Inside Out – Exploring the Life of the Mind
Using psychoanalysis to explore current events, trends, and human behavior.
This column originally appeared in the Orange County Register.
Most of us would agree that balanced concern for self and others constitutes a measure of psychological maturity and health. While other, mostly mammalian, species share our capacity to live cooperatively and care for one another, only human beings are able to reflect consciously upon this attribute, to develop it and direct it purposefully. Continue reading “Empathy, Ethics and Morality”
This column originally appeared in the Orange County Register
A screenwriter friend gave me an article discussing the salutary aspects of sadness and the ways in which our contemporary culture tends to quickly erase it or prematurely foreclose upon its gritty psychological usefulness in a quest for perennial cheery happiness. As if happiness were a concrete object one could hold instead of a transitory state of being, one of many, that links specific inner notations of experience with external ones. Continue reading “Sadness and Mourning”
A relationship, by design, is a two-person field. Actually more if you consider all the people inhabiting your mind. With mom, dad and your third grade teacher with the quivering upper arms, it’s a pretty crowded place. You are the unique product of all your relationships. This internal constellation of characters forming your identity is an entire world. Continue reading “The Importance of Mutuality in Relationships”
Every couple of years, I notice that a new life-altering book or program appears on the pop-culture scene promising to solve all our problems effortlessly and magically. I’m reminded of those late night infomercials promising astounding wealth with no personal investment, except the purchase of an expensive program that promises to teach you how to convert pennies to gold bricks over the weekend. Continue reading “What’s the Big Secret?”