What to Expect at Your First Therapy Session

If you’re thinking about going to therapy for the first time, you might feel a mix of emotions: excitement to get a professional’s take on issues that are bothering you, anxiety and awkwardness about opening up.

All of those feelings are valid (which is something you’re about to start hearing a lot). “It’s natural to feel nervous—you’re challenging societal norms that encourage you to stay quiet, endure, and push through,” says Amie Grant, the owner of Take Up Space Therapy Services in Cleveland. But in therapy you can reject those expectations and honor your voice, your needs, and your truth, she says.

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Krista Jordan, a clinical psychologist in Austin, reiterates that going to therapy for the first time can feel even more stressful if you don’t know what to expect. To quell your nerves, it can be helpful to keep in mind that therapists are just people, and that as a part of their training, most have been in therapy themselves, “so we know what it’s like to sit on the couch side of the room.”

Here’s exactly what to expect at your first therapy appointment, and how to set yourself up for success.

What happens before your first appointment

Many therapists offer a 10-20 minute complimentary consultation call to see if you feel it’s a good fit before booking a formal session. If you decide to move forward, they will likely have you fill out paperwork covering insurance information, basic medical history, what you hope to achieve in therapy, and any medications you take. Some practitioners try to screen for certain conditions like depression or anxiety in advance of your first session, so you may fill out one or more of these mental-health questionnaires before your appointment, then review the results in your first session, says Jordan.

Therapy has started. Now what?

“When I’m as prepared as possible in any situation, I’m less nervous,” says Sheri Langston, a licensed professional counselor and director of Rocky Mountain Therapy Group in Denver. Therapy is no exception.

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Most appointments are between 45 and 55 minutes, though some forms of therapy may last up to two hours. All therapists conduct their sessions differently depending on factors like what kind of therapy they practice, their personality, and how they prefer to structure meetings.

But all therapy modalities share one commonality: You’ll be talking about your feelings. (No getting around that part.)

Body talk

You’ll likely sit facing your therapist, says Jordan, since therapists are trained to read facial expressions and body language. Seeing your therapist’s face and body while you talk to them can also assuage some of your fears, says Jordan. “For example, if you are worried that you are saying something that makes you look like a loser, but you see that your therapist has a warm look of compassion on their face, it can help you to believe that maybe people don’t see you as a loser,” she says. “Seeing your therapist’s reactions to what you say can actually be part of the growth process.”

However, lots of people are uncomfortable with prolonged eye contact, so know that it’s OK not to stare at the therapist every second. If your session is in-person, the therapist will often deliberately have art or knickknacks around the room that you can look at when you need a break from looking directly at them, she says.

Similarly, if you’re in a virtual therapy session, feel free to look away from the screen periodically to give yourself a break.

The one exception to these face-to-face set-ups is for psychoanalysis, which is conducted with the client lying down and looking away from the analyst, but “most therapies no longer do that arrangement,” says Jordan.

Settle in

Not sure where to sit? “If there is a sofa or cushy chair, that is for you,” Langston says. “The biggest clue is: look for the box of tissues and sit there.”

So once the session begins, should you break out a pen and notepad? Grab the tissues? Start talking or let the therapist steer the show?

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The truth is, most new therapy patients are anxious before their first session, and therapists know this and will do their best to put you at ease. “Walking into your first session—whether virtually or in person—can feel like stepping into unfamiliar territory, but know this: you belong here,” says Grant. 

She always starts sessions for new patients by explaining her approach to therapy. She also urges patients to release their pressure to perform: “You don’t need a detailed life story or perfect answers. The fact that you showed up is enough,” Grant says. And remember: “You’re in control of how much you share.”

What to talk about

Many people don’t realize that the first therapy session—often called an “intake”—isn’t about going deep, Jordan says. A good therapist will take time to get to know you, she says, and doesn’t need you to divulge all the most painful things you’ve experienced on day one. 

“Therapists are actually trained not to let you talk about all the gory details of trauma in the first session,” says Jordan. “Even if you eventually get around to talking about really difficult memories, we are trained to do it in small pieces so that you don’t fall apart and can’t function the rest of the day.”

Instead, focus on things like what’s been bothering you in the past week, stress about an upcoming event, or a work incident that rubbed you the wrong way. Jordan says you can also discuss goals that you would like to pursue, like learning to be more assertive or better at identifying your emotions.

Share your goals

It can also reduce your pre-session anxiety to have a short version of what you hope to accomplish in therapy ready, such as “I’d like to work on self-esteem” or “I want to stop repeating negative partner choices,” says Jordan. If the conversation stalls or you’re not sure what to say next, it’s OK to ask the therapist, “Can you help me understand what would be useful to talk about?” she adds.

It’s the therapist’s job to be flexible. “I’ve had clients who prefer to share as little as possible until they get to know me better,” Langston says. “Sometimes a client will say, ‘I’d rather talk about that in a later session’ or ‘I’m not ready to talk about this yet.’ Any compassionate, person-centered therapist not only understands, but will appreciate your honesty and will honor your words.”

Give yourself time

As you build a foundation with your therapist, remember that the first session (or even the first few sessions) are just as much about them getting to know you as you getting to know them and determine if they are a good fit for you.

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Things might feel a little awkward during those early sessions, and that’s normal, says Grant. After introductions in an intake meeting, Grant asks about the person’s goals, challenges they’re facing, and what support looks like to them.

People shouldn’t expect to “feel better” after the initial session, Langston adds. Initial sessions are about information gathering, so expect a lot of questions as your therapist gets to know you and your needs. “All of this is to build a treatment plan that’s personalized for you,” says Langston. 

