Narcissists Gone Wild!
Every once in a while, something hits the news that makes me smack my head in disbelief (which, by the way, hurts; I should really stop doing that). Last week, two unrelated items left me whacking my...
View ArticlePTSD: Post-Thanksgiving Stress Disorder?
Your critical mother was in rare form, simultaneously carving up the turkey and slicing through your self-confidence like so much pumpkin pie. ("I'm just saying how much nicer you would look if you...
View ArticleFlunking Dr. Phil
Americans like our self-awareness like we like our food -- fast, and in bite-sized McNuggets. We pop pills and turn to self help books and TV "experts" to prop up or moods and pep up our orgasms. Yet...
View ArticleWho's afraid of the big gay wolf?
With a vote that had seemed impossible just a week ago, Congress did the unthinkable today:The right thing.read more
View ArticleYou say you want a resolution?
Ah, New Year's. A time of fresh starts and grand resolutions. This is the year you lose weight, look for a new job, learn Swahili, and, in general, get your life in order. And so you eat plentifully...
View ArticleHow Betty White can change your life
As a lonely pre-adolescent, I often found comfort perched in front of the warmly-glowing television set my mother insisted would make me go blind. (She also warned that I would poke my eye out with an...
View ArticleWhat we can learn from Gabrielle Giffords
Is it possible that some good has come out of the massacre in Tucson? The ugly political discourse has been turned down a notch (at least for now) and the recovery of Gabby Giffords has been inspiring...
View ArticleFrom Egypt: A triumph for the human spirit
Friday evening, I watched the news from Egypt and cried.I sat in my expensive leather chair enraptured by the site of hundreds of thousands of people -- many of them young and poor -- as they erupted...
View ArticleAnalyze this: What's so dynamic about psychodynamic therapy?
The prospective patient was aghast when he heard that I was a psychoanalyst. "Do you expect me to spend the next 30 years on the couch blaming my mother and poor potty training for all my problems?" he...
View ArticleAnalyze This II: A Look Inside a Treatment
Linda was distraught. She desperately wanted to get into a fulfilling relationship, but kept ending up with critical, rejecting boyfriends."No one wants to be with me," she said, her eyes welling with...
View ArticleFat Stigma: How It Works, How It Hurts
Researchers call it "fat stigma." The disapproving glances from complete strangers. The prospective employer who suddenly loses interest when he meets you face to face, or the person who squeezes into...
View ArticleWhy won't someone slap this man?
Just when the train wreck that is Charlie Sheen finally pulled out of Crazy Town, along came an even bigger loco-motive bearing down on our national sanity like ants on a speck of hamburger.read more
View ArticleHate calling your insurance company? Read this and laugh (or weep)
Automated system: Thank you for calling Black-and-Blue Cross/Blue Squeal. Your call is important to us, which is why you will repeatedly be put on hold and then disconnected. Let's get started. Please...
View ArticleWeinergate and America's Problem with Sex
What is it with politicians and their... you thought I was going to say "wieners" didn't you?read more
View ArticleGay pride (and prejudice)
At 11:55 last night -- only days before New York's Gay Pride Parade commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the birth of the gay rights movement -- the state became the largest in the nation to approve...
View ArticleWhat we can learn from Betty Ford
With her death at 93, Betty Ford leaves behind a legacy of grace and courage that can be a lesson for us all.read more
View ArticlePsychiatrist? Psychotherapist? A Who's Who in Mental Health
Thinking about seeing a therapist but confused about all the different titles? Psychiatrist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, psychopharmacologist, psychotherapist -- that's a lot of psychos! Many people...
View ArticleReality TV: Turning Us All Into Boobs?
Pity me. I live in New Jersey.As in "Housewives of New Jersey,""Jersey Shore,""Jerseylicious" -- and I'm sure there's more reality shows about crass, temper-tantrum-throwing Garden Staters (and I am...
View ArticleRemembrances of 9/11: A Day, At First, So Ordinary
The thing I remember most -- besides the images of people jumping to their deaths -- is the smell.read more
View ArticleStop Making the Same Mistakes
The underlying reasons you may be repeating the same self-defeating patterns -- and how to get unstuck.read more
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