Peter Goldenthal, Ph.D., ABPP

That experience with Gita and the Beaver Pond has been alive in my mind for a long time. I’ve re-imagined it, and I’ve wondered what made it click. I incorporated it into a story for children and have tried to make it happen again by going into  Read More 

Intimacy–whether between two people or between person and dog– opens people up to new experiences, it connects people, and it helps people explore new aspects of themselves.

Many years ago, I experienced a magical moment watching a beaver build a dam in a small pond in the woods  Read More 

One of the things that makes the relationship between a psychotherapist and his or her client or patient therapeutic is the healing power of relatively unguarded conversation.

When therapy goes as it is intended, the therapist creates a safe, warm , kind, and protected environment. In this protected environment, the patient or client can allow  Read More 

As I write this, I am sitting on my sofa with Sasha, all 23 pounds of her, curled up so close to me that a piece of onion skin wouldn’t slide between us. Sasha is a particularly social dog, but to lie motionless as she is while I write is unusual. It would be  Read More 

Your dog may not be suited to being an official therapy dog, one of those dogs who visits patients in hospitals, nursing homes, or assisted living facilities. However, he or she can be, and probably is therapeutic for you, perhaps in ways you don’t always notice.

I’ve written previously about the reciprocal  Read More 

Empathy, the ability to see and feel the world from another person’s perspective, is a crucial ingredient in all intimate relationships. Over 20,000 years, dogs have developed this capacity, some to a truly remarkable degree.

Most children are naturally empathic. They can learn to be even more empathic, and to have empathy even under  Read More 

All close and mutually trusting relationships are alike, whether they are between two people or between a person and a member of another species. Many species are very social, but dogs are the most social of the species that live with people, and the one that has lived with people for the longest time, perhaps for 20,000  Read More 

The capacity to form a close and secure attachment is important to having a fulfilling life. And yet, many people of all ages have huge problems with attachment. Some very young children–and I’m speaking here of children 18 months and younger–lack the experience of having an adult who is always there, always  Read More 

In my practice, animal-assisted therapy has a specific meaning: applying knowledge of the unique bond that can between people and dogs, as well as the great interpersonal skills of Sasha, my canine partner and an unusually sensitive daschund-mix.

My youngest patients connect instantly with Sasha, who eagerly greets them with a wagging tail and,  Read More 

The concept of destructive entitlement, like that of constructive entitlement arises from Nagy’s thinking about interpersonal ethics. They represent two poles of a continuum. A person’s fund of constructive entitlement grows proportionally to their capacity to consider other people’s needs, and especially to consider how their actions affect other people. In  Read More