Remember to ask questions

Some therapists may devote the last few minutes of an intake session for you to ask questions, recap what you’ve discussed, and determine action plans; they may even give you a “homework” assignment to try before your next meeting. Before your session ends, Langston recommends patients ask two questions:

1. “What are my treatment goals?” You and your therapist will together decide on the goals for therapy.
2. “How often should we meet?” Therapists typically like to see clients at a regular cadence such as weekly or once every two weeks in order to meet treatment goals.

As for actually remembering—and putting into practice—key takeaways from your session? During therapy, some people might find it useful to jot down important advice and next steps by hand or on their phone, while others prefer to partake in the session without any note-taking (you could also ask your therapist to share their personal notes with you after your meeting).

Another option is to write down notes immediately after a session while your thoughts are fresh. Some people also like to record their therapy sessions to review later; just ask your therapist if this is okay with them.

What to do after your first session

Take a deep breath and give yourself some time to reflect after a therapy session. For those conducting their session virtually, you may want to take a walk around your block to clear your head and mark a transition between activities, rather than hopping right back into your inbox, checking the stock market, or cooking dinner.

“You don’t need to decide right away whether this therapist is ‘the one,’” says Grant. She suggests asking yourself questions like “Did I feel comfortable?” and “Could I see myself opening up to this person over time?” Still, she says, if the answer is uncertain, that’s normal, so you may have to give yourself more time or more sessions to decide.

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If you realize a therapist isn’t the right fit right away, however, Grant says you should have no qualms about not scheduling any further sessions with them. “If you feel comfortable, you can let them know directly. A simple statement like, ‘I don’t feel this is the right match for me, but I appreciate your time,’ can help you close that chapter,” she says.  

In some situations, you may feel a therapist is a good match but have feedback for them. This kind of constructive feedback can take several forms, Grant says:

• “Can we slow down a bit next time? I need time to process.”
• “I’d like more structure or specific tools to take away from our sessions.”
• “I feel like we’ve been focusing on [X topic], but I want to shift toward [Y topic].”

Since your therapist is there to support you, a negative or dismissive response to you voicing your opinion may be a sign to part ways with a practitioner, says Grant.

In general, therapists have thicker skin than you might think, and all good therapists want what’s best for the patient, so they won’t take things personally if you decide to part ways.

“It’s OK to shop around for a therapist that meets your needs. Try to determine the criteria that are important to you,” says Langston. She often ends initial sessions by telling clients that if she’s not a good fit for them, they shouldn’t feel obligated to continue. “I want my clients to feel comfortable—it’s their time and their therapy,” she says. “If you are with a therapist that isn’t a good fit, it will hinder the therapeutic process.”

“There have been 50 years of research on what makes therapy work,” Jordan says. “The only thing all of these studies agree on is that you have to feel that you have a good fit with your therapist.” 

source https://time.com/7201659/what-to-expect-therapy/

The 10 Best Movie Performances of 2024

We watch movies for so many reasons: the spectacle of great cinematography, the experience of connecting with a director’s ideas, the sheer pleasure of watching a story unfold before us. But we all know, deep down, that it’s the allure of faces that really draws us. Actors open a direct conduit between us and the screen, sending a current of energy we can can feel in our very bones. Screens are such a huge part of our everyday lives: we read words there, we look at numbers and play games there, and we process lots and lots of images. But even on those days we feel we can’t spend another minute looking at a screen, there’s always a face that beckons.

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Here are 10 performances that gave me great joy or moved me deeply—or both—in the last year. Every one is a tribute to what actors, at their best, can do—and a reason to keep going to the movies, one of the best ways to feel connected to other humans in an often inhumane world.

Also read TIME’s best podcasts, TV shows, movies, video games, fiction books, nonfiction books, albums, and songs of 2024.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths

Is the main character of Mike Leigh’s acutely observed and deeply moving film Hard Truths a misanthrope? A person suffering through grief or serious depression or both? A human in physical pain who can find no relief? Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman whom no one can stand to be around for long. She berates cashiers and salespeople as a matter of course. Her husband and grown son tiptoe around her, hoping to avoid her scowling tirades. Her sister (played by the superb Michelle Austin) is the only person who has any patience with her, and even she loses it now and then. Neither Leigh nor Jean-Baptiste telegraph in any obvious way the reasons for Pansy’s behavior. Instead, they simply invite us to get to know her, resplendent in both her anger and her veiled emotional anguish. Pansy is impossible. But you might find yourself thinking about her long after the film is over, wondering how she’s doing, as if she were a real person. That’s how great Jean-Baptiste is in this role. It’s the performance of the year.

Daniel Craig, Queer

Daniel Craig is one of our great shapeshifters, able to segue from a tuxedo’ed James Bond into a lovesick gay adventurer with seemingly very little effort. In Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, adapted from William Burroughs’ autobiographical novel of the same name, Craig plays Bill Lee, a muscular lothario swaggering through postwar Mexico City in search of drink, drugs, and men, perhaps not necessarily in that order. It seems as if his libido is the vital force holding him together; as Craig plays him, he’s mercurial, evasive, manipulative. But it turns out he’s capable of love, too. The object of his affection is a possibly straightish American named Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), who doesn’t always return his ardor in equal measure. Yet in Allerton’s presence, Lee becomes a charmer who seems as guileless as a stammering schoolboy. This is a muscular, erotic performance, but the tenderness shining through is what makes it. That’s the sizzling enchantment Craig, at his best, is capable of.

