If you are a therapy patient, you need to know: You have the right to see your clinical records, at any point in time. There are no ifs, ands, or buts.

Oddly enough, despite the intense focus on self, writing in a therapy journal can actually help you become less self-centered. By putting your deepest feelings and thoughts down on paper, you may leave room in your psyche to relate to the feelings and thoughts of others, and that will help you develop better relationships.

Ted Williams has one of those deep, smooth, old-fashioned radio voices that you just love to listen to–even if you don’t like the station. But until recently, Ted didn’t have a home and survived, in part, by asking for money at a highway intersection in Columbus, Ohio.

What therapy isn’t is a panacea. Yet, that seems to be precisely the present paradigm. When people are lonely, questioning their lives, feeling shut out or shut down and they don’t know where to turn, today, in the 21st century Western World, a therapist’s office is often where they land.

There are some people in therapy who don’t need to be. Some say “If you think you need therapy, you probably do.” This is simply not always the case.

If stressful family get-togethers with problematic relationships trigger anxiety, depression, cravings for alcohol or drugs, or other unpleasant symptoms, don’t wait until you get there to fix the problem.

Do you have any weekly poll topics you would like to see posted on the Therapy Soup Weekly Poll?

come from a financially dysfunctional family and my relationship with money has had many twists and turns along the way in life. I was forced to learn about what money is and isn’t, what it can and can’t accomplish.

This is summed up nicely in our tradition. A wise teacher (Rabbi Bunim of Peshischa; 1765-1827) said everyone should have two pockets, each one containing a slip of paper. On the first slip should be written, “I am but dust and ashes”, and on the other, “The world was created for me.”

All the recent brouhaha about antidepressants ‘causing’ patients to become suicidal is not the fault of the antidepressants themselves, but rather the fault of this new laissez-faire treatment model, where psychiatrists are not keeping close enough tabs on their patients, and not talking to them about how they feel and why. Some of these antidepressants have been around for years. It’s not the antidepressant that’s changed for the worse, but the psychiatrists.