Mark O'Connell, Psychotherapist

03/05/2025

Resources for people who are trans or nonbinary and their families (including support networks, advocacy, and research)!
https://linktr.ee/MarkOTherapy_TransResources
Please share with anyone you think can use this information right now. (Including anyone who is promoting false and destructive information about trans, nonbinary, and/ or anyone who is q***r and/ or non heteronormative.)
The song “Safe With Me” is written and performed by the one and only musical gem She wrote it with the express purpose to share her love, support, and solidarity with LGBTQ+ people right now (and always).🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🤎🖤

11/19/2024

Interview about The Performing Art of Therapy at the Stanislavsky & Psychology Symposium, by the awesome Benjamin Askew, hosted by the Stanislavsky Research Centre.
I went ahead and declared that Stanislavsky's concept of objectives is not only useful in the scene work of acting or therapy, or of all human relationships for that matter. But that it could in fact save America, if not the WORLD.
https://youtu.be/FGM04O6m-ps?si=PoF_5HLcbL1gVJLr

11/19/2024

Interview about The Performing Art of Therapy at the Stanislavsky & Psychology Symposium, by the awesome Benjamin Askew, hosted by the Stanislavsky Research Centre.

I went ahead and declared that Stanislavsky's concept of objectives is not only useful in the scene work of acting or therapy, or of all human relationships for that matter. But that it could in fact save America, if not the WORLD.

https://youtu.be/FGM04O6m-ps?si=PoF_5HLcbL1gVJLr

10/21/2024

Nonverbal communication is MOST of what takes place in the therapy room and yet it’s the LEAST discussed or written about topic in the field psychotherapy. 🤷🏻

THIS is why I teach workshops for therapists on preparing and using our most essential “instruments” for therapeutic engagement: our selves.

And I emphasize our use of subtext: the nonverbal messages we send with our minds, bodies, emotions, histories, judgements, curiosities, and imaginations, whether we realize it or not. Even, and especially when we’re just listening.

Next up: Embodying Your Unique Voice in the Therapy Room for Alma A two part workshop that will include inspiring examples of how we’re all up to the same thing no matter what “kind” of therapist we are (whether we practice CBT, DBT, EFT, LMNNOP, QRS, IFS, EMDR, or Psychoanalysis…), exercises to help us be as AWARE and INTENTIONAL with our instruments as possible, and case discussions—Yours and Mine.

Let’s acknowledge what we ACTUALLY do in the “scene work” of therapy. And have some fun.

*Special shoutout to Beatrice Beebe who has been calling for more research, classes, workshops, and discussions on nonverbal communication in the therapy room for YEARS!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtAZENairkY

08/12/2024

Lukas Dhont’s Oscar-nominated film “Close” is a poignant reminder of the essential nature of human connection—specifically, the beautiful, empathic relationships that come naturally to young boys that our society tends to squash.

Read therapist Mark O'Connell, Psychotherapist's poignant review of Dhont’s film ➡️ https://bit.ly/3WK3U2h

07/02/2024

I wrote a review of the astonishing Oscar nominated film CLOSE for the Magazine. And I’d love for you to read it: https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/article/boys-holding-hands/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR15VP_KBoW9p7ctKRVXR9STUc4xsHsIyRYGmk2hdDNPGc42YFSUqtjrCoM_aem_wfWsbx7QLcfEDxUuCK3K_g

I also highly encourage you to watch the movie: it’s a MUST SEE for anyone who cares for young people in any way.

More than a review, my piece is really a necessary calling out of the insidious ways in which we as a culture often stunt our boys’ development, and disrupt them from flourishing as the loving relational humans they naturally WANT to be. It’s also a battle cry to keep this conversation alive as they grow and as their social world inevitably tries to police and destroy their authentic relational impulses.

For further insight on this subject, consider reading Deep Secrets: Boys Friendships and the Crisis of Connection by psychologist Niobe Way, on which the film CLOSE is based. And the new book Boy Mom: Reimagining Boyhood in the age of Impossible Masculinity. by
Please SHARE any of this info with anyone in your life whom you think could benefit from it.

Shout out to my Brooklyn parent community who constantly foster connection between one another and between our boys.

