Why you are right to hate the Pirese. Read More

I remember the day my daughter (now age 24 years) discovered her feet. I had dressed her with brightly colored socks and laid her down on her back in the middle of our big bed. As she waved her feet back and forth, one foot passed through her field of view. She looked startled and was able to move the foot back into view. Over and over again, she wiggled her foot, saw it wiggle, and laughed. This was a big day for our little girl. She now knew what it felt like to wiggle her foot and that she could control its movements.  Read More

Extramadura, which is kind of like the Kansas of Spain, has instituted a sex education program for kids between 14 and 17 that is—brace yourself—not freaked out about masturbation. Read More

On July 10, 2007, President George W. Bush, in a speech in a hotel in Cleveland, said: "I mean, people have access to health care in America. Read More

We all know that doing the right thing for our bodies include regular exercise. What we might not realize is that exercise environment really does matter. We get different benefits from exercise depending upon what is happening around us. Read More

The difference between the autumn term of this academic year and that of last year seems to embody my recovery more fully and vividly than anything else. But my thesis still remains an insidious thread connecting the two. Read More

There are two months out of the year I'm not too keen on living through. One is March, obviously, since that is the month in which my father committed suicide, a month that still, almost seven years later, smells the same, looks the same and all-around feels the same as that cold day in 2003. The other month is November; well, actually, it's more like a single day. Read More

Regardless of how professionals choose to band together symptoms of personality disorders, rehabilitation facilities must have staff who are aware of them and more importantly, know how to address them during treatment.  Read More

For more than a decade I've taught a seminar in dynamic psychotherapy to psychiatry residents. One tricky issue that arises every year is the apparent choice between conducting a "supportive" psychotherapy, versus an "analytic" or "insight-oriented" one. Read More

My goal in this blog is primarily to discuss teaching issues in psychology, but sometimes I will take a detour by using the space to comment on issues facing college faculty members and students. This installment deals with next week and the arrival of students home for our holiday of family togetherness. With apologies to T. S. Read More

By Dave LevitanBefore I read a single page of Carl G. Jung's newly published Red Book, I admit that I harbored a degree of skepticism. The book had lain dormant for half a century, first in the cupboard of Jung's Zurich home and then in a bank vault. My interpretation of that fact alone? Read More

Overlooked children may not be the apple of their parents' eyes, but these kids can be driven to be valued. Ted Kennedy is an example of an overlooked child whose life was driven by his desire to make his father proud, to carry on the family legacy of excellence. Kennedy worked hard to keep up with his revered siblings, bringing this ethos to his life in the Senate. Our nation is better for that. Read More

Does your personality influence the sorts of places in which you thrive and the objects that you cherish?  You bet it does! Read More

Looking back on Fort Hood, there were simply too many different ways that things might have gone. Read More

Is civility dead? It sure seems so. In recent years, the quality of discourse in America has declined dramatically. Rarely in discussions of any import these days, whether politics, religion, the economy, education, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the list goes on, is there a respectful exchange of ideas. Instead, such interactions are either one-sided or full of ad hominem attacks or self-serving misinformation. Read More

Many grievers wish they could jump from late October to mid-January and skip the Holidays The holidays are approaching. A joyous time. A festive time. Read More

Justice and Therapy:  Surely there are legitimate differences of opinion about using civilian courts or military tribunals to try the terrorists who planned 9/11, but it is hard to separate them out from the powerful underlying emotional issues. Read More

“We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.” --William Hazlitt Yet another reason why we have a duty to be happy. I know I'm less quarrelsome when I'm happy. Read More

I will present a very brief overview of self-injury and then postulate a connection between self-injury and the LGBT population and why prevalence of self-injury might be higher among this group. Read More

Medical school is like entering a grocery store and memorizing the names of every product in the store, their number and location, every ingredient in every product in the order in which they appear on the food label, then doing the same thing in every grocery store in the city. Read More

Jet lag occurs as a result of rapid travel over several time zones so that there is a temporary mismatch between the internal timing of the sleep/wake cycle and the external time demands for the sleep/wake schedule of the changed time zone. Typical symptoms include disturbed sleep, impaired functioning and decreased alertness. Read More

Dr. Drew is always good for shedding light on mental health issues; Keri Ann's passive aggressive note to Kendra, on the third episode of VH-1's "Sex Rehab," ought to provide some good material to process in the group's sessions.  Read More

The Velvet Revolution demonstrated that rather than a movement organized around a single individual or group of individuals, this transformation came about by the collective efforts of a number of people - students, university faculty, and trade workers - who individually and collectively took it upon themselves to work to overthrow the communist regime. Read More

The world seems to be growing weary of positive psychology. But before we jettison the whole endeavor, we should remember that positive psychology has served as an important corrective. This is not to say, of course, that there is nothing in positive psychology that cannot be criticized. But maybe there is a better way to measure happiness, one that has nothing to do with questionnaires Read More

Back at the burning house I had meant to write several posts about Reb's retreat in quick succession and then get back to the book but I am (pathetic excuse) too busy - working on the second edition of my textbook Consciousness: An Introduction. It is extremely hard work (though I love doing it) and just doesn't leave time for much else. Read More

What you can't be with won't let you be... Read More

As a psychologist of virtue development, I find abhorrent behavior a puzzle. Did the person enjoy doing what he did or did he feel like he could not help himself?If he enjoyed hurting others, then it was a vicious act (vice). Vice is the result of learning to enjoy the wrong things. Read More

Last week twenty-year-old Jim told his mother that he has always been leery of his younger, but larger brother, Andrew. Jim's cautiousness around Andrew dates back to the time Andrew shoved him off a dump truck breaking both of Jim's wrists.   Read More

Which type of person are you? Do you grab life by the horns and ride or tie yourself to the mast? New personality research shows that at the most general level of description, these two dimensions are the most important dimensions upon which people vary.  Read More

Emotions have a bad rep these days. Especially in medical research, emotions are usually the enemies. This orientation is understandable with respect to rage, but laughing and crying also are treated as pathological. There are many studies of a new diagnosis called Emotional Lability (EL) and the even more extreme one, Emotional Incontinence (EI). Read More