• Harvard psychiatrist, researcher, and Zen Master Robert Waldinger, M.D. discusses the value of psychotherapy. 

• What has been learned from the research on forgiveness, according to a prominent psychologist. 

• The assessment of characteristics among children that are linked to the later development of psychopathy and narcissism. 

• The 4 types of modern marriages, according to one theorist. 

• The psychological process of trauma. 

• An interesting reflection on psychotherapy and the contemporary landscape. 

Please check out the library of available blog articles and podcast recordings.

• A New Approach to Mental Health



• The Role of Dynamics in Relationships

The Men's Group Seminar: Russell Kennedy, M.D. on Anxiety 

Author of Anxiety Rx: A New Prescription for Anxiety Relief from the Doctor Who Created It, Russell Kennedy offers a refreshing and integrative perspective on anxiety and the process of healing from it. Drawing from the pioneering work of Daniel Siegel (interpersonal neurobiology) and Bessel van der Kolk (how the interlinked mind/body system responds to trauma), Kennedy argues that anxiety is not really a “thinking disorder” as is so commonly portrayed. Instead, he contends that anxiety is linked to moments of early childhood trauma when the nervous system becomes dysregulated by overwhelming feeling states. Repeated experiences of emotional dysregulation, especially when the child is not comforted by the relational world, accumulate and become “housed” in subcortical structures of the child’s brain. To keep them safely stored away, the child organizes cognitive and behavioral coping strategies; by thinking and acting in certain ways, the child gains protection from remembering these feelings states and from the possibility of accumulating more of them. 

Anxiety conditions that emerge in adulthood, Kennedy believes, are due to experiences and situations that activate a person’s “younger, wounded self” when these subcortical structures are stimulated. Kennedy emphasizes that “the amygdala never forgets” and so the mind “reads” the body, signaling uncertainty, fear, and the expectation of trauma once again. Referring to Daniel Siegel’s view that the brain is an organ that anticipates the past, Kennedy suggests that ongoing, repetitive experiences of anxiety and other mental health conditions are possible if original, primary emotional trauma remain unresolved.

In the next in-person meeting of the Men’s Group Seminar on Saturday, September 9, 2023 (10:15 to 11:30 AM), we will explore Kennedy’s view of anxiety and how he sees it as particularly relevant for men. Two interviews of Kennedy (ManTalks Podcast and The Story Box) will serve as our major focus. In our discussion, we will also pursue the role of interoception in anxiety conditions; Kennedy’s depiction of “the alpha child”; and Kennedy’s ideas on how men re-traumatize themselves through ongoing loops of judgment, self-abandonment, blame and shame. 

To register for this upcoming in-person seminar, please see the directions below.

The Relationship Group Seminar: When You Become Unrecognizable in the Eyes of Your Partner 

In long-term committed relationships, there is an exhilaration and sense of deep intimacy when you feel fully seen and understood by your partner; when your partner recognizes your motivations and tendencies; when you are perceived and related to in ways that are, authentically, you. The experience of being known and understood by another, just as you know and understand yourself, is arguably one of the most significant needs we as humans seek to fulfill in our deepest bonds.

Unfortunately, in relationships where this is ongoing conflict or distress, or where dysfunctional dynamics inhibit communication and connection, there usually emerges a mismatch or asymmetry between who you know yourself to be and who you are perceived to be in your partner’s eyes. Research suggests that feeling understood by your partner reduces the intensity and negative impact of conflict among couples. In my own psychotherapy practice, I have noticed that those couples who evidence this mismatch, with one or both partners feeling like they are not the person who they are perceived to be, are most at risk for breakup. 

Psychological frameworks that speak to this mismatch emanate primarily from the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic perspectives, and include, most notably, the theories of transference, projection, projective identification, and enactment. At the core of these theories is the notion that, in close relationships, how we experience our partner may be distorted by unconscious forces.  Over time, our partner seems less him- or herself and more like someone from our past who embodies significant and unresolved psychological meaning. In the next in-person meeting of the Relationship Group Seminar on Saturday, September 9, 2023 (11:45 AM to 1:00 PM), we will discuss the origin and intensification of this mismatch in couples and explore the ways in which it may promote a more sophisticated appraisal of the relationship as well as a greater degree of self-insight.   

To register for this upcoming in-person seminar, please see the directions below.

New Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Group Forming

A new psychodynamic psychotherapy group (for women and men) is now forming in my practice; the day/time of group sessions has yet to be determined. Referrals are welcomed (please contact me at 949-338-4388 or at jt@jamestobinphd.com). This therapy group will utilize the emerging dynamics among group members as a basis from which to examine characteristic ways of thinking, feeling, and relating to others. The group will be a therapeutic experience and entry will occur only after a pre-group screening interview and preparation phase.