Out of My Mind

It’s a bonafide therapeutic tool in the right hands and unadulterated snake oil in the wrong ones.

Those who struggle to find “the right one” often question if it’s something about them, when it might just be bad luck.

The dream makers in our minds tell us things no one else will or can. They know who we are in a way even our closest friends may not.

A struggling single mom’s advice: No matter how much stuff we make or buy, there are only a few things we truly keep.

We are drowning in a flood of blah, blah, blah.

When it comes to Mother Earth, we humans prove heavy on the take and miniscule on the give.

Trying to dilute negative self-talk with its positive counterpart may actually make us feel worse, not better.

There’s the climate disaster, the rise of oligarchy, Orwellian propaganda, needless wars... We’re drowning in a toxic mental soup of disheartening news, and many are struggling to come up for air.

Each of us harbors our own unspoken set of rules about when and with whom swearing is acceptable.

“Social anxiety disorder” is a label, like many diagnostic ones, that tends to gloss over the many individual differences among those who feel an aversion to human contact.

Couples who feel that unhappy truth closing in may rush to distract themselves with a new baby or house or another “look there, not here” diversion.

Studies show that, upon meeting someone new, their race is the first thing we notice. Some claim this is a tribal tendency encoded in our genetic lineage, but I don’t buy it.

Some observations on the behavioral psychology of being naked.

Unless you are blissfully enlightened, mentally checked out or a “What, me worry?” type, chances are you spend a hunk of time gnashing your psychological teeth. What can one do about that?

“Chunking” is a powerful but often poorly understood dynamic in couples communication.

Some of us are plagued by the suspicion that our daily labors are meaningless, or that we're missing whatever “right fit” there could be between our nature and the roles, vocations and avocations one can occupy in this world.

When spurned in love, some of us close up like a flower on a cold night, afraid to unfold in a new day's warmth for fear of another frost.

Most of us, shrinks and non-shrinks alike, tacitly agree that a troubled present is indicative of a troubled past. But sometimes it’s more nuanced than that.

How do we increase the chances someone will heed our well-meaning counsel?