Irvin Yalom’s Relief from Despair If your anxiety and depression has made you turn on everyone and everything, if the closest you get to other people is in the commission of your sexual addiction, if you’re so spiteful, grouchy, and malevolent that even your own mother can’t stand the sight of you, if you’re anyContinue reading “The Schopenhauer Cure”
Category Archives: Book Review
The Hatred of Sex
The Point of Sex is Not Just to Come, But to Come Undone Why would anyone hate sex? Yes, sex is pleasurable, but it’s also dangerous. It’s often most pleasurable when it’s the most dangerous. It lures you in with the promise of satisfaction and leaves you with a disease. It’s a tool of abuseContinue reading “The Hatred of Sex”
A Case for Rage
A Book Review Is my anger justified? Anyone who’s ever been angry believes it is. But anger can be terribly destructive and must be managed, say those who are not angry at the moment. Who’s right? Is anger worth keeping? Ethical philosopher, Myisha Cherry recently wrote a book that describes the difference between righteous angerContinue reading “A Case for Rage”
The Spectrum of Addiction
A Reading of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, Part I I’d like to devote a few posts to chew over Carl Erik Fisher’s book, The Urge: Our History of Addiction. Fisher is an addiction psychiatrist, bioethicist, and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University.
Eleanor Oliphant Might Be Completely Fine But Using Therapists to Resolve Your Plot Isn’t
Ordinarily, I avoid reading books and watching movies that portray head shrinking because I’m careful to maintain a work/life balance. But I couldn’t ignore Eleanor Oliphant. Too many people recommended the novel as a delightful portrayal of someone with serious troubles. I soon saw they were right, and so was I. Eleanor is truly delightful,Continue reading “Eleanor Oliphant Might Be Completely Fine But Using Therapists to Resolve Your Plot Isn’t”
Helping Brains Talk to One Another
Here’s something that’ll surprise you. Other people know you better than you know yourself. It surprised you, didn’t it? That just goes to show that people can predict how you’ll feel. Upon that counterintuitive claim rests David Schnarch’s new book, Brain Talk: How Mind Mapping Brain Science Can Change Your Life & Everyone in It.Continue reading “Helping Brains Talk to One Another”
Missing Out
British psychoanalyst, Adam Phillips, must have had enough of writing about life as we actually live it. He’s the author of On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored; Flirtation, etc. Now, he’s come out with a book that explores the life we have not lived, the effect of what we believe could’ve been. In the processContinue reading “Missing Out”
A Review of Intercourse
A few weeks ago, at the high point of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, when it seemed like the whole world was fighting the war of the sexes, I decided to read a book that had been on my shelf a long time. Was this book some kind of feel-good escapist fare? Not a chance. IContinue reading “A Review of Intercourse”
Stages of Faith
Bringing you the best of mental health every week. Whenever I meet a new client, after they’ve told me about the problem that brings them to see me, I’ll ask if the problem has a spiritual dimension. Often, this gets us to the heart of the matter. Most people answer by telling me the nameContinue reading “Stages of Faith”
The Uses of Uncertainty
Bringing you the best of mental health In 1900, for eleven weeks, Sigmund Freud met with a teenage girl stricken by hysterical mutism. We know this woman by the name Freud gave her, Dora. It wasn’t her real name. Precipitating the symptoms, she had accused an older family friend of making sexual advances to her.Continue reading “The Uses of Uncertainty”
Keith R Wilson 