Nicole Kidman, Babygirl

Nicole Kidman is one of the few big-time movie stars who can still surprise us. In Halina Reijn’s Babygirl, she plays Romy, a top executive at an Amazon-type company, who has everything she could want out of life: gorgeous city and country dwellings, a hot, adoring husband (played by Antonio Banderas), two teenage daughters who don’t give her too much trouble. Then a smoldering intern, Harris Dickinson’s Samuel, creeps into her life. At first, she rebuffs him; then she can’t seem to live without him. Babygirl is steamy, all right. But it also lays bare all sorts of feelings and desires that people often feel uncomfortable talking about. As Romy, Kidman draws emotions from deep within, bring them into the open like night-blooming flowers. We feel the crackle of her attraction to Samuel, as well as her regret that she doesn’t feel quite the same way about her loyal spouse. Sometimes Romy’s adventures lead to moments of embarrassment—Kidman knows how to get a laugh. Yet she’s deeply affecting, too. Babygirl is partly an exploration of shame, and our reasons for feeling it. Kidman, a figure of nearly unearthly perfection and beauty, is fearless about facing what some may call ugly truths—though if desire is part of what makes us human, the last thing we should be calling it is ugly.

Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Two cousins who used to be close but have grown apart, Jesse Eisenberg’s David and Kieran Culkin’s Benji, take a trip to Poland to honor their late grandmother, who’d grown up there—and who’d survived internment at Majdanek Concentration Camp, which will be the most painful stop on their tour. David, who lives in Brooklyn, has a wife and kid, and a decent job. Benji lives in Binghamton and, it’s suggested, gets by doing odd jobs. He’s been hit hard by the death of his grandmother; he’s the kind of sensitive soul who sometimes needs to be shielded from the harshness of the world. A Real Pain, which Eisenberg both wrote and directed, hands the spotlight to Culkin’s performance, even though the two actors are technically co-stars. Culkin plays Benji as a gregarious cutup, a guy who makes friends everywhere he goes by striking up cheerful, inquisitive conversations—he has a knack for simultaneously annoying people and endearing himself to them. But as this gem of a movie works its magic, we come to see that what makes Benji exasperating is also what makes him great. He’s alive to the present every moment, the best way to live but not the easiest. Culkin moves through the picture with the figurative grace of a tap dancer. Because sadness isn’t always a stultifyingly heavy thing; sometimes it’s just the thing you’ve got to learn to carry along with you, unbowed.

Mikey Madison, Anora

Sean Baker’s Anora is both a screwball romantic comedy and a heartbreaker: Mikey Madison stars as the Anora of the title, though she prefers to go simply by Ani—coming around to the regal quality of her full given name is part of the movie’s surprise ending. Ani is a dancer and sex worker who lives in Brighton Beach: her job at a strip club pays the bills, but who could blame her for wanting more? She thinks she’s found that “more” in rich-kid Ivan (Mark Eydelshtein), who sweeps her off her feet. Ani is an opportunist; you see it in her mischievously glittering eyes when Ivan proposes to her—she taps her engagement-ring finger to indicate that he’s got to produce a diamond, a big one. But Madison gradually reveals what’s beneath Ani’s protective armor. Her face—joyful, expectant, but also sober and watchful as she fears that the happy ending she hopes for is slipping away—carries you through the movie. Forget the ring; you want the world for her.

Colman Domingo, Sing Sing

Sometimes it’s what an actor doesn’t do that makes a performance. In Greg Kwedar’s based-on-real-life drama Sing Sing, a group of incarcerated men at the notorious upstate New York correctional facility embrace a prison theater program that gives some of them their first taste of Shakespeare. Colman Domingo plays one of those men, John “Divine G.” Whitfield, who’s serving a sentence for a crime he didn’t commit, hoping his name will someday be cleared. He helps oversee the theater program, and spots the potential of Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (a real-life alumnus of a similar arts program, playing a version of himself), the toughest guy in the yard. Divine G is frustrated that his own ambition—to have the play he’s written performed by the company—is consistently thwarted. And he clashes with Divine Eye, a gifted actor who resists the emotional openness necessary to give a great performance. Everything Domingo does here is behind the beat. He watches and listens with precision and clarity, giving Maclin the space he needs to shine. Still, he too appears to glow, quietly, from his very core. With Divine G, Domingo shows us a man who understands there’s nothing easy about redemption. It’s a fire that needs constant tending and care, but the warmth of the flame is its own reward.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys

In RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s devastating inspired-by-real-life novel, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Hattie, the grandmother of a smart, ambitious young man, Elwood (Ethan Herisse), who’s sent to a cruel reform school after a wrong-place, wrong-time arrest. The movie opens in the early 1960s; we see how Hattie wraps the young Elwood in a cocoon of love and security. Later, her anguish over his unjust plight—and her inability to rectify it—is both a galvanizing force and a heartrending reality. A scene in which she tries to visit her grandson, showing what happens when she’s sent away, opens a door into the world of warmth and generosity this character has built over a lifetime. Ellis-Taylor forges a great performance from small, lived-in moments; the film breathes, and expands, whenever she’s on-screen.

Yura Borisov, Anora

To describe in too much detail what Yura Borisov does in Sean Baker’s Anora risks giving away the movie’s ending, an astonishing and deeply moving sequence that needs to be experienced first-hand. So let’s just say that Borisov—as Igor, a Russian thug hired to guard the movie’s main character, a sex worker named Ani (the marvelous Mikey Madison)—shows what an actor can do with a glance, glimpsed at the edge of a movie frame. How does Igor feel about America, about the Brooklyn apartment he shares with his grandmother, about a woman’s place in the world? Borisov says it all with his eyes. Anora is worth seeing twice: the second time, once you know where Borisov’s character ends up, you can focus on how he gets there, and marvel.

Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl

There’s something spellbinding about seeing a woman—especially a woman of a certain age—face the camera with a near-naked face. In Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, Pamela Anderson plays Shelly, a longtime Vegas dancer—part of an old-school troupe, stepping out in spangled unitards and precarious jeweled headdresses night after night—who learns her show is closing. A dancer in her fifties doesn’t have many options, and Shelly scrambles to find a new gig. We see Shelly mostly in her off hours, without her heavy stage makeup, just going about her days and nights. And though there should be nothing unusual about this, Anderson’s take-me-as-I-am face intensifies both the vulnerability and the defiance she brings to the role. There’s nothing more honest, and perhaps more unforgiving, than the face you start with at the beginning of the day. As Shelly, Anderson silently makes the case for greeting it as friend, not foe.

Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown

Edward Norton is so clearly serious about his craft that in the first few minutes of any of his performances I find myself thinking, “Oh, come off it, Mr. Actor Man!” Then before I know it I’m a total mess of emotion, ready to follow him anywhere. In James Mangold’s glorious, mysterious not-quite-a-biopic A Complete Unknown, Norton plays legendary folksinger Pete Seeger, a man with sunshine in his voice—but also one who stood up fearlessly to the House Un-American Activities Committee. In A Complete Unknown, we watch as he befriends and protects the young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), newly arrived from Minnesota in New York, ready to invent himself. Norton’s Seeger is in awe of what he sees and hears in the young Dylan; a pretty buoyant guy to begin with, he’s rapt every time his young protegée opens his mouth to sing. As great and unknowable as the former Robert Zimmerman eventually became—and still is—he didn’t become Bob Dylan all by himself. Seeger helped fan the spark with his casual generosity, and that’s the spirit Norton captures here, in a performance as sweet and clear as the whistle of a teakettle, a train coming down the track, a bird celebrating the bright blue sky.

source https://time.com/7201920/best-movie-performances-2024/

The 20 Best Christmas TV Episodes

During the holidays many people have plenty of time to sit around the house, staring at their televisions. And while you could be watching some of the new programming that’s set to premiere over this time, why not get in the spirit by revisiting some of our favorite Christmas, Hanukkah, and Festivus episodes? (Okay, well there’s only one Festivus.) 

Over the course of TV history, series from serious dramas (Mad Men) to goofy comedies (Friends) have made Christmas-themed installments a fabric of their narratives. Here, we’ve compiled some of our favorites, presented from oldest to newest. Some are ones you know and love, hopefully others will be new discoveries. 

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“The Alan Brady Show Presents,” The Dick Van Dyke Show (1963)

This episode of Dick Van Dyke is basically just an incredible showcase for the talented cast to show off their ability to sing and dance. The concept is that they are appearing in a special installment of The Alan Brady Show, the series for which they write. Want to see Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke do a number in giant Santa suits? You’re covered here. 

“Christmas and the Hard Luck Kid II,” The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970)

In this early Mary Tyler Moore episode, Mary is forced to work over the Christmas holiday so she can’t go home to her family. On top of that, she gets guilt-tripped into subbing in for someone else on Christmas Eve, which she had planned to spend with Rhoda. While her boss Lou Grant is the one that first gets her into this mess, of course he turns out to be one big softie.

“Death Takes a Holiday,” M*A*S*H (1980) 

Celebrations are cut short when the doctors have to contend with a soldier who was shot by a sniper. B.J. makes the call to keep him alive until the holiday is over so his children don’t have to think of Christmas as the day their dad died. A reminder that for as funny as this show was, it was also about people whose jobs involve life and death. 

“So-Called Angels,” My So-Called Life (1994) 

The particularly sensitive teen show My So-Called Life verges into magical realism territory in this episode which, yes, involves the presence of an actual angel played by singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield. But it’s also a tender story that revolves around Rickie, a revolutionary gay character, whose uncle abuses him and kicks him out. Seeking to help Rickie, now unhoused, Angela and her mother run into this mysterious girl. 

“A Rugrats Chanukah,” Rugrats (1996)

Those of us Jewish children have long taken solace in the fact that Rugrats did a Chanukah-themed episode. In a world where all of our favorite TV characters celebrated Christmas, it was nice to have these Hebraic babies. The meat of the episode revolves around Tommy Pickles and his pals putting themselves in the saga as “Maccababies.” The pun alone was worth it.

“The Strike,” (1997)  

It’s wild to think that the concept of Festivus didn’t emerge until the final season of Seinfeld, given the impact it has had on culture. Frank Costanza’s miraculous invented holiday—a reaction to the commercialization of Christmas with an aluminum pole to boot—helps George out of a bind when he gives fake donation cards to his coworkers. We should all air our grievances at this time.

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz,” Frasier (1998)

In this brilliantly constructed Frasier farce, Frasier is set up on a blind date with the daughter of a woman he meets while Christmas shopping. But turns out that woman thinks he’s Jewish—he was buying a menorah—so Dr. Crane and his new paramour decide to keep up the act while her mom visits. Cue Niles, dressed as Jesus, hiding in a bathroom with a Christmas tree. Still, the payoff is the best. The woman and her mother have it out, hug, and make up, so Frasier and his dad Martin try arguing like Jews. It doesn’t work quite as well for these repressed goys.

“The One with the Holiday Armadillo,” Friends (2000)

The title really says it all, doesn’t it? Nothing says the holidays like the image of David Schwimmer in an Armadillo costume speaking to one of the baby Sprouses (okay, it’s Cole). Ross wants to teach his son Ben (the Sprouse) about Jewish traditions and forgo dressing up as Santa, but is resigned to his fate when the kid thinks a lack of Santa means he’s bad. Unable to get a Santa costume on short notice, however, he settles for the Armadillo, a wonderfully grotesque ensemble. 

“Forgiveness and Stuff,” Gilmore Girls (2000)

A lot of Gilmore Girl fans put the second season episode “The Bracebridge Dinner” on their lists of the best Christmas episodes. But while I think “Bracebridge” captures a general Gilmorean twinkly spirit, I’m not sure it hits at the sadness that’s at the root of the show. “Forgiveness and Stuff” does that. It’s a follow-up to the great Season 1 “Rory’s Dance” episode, which ends with everyone fighting. Gilmore matriarch Emily un-invites Lorelai from the annual Christmas dinner, which descends into chaos anyway when Richard ends up in the hospital. Upon hearing the news Lorelai goes into panic mode, and arrives with Luke in tow. There’s a lot of bitterness but also the kind of qualified, not-so-saccharine resolution that makes Gilmore so good.

