Dr. Robert Heller

Happiness and Well-being

According to the recent PBS Special, “The Emotional Life”, the key to happiness and well-being are good relationships with family, friends and lover(s). Relationships seemed to trump, work, money and health. I found the portion on “attachment” or bonding to parents very interesting. Infants brought up in institutions without much “physical touch” seemed to have lots of problems in adjusting early on in life and this continued into adolescence and adulthood.

The good news was that intervention in the form of counseling and therapy was mostly helpful to people in improving their relationships, behavior and adjustment to a wide range of problems and challenges.

In my own clinical practice, I have found methods like EMDR, hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral therapy useful in overcoming long standing problems encountered early on in life.

Former tennis great Andre Agassi’s new autobiography, “Open” should more appropriately have been titled, “Closed”. Closed is how Andre was for most of his life. Although depressed, confused and conflicted for long periods of time, he apparently suffered silently. (more…)

I have been using hypnosis with my clients for many years. More recently, I have used it with some of the elite junior tennis clients I work with and have been very pleased with how well they have responded and how quickly the suggestions have transferred to their match play. (more…)

A study reported in a British Medical Journal looked at males over 50 and found that the most active men, those who did at least 3 hours of sports or workouts per week were estimated to  increase their average life expectancy by 2.3 years. (more…)

A brief introduction to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy by Dr. Robert Heller