Thinking Matters

An open mind and what you have in it.

by Henry Kellerman, Ph.D.

The Most Important Ingredient in Marriage

It's not a secret. It's really obvious. The most important ingredient in a relationship generally, and in marriage in particular is ‘talking.' That's right; talking is ultimately far more important than initial physical attractions or generally love-at-first-sight experiences. Read More

Easy Promises To Cure Psychopathology Are Not Valid

There have been countless attempts to circumvent talk-therapy in the hope of speeding up the process of psychotherapy or helping a person get better, quicker; from ascertaining the person's ‘bile' quotient, to electroconvulsive treatment, to the failed but initially promised so-called miracle of lobotomy, to Domain/Delgado crawling technique, to Esalen/Big Sur in Read More

What Tiger Should Do.

Okay, Tiger Woods, here goes:

First of all, get back on the pro golf tour immediately, and try to win as many as possible. People still love you. Read More

10 Point Scale for Marriage

On a 10 point scale, how is your marriage? The essence here is not to be disappointed or unduly worried if you can't rate your marriage as a 9, or a 10. Why? Because on a 10 point scale, the best any marriage can be is an 8. And that's high. Personality differences, needs, feelings, dissatisfactions, inconveniences, and so forth are always the obvious culprits in any marriage. Read More

How to keep a relationship working successfully.

Question for the day, the week, the month, the year, the decade, a lifetime -Here it is:

Do you know what it takes to keep a relationship working successfully? Read More

How to Choose a Mate

What to look for in a mate? Have you chosen wisely? With respect to this issue, there are probably five factors in mate selection (choosing your life partner) that everyone uses - whether knowing it or not: Read More

Do Psychologists Reject Science?

Do psychologists reject science (as Sharon Begley writes in her October 12, 2009 column in Newsweek Magazine)? Read More

Thinking Matters: Psychotherapy, Dreaming, and Psychoanalysis

Okay folks, here's the problem. Read More

Kellerman reply to Dr. Vee on Fort Hood violence

Yes, this is a good comment. I've referred to it directly in my blog entry in analyzing the issue of how anger and ideology is linked to acting-out and violence, to wit: "If the strength of the anger is stronger than the strength of the resilience of the person, then the anger is likely to be acted out. Read More

The Case of Nidal Malik Hasan's Shooting at Fort Hood

There are various criteria used by any person's psyche (psychological processes) that will determine whether anger gets repressed or not. And, of course, if the anger is large or huge the probability that it will be repressed decreases and the likelihood of acting-out increases. Why is that? Read More

Remembering

This is my 3rd blog entry. In each of the previous two, I've spelled out the relation of the appearance of psychological symptoms to a person's repression of anger.

In this blog entry I will focus more on repression, but in this case it's about the issue simply of remembering. Read More

Anger Is the Key (Part2)

1. Your wish for something is thwarted;
2. You feel disempowered about that and of course angry about it (because anger is a reempowerment, and that's what you need - a reempowerment);
3. But, rather than express the anger, you suppress it, or more accurately, you repress it;
4. Because of this repression you will necessarily pop a symptom. Read More

Anger Is the Key

Love may make the world go ‘round, but anger is the key. Why is that? It's because we are all wish-soaked creatures and we all know that wishes don't usually get met. And then we get angry. And if sometimes wishes do get met, they usually don't get met exactly when we want them met. And if they do sometimes get met when we want them met, it's usually not to the fullest measure. Read More