As a couples therapist, many couples seek therapy today for what we call “relationship coaching.” These skills are helpful to many couples, and my experience and the research say they are not enough. What couples need to understand is that it’s taken this long to behave the way they do, and it’s going to take a while before they are willing to make changes as two individuals. Changes in couples are usually a dynamic process where small shifts occur individually over time in e

As a society, we have ignored the mental health needs of men. Many men walk around and have no idea they are wounded psychologically. From a young age, many men have been taught to “toughen up” and “be a man.” The old adage that “boys don’t cry” is very true for many of us. Our fathers modeled being stoic and non-emotional and used anger to put the fear of G-d in us. This left many men to lock down their emotions (just like their fathers did), cutting off the feelings in thei

Hiding in plain sight is something that most people fail to recognize and are afraid to talk about. Many people are caught in relationships with individuals who cannot see beyond themselves—cruel, insensitive, and hurtful in their interactions with partners, children, employees, and others. These individuals demand to be seen as all-powerful, perfect, and infallible, refusing to admit fault or mistake. They lack empathy and dismiss expressions of suffering as "weakness". Behi