“Mary, Joseph and Larry,” Curb Your Enthusiasm (2002)  

Do you want Christmas cheer? Don’t leave it to Larry David. This Curb Christmas involves Larry pissing off his wife Cheryl’s WASP-y family, and recruiting actors from a living manger scene to recreate their display on his lawn. Larry ends up hitting on the actress playing Mary, which results in Joseph and Larry wrestling. That ends up dislodging the disgusting foreign item in Larry’s throat.

“The Best Chrismukkah Ever,” The O.C. (2003) 

Ah, yes, The O.C. episode that started a phenomenon. Here Seth Cohen introduces the idea of Chrismukkah—the hybrid holiday for this half-Jew. He also proves himself the dumbest cutie pie alive trying to get with both his love interests, Summer and Anna, on this blessed holiday. Summer proves her love in a Wonder Woman costume, but the women end up rejecting him when they learn how he has tried to have it all. Meanwhile, Marissa shoplifts and is sad. Typical. 

“A Benihana Christmas,” The Office (2006)

The Office served up a double dose of holiday awkwardness with this two-parter featuring a depressed Michael Scott. He spirals after his girlfriend Carol breaks up with him and ends up at Benihana with Andy, Dwight, and Jim. Back at the office there’s a war of parties with Pam and Karen on one side and Angela on the other. 

“Roman Holiday,” Gossip Girl (2007)

Gossip Girl knows there’s nothing like Christmastime in New York, and this episode opens with the girls of Constance Billard all bundled up and singing a rendition of “Santa Baby” on their school steps. From there, Blair goes on a rampage when her dad brings home his new boyfriend, and Serena seeks the perfect gift for Dan. She ends up creating a snow scene in his dad’s gallery and they have sex.

“Ludachristmas,” 30 Rock (2007)

“It wouldn’t be a Lemon party without old Dick!” There are so many wonderfully caustic plotlines in this perfect 30 Rock episode. Liz Lemon’s loving parents are in town, which Jack’s mother (the legendary Elaine Stritch) sees as a challenge. She sets out with the goal of showing they are just as full of resentment as any other family. As that unfolds, the rest of the TGS staff is trying to throw a rager only to get foiled by Kenneth, who wants to show everyone the true meaning of Christmas. It’s beautifully bitter—just the way Christmas is for so many. 

“Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” Community (2010)

Television-obsessed Abed of Community would naturally imagine a scenario that’s an ode to the beloved stop-motion specials of yore. In “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” he sees his fellow study group as animated characters. As a bonus, it’s also a musical. 

“Grinches Be Crazy,” Happy Endings (2011)

Do I just want more people to watch Happy Endings? Yes, I do. But this episode has all the hijinks I love from this series. Max, played by Adam Pally, decides to work as Santa at a charity event because he needs money. Alex wants to prove that her gift coupons are worth something. Brad and Jane accidentally give their housekeeper their trip money. 

“Christmas Waltz,” Mad Men (2012)

The beautiful thing about “Christmas Waltz” is the rare Mad Men scene that focuses on Don and Joan. In a bar filled with Christmas lights, they take stock of all the sorrows of the holiday. There is flirtation as Joan discusses her impending divorce, but also a deep mutual respect. It’s platonic and, at the same time, one of the most romantic sequences in the show. 

“Santa,” New Girl (2012) 

I have a soft spot for this “New Girl” episode where the gang tries to hit multiple holiday parties in one night. It all coincides with Nick’s insecurity over his new girlfriend, a stripper played by Olivia Munn. Jess, meanwhile, is freaking out about the presence of Sam, who rejected her at Halloween. But perhaps the best plotline involves Winston, who thinks Santa may be real and gets a cranberry stuck in his ear.

“The 12 Hours of Christmas,” Mythic Quest (2022) 

Mythic Quest is one of the best new shows about how your job can become your life, which is why this Christmas episode hits so hard. Employees of the title video game are forced to work during the holiday to keep the servers up and running, which means tensions are running high. It’s an ideal powder keg for comedy. 

“Fishes,” The Bear (2023)

The Bear‘s second season offered up a beautifully depressing Christmas episode in “Fishes,” which flashes back to show the roots of Carmy’s trauma. It features an insane amount of famous actors in small roles—everyone from John Mulaney to Sarah Paulson—but it’s Jamie Lee Curtis who steals the show as the unstable matriarch of the Berzatto clan. 

source https://time.com/7201123/best-christmas-tv-episodes/

What Trump Said About Elon Musk in his TIME Person of the Year Interview

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.

President-elect Donald Trump tells TIME in his Person of the Year interview that he may reject spending bills sent to him from Congress if they do not match the cuts prescribed by a cost-cutting plan being drafted by billionaire advisers Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The potential threat may give the pair the juice they need to force lawmakers to take their recommendations seriously, avoiding the irrelevance that met so many of their predecessors.

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In an interview with TIME journalists published Thursday, the former and future President also discounted potential conflicts of interest for Musk, whose private businesses have received more than $15 billion in federal contracts going back a decade and stand to have billions more funneled their way in years to come. Musk, the world’s richest man and an omnipresent figure in Trump’s planning for a return to power, is to most objective observers far from a neutral player in the deep-pocketed intersection of government and private partners.

But that appearance matters little to Trump, he tells TIME. 

“I think that Elon puts the country long before his company,” Trump says. “He considers this to be his most important project, and he wanted to do it. And, you know, I think, I think he’s one of the very few people that would have the credibility to do it, but he puts the country before, and I’ve seen it, before he puts his company.”

