It’s good for your mental health to appreciate material things such as your car, your clothes, your house — whatever. But, wait ‘ wasn’t I supposed to say something like, ‘Things aren’t really important. It’s your ‘inner life’ (whatever that … Continue reading →

A website visitor emails that her relative, a young woman of 19, has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She asks if it is a valid diagnostic label or just another excuse to justify bad behavior. Psychiatrists define bipolar disorder as … Continue reading →

We all know at least one person who likes to disagree, simply for the sake of disagreeing. That person is easy to identify: disputing minor facts such as the weather, carrying on an argument over something that doesn’t matter to … Continue reading →

Readers ‘of a certain age’ will certainly remember mood rings. Back in the ’70s everyone seemed to be sporting a ring, a pendant, earrings, bracelets or even lipstick containing thermotropic liquid crystals. Depending on the temperature of your skin, the … Continue reading →

A Cornell University study asks, ‘Why do teens do stupid things?’ Well, not so fast. Not all teens do stupid things, nor is there anything about being young that makes stupidity inevitable. It’s true that teens don’t have the knowledge … Continue reading →

Valentine’s Day is a great time to celebrate all the positive aspects of being together. But every day I see many of the negative aspects as well. It’s not my intention to cast a shadow over this romantic holiday, but … Continue reading →

How often have you heard somebody say, ‘He’s not a bad person, but I still don’t like him’? Most often, the missing element is respect. To genuinely like or love someone, they must first earn your respect. Like beach erosion, … Continue reading →

We read every day about notorious and documented failures of drug and alcohol rehab, made even more public by Hollywood’s perpetually neurotic glitterati. Is it all a scam? Well, in fact, some people do successfully untangle themselves from drug and/or … Continue reading →

A regular reader of this column asked me why I considered a killer to be ‘incapable of benefiting’ from psychotherapeutic help. She was referring to my 2007 article published shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting. She wondered why I, as … Continue reading →

It’s no secret that marital counseling and couples therapy often fail. Even if the therapist is a pretty good one, two factors usually stand in the way of success: First, the partners usually wait until at least one or both … Continue reading →

After this season of celebration and self-indulgence, it seems natural to swing the pendulum to the other side and talk about anorexia (a pathological refusal to eat), its causes and cures. According to Dr. Walter Kaye, professor of psychiatry at … Continue reading →

In the comic strip ‘Peanuts,’ Lucy van Pelt referred to this time of year as ‘post-Christmas letdown,’ when you mourn for the gifts you wanted but didn’t get. It’s also during this season when I get questions from parents asking … Continue reading →