Delve into the complexities of how we police expressions of affection between boys and the implications for their emotional development.

06/28/2024

You may know my buddy Lucas Papaelias from the original Broadway cast of ONCE, Richard Linklater’s “School of Rock,” and numerous other stage and screen performances—in which he’s likely acting and singing and rocking the guitar (or multiple other instruments), sometimes to music he composed or arranged himself. AND he just wrote a brave, personal, absorbing, really GREAT essay for American Theater Magazine about some of the highly specific psychological challenges of being a professional actor that are under discussed.

Read the article here:
https://www.americantheatre.org/2024/06/26/throwing-toys-facing-the-music-my-cathartic-2-show-day/

As a therapist I find that giving voice to painful experience is the most healing action we’ve got—both for the teller and the listener.

And as a therapist who works with a range of actors at all stages of their careers—from students to journeyman actors to movie stars—I think Lucas’ piece will be healing for SO so many. It’s about life really, not just acting. The question of how we commit, 100%!, how we stay present and alive and connected to other people, and let go when we need to. How do we own all of it as essential aspects of our shared ALIVENESS as human beings—the highs AND the lows, the achievements and the losses, the recognition and the loneliness, and everything else in between.

The work actors do is a gift to our culture, reminding us that we’re all more human than otherwise. But that work comes at a cost of which we should all be aware.

Thank you Lucas! 🙏💛

Pic 1 is from a few years ago after an Off-Broadway play Lucas was in.

Pic 2 is from my college graduation at SUNY Geneseo where we got to play together on stage for a couple of years, and be so many different versions of ourselves.

05/31/2024

No one is above the law.

And I don’t just mean the law of a particular land. I mean the law of human nature. The universal law that allows us to be equal and connected. The basic guidelines of trust and civility and mutual recognition by which we must abide in order to LIVE--safely, fully, and freely--in one another’s presence.

Therapists keep this idea of justice in mind. (The “moral third” as Jessica Benjamin calls it). Especially when a particular client challenges us, provokes us, crosses boundaries again and again, and maybe even BLAMES US for trouble they’ve caused themselves. Our job at these times is to remain grounded, centered, sane. To set very clear boundaries, parameters, limits on what is allowable in our relational exchange. Not with the intention of punishing the client, as if they are a “badly” behaved child. Not to “lock them up” as the endgame. Or to control them, to “win,” to be “right” or to “have our way.” But to invite them to have a bidirectional relationship with us and with others in their lives. To contain and name their destructive behavior as a way to encourage them to self-regulate and to participate in relationships that are mutually beneficial.

We seek this kind of justice as parents as well. As lovers, companions, as friends, as members of communities and professional organizations. When we call one another out in the name of universal justice, we are seeking connection, inviting us all to be in relationship with one another. We are not seeking an ending: “you're bad.” But a beginning: I see you. You see me. Let’s imagine how we can best get along together. And maybe, just maybe, we can then find some connection, some common ground, some creative possibilities for the greater good of us ALL along the way.

🌞

04/02/2024

This incisive, empathic, and exquisitely-written piece about the college admissions machine and its deleterious impact on young people--written by the remarkable Sarah Bernstein for the The New York Times!--is a MUST READ.

Link below:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/31/opinion/college-admissions-consultant-branding.html

As a therapist who works with some young adults--and who knows that mental health requires us to NOT KNOW who we are too soon, and to give ourselves TIME to RE-discover all the natural impulses that society beats out of us the moment we're born--I can say that Sarah's eloquent, accessible insights here can not only WAKE US UP to what our culture is doing to our kids, but also empower us to help them navigate it without losing their capacity to PLAY and to figure out who they are, in their own way at their own pace.

Here are a couple of gems from Sarah's essay:

"While this approach often leads to a strong application, students who brand themselves too early or too definitively risk missing out on the kind of exploration that will prepare them for adult life.”

“In the world of branding, a word that appears again and again is “consistency.” If you are Charmin, that makes sense. People opening a roll of toilet paper do not want to be surprised. If you are a teenage human being, however, that is an unreasonable expectation.”

Teenagers should not have to commoditize themselves for the sake of getting into an elite school.

