There comes a time for each of us when we face the task of rebuilding an adult life from the ground up. We might be changing a lot of things at once and struggle to take action and make decisions. Job loss, loss of a significant other, death of a family member, an empty nest, or a change in economic circumstances are some of the life experiences that  trigger the need to make multiple changes.There are also many wonderful life experiences where we start over: a new job in a new city, graduating from school, leaving military service, retiring from a long term job and changing marital or parental...

Are there really as many unhappy attorneys as we are led to believe? A new study was released this month with the largest sample size of employed attorneys ever studied. The findings showed a significantly different trend than past studies. In the past, the longer attorneys were in the field, the more they tended to have problems with alcohol, depression, anxiety and stress. This recent study of 12,825 employed attorneys found a complete reversal of that pattern.  Lawyers with the highest rates of alcohol abuse were younger associates working in private law firms. Men had significantly higher...

The years since 2008 have been a strange and frightening time for so many of my patients, colleagues and friends. Those who were not hit by the downturn can still experience fear, waiting to see when if or when it will happen to them. Most of us have already experienced significant losses in our feelings of security, trust and well-being. The money losses we point to in the stock market, housing market and job market symbolize this for us, even if we have not yet sold anything at a loss; we are concerned about the futures we had planned.

Money losses are very painful. The money research...

One of the difficulties with the current times is the amount of anxiety generated by both the news and our social conversations. We are in a period of upsetting changes and uncertainty.In everyday talk, it is easy to see and hear how fearful most people are about the changes in our government, our financial systems and our businesses. In the midst of these stresses it is difficult to stay calm and understand that getting upset and anxious is unlikely to be of any benefit to us or to the people we love. In fact, it is likely that without realizing it we will take our own stresses out on our families...