I actually suck at explaining EMDR to patients. At least, succinctly. If you’ve got 10 minutes, I can muscle my way through it, but I’m never sure if I’ve raised more questions than I’ve answered by the time I’m done.  Today I’m going to take a stab at explaining it ...

Hi Dr. Darcy, I’ve always been somewhat insecure in my personal life but it recently started showing up professionally after I was laid off from my tech job.  I’ve had 2 group interviews and even though I’m as qualified as the other candidates, I couldn’t answer the questions with the ...

Years ago, I was terrified of opening the mail. Email was easier for me, but it rubbed up against the same nerve. And voicemail? Forget it. I hated checking voicemail so much that I was one of the earliest adopters of having it translated to email – the absence of ...

You have to be on the receiving end of an over-talker to understand the complex feelings that the dynamic provokes in the listener.  I used the word dynamic, but really there isn’t one since it’s literally a one-way conversation, monopolized and controlled by the compulsive talker.  For me, the hallmark ...

Nothing exhausts me like dealing with someone who’s passive aggressive.  Coaxing them into telling me what’s wrong makes me feel like a hostage negotiator. By the time I realize what I’m dealing with, I’ve generally spent hours gaslighting and berating myself for being paranoid, despite the pile of evidence pointing ...

You suck at having serious conversations because you fear they will provoke conflict, which in turn makes you avoid them. And we don’t master skills that we avoid practicing.  Serious conversations aren’t what provokes conflict. Your avoidance of them causes conflict. It’s what shrinks call a self-fulfilling prophecy: What you ...