Guides from Rebecca Rabin, PsyD

Good starting points on psychodynamic therapy include Lori Gottlieb's Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (2019) and Stephen Grosz's The Examined Life (2013) for general readers. For more depth, try Nancy McWilliams's Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (2011) and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2004), Cabaniss and colleagues' clinical manual (2016), and the PDM-3 (2026).

Students at any college in Boston can call or text 988 at any hour. Boston's Samaritans says its helpline is reached through 988. The Massachusetts Behavioral Health Help Line (833-773-2445) connects you to care. Hey Sam, Crisis Text Line, The Trevor Project, NAMI Massachusetts and BARCC offer free, specialized support.

Once you have started with a therapist, good questions for the first few sessions include: what do you make of what I've told you, where should we start, what if I disagree with you, what are the limits of confidentiality, and how do we reach each other between sessions. Asking early builds trust and clears up confusion.

Grief support groups in the Boston area include The Compassionate Friends of Boston (after the death of a child), Samaritans' free SafePlace groups (suicide loss), Care Dimensions' bereavement groups (open to Massachusetts residents whether or not they used its hospice), the JCC's Finding Comfort drop-in in Newton, The Children's Room in Arlington, and the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute.

Good places in Brookline for a mindful walk include the loop around the Brookline Reservoir (Route 9 at Lee and Warren Streets), Larz Anderson Park, Fisher Hill Reservoir Park, and the town's nature sanctuaries at Hall's Pond, D. Blakeley Hoar and Lost Pond. Olmsted Park on the Boston line adds ponds and woodland paths.

Helpful journaling prompts ask a specific question rather than "How was your day?" Try "What feeling have I been avoiding this week?", "What is the worry underneath this worry?" or "When have I felt this way before?" The 15 prompts below are grouped into five themes, so you can pick the one that fits today.

Eight psychology podcasts were still publishing new episodes in September 2026: Hidden Brain (Shankar Vedantam), Speaking of Psychology (Kim I. Mills, APA), Where Should We Begin? (Esther Perel), Therapist Uncensored (Sue Marriott and Ann Kelley), The Happiness Lab (Laurie Santos), All in the Mind (Sana Qadar), The Science of Happiness (Dacher Keltner) and Being Well (Rick and Forrest Hanson).

Coping with a life transition usually starts with naming what is ending, expecting mixed feelings even about good changes, and keeping a few steady routines. It also helps to grieve what you are losing, pace your decisions, lean on people and notice old patterns that resurface. Therapy can help when a change keeps you stuck.

Signs therapy is working include feeling safe enough to be honest with your therapist, noticing your patterns between sessions, catching reactions sooner, raising disagreements in the room, treating yourself with more curiosity, small shifts in relationships, clearer goals, and hard sessions that feel useful. Progress is rarely a straight line.

Widely read books on grief include Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed (1961), Megan Devine's It's OK That You're Not OK (2017), David Kessler's Finding Meaning (2019), Mary-Frances O'Connor's The Grieving Brain (2022) and George Bonanno's The Other Side of Sadness (2009).

Mindfulness practices people use for anxiety include anchoring on the breath, the body scan, the three-minute breathing space from MBCT, noting thoughts as thoughts, RAIN, the self-compassion break and mindful walking. For more structure, eight-week MBSR and MBCT courses exist. Research on MBSR for anxiety is encouraging, but results vary from person to person.

To prepare for a first therapy session, use the free consultation call to ask your questions, check your out-of-network benefits and how superbills work, confirm the fee and payment, sort out location or telehealth setup, find a private space, gather a few practical facts and leave some time after. You do not need to rehearse what to say.