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Talk therapy vs type therapy
This month’s question for The People’s Therapist gets to the heart of how psychotherapy – “talk therapy” – actually works: Why is psychotherapy conducted exclusively face-to-face, rather than in...
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The Clerkship Archipelago
It’s hard to conjure up bad stuff to say about clerking. It’s an honor, and an all-expense-paid ticket on an exclusive legal gravy train. If you’re lucky enough to clerk for a federal district or...
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Saved by the bell curve
“If I don’t pass this test, I’m going to lose it.” My client was a nursing student, who had to pass an important math test before she could receive her degree. She failed her first attempt, and her...
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Checklist
Atul Gawande is a medical superstar – a surgeon at Harvard who’s also a New Yorker magazine writer, and the author of several books. His latest push is for doctors to use checklists to prevent common...
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Your inner little twerp
I received the following letter regarding humankind’s on-going battle with its own impulses: Hi Will, I really enjoy reading your blog, you give great insight. I have often been told that I need to...
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Fall into the Gap
A law student client – already an MBA – said she needed convincing to drop out of her third-tier school. I told her to calculate the return on investment for the final three semesters. She crunched the...
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Huh? What’s “integrative psychotherapy”?
On my private practice website it says, right after my name, “Integrative Psychotherapy.” A number of people have asked me what the heck that means. Good question. There’s room for argument, but so far...
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An Aspirational Purchase
At Barnes & Noble, where I once worked as a marketing exec, we bandied about the phrase “aspirational purchase” to portray a small, but profitable segment of our sales. Aspirational purchase meant...
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Ugly Duckling
I received the following letter from “S”: This is the situation: my boyfriend of three years is an overachiever. He attended the best schools and now works in NYC. He’s in finance, from his personal...
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The “It Gets Worse” Project
A visit to my office has evolved into something akin to the road to Lourdes. Pilgrims arrive red-eyed and defeated, faces etched with misery, searching for a way out of a trap. The standard story is...
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Mapping the soul
Our initial task as client and therapist – our work during the first few sessions - resembles cartography. I begin, like a map-maker, drawing a square or a rectangle, then sketching the outlines of...
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Goodie Two-Shoes
You’re different. You disdain the crass blandishments of biglaw. You have a soul. Let the giant firms seduce your naïve classmates with their shameless wheedling. You’re made of sterner stuff. Your...
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Out of tune
I received the following letter regarding telling people things they don’t want to hear: Dear People’s Therapist I have been a fan of your blog for a long time, and thank you for running the blog! I...
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Oversold
My client is finishing her 1L year. She’s bored. “I study. Then I study some more. Then I go to sleep. Then I get up and study again. It’s the same for everyone.” At least, I proposed, the subject...
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A nice long talk
I had the pleasure to sit down a few weeks ago for a nice long talk with the brilliant and thoughtful Dan Lukasik, creator of the brilliant and thoughtful blog Lawyerswithdepression.com. For some...
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Evil Middle Management
When I launched The People’s Therapist, my intent was to get stuff off my chest – process a smidgen of psychic trauma. I’d write a column or two, exorcise the odd demon, piss off Sullivan &...
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Green Acres
Remember Green Acres, that fish-out-of-water comedy wherein Eddie Albert drags Eva Gabor out to live on some tumbledown farm in the middle of nowhere? She’s a Park Avenue socialite, but he’s the...
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The Great Satan
I participated recently in a panel discussion at a conference, speaking with other lawyer/blogger types in front of an audience consisting largely of people from law firms and law schools. After we...
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A Reading/Book-Signing in Hong Kong
First – yes, this blog, and my columns on AboveTheLaw.com, are coming back to life – or will be shortly. I’m just waiting for the new book to come out (and no, the new book is not what you’re...
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Sorry, Bartleby
Someone posted the following astonishing comment in response to one of my columns a few months back: “I’ve never worked in a biglaw firm, but what happens if an associate just says no, I am busy this...
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