Author: Velleda C. Ceccoli Ph.D.

PLAY IT AGAIN SAM: On the compulsion to repeat.

There is a Buddhist belief that people come into our life so that we may learn something and/or work through something that we need to resolve before we can move on.  Thus everyone in our lives is a potential teacher, involving us in a relationship with the very thing that we have to work out. […]

THE BONDS THAT HOLD US: ON BLOOD AND LOVE.

This blog is collaboration. While I am writing it, it is based on something that was shared with me regarding a meaningful personal experience in psychotherapy. It was spawned from a posting on authenticity (https://www.drceccoli.com/2011/07/on-being-authentic/) in which I described the potential curative power of relationships that rely on the sharing of felt experience. This got […]

THE NUTCRACKER – On Being A Soldier Through Life.

During the recent holiday season, on my daily commute to the office, I walked by a poster of New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker, smiling at the familiar image of rosey-cheeked wooden soldiers and the memories that it elicited of my childhood. Until one morning as I walked by, it elicited something else, the image of […]

HE SAID, SHE DID: A return to gender stereotypes or the recipe for gender fluidity?

He leads, she follows. This is the simple truth of tango. Because of this, many have the misconception that tango is a man’s dance. But this is not true. Tango is a dance of equals – different and equal. Read on, you’ll see. Tango, the music and the dance, was borne with the European immigration […]

Between The Word And The Deed/Entre Lo Dicho y Lo Hecho – A poem/Un poema

Poetry seems to access emotions through words. Poetry moves language beyond its daily use, shifting it beyond itself to the language of emotion. Much like music and art, poetry speaks to us in a direct and most personal way. I originally wrote this poem in Spanish, years ago. Here it is below, in both English […]

THE LIGHT AND DARK OF HOLIDAYS – the winter of our discontent?

Twas’ the night before Christmas and all through New York, all the people were smiling and nodding and caroling about. OK not really, but people do seem to be taken by the holiday spirit, many gather by the tree in Rockefeller center looking up at it and taking photographs. Others seem busy buying presents for […]

ON BREAKING BREAD – and the meaning of food.

Yes this post is about food. Tis’ the time for merry making and this often involves food, and also potential excess. It got me thinking about food and what it means to us. It got me thinking that the way we use and consume food says a great deal about us. It got me thinking […]

THE LANGUAGE OF AFFECT: feelings and emotions.

I have been thinking about emotions and feelings lately, and about how differently people respond to them. There are those people who treat their emotions and feelings as valuable sources of information, considering them like their third eye or ear, a personal route to felt, implicit knowledge. Such people approach their feelings with a sense […]