Recent Updates
Breaking: My Second Book Drops This September! You Can Pre-Order It Now
I bet you are asking yourselves: Doorknob bombshells? Doorknob bombshells in therapy? What is that?
A doorknob bombshell, also known as a doorknob moment, is a clinical phenomenon that occurs in a wide variety of settings. That’s when a patient drops distressing personal information critical to the treatment on their way out the door, hand on the doorknob, and then breaks down.
What should a caring clinician do when a patient does that? It’s a near universal dilemma for clinicians.
Book Review: Becoming Duchess Goldblatt: A Memoir, by Anonymous
This is one of the best books I’ve read, ever. It’s simply beautiful, a work of art that transcends its genre. The author’s journey exemplifies cartoonist and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Lynda Barry’s contention that “We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay.”
How does the author keep going when she loses everything that makes her life meaningful and worth living?
The Pager Incident
Maybe you think that all it takes to be a great therapist is the ability to nod calmly while saying, “Tell me how you feel about that.” Let me pop that sweet fantasy!
Congress--House AND Senate-- Votes Juneteenth a Federal Holiday
Juneteenth—celebrated on June 19th by most Black Americans—commemorates the legal end of slavery in Texas on June 19th, 1865, more than two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863.
In honor of Juneteenth, I’m reposting the following essay.
How I Challenged a Privileged White Male Friend’s Racism The hardest part? First, I had to listen to him.
When I Published an Essay On Talking Productively About Racism with a Friend, the Conversation Continued in the Comments
I recently had a dialogue with my friend Hector about racism which was so productive that I published an essay about it on Medium. He went from denying he was racist to being willing to accept that since we are all products of our culture and our culture is racist, therefore, both of us, being White, are unavoidably racist. (Cookies were also involved.)
The piece went modestly viral. I received a variety of thought provoking comments. They came from three types of readers: Black readers, reasonable White readers and White male trolls.
I Got Fed Up and Fired My Contractor. It Felt Terrific.
Eugene was intelligent, did good work and charged reasonable rates. He was also obnoxious (“Yeah, I’m a douchebag.”) and noisy, with a carrying voice. Worst of all, he never completed a job from start to finish. The man had a bad habit of
May is National Mental Health Awareness Month
It’s National Mental Health Awareness month? How ironic. Two months in to this pandemic, I’m well aware—no, I’m hyper aware that most people’s mental health, including my own, is under siege. It’s impossible to ignore. There is just too much uncertainty. And too many feelings to deal with, from bowel-churning terror to metal-melting rage and everything in between. But now that I think about it, that’s proof I’m well and healthy, and so are you, if you’re swinging the same. How could it be any other way? These are simply psycho-logical responses to an increasingly psycho reality.
Me Vs. Mom: Rumble In The Psychic Jungle
For Terry
I call my mom, aged 86, every week to ten days. I know I should call more, but that’s all I can stand.
First Week June: Let The Games Begin
“Hi Mom. How are you?”
She carps, “Baby Sis still hasn’t printed out your blogs for me to read. I don’t know what her problem is.”
Baby Sis works a sixty+ hour week as a high-powered criminal defense attorney for the feds, and puts in another forty between home and parenting two young children with her equally busy architect hubby. Maybe she sleeps. She and Mom live in the same megatropolis.
“A blog is an online magazine, Mom. I’ll be glad to send you the pieces I’ve published to mine.”
“I know what a blog is! No, don’t bother. Baby Sis will do it.”
Mom doesn’t “need” a computer, e-mail or the Internet. Her time is too valuable to waste on learning such nonsense. Besides, she knows everything already.
I print off and mail Mom the year’s collection of posts.
***
And now a word from our sponsor!
Stuck in the past with mother?
Stop clinging. You’ll go farther!
Can’t let go, be free?
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***
Back to the arena, where Mature D is interviewing Little D.
Mature D: So little girl, you threw down the gauntlet! Will Mom dish up some approval, do you think?
Little D: I hope so!
Mature D: Knowing Mom, not likely.
Little D: Really?
Sometimes It’s Personal. Sometimes It’s Not. How Can You Tell?
Copernicus' seditiously suggests Earth is NOT the center of our solar system. Is that a twinkle in his eye?
“What’s your take on that Zoe?” friend Marsha asked me. We belong to the same CSA. She referred to a new member.
“She’s OK, I guess. Haven’t talked to her.”
“I think she’s snooty.”
“You do?”
“I smile, say hello, and get ignored. Who does she think she is?!”
“You think she’s snubbing you?” I was surprised.
“What else?”
“Come on!”
Marsha raised an eyebrow.
“When she looks down and scurries by me, I think: shy, depressed, or maybe she grew up wild in the woods, this is her first exposure to people.
Or, maybe she’s just preoccupied, thinking heavy thoughts.”
“She’s rude,” Marsha insisted.
I shrugged. “Anyone whose eyes land on mine, I greet. If they don’t greet me back, so what? I’ve been well mannered. I’ve stretched myself against my own shyness. I’ve met my own standard.”
“One brush-off, I’m done.”
“Really?!” I was astonished. “You’ll never greet Zoe again?”
“Nope.” She was astonished back. “You would?”
“Well, sure. I’m assuming she’s more insecure than I am. Plus, you know, maybe she’s just having a bad day. Or a bad year.”
I look at Marsha searchingly. “We all crave acknowledgment, don’t you think? Especially if we’re shy. In fact, your hurt reaction proves my point!”
“Hmph!”
Look at this! Same event, two utterly different reactions. And here’s the critical point: Each reaction yields its own plan of action.
Let me whip out my shrink magnifying glass for a closer look.