Finding ‘the right word’ — knowing what it is in the body — makes the difference between the kind of experience we just have to submit to and the kind of experience we can be creative with.

Sometimes moving forward requires not getting too involved with thoughts and feelings, not trying to understand or express them, but just getting a vague yet complex sense of “all of that”.

Life’s ordeals — whether invited by design or foisted on us by circumstances — and the way we deal with them can be not only instrumental to individual character development but also a testament to the human spirit itself.

Most of the reasons for therapy’s success are simply unknown. This should keep therapists humble. The biggest factor which therapists can influence at all is the quality of the relationship. The relationship may be experienced as healing, even when therapy doesn’t measure up as “effective” at removing problems.

Just as there are many different types of counseling and therapy, there are many different purposes to which clients may put their therapeutic work. Some are more conducive than others to positive change over the long haul.

How do you deliver ‘placebo therapy’ to a client? By being deliberately hostile? Quantative scientific methods may not be the best ways to measure psychotherapy outcomes. But those who have the power and the money are increasingly using research results to legitimise a few techniques which are easy to measure, to the detriment of clients and therapists.

Of all the work I do with clients, I find organization to be one of the “secret weapons” to better mental health. From Fortune 500 high-fliers to those struggling just to get enough to eat every day, finding a way to collect, control, and act on all the “stuff” in life increases not only productivity, but also peace of mind. And if you understand organizing, you also understand several concepts central to the therapeutic process.