Kim Schneiderman

Psychotherapist, Author, Columnist, Writing Workshops

If you’re like many people, accessing self-compassion can be a bit like searching your desk for reading glasses that are dangling over your chest. You didn’t lose your lenses, you just needed to know where to look. It’s possible to see challenging life chapters as personal growth adventures by writing about the obstacles you face […]

Dana was in tears. Once again, she had engaged in scheduling acrobatics to meet a new friend for a romantic getaway, only to find herself alone in a hotel room with unanswered text messages and her self-destructive history with men.  “I feel like I have a hole inside me,” she said, as we began her therapy session. […]

Imagine you’re walking down a path when you encounter a stranger carrying a boulder. Suppose the person bemoans their aching back and offers a litany of reasons why they can’t put the rock down. Feeling your heart tug, you might point to the slab of granite in your own arms and say, “So sorry. I […]

Imagine you grew up in a castle. Maybe you felt relatively safe until, one day, the King and Queen left the drawbridge down and a hungry hooligan snuck into your room and stole your favorite lollipop. Or maybe you were constantly being over-run by starving hooligans, and nobody noticed or cared that you were scared […]

Lately, I’ve been plumbing the depths of the underworld for clues about how to navigate a global pandemic and national cataclysm. No, I’m not holding seances or sticking pins in effigies of megalomaniacs, tempting as that may be. But rather, I’m turning to stories and symbols of human encounters with the forces of destruction in […]

Every human relationship, whether familial, romantic, or platonic, is more or less an ambitious, hopeful, but potentially hazardous psycho-chemistry experiment. When you combine two unique sets of genetics, backgrounds, and life experiences, you never know whether you’ll get sparks, combustion, or something in between. Most of us aspire to the sparks and “in between,” anticipating the […]

Sometimes, despite your good intentions and clear communication, you can still get blamed for something that isn’t your fault. Once you’ve reflected on your possible role in the situation, it’s important not to take on emotional baggage that isn’t yours, lest it weigh you down. For a variety of self-protective reasons, some people are simply […]

Years ago, when I was in an argument with a loved one, a wise friend asked me, “Would you rather be right than loved?” It was an eye-opening question that I often return to during interpersonal conflicts. It feels good to be right. When you’re right, it means you’re not wrong. And if you’re not wrong, you […]

I’m sitting on Zoom, counseling Deborah, a single, 28-year-old client. Tears stream down her face as she anguishes about quarantining by herself in her one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. A self-described “codependent” and committed ALANON newbie, Deborah has been working on her tendency to cling to unhealthy relationships to avoid being alone. We were two months into therapy when […]

Every seven years, a crisis blows into my life, launching me into a queasy tailspin. Usually when the storms hit, I fight them, flailing my feet in search of an elusive foothold, until my resistance exhausts me, and I land in my own private wreckage.  I never imagined that my next twister would be a […]