The Meaning of Reinvention: Are You Ready?
The meaning of reinvention, especially later in life, has been on my mind recently. Erik Erikson’s final developmental task, “integrity versus despair,” is more than a theory. Despair sets in when purpose disappears, when there is no longer a way to feel connected to something larger than oneself. To age with any grace, there must […]
Starting Over at Fifty-Six: What Reinvention Really Requires in Systems That Don’t See You
I began my training as a therapist as “the old guy” at fifty-six, when I entered NYU’s Silver School of Social Work. Reinvention at this age starts with resilience. Not the flowery kind, but the kind you earn after life has already tested you. In an earlier post, I wrote about looking in the mirror […]
When Therapy Swings: From Classical to Jazz
Many people approach therapy the way they approach work, with a bullet-point list. Issues to fix. There’s often quiet anxiety about not having enough to talk about this week, or pressure for the session to feel productive. And yes, sometimes life demands solutions. But real growth in therapy doesn’t unfold on a timetable. It begins […]
The Shame of Renewal: The Unchosen Path of Reinvention
We grow up believing careers are ladders. Each step should take us higher. But most lives don’t look like ladders. They twist, stall, or collapse. When the path veers, the heaviest burden isn’t fear. It’s shame. Shame whispers: you failed, you’re less, you don’t belong. Unlike guilt, which pushes us to correct a mistake, shame […]
The Gift of a Crash
“The ground has swallowed me up.” A patient said this through tears after losing his job in finance. He had been a trader for 30 years, suddenly cut loose by forces larger than him: politics, squeezed margins, and a senior salary in an industry that values youth. He is facing not just unemployment, but an […]
Three Questions That Tell You It’s Time for Analysis
Not everyone needs therapy. It can’t hurt, but those who benefit most are often asking themselves one or more of these questions. Therapy is not just about symptom relief. Anxiety, depression, or sleeplessness might bring you in, and practical tools can help. But deeper work is about understanding why you are the way you are […]
AI Therapy Can Mirror. Humans Can Repair
“A cognitive prosthesis,” writes Harvey Lieberman of ChatGPT in his recent New York Times essay. As a therapist, I use AI too: to organize notes and surface themes. But Lieberman’s portrait, as thoughtful as it is, misses something essential about how therapy works. He speaks of ChatGPT as a “thought partner and “steady.” But therapy […]
The Mirror Test: What do You See?
Almost a decade ago, after more than 25 years at JWT — now a memory for tens of thousands of us, after its evaporation into the WPP machine — I was replaced behind my back. A subordinate was quietly promoted. I was informed after the fact. It wasn’t just a personnel change. It was a […]
How to Emotionally Survive This Political Era
Lately, the political world has crept into my office with more intensity than I’ve seen in years. Not as headline talk, but as atmosphere. It settles in like fog—rage for some, quiet despair for others. A few days ago, Donald Trump posted an unhinged screed defending Pam Bondi while claiming the Epstein files were a […]
When Fear Replaces Ambition: The (Chinese) Consumer on the Back Foot
I spent years helping brands decode the Chinese consumer from inside the marketing world. Today, as a psychoanalyst, I find myself returning to that world with a different question—not what people buy, but why they retreat or reach in moments of cultural stress. Something deeper is shifting in China—beyond economic data. It’s not just about […]
