Celebrities with Eating Disorders
The media draws in people vulnerable to scrutiny and rejection as well. Often the need to be perfect Is a way to try and cushion oneself from feeling vulnerable. For Eating Disorder sufferers, seeking perfection and the lure of celebrity status is an attempt to feel stronger but it often backfires because the industry is so harsh […]
When Complex Trauma & Severe Character Pathology Meet Part 2
Key points Complex childhood trauma with severe personality disorders require many years of treatment, often utilizing various approaches. A re-enactment of the childhood trauma occurs in the therapeutic dyad. Relational and other psychodynamic therapists believe healing is possible when certain conditions are met. Empathy, and its precursor compassion, are qualities, not skills. They cannot be taught, […]
When Complex Trauma and Severe Character Pathology Meet
Key points Sadistic impulses present in all human beings are held in check by most people. Complex trauma affects and often damages relationships at every level throughout life. Sadistic responses by patients with histories of persistent childhood trauma repeat cycle of abuse. Human beings absorb trauma. Familial or interpersonal trauma, perpetrated over a protracted period […]
Anxiety Is a Mask and a Symptom, Not Just an Evolutionary Signal
Key points Anxiety is more than an evolutionary response to uncertainty and a call to action. Eating disorders and anxiety are adaptations, masks, and gatekeepers: both are symptoms. Anxiety represents the expression of individuals’ attempts to cope with complex psychological states as well as hidden and repressed emotions. Anxiety disorders are on the rise. The impact of […]
When Sex Is Used for Power and Politics
Key points “Sex sells” can apply to politics as well as politicians seeking to secure votes. Topics about sex and sexual behavior are easy to whip up peoples’ fears and fascination. Making laws about sex ultimately come from peoples’ beliefs, not the Constitution. The adage “sex sells” is not lost on policymakers, lobbyists, power moguls, […]
Personal Responsibility in an Age of Projection and Quick Fixes
Key points Symptoms are concrete evidence of a person’s unconscious attempt to resolve an internal psychological conflict. Blaming COVID, TikTok, and the accessibility to porn as causative of symptom-based disorders is an easy out. Returning to long-term psychodynamic therapy makes sense in an age of blaming and quick-fix strategies. Mental health issues are a parallel […]
A Non-Binary Frame of Gender and Sexuality
Key points Social politics and current norms maintain an overarching reach into the public voices of people. The issue over what constitutes dominance versus submissiveness in personality and sexual behavior has been a gender-based hotbed topic. Binary gender thinking may be a defense, but lack of categorization may lose its intent. The human mind is […]
Identity Versus Label: Nonbinary and They
Key points Do gender identities such as “They/Them” improve general understanding of gender? The continuum between heterosexuality and homosexuality no longer suffices. If gender identity is an internal state, why is it necessary that everyone else gets it? We have come far from understanding sexuality solely from a continuum of heterosexuality to homosexuality. It took a long […]
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Key points Covid-19 has been a catalyst to relational awakening and change. Couples are deciding what matters to them in their relationship and what to do about it. Returning to love in relationships may be one silver lining gleaned from Covid-19. COVID brought psychological challenges and subsequent awakening to many individuals; the quality of intimate […]
Female Sexuality: Why It Is Everyone’s Business
I recently received this comment on my Psychology Today blog. I decided to write a reply to the writer of the comment, whose name I shall withhold. The commenter sent the following: “You should do an article on abortion. The number one leading cause of death in America. Almost 60 million performed since 1973.. The […]