We often hear how important family is to our health and well-being, especially when we are ill or depressed. However, what do you do when you find that a family member only brings heartache and stress into your life?
Dealing with toxic family members.
May 13th, 2013What does your stuff mean to you?
May 9th, 2013
Culture and male sexual dysfunction
May 6th, 2013
In order to fully understand male sexual dysfunction, it is necessary to understand the cultural and social context in which it occurs.
Volunteering is good for your psyche
May 2nd, 2013
People have often asked me why I spend so much time volunteering with various community service organizations. There are many different answers to this question. The simplest is that it makes me feel good about myself.
Stepping up in a crisis
April 22nd, 2013
I was amazed and impressed by how many people ran toward the bomb sites during the Boston Marathon! I felt the same sort of amazement during the 9-11 attacks in New York. Not only did first responders put their lives at risk running into the Ground Zero area to care for the injured, but ordinary people, instead of running as far away as they could, joined in wrapping their jackets around shivering folks at the scene. Just when I was wondering about the state of our country after frequently hearing reports about people either watching or walking away when seeing someone being beaten, raped, or robbed, something like this happens and people step up to the plate and put themselves in harm’s way.
The empathy connection
April 20th, 2013
Empathy is the glue that bonds people in an intimate relationship. When there is an empathic connection, people feel understood, they feel seen. Empathy is not the only way for people to bond, but it is necessary for an intimate connection. Bonding over a common activity or common experience may foster a connection just as doing something for someone else might engender gratitude or appreciation. But in order for there to be intimacy, empathy is required.
I never met a cow that wished it was a giraffe
April 9th, 2013
Human beings are an odd lot. We are easily embarrassed, we are seldom content, we always want more of something, we often feel that someone else is better than ourselves, and we often wish we were someone else. I doubt that a cow ever wished it were a giraffe. I cannot imagine an elephant wishing it were a tiger. Animals seems to be content with who they are. They simply strive to be the best that they can be. Human beings, however, often wish they were someone else. They wish they were prettier, taller, shorter, younger, older, richer, smarter, faster; they seem constantly comparing themselves with someone else and come up short.
Helplessness is a state of mind
March 31st, 2013
I remember reading the classic work of Victor Frankl, MD, the psychiatrist who, after spending six years as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps, wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. In it, Dr. Frankl comments that many of the prisoners fell into a state of despair upon realizing that may never be free again. Their sense of helplessness and hopelessness was so overwhelming that they began smoking the cigarettes that were used as a medium of exchange to obtain small amounts of additional rations from their captives. They had simply given up. Others, like Frankl, maintained their sense of identity, their sense of hope and possibility, and were able to find meaning for themselves even under horrendous circumstances.
Strengthening the Internal Terrain
March 21st, 2013
When I was a graduate student in clinical psychology in the 1960s, psychologists were practicing along the lines of the medical model where the focus was on the treatment of diseases. During that period, the renown psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger, founder of the world famous Menninger’s Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, published a groundbreaking book entitled The Vital Balance, in which he proposed that mental health practitioners should put more emphasis of strengthening the healthy parts of an individual’s personality rather than exclusive focus on the psychopathology. This was a marked departure from the then current emphasis. Around the same time, Dr. Abraham Maslow, a psychology professor at Brandeis University and founder of the human potentials movement, in is book, Toward a Psychology of Being, decried the emphasis on psychopathology and stressed the importance of emphasizing the potential for self-actualization inherent in all people.
Panic Attacks: A Holistic Approach (Part 3)
March 13th, 2013
[This is Part 3 of a three part series on Panic Attacks. For Parts 1 & 2 please refer to these links: Panic Attacks (Part 1) and Panic Attacks (Part 2)]