As the owner of SpaceX, Musk effectively controls when NASA launches its rockets. The Defense Department has paid SpaceX more than $3 billion to get its satellites into orbit. Last year alone, SpaceX and Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer, had deals with 17 federal agences—organizations that, as Trump has proposed, are at the mercy of an outside review panel known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Asked directly about the potential dueling priorities, Trump doubled-down on Musk, one of the most generous fiscal backers of his campaign and affiliates.

“Look, we have a country that is bloated with rules, regulations and with, frankly, people that are unnecessary to do. We are going to need a lot of people in a lot of other jobs. We’re looking to get people into private sector jobs where they can do better and be more productive,” Trump said. “We’re going to see what happens. But this country is bloated.”

But Congress, ultimately, controls the purse, a fact that has bedeviled Presidents of both parties. Asked if he would veto spending plans that didn’t match the Musk-Ramaswamy proposals, Trump said he would consider it. But he also added he could move unilaterally. 

“There are many things you can do without Congress,” Trump said.

During his unsuccessful campaign, Ramaswamy made executive action one of his biggest pitches to voters and has a novel framework for getting that job done. From the outside, Musk, too, has advocated a leaner government and offered to run the program for Trump during a campaign chat on X, which was known as Twitter when Musk bought it in 2022. Trump, never one to be burdened by details, has been more than happy to look at the big-picture goals and leave the annoyances to underlings. 

For instance, Trump tells TIME he wants “a virtual closure” of the Department of Education. A few folks would remain to make sure subjects like English and math are being taught but otherwise would offload responsibilities to states. In this vision, Trump sees spending per student to be cut in half but outcomes would improve. (TIME’s Solcyré Burga has a breakdown of Trump’s full plan and its implications on civil rights, student loans, and standardized tests here.)

“A lot of these states … are well-run states,” Trump says, pointing at Iowa and Indiana, two states that, according to the federal dataset commonly called The Nation’s Report Card, outpace the national average.

In that data-driven approach to government, the Musk-Ramaswamy cost-cutting agenda has already drawn some begrudging support from Democrats. But that worry—especially in the hands of mercurial billionaires like that pair—remains that the cuts would be a vehicle for an ideological agenda. The pair visited Capitol Hill last week to start their sales job for a project that, to be clear, only has teeth if Trump gets behind it. For now, at least, the DOGE ambition has the President-elect’s attention. But the political will to make big cuts often comes up well short of action. Just ask how well the recommendations from the Barack Obama-commissioned Simpson–Bowles framework turned out. If the DOGE is going to dodge that fate, they’re going to need a consistent champion in Trump.

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source https://time.com/7201887/trump-person-of-the-year-elon-musk/

Some Early Forms of Breast Cancer May Not Need Treatment, Study Says

Breast cancer is not a single disease but multiple ones, each carrying varying degrees of risk for endangering women’s health.

In recent years, many researchers have been focused on DCIS: ductal carcinoma in situ, the earliest stage of cancer that in most cases remains in the milk ducts and does not invade other tissues. (It’s considered stage 0.) About 20% of breast cancers diagnosed in the U.S. each year are DCIS. Many of them do not go on to become cancers—but a small percentage of so-called high grade DCIS do, and doctors only have crude ways to distinguish them.

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To be safe, physicians offer the vast majority of people with DCIS the same current standard treatment options: surgery, radiation, and often hormone therapy drugs.

That may not be the best path forward for everyone. In a new study published in JAMA, Dr. Shelley Hwang, vice chair of research in the department of surgery at Duke Cancer Institute, reports that certain women with DCIS who chose to have regular mammograms and careful monitoring of their lesions instead of surgery and radiation were not more likely to develop cancer over two years than those who opted for treatment.

“This study is another important step in helping women understand that not all DCIS is the same, even though we are treating them that way,” says Hwang, who has been conducting the study for seven years. “For the lowest risk DCIS like the ones in this study, surgery may not ultimately be needed.”

The trial, called Comparing an Operation to Monitoring with or without Endocrine Therapy (COMET), involved nearly 1,000 women diagnosed with low-risk DCIS (about half of U.S. cases are this type). Women diagnosed with higher risk DCIS—estrogen-negative DCIS, for example, or the kind that presents as a lump in the breast—were not included in the trial since they are not ideal candidates for avoiding surgery and radiation, says Hwang. Patients were followed for two years in a preliminary analysis; Hwang plans to continue following the women and comparing their cancer rates at five years and 10 years.

Women in the study were either assigned to receive surgery and radiation or to receive more frequent mammograms and monitoring. Women in both groups could elect to take hormone therapy. After two years, about 5.9% of women in the first group had developed cancer, while 4.2% of those in the second group did.

Interestingly, 44% of women assigned to receive surgery ultimately decided not to have the operation, and 14% of those assigned to receive active monitoring elected to have surgery to remove their lesions. Hwang’s team allowed the switches and conducted two statistical analyses of cancer rates—as they were assigned, and also by whichever treatment they chose, adjusting the analyses to account for the imbalance. Even with the switches, the active-monitoring group did not develop any more cancers than those getting surgery.

Hwang says longer-term follow up of at least five years will be needed before these results can justify any change in the way women with this diagnosis are treated, but the data are encouraging that less may be more for some women.

Read More: A 5-Minute Quiz Revealed Olivia Munn’s Breast Cancer Risk. You Can Take It Too

That was the case for Laura Colletti, a 69-year-old North Carolina resident who was diagnosed with DCIS in 2014 after an annual mammogram. Her husband, a physician assistant, did extensive research online and learned that DCIS was considered stage 0 cancer, and they wondered whether aggressive treatment was necessary. They happened to make an appointment with Hwang.

Hwang explained that the current treatment for DCIS involved surgery to remove the lesions and radiation therapy. “I said to her, ‘What happens if I don’t want to do that?’” Colletti says.

