For your immediate consideration, may I suggest a little tool? Before you criticize yourself or another, please apply my 19:1 rule. If you look hard-enough for fault, you will surely find it in each and every 1. And “as you sow, so too shall you reap,” when all has been said and done. But if 19 times prior, appropriate acknowledgement is both posit...
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What is the root word in responsible? Might it be “response?” We know from various noted references that the construct of responsibility conveys a sense of moral obligation or accountability, usually, to another (or to oneself). However, what specific response is needed, wanted or required in order for a responsible reckoning to result? It seems pr...
O. Hobart Mowrer, the noted psychologist, reminds us of the inextricable interrelationship between sin, guilt and psychopathology. In brief, we commit sin; we feel guilt; we punish ourselves. As I ponder Mowrer’s notion, it occurs to me that the commission of a sin does not, necessarily, need to occur first. Nothing prevents an individual who feels...
During college one of my part-time jobs was unloading bags of mail from the airplanes at the O’Hare Airport postal service. At the time I was very young, very strong and very dumb but I really didn’t know how dumb I was. Whenever a caravan of mail pulled up to the unloading docks, I was the first one to arrive and the last one to finish. The task r...
Not quite twenty-six years ago, my wife, daughter and I rafted the Colorado River with an experienced river guide. The expectations were explicitly communicated by her advising us to “... remain in the raft at all times and follow my instructions to the letter without fail.” Also, if, by chance, we were ejected from the raft for any reason, the gui...
No student was permitted to study judo by my martial arts grandmaster until they had earned a black belt in tai kwon do. The belief was that tai kwon do made you strong from the outside-in, whereas, judo made you strong from the inside-out. I can honestly say that my judo training was the most strenuous physical activity I ever experienced. One day...
The task in the beginning is to learn to love self. This is accomplished by the provision of healthy caretaker inputs from outside-in. A child must first be loved, in order to learn how to experience love, in order to learn how to love. Learning to love your self is a crucial developmental task for love to have experiential personal meaning. The ro...
Have you ever found yourself deep into something besmirching which was really messy, icky or dirty in your life? If so, consider my counseling and mentoring visual metaphor of a foot-in-the-garbage can. In fact, I challenge you to actually do it right now! Find a garbage can to accommodate your foot and stick it as far down and as deep into the con...
Wait, wait, wait. Wait until it’s late. Soon it will be late. Now it is late. Late, late, late... LATE! Soon it will be later. Now it is later. Later, later, later… LATER! Soon it will be latest. Now it is latest. Latest, latest, latest… LATEST! Soon it will be too late. Now it is too late. Too late, too late, too late… TOO LATE! No need to wait. I...
I am indebted to my wife for instructing me how to view our then-24 year old daughter who, while increasingly more capable of fending for herself, might, on occasion have a transient meltdown, necessitating an assist, from either one or both of her parents, coupled with judicious application of just the right kind and amount of TLC. It seems that w...
I recall sitting in my third-grade classroom, looking at the other children sitting at their classroom desks and lazily wondering just what the critical differential was between poor, fair, good, excellent and superior outcomes. As fate would have it, some workmen were replacing drywall in our classroom that very day and I was immediately struck by...
Over the course of my career as a clinical psychologist, I have thought very deeply about progress, regress and stasis. Why do some people go forward, others go backward, others still go nowhere at all? Additionally, what is elemental about the process of authentic psychotherapeutic intervention, as well as, personal mentoring which is key for any ...
It is said that “time heals all wounds...” But I know that “time heals” absolutely nothing! Time is a very clever hypothetical construct. It can be defined in a great many ways... But it must not be defined in all ways. There is a certain palpable relativity... To the absoluteness of the construct. If you think about it a little bit... I think you ...
All of the circumstances, events and happenings associated with the gradual awakening that we are born, live and die, invite deep thought as to which developmental tasks are required of every individual to successfully navigate and integrate each of these rewarding and perilous passages. The first crucible that birth confronts us with is the Hercul...
As a psychologist, if I have heard it once from my clients, I have probably heard it at least a thousand times, about the “raw deal” that many believed was unfairly visited upon them by an external agent for which they were injured or harmed with little recourse but to obsequiously accede and then to “bend over and take it!” After much thought, it ...
As I confront my mortality, it occurs to me that when I die, there will probably be one or two individuals who may feel some compulsion “to say a few words,” in memoriam. While I have no plans of leaving this world soon, “anything can happen at any time for no good reason” and when my time is finished, those one or two individuals may need to give ...
She started to panic. “Are you ok?” “No!” “Something wrong?” “Yes, I feel faint.” “What do you need?” “Do you have any sugar?” “How about some honey in tea?” “Perfect”, said she. “Crackers, too?” “That will do!” “Diabetic, are you?” “Yes.” “Last time you checked?” “Blood sugar?” “Yes.” “This morning.” “What did it show?” “Numbers are good!” “Could ...
My love of words was engendered by my mother. She was a master at feeding her three small children as a single parent with nary a nickel to work with and yet she always was able to cook-up a concatination (i.e., plethora) of etymologic sustenance. Words were requisite ingredients to cook-up lofty ideas and aspirational values associated with high h...
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