I have long known, both as an individual and as a therapist, that personal control is a challenging notion for all of us. Control is a gift and wonderful feature of being human. In psychology they refer to this as ‘agency’. It’s our capacity to direct our life and efforts. But it is not lost […]
Anyone studying to become a mental health practitioner learns the term ‘biopsychosocial’.It’s a mouthful but captures the essence of understanding the dimensions of the challenges affecting an individual’s life. Clinicians are given the task of understanding what organic issues are at play for a new client. Are there biological issues at work affecting the person’s […]
Across the several decades of my life here in the U.S., I have experienced multiple times of social and cultural disturbances. There was the heat of my World War II parent’s generation over the disruptions of the 1960’s. There was the horrific assassination of President Kennedy, followed by the fear and anger over the war […]
Thursday, January 18, 2024 “I am not a gun owner, and I am not against gun ownership at all. If the need arose I would get a gun. Several members of my family are gun owners and I have no worries about their safe handling. They are trained and use it for firing at the […]
I am urged to share this excellent entry from the great David Attenborough Feeling this today: “My Mom once told me that she walked into a room where a couple of friends were discussing her, they didn’t know she was there. She shook her head, smiled and walked away. My Mom also told me that […]
Dr. Will and Dr. Sally Downham Miller will be launching a new series of YouTube videos featuring their shared and unique interests. Dr. Sally, a retired elementary school school principal is also an author and a nationally renowned authority in the area of grief and loss. She has made frequent appearances in national media especially […]
When Glenn Sparks and I wrote our book on social isolation (‘Refrigerator Rights’) we identified the twin patterns of moving (relocation) along with the surge of media (especially social media) as the root cause of our current social distress. As Marshall McLuhan shared ‘it’s the screens, not what is on the screens that is matter’. […]
I have chronic issue with my passwords and have no open else to blame. I have to keep learning and relearning to have a reliable system to securely document my passwords (all million of them!) someplace safe. But NO, I keep going to the ‘forgot my password link”, choosing a new one and then promptly […]
This Fall I will be returning to my psychotherapy practice after many years. I began as a practicing therapist the day I graduated from Columbia School of Social Work in 1990! But in the intervening years I drifted away from private practice to devote my time and energy to pubic speaking and, of course, standup […]
I have always shied away from taking on managing my own website. The technical skill needed to make any additions and changes overwhelmed me. I believed it was too far beyond my ability. The concentration, focus and patience necessary to learn the skill and apply it was too much. But I now realize that this […]