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Archive for the ‘Psychology Today’ Category

Naked Therapy

Published on March 7, 2011 in Meaning Making, Psychology and Psychology Today. 38 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The other morning I woke to find an email in my inbox from a reporter at Salon.com. This reporter had found me on Psychology Today. She had read my piece on Naked Therapy: Seeing Through the Sartorial Signifiers of Our Shrinks for Psychology Today and she wondered if I would take a look at an article on Sarah White, “the birthday suit therapist”. I quickly clicked over to read the article on the the 24-year-old-”therapist” whom has no degree, license or training as a therapist, save a few undergrad courses in psychology. This woman claims to use Skype, striptease and nakedness as her method of psychological change. White is quoted as saying, “Freud had dreams and I have nakedness.” For $25 more an hour than I charge( and I have a M.A. in counseling psychology, years of training, post-grad education, a license AND a wardrobe) this woman is doing what she considers to be real therapy with men and women( The New York State licencing board may have a different opinion on her practicing without a license).

I was sure I was dreaming, I was both flattered to be contacted as an expert on the importance of metaphorical nakedness and aghast that this woman was engaging in something closer to”sex-work” and yet calling it psychotherapy. After reading the article I sat down to figure out how exactly I felt about this( at the time I was wearing pajamas, a sweatshirt and a Brooks Brothers robe). I had some thoughts and some feelings about all this nakedness. The first thing I felt, after worrying about the extremely unethical action that this woman was engaging in,  and calling it therapy, and  about the mental health of her patients, was a certain amount of anger. If I had just not bother to get dressed, if I had  given up my wardrobe that I spend a lot of time, money and energy on, as well as my ethics and integrity, I too could have gotten major press( Wall Street Journal, NY Daily News, Salon.com, Fox News, etc), a full case load and $25 more an hour than I make.  However, I prefer having a small case load, my ethics and the ability to actually do good work rather than fame and fortune for questionable practices . Once I got my envy out of the way I got to really thinking about this “Naked Therapy” and I put on my professional hat, shirt and other apparel of licensed and degreed expert, having written my thesis on The Genesis of Shame: The Fig Leaf of Fashion and Its Place in Psychotherapy I had a lot to say on the subject.

Continue reading ‘Naked Therapy’

How to find the BEST Therapist for you

Published on February 16, 2011 in Psychology and Psychology Today. 24 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

The first time I went to therapy, my parents chose a psychotherapist quickly (an easier decision than which mechanic they took their car to). The way they found this nutter-butter-can-of-cashews was that my first pediatrician didn’t know what to do for my nightly all-night/every night nightmares and so he sent me to a therapist. He thought she was good because of her seemingly impressive pedigree, and let me let them tell you as they told everyone who asked, “She did therapy on the Prime Minister from Israel.” Even at ten I found this bit of information troubling and logistically dubious, as we lived in a beachside suburb in Los Angeles and the Prime Minister from Israel lived in Israel.

Here are a few examples of her wacky behavior:

1. She ate cottage cheese with her mouth open during our sessions. I feel sure that her mouth full of curds gave me more nightmares rather than less.

2. She read her mail during our sessions. While I get that my 10-year-old chatter was not very stimulating, she was getting paid to listen to me and not to read what the latest edition of Readers Digest said about how to declutter your desk. Good God, do I wish I was making this stuff up.

3. I have since learned that she asked patients for rides to the airport. She never asked me for a ride, but I was only ten and I didn’t even have a bike.

I thought, as a public service of sorts, and since I am a therapist and since I write about being in therapy, it might be a good thing if I shared some thoughts about picking a therapist—should you ever find yourself in need of one—as they can be harder to find than a good mechanic. For the rest of this post please click here.

Freudian Express: Dreams

Published on January 14, 2011 in Dreams, Psychology and Psychology Today. 27 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “I had the craziest dream last night,” I would be in Paris right now staying at the George V, drinking champagne and eating platters of foods not found on the menu of Applebee’s. Most of the time, people that share their “crazy” dreams with me tend to tell me their dream to illustrate how crazy their dreams are and not to actually understand it. They tell me, “There was a bear, a pig and a guy who looked like Simon Cowell, only he was really my mother, and we were on the tea cup ride at Disneyland and we had to make the teacups go really fast or Sarah Palin was going to start dancing on top of the Matterhorn,” and then they look at me, expecting me to affirm their sense of what a wacky dream it was and how their dream is proof that dreams are just wild and meaningless. Instead I calmly and quietly ask them, “So, what do you make of it?” The dreamer usually looks at me like I have asked them to explain advanced physics to them, replying, “I don’t know, it’s just crazy. ” And that is usually the end of it. The dream is then discarded and no further inquiry occurs.

Read the rest of this post over at my column Freudian Sip @ Psychology Today.

Have a lovely weekend! See you back here on Monday.