03/29/2024

“Asking people about making change in their own communities? That is a part of healing.” ❤️‍🩹 🔥 🙌

- That's from the emboldening and inspiring healer, teacher, therapist, writer, positive-change-maker Prentis Patrice Hemphill at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium in DC earlier this month.

Pic 2-7 are from a story about an initiative Prospect Park in Brooklyn is taking to not only embody Hemphill’s call for community engagement, but to specifically ask individuals in Prospect Pakr what they need in terms of their health, mental health, and all of the areas of their lives that impact them.

Trained social workers will interact live with people in the park, and connect them to appropriate resources based on their needs.

This practical, insightful, and potentially game-changing vision comes from our mighty 🔥 and deeply empathic 💜 park president (and my dear dear friend) Morgan Monaco.

To read the story on the NY Times website, is this link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/nyregion/mental-health-prospect-park.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

And please take this vision with you into your lives: connection, and specifically community engagement, can disrupt systemic oppression and HEAL. ❤️‍🩹🌟🙌🙏

03/27/2024

🗣️ When Public Speaking Met Private Speaking 🗣️

Our all day workshop on Embodying the Therapist’s Unique Voice—at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium in Washington DC—was a dream come true! 🦄💫💗

PN editor in chief Livia Kent introduced us to our attendees with recognition and care—answering Samara Bay 's call for a “new sound of power”!

Our participants shared their curiosity, vulnerability, hard-earned wisdom, and “mischief” (Samara’s delicious word for finding fresh possibilities). They not only “showed up “ as we’d invited them to do, but they also hyped and supported one another as they did. I’m still overwhelmed by the dynamic listening, openness, creativity, and geneoisty blazing in that room. This is definitely one I’ll never forget. 🔥 💗

Samara Bay! Playing with you has been magical and healing.❤️🌟❤️ I have access to more keys on my “instrument” than I did before, thanks to you!—both inside and outside the therapy room.

And many thanks for the socks! (photo 10) Stepping into POWER never felt so good. Or soft. 🧦 😊 💪 💫

To anyone who joined us—both those of you who are new to the performing art of therapy, and those of you who are seasoned pros—please continue to trust yourselves. Take care of yourselves. And use your selves—in art and in life—with awareness and intention.

On that note, I leave you with my favorite haiku:

In my hut, in spring.
True, there is nothing in it.
There is everything.
-S**o

🙏💛🌟

03/26/2024

The connections I’ve made at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium have been vitalizing!

1: Livia Kent: Editor in chief of Psychotherapy Networker magazine, storyteller, & creative collaborator + Alicia Muñoz, LPC: Top notch therapist, author, & visionary. What a gift to work with them both!

2: Sabrina N'Diaye, PhD: Virtuoso therapist, teacher, holistic healer, artist, and generator of EXQUISITE insights. Her book Big Mama Speaks: Love Lessons from a Harlem River Swan sold out at the ! Get yourself a copy.

3: Elisabeth Morray: VP of clinical operations at Alma wonderful therapist, former ballet dancer, and one of the dearest friends of one of my dearest friends Lian-Marie Holmes Munro

4: Candice Richardson Dickens : Ray of sunshine!
brilliant therapist, & seasoned expert on culturally informed trauma, couples therapy, and mind body work.

5: Juliane Taylor Shore: Awesome! Boundlessly curious therapist, lovely lively person, & author of Setting Boundaries That Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered!

6: Abi Blakeslee, Ph.D, MFT, CMT, SEP: Badass! Founder of Implicit Psychotherapy (book coming soon), first rate clinician, expert trainer of somatic therapy, & one of the warmest and brightest people with whom you could have a chat.

7: : Me, Jules & Abi at Symposium 2023 (which I’d forgotten to post last year…)

Many more not pictured here, including: The extraordinary attendees of the workshop Samara Bay and I did on the therapist’s voice. The ever-inspiring Anna Lock, PsyD !!! Liz Kelly, MSW, LICSW whose fab book This Book is Cheaper Than Therapy just launched.

And PN Director Zach Taylor, MA LPC who embodies the mission to create an environment of connection and possibility for mental health pros.

A perfect reentry to my work life, after recovering from surgery last month.