What if understanding your emotional hungers, whether for love, power, respect, or other, is critical to understanding your hunger for food?
Here's how it works.
How do we shift from a phase of unity and harmony in our relationships to embracing diversity? How do we be our true selves with another person who is different from us?
Being unaware of power dynamics, leads many to blame and shame the victims of domestic violence. Understanding these dynamics empowers us to bear loving witness.
Trump’s words and behavior compel a deeper and more challenging conversation about sexual violence. We must combat the triple threat of denial, dismissal and victim blaming.
Mother Teresa is officially a saint. But her story is not only one of light, but also of shadow—the agony of the absence of her beloved, Jesus. How shall we understand her story?
Do you sometimes think something is wrong with you? Do you know your own story and have compassion for your suffering? If not, shame may be limiting your healing.
When we find the gold hidden in our wounds, the healing process becomes more than resolving our pain. It becomes a path to discovering our greatest gifts.
Have you ever been attacked, assaulted or hurt by another? Here's five time tested strategies for responding. Which have you used? Which would be good to learn?
Take it easy, breathe, relax, meditate—conventional advice that assumes that stress is something to relieve. But this is not the whole story. Some stress contains messages that need to be heard; some stress embodies energy that we need to live; and some tensions simply won't be relieved by conventional notions and strategies. Want to find out more?
The simple truth—that being gay is an expression of nature’s beauty, truth, and love—is not available to a mind closed by orthodoxy. Instead, our gay sisters and brothers are projected upon and viewed as sick and dangerous. Here's some light to illuminate the shadow of Carson's thinking.
Some white folks have responded to the phrase "Black Lives Matter" with the phrase “all lives matter.” While this is a seemingly more empowering and diversity affirming response, it is neither. Here's why.
Addictions are a hotel; they are not home but can remind people of home so powerfully that they won’t easily abandon them without knowing where their real home is and how to get there.
Do you see your problems as only your own? Do you see how they are part of a larger family or cultural system? If not, you may be burdened with undeserved shame.
Does inner criticism shake your confidence, make you feel that you are not beautiful, intelligent, powerful, or even worthy? Here's how to make a real difference in your struggle to love yourself.
To honestly confront the psychological illness of racism, America needs a true mirror, one that reflects our light and our shadow; one that provokes a real moral and spiritual awakening.
Imagine Brian Williams saying "I tried to feel good about myself but never felt good enough. I constantly criticized myself. I inflated who I was hoping that somehow the reflection back from my audience would overcome my inner diminishment. Now I see that it never did and it never can."
Have we fulfilled Dr. King's Dream? Or could those who argue that we now live in a truly post-racial society be wearing the blinders of white privilege?
Talking about race is no easy task. What makes understanding each other so hard? What can you do to make racial dialogue more healing and less painful? Here's what I've learned from working with diverse groups dialoguing about race.
David Bedrick, J.D., Dipl. PW, is a counselor, educator, attorney, and the author of Talking Back to Dr. Phil: Alternatives to Mainstream Psychology.
About Is Psychology Making Us Sick?
This blog “talks back” to a century of normative psychology, an approach that often has more to do with socialization than well-being. It presents a love-based psychology that:
Embraces authenticity instead of suggesting “fixes”Views deviations from “the norm” as reflections of nature’s diversityBelieves in the power and intelligence of feelingsRecognizes the larger culture’s role in individual sufferingSees conflict as necessary for building sustainable relationshipsRegards our greatest difficulties as our strongest allies
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