In my April 14 column, I decided to try to answer a question that I get asked on a regular basis. What makes a good shrink? (Source: À la recherche d’un bon psy. Journal Métro, April 14, 2009) Whenever I meet with high school students about careers in psychology I always get asked the same question: [...]
Category Archives: Random thoughts
Hidden shame
A woman without hair, a man with a diseased penis, a teenager with psoriasis all over his back, a woman with severe varicose veins, a manager with a record of a sexual infraction… If I extended this list, I might eventually get to something that you identified with yourselves. We almost all have shames or [...]
It’s a Wonderful Film
Here is something I wrote last December but submitted a little late for publication before Christmas. I made some minor changes and tried again this year. I was lucky enough to have it published in the Montreal Gazette and in the Financial Post (my first time in a national publication!) on December 18, 2008. It [...]
Knowing the limits of knowledge
I used to teach a class at McGill called “Advanced study in behavioural disorders.” It was a course that gave students a chance to get some fieldwork experience in their final undergraduate year. Each year I would tell students the following in their first class: “When you don’t know something, you don’t know something. When [...]
Citius, Altius, Fortius
The olympics and I go way back. I was in the 1976 games in Montreal. Well…more like “at” the games rather than “in.” I was 17 and my summer job was to work in crowd control. We were all hired for six weeks even though the games took place over the last two. For the [...]
Vacations from heaven (or hell); They’re all good!
Just before going on vacation I decided to write something light for Métro. I thought about the annual media requests for quotes about vacations from an “expert.” I am not aware of any profound research in the area (although there probably is) and of course there are no graduate courses on the topic. Nevertheless, an [...]
The hard worker and the smart worker
I am in a fairly unique position at the Douglas. I’m a manager, yet I have no actual staff. My role is that of providing professional development. The professionals work directly for their programs instead of for the psychology department. What this implies is that both staff and management feel equally comfortable talking to me [...]
Gambling on our self-control
Hi folks, I didn’t add a post last week because I did not want to take the focus off Randy Pausch’s lecture. It was also an emotional week for me. My cousin Sam died. He was a great man. The Pausch lecture said so much about how to live one’s life to the fullest (as [...]
The tsunami and the raindrop
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a traffic jam where I argued that little gestures can have big impacts when cumulative effects are taken into account. This week, I wrote a column on a similar theme.I first got the idea after speaking to a fairly young client who was frustrated by the fact that [...]
