The classic poem “Desiderata” says that if you compare yourself to others you will either become vain or bitter. I don’t worry about becoming vain—as my self-esteem is still beneath sea level. But bitterness? That one had a hold of me last weekend. I reached out to a guy with whom I was in regular...

What should you look for in a therapist? I asked one of my favorite psychologists that question. Ryan Howes is a clinical psychologist in Pasadena, California. He writes the “In Therapy” blog on Psychology Today and is the coauthor of “What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Sex.” He shares what he knows as a...

Both David Burns (bestselling author of “Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy” and Abraham Low (founder of Recovery, Inc.) teach techniques to analyze negative thoughts (or identify distorted thinking — what psychologists call “cognitive distortions”) so to be able to disarm and defeat them. This is one of the major precepts of cognitive behavioral therapy. Since Low’s...

A new study from Ohio State University and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain, and published in Psychological Study found that when a person writes an unwanted thought down on paper and throws the paper away, he or she mentally discards the thought. Conversely, when a person writes down a thought and puts the paper in his or...

Today I have the privilege of interviewing Dr. Norman Rosenthal, the noted research psychiatrist about his new book, “The Gift of Adversity,” that explores how life’s disappointments anddifficulties provide us with the lessons we need to become better, bigger, and more resilient human beings. As a world-class psychiatrist, what have you found to be the most important tool...