Since our last session

Published on January 7, 2011 in Psychology Today and Quotidien. 100 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .
  1. I quit the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program, to my enormous relief. And I told the chair of the department exactly why I was leaving. It was incredibly liberating. Somehow the way I quit the program and how I told the truth about why I left felt more important than anything else I learned in the program.
  2. I quit Igor after having a bit of a temper tantrum. My tantrum stemmed from the fact that he can’t fix the main things we talk most about: my past, my infertility and that we live in L.A. One session I got so upset about his inability to fix things that I walked out mid-session. I shocked him and me.
  3. I saw the DEFINITIVE movie on the human shadow, Black Swan. I might have to see it four or fourteen or forty more times in order to process the power of this mind blowing movie. It will take at least five more viewings before I dare try to write about it.
  4. Santa-weasel brought me an iPad. I love Santa-Weasel. And Santa Weasel and I love playing Angry Birds on my iPad. Any guess why He-weasel and I LOVE a game in which we take our revenge on some nameless pigs who have stolen our capacity to have babies? Freud was right, aggression can be sublimated. I hate those damn pigs.
  5. Thanks to stress and Weight Watchers I got to my goal weight. Being always a bit of a ‘raise the bar’ kind of gal I think I am going to try and lose ten more pounds before I post my before and after pictures.
  6. Several weeks later I went back to Igor and told him I was mad and by doing this we got to see my pattern of isolating myself when I am in serious need of support. A recent dream illustrates this perfectly, I dreamt I gave myself a double mastectomy.  Not a pretty dream but one that speaks to my pattern of cutting off nurturing when I need it most. Igor and I made up and he told me that in the future when I run off he will come after me.  “On a white horse,” I asked? “If you like,” he laughed.
  7. I seriously considered shutting down my blog.
  8. I changed my mind. And I was overwhelmed by love and support and encouragement from so many of you. It helped more than you can know. Thank you, you lovelies.
  9. I got another office. I now practice in Valencia and Pasadena.
  10. As soon as I got my office in Pasadena I felt this incredible sense of relief. I felt at home. And I think I finally feel settled. I don’t think that I even want to go back to Lake Bluff. I think I want  to stay in Pasadena. I think I want that to be home. How is that for a Christmas miracle?
  11. I posted another piece on Psychology Today, “Soul Mates” and other words I am afraid of.”
  12. I missed you a lot. I am happy to be back. I so look forward to catching up on your blogs. I hope you had a lovely holiday. And I hope your New Year is all that you want it to be.

Rudolph the Depressed and Traumatized Reindeer

Published on December 8, 2010 in Psychology and Psychology Today. 33 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

When you think about how you want to spend your holidays, I imagine that activities like shopping, cocoa drinking, gift exchanging or ice skating come to mind. It is not my hunch that watching others be judged, shamed, publicly ridiculed and kicked out of their families for birth defects or job preferences signify happy holiday activities to you.

However, there is a part of my Christmas tradition that is a must: watching an innocent be tormented for what one might consider a birth defect. That is, watching  Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. I have watched it ever since I was a child and never gave it up (even when I figured out that this is a highly abusive story line; however, less than the unwatchable Christmas Story. I know many people love that movie. I hate it. It is the therapist in me that cannot stand to watch actual children being emotionally abused. Young puppet reindeer abuse I can watch more easily as I know that no real reindeers were harmed in the making of this Christmas special). The emotional abuse of a tiny reindeer continues to be part of my annual Christmas tradition.

Let’s go through the entire show and look at all of the psychological issues that occur in its 52 minutes. (Click here for the rest of the story. Also, if you follow my link you will get a chance to read the first Christmas Carol I ever wrote. How’s that for a tease?)

Boys to Men: Ed Hardy Meets Ernest Becker

Published on December 1, 2010 in Meaning Making, Psychology and Psychology Today. 42 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

In my neighborhood in Southern California, the men mostly dress like children and it drives me cuckoo bird crazy. Wherever I go out in my southland suburb, I see men in their 30′s, 40′s, 50′s and beyond dressing like their kids and grandkids: Ed Hardy shirts (gasp), spiked hair and striped tee shirts. Shorts, the ultimate uniform of casualness, are worn in all their varieties: basketball shorts, board shorts, surf shorts. And if not shorts, then jeans. Suits, ties, or even trousers read as antiquated and old-timey in this Shangri-La of agelessness and immortality.

I interpret this trend as a sartorial denial of death. Yes, my thesis is that these 60-somethings in board shorts and backwards baseball caps might be attempting to hide their silver hair from the grim reaper. Ernest Becker writes in his classic The Denial of Death: “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity – designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.” The unconscious thinking in this age-inappropriate apparel is something right out of Becker’s book. I believe it is a defense against death and an attempt to overcome it. The clothing suggests: “If I look like a boy, I am a boy.”

To read the rest of this post please click here.

As Featured on Fox News

“16 things that you never say to a woman who is childless not by choice“ Interview.

About Me

My name is Tracey, aka La Belette Rouge. I am a psychotherapist and the author of Freudian Sip @ Psychology Today. I blog about psychology, my therapy, dreams, writing, meaning making, home, longing, loss, infertility and other things that delight or inspire me. I try to make deep and elusive psychodynamic concepts accessible and funny. For more information, click here .

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