People sometimes ask me, “How do you come up with something to write about every week?” I used to wonder the same thing about local treasure Willie Brown, whose weekly column was my reason for reading the Sunday paper. When Willie quit, we turned off that paper. Well, for me, it has become something I […]
“Scare-City”: Hunger, Grief, Regulation Read More »
When I was growing up, there was no internet, no Google. There were encyclopedias. I remember a three-tier caste system of them: the most expensive and most sophisticated was the Britannica. The “middle class” was the World Book and the “lowbrow” I think, was called Colliers. I don’t remember. We had the World Book. I
What Do You Know? Encyclopedias, Know it All, Learning to Learn Read More »
Pondering how I first happened on the translucent, barely visible child of neglect, the oddest image appeared in my mind. I imagined myself, middle thirties strolling placidly along a quiet beach. In one non-remarkable step, walking through the innocuous and pleasantly warm sand, I am suddenly nudged into alertness to discover that one little mound,
Profiles In Courage Ants, “Three P’s,” Self-Reliance Read More »
On the 24th of April, we lost another queen. Admittedly where I was amazed and perhaps baffled by the dramatic display of emotion and attention following the death of the British monarch last September, when Tina Turner, also known as the “Queen of Rock’n Roll” died last week, the outpouring of grief around the world,
What’s Attachment Got to Do With It? Abandonment, Energy, Resilience Read More »
When I was young and deeply involved in Latin American anti-imperialist political work, the freedom fighters who organized and fought clandestinely against authoritarian dictatorships were called La Resistencia, the resistance. They boldly left their insignia, a capital R in a circle, as their quiet battle cry to show that they were not vanquished, ferociously not
Rock and Roll: Freedom Fighters, Window Shopping, A Cradle Read More »
Anyone who has known me more than a minute has heard me, probably ad nauseum, reference the renowned relationship researcher John Gottman. Gottman, originally an MIT-trained mathematician, changed direction to a study of psychology, mostly to try and figure out why he couldn’t get a date. The result – 40 years of longitudinal data about
Sex Positive: Climate Change, “Drudgery and Begrudgery,” Magnificence Read More »
For better or worse, we are all too aware that nature’s design is to exist, survive and persist into the future by proliferating one’s likeness and perhaps broadcasting that. It is as if the world were a giant Petri dish of infinite rabid species in a wild race to replicate their own. Some organisms cross
Breaking Chains: Roquefort, Redlining, Reparation Read More »
As all who have been in the world of trauma, whether as clinician, researcher, survivor, or some combination thereof know, the area of greatest injury to life and to function is the domain of relationship. That has certainly been the crippling pain, anxiety, shame, or simple cluelessness most likely to bring people to my therapy
Who Cares? Relationship, Regulation, Resources Read More »
When I started therapy in 1978, long before many of my readers were born, our mom muttered bitterly, not quite under her breath, “…the ‘blame your mother’ generation!” I have no idea why I even told her. From then forward, my therapist ever retained her reign as “public enemy number one.” Blame is not my
Motherlode of Neglect: Refrigerators, Helicopters, Tigers Read More »
Our dad passed shortly before the pandemic of Covid-19 struck. What a blessing that was, as it would have been hell for him and for all of us to go through. The final couple of years, and worsening over the last months, he was increasingly vacant and absent, barely “there.” It was hard to tell
With or Without You: Breakdown, Parent Loss, Peace Read More »