Look At It This Way

Seeing old things in new ways.

Stephen Benedict-Mason is a psychologist, a former university professor, syndicated newspaper columnist and radio talk-show host. See full bio

November 5, 2009

Let's Get Dumb

Since human intelligence has come so far since the Stone Age, can we say that because of nothing more than evolution we will all become geniuses in the next hundred years or so? The short answer is - no. Evolution favors only those mutations that are somehow more favorable to procreation. Read More

November 1, 2009

So How Come You're Single?

A friend of mine who was delayed at the airport called and asked if I'd run her psychotherapy group that night. I agreed mainly because I was interested in the topic. Read More

October 30, 2009

The Miracle of Fatima

As a youngster, I had a few friends who went to Catholic school. Years later, I taught for a time at a Catholic college. As a result, I heard many references to what has come to be called the Miracle of Fatima. Most of these tales followed the same basic plot line. In the early part of the 20th Century, some children in an Portugese village saw an angelic figure descend from the sky. Read More

October 24, 2009

The Bizarre Beyond

Since one of my favorite things in the whole world is seeing myself on television, I was delighted to receive a call from the producer of a very popular evening program. He wanted me to provide a little balance, he said, during a part of the show that would feature a woman who was bothered by ghosts - and had a videotape to prove it! Read More

October 17, 2009

Taboo Topics

A while back, I was asked to speak at a convention of the world's smartest people - MENSA. My topic was Look At It This Way. My point was that archeologists looking at people years off and anthropologists looking at people miles off make it plain that what we believe to be true is not so much a fact as a simple function of time and space. Read More

October 11, 2009

Extramarital Affairs Arranged On-Line

The key to success is really quite simple. Find a need and fill it. But, as is so often the case with such simple approaches, the devil turns out to be in the details. The first part, finding problems, is a piece of cake. Just tune in to one of your local talk-radio hosts. Read More

September 24, 2009

Medical Myths?

Six Medical Myths Busted (by Jocob Teitelbaum, MD) is an unusual piece because the good doctor actually suggests that just because it feels good, it may not be bad. When was the last time you heard that? Usually our Puritan background comes to the fore and we're deluged with messages such as the one I recently heard from a TV Evangelist: If you're having fun, you know you're hurting somebody. Read More

September 18, 2009

Where's the Romance?

"They're in it just for the sex and that's not normal. Why do they even bother to get married? It's the fault of the schools...the parents...the government.

Again and again the audience made plain their utter contempt for the younger generation in general and, more specifically, for what they saw as a complete lack of God-fearing behavior in modern relationships. Read More

September 8, 2009

Conservative Republicans as Sexy Swingers

Recently, I wrote about the popular - though thoroughly neurotic - need to try and control everybody else's sex life. A good example was the city councilman who told a local newspaper reporter that he spent virtually all of his waking hours searching out pornographic threats to his community. Read More

August 25, 2009

Intro to Psych: A Roadmap for Life

Matthew Hutson, the news editor at Psychology Today, recently asked contributors to come up with a research finding that caused a significant change in their behavior. My problem was not so much thinking of one but of narrowing it down to the first fifty. Read More