like to get a cup of coffee? That moment when he first walked over to me, my heart was pounding. I can still see myself all of these years later. I think I may have blushed. He leaned forward and asked if I would like to get a cup of coffee. We had […]

READ ARTICLE

The Micro Losses

Huh, maybe we are grieving losses. Recently, I got together with a therapist friend, (indoors, at a restaurant, both of us fully vaccinated!), to catch up. Eventually, we came around to how we were doing with the pandemic. We reported similar experiences: we were both weary, more tired, general enthusiasm for life was low, motivation […]

READ ARTICLE