Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Counseling and In-person Counseling

Here's an article posted by a great organization called Thriveworks about the relative advantages and disadvantages of online counseling.

http://thriveworks.com/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-online-counseling-and-in-person-counseling/

Did you know that only a limited number of people who are referred by a physician to seek mental health services ever receive those services? Why is this?

Is it because they do not want to get well, or are there other factors? As you might guess, the reasons are many; and among them is the problem that acquiring counseling services is too difficult . . .

Couples Counseling and the Kitchen Sink

A common problem I deal with when doing marriage counseling is what we in the business call "kitchen sinking." It's got little to do with plumbing, but a lot to do with repairing problems.

Why Do Orthodox Communities Still Cover Up Sexual Abuse?

I recently came across this article about Deborah Feldman, the formerly Orthodox woman who wrote a famously unflattering book about her departure from her community.  I know it's old news, but there is a part in here that really supports the point I made in an earlier post, namely that Jewish identity in insular communities is often built on sand.  Here the author (who I am neither condemning nor condoning) remarks on the phenomenon of “irrational anger” that I highlighted in situations of abuse:

I didn't think the book would get this much publicity, but I knew that I would get a lot of hate mail. When people do lash out at me, the funny thing that comes to mind is that five or six years ago, if someone had done what I'm doing now, I would have lashed out too. I would have felt such irrational anger if someone was out there making my life look that sad and pathetic, and making me feel that manipulated and powerless, I would be furious! And I'd do everything I could to justify my own life and why I was staying in it.

A similar idea was expressed by Judy Brown, author of Hush, who also left the Chassidic community, in a recent interview on NBC which is regrettably no longer available on YouTube.  In explaining the reaction and the dilemma of the frum community, she says, "If our way of life doesn't prevent our men from turning into beasts, then what's the point of our way of life?" I submit that it is this very kind of thinking that forces the less intellectually honest to annihilate victims rather than own up.

 

Solving the Problem-Solving Problem

Okay, so you get it.  You don't always have to solve the problem! But don't you sometimes have to solve the problem?  How do you know when to solve and when to stuff it?

 

Some Problems Don't Need Solving

Have you ever been in a conversation where one partner starts complaining, and the other one comes up with a brilliant solution - only to find the solution is received most poorly?  Watch this for some insights into this situation.