Cliff Heegel Ph.D.

I work with many persons in committed relationships who have lost or nearly lost their erotic connection. Desire does not have to fade when a loving long-term relationship ‘matures.’ Couples who connect skillfully can enjoy a lifetime of both love and desire. Here’s a nice paragraph about the delicate balance between love and desire: Love [...]

Facebook and other social networks are continuing to grow in popularity. Why? What gets us hooked into online socializing? And is it really socializing? Or is it just a distraction from our loneliness? Here’s a very decent article that takes a broad look at research into how and why Facebook draws us in. It isn’t all [...]

How can we better adapt to life’s changes? Unpleasant stuff happens to us all eventually. Illness, death, disappointment, betrayal, disaster, fear, and on and on. Such is the stuff that our human lives are periodically made of. Some of us can seemingly bounce back from anything. Others of us get crushed by something that looks minor [...]

Test how self-compassionate you are. This is a real test that is used for psychological research, by the way. Let me know how you scored. Copy your scores at the end of the test. Post them here as a comment if you are comfortable with that or email/message me with your scores. Here’s the test [...]

I do a lot of counseling with members of Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, Narcotics Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and other 12-step fellowships who talk in terms of addiction, recovery, and sobriety.  I often refer to the term ‘emotional sobriety’ in psychotherapy. Abstinence from alcohol, drugs, and addictive behavior helps a lot but it is not enough. For deep [...]