Writing – Anxiety and Depression

Tame Your Mood is a monthly newsletter focused on the noble challenge of overcoming anxiety and depression. Psychotherapy for depression and anxiety requires many approaches, among which is the critical need to develop your understanding of what these wild moods actually are, how they work and function, and how we can get ensnared. These writings are here to help you build an understanding that supports the uprooting of the wild moods.

Below, you will find about 10 years of writings to help you understand the wild moods more deeply, practices to experiment with, and hopefully inspiration that anxiety and depression are not permanent, and there is actually a way out of them.

 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

January 2026 – The Necessity of Play in Dark Times

I’ve been recently thinking a lot about play. Last year I put out a broadcast to my professional email lists and collected a small group of psychotherapists interested in experimenting with role-playing games as applied to psychotherapy (and group process). This was engendered by a surge of creative and playful energy released by finishing a very not-playful PhD dissertation several years ago. It might seem from the outside like this would be a diversion or distraction from the serious endeavor of the healer, but what I found confirmed what I learned as a young activist in the 1990s and from my work treating depression: play is one of the most serious things we can do.

The following article attempts to articulate that. It’s a big subject, so this is not a treatise or manifesto, but rather an attempt to reflect and comment on the psychological realities of living in authoritarian regimes, one’s own depression being one of them. May it be useful as inspiration and validation to figure out how to weave play both into one’s external and internal revolutions, to fighting with serious play and playful seriousness, for what is the through-line of goodness that defines this collective human life.

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in Authoritarianism / Depression / Play
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

July 2025 – The Proper Use of Our Depression Tools

It’s been a fairly heady run of Internal Family Systems articles these last months (here), hence I wanted to address something a bit more tangible this month. What follows, then, is talking about the tools for working on depression, although not so much in their particularities (the mood journals, exercising, gratitude journal, etc.) but in how to orient in general towards using them (pacing, selection, etc.). As much as we might want a fix-all device, unfortunately tools do not deploy themselves; we are the ones holding the handle of these tools, and thus how we approach them has a lot to do with how useful they are. So, I hope this gives you a clearer framework, a kind of protocol for using all of your tools.

May your summers be appropriately languid and not ennui-ridden; may the heat be enlivening rather than just wilting; may the river water be refreshing rather than merely cold; and may your connections be heart-lifting and plentiful, and not empty. Where it’s the latter rather than the former, I wish your courage and support to meet the difficulties with effective tools, and a willingness to believe that there’s still goodness in the world.

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in Depression / Tools
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

June 2025 – Internal Family Systems and Depression

This month’s article should be the last in the run about Internal Family Systems (IFS), as it is intended to tie all the previous articles together in relationship to depression, which of course is why we’re all here. Specifically, I’m discussing how my basic point that losses of things that are too important to our survival (mental, emotional, or literal) cannot be normally grieved, and thus invite depression. Or simply: depression is a defense against grief when a loss is too important to let go of.

I hope you find this, and all the IFS writing, useful. May your late Spring be giving you an abundance of flowers and only an appropriate number of challenges.

(If you need an IFS refresher, the previous articles are here: the core parts: Protectors, Exiles, Self; and the developmental parts: the Infant/Divine Child, the Child, the Teen, the Young Adult, and the Adult. And for the deep dive into IFS: No Bad Parts [the lay introduction] and Internal Family Systems Therapy [the clinical manual].)

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in Inner Child / Internal Family Systems / Parts
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

April 2025 – Internal Family Systems: The Child Part

This month is the second to last installment in the recent series of articles on IFS; next month will be the roundup and the direct relating of it all to depression. Specifically, I’m rounding out the Parts with a discussion of the Child (distinct from the infant/toddler), which more than others is the Part who plays. It’s also a part that is commonly shut down, either during its time as a child because the environment could not tolerate its aliveness, or during adolescence or early young adulthood, when the Child is seen as an obstruction to the serious business at hand. I hope you find it helpful in further locating who’s who in your own psyche.

(If you need an IFS refresher, the previous articles are here: the core parts: Protectors, Exiles, Self, and the developmental parts: the Infant/Divine Child, the Teen, the Young Adult, and the Adult. And for the deep dive into IFS: No Bad Parts (the lay introduction) and Internal Family Systems Therapy (the clinical manual).)

I hope your spring is starting out well, and the childlike exuberance of new growth is finding its way into your life.

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in Inner Child / Internal Family Systems / Parts
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

March 2025 – Internal Family Systems: The Teenage Part

Continuing on with the series on the Parts of the psyche seen through the lens of Internal Family Systems Theory, here is the entry on the Teenager. The Teen is routinely misunderstood, if not maligned, by adults and parents, who themselves have not come to terms with who and what the teenager is in themselves. This rejection leads to the teenager’s dynamic self turning chaotic, because it is left with no other option for self-expression. This is not to say that the Teen’s nature, and the teenager stage of development, doesn’t encode an unstable relationship between order and chaos, belonging and autonomy. It does, as Dan Siegel (Brainstorm) makes clear. But whether there is a relatively elegant maturing through this stage, and an integration of the Teen Part in later years, depends a lot on how accepting parents are (externally and internally).

