Banner image with "Helping you gain self-acceptance to transform your personality, improve relationships, reduce anxiety and depression, and gain contentment" and pottery bowl

About Harper West, Psychotherapist

Harper West is a licensed psychotherapist and expert in improving relationships with yourself and others through self-acceptance. She is an expert in recovery from relationships with narcissistic or abusive partners or parents. Providing relationship therapy using Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy and attachment-focused child and family therapy. Trained in both Mindful Self-Compassion and Compassion-Focused Therapy.

Harper West is a contributing author of #1 Amazon and #4 New York Times bestselling “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” and award-winning “Pack Leader Psychology.”

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer, resulting in something more beautiful than the original. In celebrating a history of imperfections, the art form reminds us to embrace our own flaws, perhaps even finding the shining beauty and value in our healed scars.

Peter Mayer’s song Japanese Bowl (on YouTube) explains this philosophy beautifully.

Photo courtesy www.lakesidepottery.com

The ability to handle shame, imperfection and failure with equanimity is self-actualization and enlightenment.

Hands making a heart shape in front of a sunset

The Power of Self-Acceptance

Do you want to feel more calm, contented and fulfilled? Be truly self-confident? Learn how achieving self-acceptance permanently frees the mind from low self-worth and self-blaming thoughts that lie at the heart of many experiences with anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and other struggles.

Improve Your Relationships

What emotion is most harmful to relationships? The answer may surprise you. Read a real life example of a rocky marriage and learn the root cause of most relationship difficulties, including high-conflict marriages and family relationships, domestic violence, abusive parenting, substance abuse and more.

Contemplative man looking at city skyline, words "Stop Stigma" stamped over image

An Outraged Psychologist Speaks Out

Why are normal human reactions — fear, shame, self-criticism — incorrectly labeled as “mental disorders?” The “disease” model promoted by pharmaceutical manufacturers and our mental health system discourages people from seeking therapy that can lead to solutions to anxiety, depression and more.

Recent Blog Posts

Journal Article: Stories of Ethical Activism in the Age of Trump

I am proud to announce that a Special Edition of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology has been published and I was lead editor and a contributor. The journal is titled "Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Stories of Ethical Activism in the Age of Trump." Thanks to my...

Customize Your Coping Skills During a High-stress Pandemic

Many experts are writing blogs and doing videos on how to improve your coping skills during a high-stress pandemic, such as the situation we are in. One of the most comprehensive and informative I’ve seen is by author Hillary Jacobs Hendel, and despite the title, it...

Video panel on Understanding Trump’s Abusive Behavior in the Time of Pandemic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifaddKoicd8&feature=youtu.be Is America In an Abusive Relationship with Trump? I say yes, of course, because this is exactly what I wrote about in my chapter in "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health...

I write often on topics related to human behavior including self-acceptance, anxiety, depression, shame, trauma, relationships, parenting, mindfulness, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, and more.

Read my Blog