Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

June 17th, 2020

Sit upright in a chair with your feet flat on the floor. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Relax your whole body and do a body scan starting from your feet and slowly going up focusing on being present in each part of your body. Release any remaining tension. Now slowly rise up in your mind to a view from above your body. Look at the world and everything in it in detail, observing the high mountains and the seas, the wildlife and domesti …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

June 11th, 2020

Sometimes I go outside to sit on my chair in my yard and eat lunch. It’s the same flowers, the same ground underneath my feet, the same as yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Or I’ll play piano and say so what? So I can play this piece a little bit better than yesterday. Is that what life is all about? What is the point? Those are the times I have lost my consciousness. Then I wake up to a higher consciousness. No! …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

June 3rd, 2020

Logos is deeper than logic. We have within us a deep, intuitive grasp of meaning. This inner guide is more reliable than rational explanations and it is in our best interest to trust it.   The logotherapeutic goal is to identify the meaning crisis and uncover the client’s intuitive sense that will allow them to make meaningful choices. To this end, the logotherapist does not sit with a pen and paper to carefully gather lots of informa …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

May 28th, 2020

People who have had near death experiences report that they learned they we were sent to this world in order to learn certain things and in order to love. Viktor Frankl wrote that salvation is in and through love. In the words of rabbi Akiva, love is the ‘great principle’ of Torah (i.e the written and oral Jewish tradition). Another Torah giant, Hillel the elder commented that ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ sums up the e …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

May 20th, 2020

Fear of God generates courage. Yet, it is still called fear. People put their foot on the brake when the sign warns of a speed trap because they don’t want to get a ticket. In Jewish tradition, this is called fear of punishment. It is viewed as a lower spiritual level because it is egocentric. The driver would not be afraid if he didn’t think a camera was filming him. Even without a camera, knowing that someone is watching stops you. …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

May 13th, 2020

If you had an intentional choice to make, would you choose fear? A Talmudic source believes that fear is the basis for our healthy choices.   An angel by the name of Layla is appointed over pregnancy. The angel takes a drop [of semen], holds it up before the Creator and says ‘Master of the Universe, what will become of this drop: courageous or weak, wise or foolish, rich or poor?’ The angel does not say ‘evil or righteous,& …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

May 6th, 2020

Why does choice matter? It is only because we are free to choose that we are held accountable for our choices. If we have no choice in our actions then there is no such thing as crime and we might as well let all the prisoners go free. As a society we assume that when someone chooses wrongly they could have chosen rightly.   What kind of power is the power of choice?   See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adver …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

April 29th, 2020

My newly organized music jamming group was interrupted when the ministry of health banned social gatherings. My daughter gave birth but I could not visit my newborn grandchild. Everyone has similar stories. There is a saying in Yiddish ‘Man plans and God laughs.’ This is the year of disrupted plans. Disrupted plans cast doubt on our freedom of choice. Someone builds a house and it’s swept away by a tsunami. A newly certified pr …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

April 23rd, 2020

Do you feel like your life is going where you want it to? Do you believe that your past experience makes change impossible? Establishing freedom of choice is the first step towards spiritual and emotional and progress. Inner change depends on inner freedom. How do you know you have freedom of choice? For Viktor Frankl choice is self-evident. Actually only two types of people maintain that their will is not free; schizophrenic patients suffering f …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

April 16th, 2020

We are being challenged today at a fast pace to change our habits and our lifestyle. It feels a little bit like being an adolescent again, being imposed upon by stifling rules that cause me to declare with an impudent tone ‘Why should I?’ The truth is, it is a legitimate question. Why should I sacrifice my comfort? Why should I invest time and effort? I have to have a good reason. Sometimes all we want is pity. We want to complain. We …
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