Hwang had been wondering the same thing and told Colletti about the COMET study to answer that very question. While Colletti was ineligible to join the trial, she essentially received the same protocol as those who were assigned to active monitoring—getting mammograms every six months in the breast with DCIS and every year in the other breast, and receiving hormone therapy if she desired. “[My husband and I] were just thrilled when we heard we had options,” she says. She opted for active monitoring, and Hwang prescribed endocrine therapy.

That was 10 years ago. “Now I’m fine; I go every year for a mammogram just like everyone else,” she says. “It’s working out for me.”

Read More: Why Doctors Are Rethinking Breast-Cancer Treatment

Breast experts are hopeful that more women will have the same experience. Many patients are already asking about less-invasive options that don’t increase their risk of recurrence. “I remember the first patient I discussed the trial with. She looked like she was going to cry, and she said ‘What? You will follow me?’ She was so delighted that she got up and hugged me,” says Dr. Henry Kuerer, professor and executive director of breast programs at MD Anderson Cancer Network, which was one of the nearly 100 study sites. “She did not want anybody to do surgery on her breasts, and after about 3.5 years, she’s doing great.”

More data will certainly be needed to confirm that women who choose active monitoring don’t go on to develop more cancers over time. Hwang is also planning to delve deeper into understanding what role endocrine therapy plays in that monitoring by comparing women who took the drugs to those who did not. “If we find among women in the active-monitoring group, that women who chose endocrine therapy have a lower likelihood of invasive progression than those who did not take endocrine therapy, then that tells us that endocrine therapy may be an important part of what active monitoring entails,” she says.

As encouraging as the data are, Dr. Larry Norton, medical director of the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, says the results still reveal an uncomfortably high rate of cancer development from DCIS. The findings, he says, are “good news with a caveat. Most people will say it’s good news that many women don’t need surgery. But the bad news is that there is still 5% invasive cancer after two years. I would like to see this very important study motivate more research into how we can do better, and not just how to do the same with less. We are going to have to in the future, and the present, change well-entrenched paradigms of care by doing courageous studies like this one.”

Read More: What to Expect at a Mammogram

Even while Hwang’s team continues to follow the patients, the data are encouraging enough that more breast experts may discuss them with patients diagnosed with DCIS. “I will give them the standard treatment guidelines, which include surgery and radiation, and I will also give them these results,” says Kuerer. “I will tell them, ‘Here are results of an early trial that have not become standard of care,’ but I would be willing to follow them in that way if they wanted.”

Kuerer says the findings could even open the door to more situations beyond DCIS in which women might be able to avoid invasive surgery. He is conducting a study to see if women with breast cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes can also avoid surgery; results aren’t in yet. “We are now in an era where we are testing the safety of completely eliminating the need for surgery for precancers such as DCIS and even aggressive invasive breast cancer with lymph node metastases,” he says. “This is exactly the personalization that I think our patients want. Not every cancer needs to have just one therapy for everyone.”

As screening methods become more sensitive and able to detect smaller, earlier forms of cancer, including DCIS, approaches such as active monitoring could become more relevant. “The patients in this trial are pioneers, and really trying to do something different for themselves as well as other patients who are going to have DCIS in the future,” says Hwang.

source https://time.com/7201610/breast-cancer-dcis-treatment-study/

Donald Trump Rings Opening Bell at New York Stock Exchange

President-elect Donald Trump reacted Thursday morning to being named TIME’s 2024 Person of the Year  and championed the potential for America’s economic growth in his second term.

Trump said that coming into office in January he is better prepared in understanding how to staff his administration and utilize his power. “’Now we have experience we didn’t have,” he said.

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Read More: TIME 2024 Person of the Year: Donald Trump

“TIME Magazine, getting this honor for the second time, I think I like it better this time,” Trump said at the New York Stock Exchange before ringing the opening bell alongside TIME CEO Jessica Sibley and others. Since 1927, TIME has named a Person of the Year, a recognition for the individual who has made the most impact on the world and the headlines, for better or for worse. Trump was previously Person of the Year in 2016, when he first won the presidency.

Members of Trump’s family and incoming cabinet stood behind Trump as he spoke, including Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance, daughter Ivanka Trump, Department of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Environmental Protection Agency nominee Lee Zeldin, Treasury Department nominee Scott Bessent, Department of Housing and Urban Development nominee Scott Turner.

Read More: Read the Full Transcript of Donald Trump’s 2024 Person of the Year Interview With TIME

In his remarks, Trump spoke about incentivizing investment in United States manufacturing, including cutting taxes for those who make their products in the U.S. “We’re going to create the incentive theory again.” Trump said. “For those that are running the big companies, those great, big beautiful companies, nobody’s going to be leaving us. You’re going to be coming back; you’re going to be bringing it back to the United States. We want you back here, car manufacturers, everybody.” 

source https://time.com/7201896/donald-trump-nyse-time-person-of-the-year/

The Consequences of Elevating Politics to a Religion

We’ve had so many post-mortems on the election that a wave of post-mortems on the post-mortems is now coming in. But if we zoom out—way out—and look at the larger picture, what we most urgently need to examine is not only why we are so polarized and divided, but also why we are so lacking in compassion, empathy, and understanding for those we disagree with.

The seeds of this decline were sown long before the 2024 campaign. Decades ago, as our mainstream culture began rejecting organized religion, with all its flaws, we also began rejecting life’s spiritual dimension along with it. We threw out the baby with the bathwater. And we’ve filled the vacuum with deeply inadequate substitutes—first and foremost among them being politics.

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Politics is certainly important. People’s livelihoods, rights, and freedom to live their lives in a way that allows them to thrive are in the balance. Political engagement is critical, especially when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable. But as the saying goes, everything is political but politics isn’t everything. And we can only maximize our effectiveness by not asking something of politics that politics can’t give us.

