Looking at health through a gender lens is the first step to a more helpful and personalized approach to healing.

I've been a therapist for more than forty years and certainly there is a place for "wise elders" in the healing process. But most people, most of the time, can heal themselves and those they love, with the help of their family, friends, and community.

Symptoms like anxiety, depression, aggression, alcohol or drug use, are responses to physical and emotional pain that has its roots in traumatic experiences from childhood and later in life.

If you plan to read one book this year I encourage you to consider, Find Your Reason to Be Here.

It was long assumed that heart disease manifested the same in men and women. But Dr. Legato found that men may experience the classic symptoms of chest pain that radiates down the left arm. Women often have symptoms including shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, and back or jaw pain. A gender-neutral approach left many women under-diagnosed and under-treated and as a result many women died needlessly.

Parents and therapists offer unconditional love without needing it to be returned, yet both sides grow in love, understanding, and acceptance.

Psychotherapy is a practice that many different professional disciplines engage. Psychiatrists are also medical doctors and increasingly offer medication and do less and less actual therapy.