My Philosophy

• My role as a psychologist is more akin to a teacher or coach than a physician.
• Being willing to actively set goals is essential to motivation, achievement, and life satisfaction.
• There is nothing inherently shameful or depressing about failing to achieve one’s personal goals. Thinking makes it so.
• Being straightforward with people and answering their questions is important to good relationships. Straight talk can be very helpful and motivating.
• Psychotherapy and coaching is as much or perhaps more about beliefs, behaviors and strategies as it is about feelings.
• Teaching people the principal of emotional responsibility is an important aspect of my work.
• When something bad happens, although people do not always see it nor can easily take advantage of this option, they do have a choice in how to feel and react to the event.
• There is a difference between healthy negative emotions and unhealthy negative emotions.
• Healthy negative emotions are motivating and help us change what we do not like.
• Unhealthy negative emotions are counterproductive, lead to impulsive decisions and self-defeating behavior we later regret.
• Acknowledging what one does poorly or how one has misbehaved is different than blaming or damning oneself.
• Developing unconditional self-acceptance is essential to happiness.
• Good therapy and coaching helps a person develop unconditional self-acceptance.
• Having unconditional self-acceptance does not absolve one from being responsible for the consequences of their behavior.
• Having the ability to be assertive with difficult people, instead of aggressive, is an essential life skill.
• It is best to have goals when seeking assistance. Without goals psychotherapy and coaching are vague processes and progress is difficult to evaluate.
• Psychotherapy and coaching does not have to be scheduled once a week. It is sensible to take financial resources, available time, and levels of distress into account when scheduling the frequency of sessions.

• Although sessions may be scheduled on an intermittent basis the best results occur when one regularly practices the skills discussed in sessions.
• Being efficient in therapy is important. Remaining in therapy for many months and years is a thing of the past.
• A good relationship with a psychologist is not sufficient to help a person change. The psychologist had better teach the person skills, strategies and an enduring philosophy.
• Learning to think about one’s thinking and change self-defeating beliefs is an important aspect of effective therapy and coaching.
• People are helped when they are encouraged to think for themselves and take responsibility for their emotions and behaviors.
• People can change but work and practice are required.
• All people are fallible humans who cannot be rated or measured as people.
• There are no saints nor are there sinners. There are just human humans.
• All people do good, neutral and sometimes bad or very bad things. 
• What people do can and should be rated so that a decision can be made to repeat what has been done or try something new.
• All people are in a constant state of evolution. It might be hard to detect this evolution but the process is occurring. 
• Once therapeutic change occurs people need to work to maintain that change much like one maintains physical fitness.
• People have their personal tastes and values. My role is to attempt to help people not disturb themselves when they are not getting what they value and try to help them figure out how to get more of what they value.
• Once a person experiences less emotional upset they are more likely to be able to negotiate, find creative solutions, and persist.
• Having a vitally absorbing interest and working at that interest is a precondition for experiencing enduring happiness.
• People cannot change each other. At best we can influence another person. The best way to influence another is to be a good model.
• It is easier to change yourself than to change another person.
• Having high frustration tolerance is a key to achieving personal goals.
• Good psychotherapy and coaching helps people develop frustration tolerance.
• The past cannot be changed. People can learn to think differently about what happened in the past in order to make the most of the present despite what happened in the past.
• People are often slow learners. Unfortunately that is the human condition.
• People prefer to avoid the discomfort involved in changing themselves. This often is a reason why they wrongly conclude they cannot change.
• Psychotherapy and coaching should preferably aim to help people give up perfectionism while showing them how to improve aspects of themselves. Perfectionism is self-defeating. High standards and goals are self-enhancing.
• Helping people live for both today and for tomorrow instead of too much of one or the other is also part of effective psychotherapy. This is the philosophy of long term hedonism.
• It is best to take things seriously, but not too seriously. In this regard, I encourage people to avoid taking themselves, other people and life itself too seriously.

Phone: 212-750-2826 to schedule an appointment.

Email: REBTDoctor@gmail.com