Laura Goorin, PhD

07/28/2026

What helps us remain resilient when life changes in ways we never imagined?

One of the most meaningful lessons I learned from my graduate adviser, renowned resilience researcher George Bonanno, is that resilience is often rooted in what he calls a Flexibility Mindset: our ability to adapt, reassess, and keep moving forward.

In my latest blog, I reflect on this idea through a story of resilience that has stayed with me for years. It's a reminder that even after tremendous loss, we can discover new meaning, purpose, and ways of seeing the world.

Resilience isn't about never struggling. It's about recognizing when something isn't working, adjusting course, and remaining open to new possibilities.

Read the full blog here: https://www.drlauragoorin.com/ponderings-of-a-flexibility-mindset/

I hope it offers encouragement to anyone navigating change or uncertainty.

Over striking decades of astronomical scientific investigations as a world-renowned trauma researcher, George Bonanno, my prolific graduate school adviser, resilience expert, and the tenderest of friends, found that resilience is the predominant response to potential trauma across copious samples wo...

07/14/2026

In a world that can feel "bruised and bleeding," I've been reflecting on a question that feels more important than ever: How do we continue to cultivate hope, resilience, and meaning?

My latest blog explores the psychology and biology of awe, drawing on the work of Toni Morrison, Dacher Keltner, Andrea Weber, and Maria Popova. I reflect on Keltner's Eight Wonders of Life: moral beauty, collective effervescence, nature, music, visual design, spirituality, life and death, and epiphanies, and how these experiences can help us build resilience and find meaning.

🔗 Read the full blog here: https://www.drlauragoorin.com/musings-on-awe-and-the.../

Awe doesn't erase suffering, but it can transform the way we hold it. It reminds us that even amid uncertainty, we remain connected to something larger than ourselves.

Whether it's witnessing an act of kindness, standing in nature, listening to music, or sharing a meaningful moment with others, awe has the power to shift our perspective.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.

07/06/2026

Fifteen years since Amy Winehouse's death, I rewatched the documentary "Amy" and found myself thinking not just about addiction, but about denial.

Her most famous lyric, "they tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no," is one of the most defiant refusals in pop history. It's the opposite of what I think of as Radical Acceptance: the difficult, ongoing choice to accept reality exactly as it is, not as we wish it were.

Her father's line, "my daddy thinks I'm fine," speaks to a different kind of denial: the people around her who couldn't, or wouldn't, accept how much danger she was in.

The most haunting moment? Sober at the Grammys, having just won, she calls it "boring." That's the cruelty of addiction; it flattens even our best moments.

Full piece here: https://www.drlauragoorin.com/what-amy-winehouse-taught-the-world-about-radical-acceptance/

Her story is a reminder to notice our own "no no no" moments and to listen more closely to the people who love us enough to tell us the truth.

In honor of 20 years since Amy Winehouse's calamitous death by alcohol poisoning at age 27, I rewatched “Amy,” the British documentary that I believe was the most tender examination into the deeply soulful star with a voice for days. Grasped through old video footage and heartrending dialogues c...

06/25/2026

Big news: I'm now on Substack! 🎉

I'll be sharing writing on mental health, anxiety, trauma & relationships.

I'd love for you to subscribe and join me there!

🔗

Bilingual Clinical Psychologist (PhD) | Owner, Private Practice | Co-Founder, The Feelings Collective | Adjunct Professor, Columbia University & NYU | Anxiety, Trauma, Loss & Relationships | NYC & Telehealth

06/22/2026

Some songs don't just play, they rip through you.

I call them "Summer Screamer Songs." The ones where rage, loss, or joy crescendo into something that cracks you open. Janis Joplin. Chavela Vargas. Bessie Smith. Mahalia Jackson.

But why those songs? Why that feeling?

In my latest piece, I explore how music can act as a form of catharsis, helping us release joy, grief, longing, rage, and everything in between. Drawing from attachment theory, certain songs become our safe haven, secure base, or even mirrors of our deepest relationships.

Summer is when this is most felt. It's the season of collective joy and quiet loneliness, sometimes in the same afternoon.

🎵 Explore the Full piece & 25-song playlist here: https://www.drlauragoorin.com/summer-playlist-screamer-songs-and-the-ethology-of-catharsis-on-our-attachment-systems/

What's your ultimate Summer Screamer song?

06/15/2026

🏳️‍🌈 Happy Pride Month!

A trans teen I worked with 15 years ago inspired me to found Q-TOWN. What I've learned since: acceptance is medicine. A parent simply trying to use their child's chosen pronouns can stop suicidal ideation overnight. You don't have to be perfect; you have to try.

🌈Read the full post here: https://www.drlauragoorin.com/spoken-from-the-mouths-of-babes-part-2/

Every child deserves to be seen for who they truly are.

Happy Pride month to all my q***r and trans friends. I founded Q***r – Trans or Whatever Network (Q-TOWN), a group for all ages, after working with a trans teen about 15 years ago who inspired a rainbow-shaded movement.

06/01/2026

Have you ever felt truly alone in your pain, like no one could really understand what you were carrying?

AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) is a therapy built around one powerful intention: undoing that aloneness. And the healing? It can start from the very first session.

I just wrote about what AEDP is, why resilience is at its heart, and what transformation in therapy can actually look like.

Read the full post:
https://www.drlauragoorin.com/contemplating-aedp-what-is-it/

05/19/2026

Separation anxiety is one of the most common struggles I see in young children, and one of the most courageous things to work through.

In therapy, we often talk about the power of letting go. But hearing it spoken aloud by a child, in their own words, is something else entirely.

In my latest blog post, I share the story of a 9-year-old who taught me, and herself, what it truly means to let go

Read the full story here:
https://www.drlauragoorin.com/contemplating-separation-as-spoken-from-the-mouths-of-babes/

Sometimes the most profound therapy insights come from the youngest voices.

I once knew a 9-year-old girl who indeed did one of the most prized renditions of therapy with her and me on my website—me with hyper-eyelashes, her with eyes for days, in her depiction of us both engaged in soul-playing.

05/12/2026

I’m sharing some thoughts on sobbing in subways, an underrated verb for a world currently at war with itself.

By blending Durkheim’s "collective effervescence” with the clinical lens of AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), this piece explores how New York’s lack of physical space creates a profound opportunity for undoing aloneness.

Full piece here: https://www.drlauragoorin.com/in-praise-of-subway-sobbing/

You're not alone in this.

As a psychologist, I have been listening to myself prescribing this one to the masses recently. It’s an underrated verb, “sobbing in subways.”

08/21/2022

Heartening research over several decades on the stunning nature of social ties and palliative aspects of friendships on both body and always mind, shows us the inverse of something I see nearly daily as a psychologist: people are rarely suffering when simply undergoing adverse life events, and most often when feeling utterly alone. Undoing aloneness is the work of therapy and the depths of friendships alike.They do a body and mind good.