Published Articles
The Neuroscience of Resilience
This cutting edge article explores how to strengthen our capacities for resilience from the bottom up – at the level of neurons firing in new patterns that promote flexibility in the face of change. The article traces the nine functions of the pre-frontal cortex, considered by some neuropsychologists to be an “evolutionary masterpiece,” and offers […]
The Power of Mindful Empathy To Heal Toxic Shame
© Linda Graham, MFT 2010 This article was published as part of the Wise Brain Bulletin, Volume 4.1. Download the complete issue as a PDF I want to explore how Mindful Empathy can help us hold and heal the sense of failure, rejection, and shame that catches us in the suffering of the belief that […]
A Warm Bath for the Brain
© Linda Graham, MFT Understanding oxytocin’s role in therapeutic change This article was originally published on the Psychotherapy Networker website. Download the article as a PDF Q: The couples I see often are in such a state of emotional arousal that they can’t calm down enough to do the work of therapy. What can […]
Laughter
© Linda Graham, MFT This article was published as part of the Wise Brain Bulletin, Volume 3.8. Download the complete issue as a PDF The August 2009 issue of Ode magazine is devoted to Laughter: how laughter evolved and how it makes us human; the positive impacts of laughter on health and productivity; how laughter […]
Skillful Ways to Deal with Stress and Trauma
© Linda Graham, MFT 2009 This article was published as part of the Wise Brain Bulletin, Volume 3.4. Download the complete issue as a PDF As the national economy tanks, as jobs are lost after 10 and 20 years, as relationships are strained, as safety nets of retirement and health care unravel, I see more […]
The Neuroscience of Attachment
[first presented as a Clinical Conversation at the Community Institute for Psychotherapy, Fall 2008] © Linda Graham, MFT It’s fascinating to learn what’s happening in our brains as we feel accepted or rejected by people closest to us or important to us. What’s happening in our brains as we experience a sense of connection and […]
Accelerating Psychotherapy through Mindfulness
© Linda Graham, MFT When Sue arrived for her regular therapy session, she was agitated and upset. Her son’s bicycle had been stolen two days before; the washer-dryer had gone on the blink; and suddenly her car needed new brakes. As a single parent, Sue had budgeted barely enough to cover seeing me each week. […]
Attachment Theory
© Linda Graham, MFT Attachment research is becoming a popular topic in clinical trainings for MFT’s because it explains and supports so much of what we do under our license to “improve and maintain healthy family relationships.” It teaches us – and parents – what behaviors of early caregiving create “secure attachment” in an infant, […]
Neuroscience and Psychotherapy
Discoveries from brain research are changing how we do therapy © Linda Graham, MFT Technologies of MRI’s, PET scans, CAT scans, may seem irrelevant to the warm, empathic intuitive work therapists do with clients. But discoveries from the last decade of brain research can be profoundly relevant to the relational-emotional work we do. Neuroscientists can […]
Right Brain to Right Brain Therapy
THE CLINICAL APPLICATIONS OF ATTACHMENT THEORY © Linda Graham, MFT Right brain to right brain therapy is Allan Schore’s phrase.Applying what we know from the last 15 years of neuroscience research about how the brain actually works – and 90% of what we know about how the brain works we have learned in the last […]