Unclean

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It may be too much for me to hope that you enjoyed my recent post in The Road to Reconciliation on disgust. It’s possible to write about boredom without being boring, it’s easy to write about anger without being angry, but it may be impossible to write about disgust without arousing some disgust. If that happened, then I’m sorry and thank you for giving me another chance. But, if you were intrigued, then you may be interested in my sources: two fascinating, but potentially disgusting books.Continue reading “Unclean”

Gender and Jewelry

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If you ever wondered why you wear the jewelry you wear, you may enjoy Gender and Jewelry: A Feminist Analysis by Rebecca Ross Russell. For an academic paper, conceived, it appears, while working on a combined Bachelor’s of Fine Arts and Women’s Studies, it is eminently readable and fascinating.

Continue reading “Gender and Jewelry”

Upheavals of Thought

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The emotions could use some better PR. They have been blamed for everything from each personal crisis to the insanity that is called this year’s election. We shrinks have mobilized the troops of rationality and have sharpened the swords of Stoicism, recast as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, to do battle against these pesky, animalistic aliens called feelings.

“But wait!” calls out a professor of philosophy and the classics, stepping between the battle lines. “Emotions are suffused with intelligence and discernment… Instead of viewing morality as a system of principles to be grasped by the detached intellect, and emotions as motivations that either support or subvert our choice to act according to principle, we will have to consider emotions as part and parcel of the system of ethical reasoning.”

Martha Nussbaum, the professor of philosophy and the classics, is brave, but if she’s going to be the PR person for emotions, she’s going to have to punch up her copy. Just kidding. She’s done a lot to argue their cause throughout her career, especially in her magnum opus, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions.Continue reading “Upheavals of Thought”

Emotions: Do You Have a Choice?

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Anger, fear, sadness, hopelessness, joy, hope, gratitude, back to anger, fear, and sadness, in no particular order and sometimes all together, at once. When your relationship is in trouble, you’re on an emotional roller coaster. Let’s take a step away and look at what emotions are and what, if anything, we can do about them.Continue reading “Emotions: Do You Have a Choice?”

Check your Dashboard

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I’d like to interrupt whatever else you might be doing, to remind you to check your dashboard; you’ll find there almost all the information you need to keep things running smoothly.

No, I don’t mean the dashboard in your car, although you should be checking that regularly, as well; I mean your body’s dashboard. You can see it when you look within. A lot of problems you might have with yourself can easily be explained by a quick look at your dashboard. Feeling anxious? Feeling depressed? Look at the dashboard; it might tell you why and what you can do about it. Are you cranky and irritable; do you just want to kick someone’s ass? Look at your own dashboard before you blame other people and their behavior. Is your work suffering from some kind of a block; is everything just harder for you now than it was an hour ago? Check the dashboard. Do you believe you need a drink or want scarf down great quantities of food? Yup, you guessed it; check the dashboard before you open the fridge.

Let’s go over all the gauges on the dashboard and you’ll see what I mean.Continue reading “Check your Dashboard”

The Shrink’s Links:The Citizen Therapist Manifesto

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The other day, someone invited me to sign the Citizen Therapist Manifesto. This is a petition, already signed by thousands of therapists, expressing their alarm at the candidacy of Donald Trump, which they see as a threat to the well-being of their clients. Do you want to know if I signed it? I might just tell you at the end of this post.Continue reading “The Shrink’s Links:The Citizen Therapist Manifesto”

The Shrink’s Links: The Gervais Principle


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The Gervais Principle, named after Ricky Gervais, the creator of The Office, and coined by Venkatesh Rao, of the not as popular blog, Ribbonfarm, states that at the top of any organization are sociopaths, at the bottom are losers, and in the middle are the clueless.

In case that isn’t self-evident to you, let me explain. Continue reading “The Shrink’s Links: The Gervais Principle”