Stuck

Why we can't (or won't) move on from bad jobs, bad relationships, and bad habits, and how we can all move ahead.

Anneli Rufus is the author of many books, including Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto and Stuck: Why We Can't (or Won't) Move On. See full bio

October 1, 2009

Om Sweet Om

The act of chanting -- repeating words or phrases over and over, usually to a melody -- has been a mode of worship and a feature of spiritual practice in many faiths around the world for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks chanted deities' names at festivals, rituals and parades. Buddhist sutras, childhood rhyming games, and football cheers are all chants of a sort. They're so universal and so popular because their power to soothe, bond, entrain and transport goes very deep. Read More

September 24, 2009

And Now You Can Go

A British court has evicted a man from his ancestral home because his wife blames her clinical depression on him. Anthony Arbuthnot Watkins Grubb, 59, whose family has owned the Mayes Estate in West Sussex for several generations, has been ordered to move out by a family court judge, reads a story in today's Daily Mail. Jennifer Grubb, 53, claims her husband is an "emotional bully" who imposed "extremely prescriptive household rules and regulations" on her and their five children. So now he must depart his house, which stands on several hundred acres of farmland, within 28 days. Read More

September 23, 2009

Field of Dreams

Dream researcher Ryan Hurd finds great significance in the plotlines and imagery of dreams, believing that those narratives unspooling in our sleeping lives bear potent wisdom, even warnings, for our waking ones. Read More

September 8, 2009

Bipolar Disorder Comes to 90210

The big-media mainstreaming of mental illness continues, for better or worse, with the revelation that a character on 90210 suffers from bipolar disorder. In a recent episode, the cool, quirky Erin Silver surprised everyone by ranting conspiracy theories and resorting to wild physical violence. Read More

September 4, 2009

Stars Suffer Too

Yesterday I couldn't resist clicking on a post titled "The Top 8 Celebrity Mental Cases!" at TheFrisky.com, a celebrity-gossip site whose motto is "Love. Life. Stars. Style." Promising to reveal stars who "have been vocal about their struggles with mental illness," the post exudes a bit of mockery but a surprising share of solidarity. Read More

September 3, 2009

Jumping the Queue

In the UK, children with ADHD are now being granted "priority wristbands" to if they present letters from their doctors. The wristbands permit them to go on rides right away without having to wait on lines. Read More

August 28, 2009

Garbage Mansions

Japanese mental-health professionals are growing intensely concerned about gomi yashiki, meaning "garbage mansions" -- that is, the homes of seniors who collect junk until it becomes a public nuisance, overflowing the house or apartment itself and spreading onto alleyways, sidewalks, streets, and parking areas. Is this stockpiling of junk an attempt to offset loneliness -- and/or to create ad-hoc burrows and forts in fear of losing independence and being forced to leave? Read More

August 27, 2009

Third Eye Science

What do you call a scientist who studies clairvoyance, qigong, and psychic healing not in an effort to disprove them but rather to stake a claim that they actually exist? UC Berkeley-trained biophysicist Beverly Rubik studies the "biofield," the purported life-force energy that is called qi in Chinese martial arts, prana in yoga, and other things in other traditions. She wants to prove the existence of the biofield, claiming that this would "explain more deeply how the mind works." I interviewed her recently. Read More

August 20, 2009

Texting Too Much?

The United States' first inpatient Internet-addiction treatment center has just opened in Fall City, Washington, on a five-acre spread known as Heavensfield. Other such centers thrive in Japan, China, and South Korea. Fall City's reSTART aims to curb addictions to gaming, texting, and general web-surfing, and is currently housing its first patient, a teenage World of Warcraft fan. Read More

August 17, 2009

New Eating Disorder, New Fears

Another kind of eating disorder is on the rise, according to representatives of mental-health organizations in the US and Britain. This time, it's orthorexia nervosa -- a compulsion to eat only "pure" or "healthy" food. Based on the Greek words for "correct" and "appetite" -- though "correct" in this case is a bit ironic -- and identified by Colorado physician Steven Bratman, orthorexia can manifest in a staunch refusal to eat any meat, fats, carbohydrates, cooked meals, and/or the contents of entire food groups. Read More

Books by Anneli Rufus

Stuck: Why We Can't (or Won't) Move On

Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

Weird Europe: A Guide to Bizarre, Macabre, and Just Plain Weird Sights

The Farewell Chronicles: How We Really Respond to Death

Self-Help Basics

Most of us have things about ourselves we wish we could improve. Lasting change is difficult—many of our habits are deeply ingrained, and certain aspects of ourselves, such as core personality attributes, may be immutable. But many more things can be changed.

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