Psych Careers

Claude Lévi-Strauss, arguably the world's most famous and influential anthropologist, died on October 30 at the age of 100. This is a lasting memory of my first encounter with him. Read More

Psychology is different form other disciplines. Unlike teachers in English literature, for example, psychologists don't usually argue about what to include in the canon. By "canon", of course, I am referring to what writings are sanctioned as great, essential, or otherwise defining of the subject area. Read More

My discipline, Psychological Anthropology (call it PA to save space), may be unfamiliar to many readers, so it's worth spending a few paragraphs introducing this field. This might help you to assess what you are reading on this blog. Read More

What could be done to bring suicide directly into training curricula for all mental health professionals? Read More

A White woman, an Asian guy, and a Black guy are seated around a table. No, it's not the lead-in to a joke of questionable appropriateness. Rather, it's the source of the latest on-line controversy about race. Welcome to the tale of the competing Microsoft ads... Read More

This is not the typical story of time travel. Far from the lone adventurer-scientist conquering a life long dream to explore the world in another dimension, this tragic plotline chronicles a romantic with common aspirations and abilities trapped in a time-space continuum nightmare. His name is Henry and he just so happens to be born with a genetic anomaly that catapults him from one "when" to another without rhyme or reason.

Although the film highlights this time-travel downside within the narrow context of his love affair with Clare, I would argue that such an affliction goes well beyond romantic difficulties. Read More

 A new book, On Kindness, by psychologist Adam Phillips and historian Barbara Taylor, asks why we generally see independent people as strong and charitable people as dumber or less developed. It asks how we got to a place in human history in which heroism is most often depicted as independence, and in which we interpret small acts of random kindness as suspect--as a repressed need to be recognized, as a sign of an overly submissive nature, or even as a symptom of mental illness. Read More

Are Facebook "fan pages" or MySpace accounts appropriate vehicles to promote a psychology or mental health practice? And is it okay to publicly post films of client or patient sessions, even with informed consent, on FB? It's happening--and it's bringing up a number of questions about how some mental health practitioners are using social networking platforms such as Facebook and what exactly constitutes client welfare in the age of the Internet. Read More

"Public Enemies" should be a great movie. It depicts an American icon and follows a classic and beloved cop-and-robber formula. It stars two chameleons disguised as humans, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, and we get to watch these leading actors of their generation play with guns. Read More