Philosophy Stirred, Not Shaken

Addiction

How to Start Looking for Treatment Center Information

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on December 26, 2022

Looking online for information about addiction treatment? You may be heading into deep waters of unsubstantiated claims, overblown promises, and predatory practices.

Stress

Women’s Stress Can Skyrocket During the Holidays

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on December 11, 2022

Women are expected to maintain most of the holiday traditions. It can come at a high cost to their mental and physical health.

Addiction

Is a "Damp" Approach to Drinking Right for You?

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on December 4, 2022

Many people are willing to reduce or change their alcohol consumption but not be abstinent. Is this a good thing?

Relationships

Why You Can't Make Someone Else Change

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on July 26, 2022

Every person has their own habitual center of personal energy that another cannot make you change.

Alcoholism

Common Reasons for Relapse

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on June 3, 2022

Summertime can be hard for people who struggle with alcoholism. Self-knowledge may protect against relapse.

Motivation

Affirmations and Rewards Help People to Quit Drugs

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on May 10, 2022

Contingency Management helps people to quit by restoring moral goods such as self-respect, dignity, and autonomy.

Relationships

How the Most Manipulative People Shape Their Reality

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on April 22, 2022

Master manipulators create The Manipulatrix, which is a manufactured reality that destroys the autonomy, self-respect, and self-worth of the manipulated.

Sexual Abuse

Warring Minds and Bodies of Abuse Survivors

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on June 14, 2021

A common therapeutic recommendation for survivors of abuse is to integrate their minds and bodies. Not all may be able to do so. Does this mean they are unwell?

Child Development

Childhood Trauma Is a Moral Emergency

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on June 3, 2021

When the essential arts of personhood are delayed or diminished in childhood, people may struggle to have self-worth and respect. Others may treat them as lesser moral agents.

Loneliness

3 Types of Deep, Abiding Loneliness

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on April 13, 2021

You can lose yourself and know it. You can lose yourself and not know it. Each is a cause of great anguish.

Sex

What Role Does Sexual Compulsion Play in Violence Against Women?

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on March 19, 2021

Did sex addiction, or racism and sexism, play a role in the Atlanta mass murder? What if sexual compulsion is a product of racism and sexism?

Identity

There Are Not “Real Racists” and the Rest of Us

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on March 18, 2021

It is tempting to think that just because people do not commit overtly racist acts, we’re not racist. Resist that temptation.

Relationships

Joining and Leaving QAnon Are Conversion Processes

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on February 17, 2021

Membership in ideological groups alters a person’s habitual center of personal energy. Leaving does too.

Alcoholism

How to Talk to People About Their Alcohol or Drug Use

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on January 1, 2021

Too many people believe an intervention will make people immediately change their drug or alcohol use.

Addiction

The Exhausting Pulls of Ambivalence

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on December 9, 2020

Ambivalence is a special torment in which one part of a self wars against another. A person becomes like the Pushmi-pullu of Dr. Doolittle.

Relationships

Strategies to Avoid Powder Keg Political Discussions

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on November 13, 2020

How to talk about politics without resorting to fisticuffs.

Alcoholism

Women, Opioids, Benzos, and Alcohol

Peg O'Connor Ph.D. on October 19, 2020

Financial insecurity, familial concerns, and caring labor drive more women to unsafe drug and alcohol use. Each of these is not just a matter of personal choice.