Monthly Archives: July 2015

What Color are Your Glasses?

You know what rose colored glasses are, right? People who are said to be wearing rose colored glasses are said to be seeing the world as only pleasant and happy. We scoff at people wearing rose colored glasses. They are naive, sanguine, and overly optimistic. But, glasses come in all colors. They all distort yourContinue reading “What Color are Your Glasses?”

How to Live Up to Your Potential

Let me introduce you to another object in my office: the jade plant. This plant, I think you will agree, is a beautiful specimen; as good as a jade plant can be. It is lush and green and healthy. It propagates well. It has lived a long time. Let me show you another plant, aContinue reading “How to Live Up to Your Potential”

The Shrink’s Links: After Virtue

Bringing you the best of mental health every week. If you’re interested in living a good life, you first need to know what the good life is. To figure this out, try studying philosophy. There’s no better person to do this with than Alasdair MacIntyre, who wrote After Virtue. When you do philosophy, you can’tContinue reading “The Shrink’s Links: After Virtue”

The Broken Window Theory of Personal Relationships

Go to any down-in-the-heels, crime-ridden, poverty-stricken inner city and you are certain to find one thing. Lots and lots of broken windows. Most of these broken windows will be in abandoned buildings, where no one appears to care and no one seems to be affected. Windows don’t break on their own, someone picked up aContinue reading “The Broken Window Theory of Personal Relationships”

How to Re-Traumatize Yourself

First, a bad thing happens. Rape, murder, combat, abuse. You don’t have a lot of control over it. That’s the point. Something happens way, way out of your control. You barely make it. Now you’re left with the memories. That’s the trauma. Second, the memories come up. You don’t have a lot of control overContinue reading “How to Re-Traumatize Yourself”