Regarding IFS and depression, there are some of these IFS articles which poke at it, but in a few months I will do a summary of “depressed parts” to bring it all together.

May your Springs be coming with some relief from Winter’s severity, and reminding your various parts about the inevitable relatedness of dark and light.

(If you need an IFS refresher, the previous articles are here: Protectors, Exiles, the Infant/Divine Child, the Young Adult, the Adult, the Self, and World Events. And for the deep dive into IFS’s progenitor, Dick Schwartz: No Bad Parts, and the clinical manual, Internal Family Systems Therapy)

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in Internal Family Systems / Parts / Teenager
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

February 2025 – Internal Family Systems: The Adult Part

Apparently I’ve gotten very inspired by Internal Family Systems Theory, because I’m writing again on it here, in this case on the nature of the “Adult” part. I wrote last month about the Young Adult, distinguishing it from the Adult, but did not detail what I meant by that Part. So read on for that clarification, and as ever, I welcome feedback if you are moved to send it.

(If you need a refresher, the previous articles are here: Protectors, Exiles, the Self, the Young Adult, the Divine Child, and World Events. And for the deep dive: No Bad Parts, and the clinical manual, Internal Family Systems Therapy, both by Richard Schwartz.)

May your February be cozy and not bleak, may you see the subtle shades of grey rather than the lack of color, and may you be finding community, support and courage in these chaotic times.

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in Internal Family Systems / Parts / Subpersonalities / Young Adult
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

January 2025 – Internal Family Systems: The Young Adult Part

This month’s article continues the run of Internal Family System (IFS) reflections (on Protectors, Exiles, the Self, and World Events) this time on the Young Adult part. The YA is the part of the psyche that emerges generally (in the West) about early to mid-20’s, when there is a transition from the more protected environments of family and school into having to build out an adult life. This is not the full Adult, which is marked by a stabilized ability to know and accept the world as it is, and regulate the inner world as one navigates with sufficient skill the external world. It’s a difficult and often un-demarcated phase of development, which leads to a blurring of the Adult and YA, an unhelpful conflation. So, the following piece attempts to clarify what the YA is and isn’t, and I hope it helps in spotting this Part in yourself, such that you can keep bringing forward the full Adult. (If the IFS lens is intriguing, you can check out the popular version of IFS, No Bad Parts, and the clinical manual, Internal Family Systems Therapy, both by Richard Schwartz.)

During this winter, may you be finding warmth in the cold, and light in the dark.

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in Internal Family Systems / Self / Young Adult
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

December 2024 – Internal Family Systems: Seeing the World (and Self) Through an IFS Lens

In this article, I will be continuing on with the run of IFS articles (on Exiles, Protectors, and the Self) to give a sketch of IFS applied to ourselves and macro-level actors at a time of such social and political upheaval. To see current reality clearly, we need multiple lenses, but it would seem that an accurate psychological lens is sorely missing. There is much more to be said and explored about psychology and groups than I can cover here, but hopefully the article can give you a sense of what IFS can offer both to understanding, empathy, and compassionate social relationships. Whatever side of the aisle you sit on, hopefully it’s clear that all of those qualities are desperately needed.

If you are in America, may your Thanksgiving have been filled with genuine gratitude, and otherwise may you be finding strength, resilience, and useful challenges in these interesting times.

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in Depression / Internal Family Systems
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

November 2024 – Internal Family Systems and Depression: The Self

In this month’s article, I continue the depiction of how the Internal Family Systems (IFS) “plural mind” model intersects with the phenomenon of depression (you can find the previous article on Protectors here, and Exiles here), with a focus on the Self, what IFS considers the central organizing principle and force of the psyche. Essentially, the Self can be thought of as the archetype of the ideal parent, but one that can and needs to be installed in the middle of our psyche for all the various parts to calm down and collaborate. Arguably, this installation is both what heals depression, and what psychotherapy itself is ultimately about.

IFS is a very rich model which these last articles are only sketching, so if you get interested and want to go further, you can check out the popular version of IFS, No Bad Parts, and the clinical manual, Internal Family Systems Therapy, both by Richard Schwartz.

May your late Fall be full of the richness of darkness, both in its quietude, and in its opportunities for contemplating losses and change.

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in Depression / Internal Family Systems / Self
 by Marty L. Cooper, PhD, MFT

October 2024 – Internal Family Systems and Depression: The Exiles

In this short run of articles about Internal Family Systems (IFS) and depression, we covered last month (see here) the Protector who deploys depression in the service of exiling unwanted parts of the personality. These parts who are ostracized are known as “Exiles” in IFS, and they will be the focus for this month, what they are and how they are related to depression. (To explore in more detail, see No Bad Parts, by Schwartz.)

As another summer is drawing to a close, may you have the space to reflect on these endless cyclical changes, and if you feel any loss with this transition, may you be able to feel that measure of grief and listen to it respectfully. The more we do that, the less our griefs get stuck.

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in Depression / Exiles / Internal Family Systems