The consequences of elevating politics to a religion are all around us. A central element to all fundamentalist religions is dogma. The point of dogma is to define and defend the borders of acceptable opinion, and brand anyone who goes outside them as quite simply a heretic. And heretics, even if they’re not burned at the stake, are dehumanized, ostracized and denied any empathy and understanding. This is the poisonous fruit of asking politics to be the central or only source of meaning in our lives—the answer to our fundamental need to connect to something larger than ourselves.

As Jungian psychoanalyst Marion Woodman wrote, “Without an understanding of myth or religion… the individual suffers the mysteries of life as meaningless mayhem alone.” That’s a good description of our current moment—the result of turning politics into our lives’ only organizing force.

It’s terrible both for the body politic and for our actual bodies. Studies have shown that politics can take a serious toll, making us more stressed, costing us sleep, and damaging our mental and physical health. “There is a considerable and growing amount of evidence that politics is having a negative effect on a broad range of health outcomes,” said Kevin B. Smith, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. “This is coming from different scholars using different data, approaches and measures, and it all triangulates on the same inference: Politics isn’t very good for us.”

In fact, one 2019 study found that political events can increase the emotional reactivity of daily stressors, which is the exact opposite of spiritual practices that help us become less reactive to daily stressors.

The other costly stand-in for our neglected spiritual dimension is “scientism.” Which is not to be confused with science. Scientism, or scientific materialism, is the dogmatic belief that science and its methods for gathering information are the only valid sources for true knowledge.

Read More: Why a Technocracy Fails Young People

Of course, science is critical and the invaluable primary driver of material progress. What separates scientism from science is the dogmatic certainty that science can provide all encompassing answers to every question that matters on every aspect of life and that there is only one answer to all of these questions. In his prescient 1992 book Technopoly, Neil Postman writes about scientism as “the desperate hope, and wish, and ultimately the illusory belief” that science can answer questions like “What is life, and when, and why?” “Why is death, and suffering?” “What is right and wrong to do?” “What are good and evil ends?” “How ought we to think and feel and behave?”

And there are plenty of critics of scientism to be found among scientists. In his book Monopolizing Knowledge, Ian Hutchinson, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, makes the case for the limits of scientism. “There are many other important beliefs, secular as well as religious, which are justified and rational, but not scientific, and therefore marginalized by scientism,” Hutchinson writes, “and if that is so, then scientism is a ghastly intellectual mistake.” And many experiences—like “the beauty of a sunset” or “the drama of a play”—are outside the realm of science. As Lawrence Principe, a professor of chemistry and the history of science at Johns Hopkins, notes, scientism could “be turned against the insights that are offered and expressed by poetry, by art, by music, by aesthetics.” And no amount of randomized, double-blind trials can prove the ultimate importance of love, compassion, and forgiveness. Those are spiritual tenets, not scientific ones.

Scientism, Postman writes, involves “the misapplication of techniques such as quantification to questions where numbers have nothing to say.” The famous adage that you can’t manage what you can’t measure is useful in business. But it’s less useful for other key aspects of our lives. Quantification is good for sales but irrelevant for souls, which can be explored but neither managed nor measured.

In a recent paper in The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, C. Thi Nguyen, a philosophy professor at the University of Utah, wrote about the concept of “value capture” — replacing our deepest goals with measurable ones, which technology makes so easy to do. Many aspects of our physical health can be measured and tracked, for example, but our spiritual health can’t be put into a daily number.

Since the Enlightenment, science has often been seen as being in a fundamental conflict with religion and spirituality. But many of our greatest scientists bluntly rejected this simplistic conflict. “I believe in Spinoza’s God,” said Albert Einstein, referring to the 17th century philosopher who believed that God reveals himself in the orderly harmony of nature. And Einstein uttered the ultimate rebuke of scientism: “The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe.”  

When we stop thinking of them as two opponents in a zero-sum contest, science and spirituality—“the twin offspring of human yearning for answers,” as Hutchinson describes them—can co-exist in harmony, each giving us their unique benefits. The celebrated biologist Stephen Jay Gould described this beautifully as part of his concept of NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria): “Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolve.”

It’s the dogmatists on both sides that drive the conflict. The growth of fundamentalism in science has taken place at the same time as the growth of fundamentalism in politics and religion. And as with so many other conflicts, the extremes—ostensibly in opposition—feed off each other. The loser is always the public good, as we saw in the ostracizing of scientists and experts who questioned the extent or duration of the lockdowns, or in the squelching of any debate about whether the COVID-19 virus may have originated in a lab. And on the other side, many public health officials urging people to take the COVID-19 vaccine were targeted with personal threats.

It’s no surprise that this scientific fundamentalism substitutes technology for religion. In his book, Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, Greg Epstein argues that technology has rituals and rites that we all devoutly perform every day. It connects us with a community of like-minded people, it has its own priestly class, it can be transformative, and we have faith it will lead to a happier future. Some even think it might bestow immortality. “In other words,” writes Epstein, “technology has become religion.”

In an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the DealBook Summit, Sam Altman used the word “magic” to describe AI. He corrected himself by adding, “not magic,” but rather “an incredible piece of science.” But in fact, Altman was right. AI does seem like magic. And even the tech leaders creating it, aren’t entirely sure how it works. But it’s worth pointing out that while we regularly talk about technology as magic, we balk at the idea of exploring the magic of our humanity. We look at technological innovations with awe and wonder but neglect the mysteries that are neither created nor explained by technology.

When we close off our spiritual selves, when we treat those who we disagree with as heretics, we also close off pathways for forgiveness, grace, and redemption — all in short supply in our culture today. And yet we all need the forgiveness and understanding that we often find it hard to grant to others.

So, yes, we should engage in politics. We should celebrate scientific discoveries and new technologies. But we should also remember to render unto Caesar the things—and only the things—that are Caesar’s.

source https://time.com/7201505/politics-scientism-religion-arianna-huffington-essay/