The relentless pursuit of …um, you know…stuff

One of my childhood heroes was George Leigh Mallory. I remember reading about his attempts to scale Mount Everest. What made the story so fascinating was the mystery surrounding his death. He and fellow climber, Sandy Irvine, were last seen going for the top but were never seen again. No one knows for sure if they ever made it to the summit. Unbelievably, George Mallory’s body was found a few years ago, as you can see in the photo below.

Mallory’s famous quote about why he wanted to climb Mount Everest (Because it’s there) is often misattributed to Edmund Hillary, who along with Sherpa...

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Posted on 30 May 2011
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Why is that guy looking at me like that?

I suppose a little paranoia is good. It keeps us on our toes. As threats become more real, paranoia becomes an ally. The problem is that in normal times, the hyper-vigilance caused by paranoia and fear can seriously ruin what we are trying to protect.

In my column of May 3, using an analogy of a terrorist threat, I explore how insecurity can cause problems in relationships.

Insecurity and hyper-vigilance

(Source: Menace et hypervigilance. Journal Métro, May 3, 2011)

What would happen if you heard a news report about a highly probable terrorist attack somewhere in Montreal? The source of...

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Posted on 24 May 2011
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Why politicians lie to us

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. – Reinhold Niebuhr

Democracy is the best system yet invented and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Unfortunately it results in a popularity contest and popular isn’t always good. Because of this, the leaders who make the the more believable promises tend to get our vote. It also encourages a short-sighted focus. Why pander to the small percentage of voters concerned with long-term damage to the planet, for example, when what matters today is economic development.

Ministers...

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Posted on 25 Apr 2011
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29

The browser and the browsed

Hi folks. Here’s something I wrote last week. It explores the modern day reality of internet dating.

Computer dating and the shoemaker

(source: Trouver chaussure à son pied. Journal Métro, April 5, 2011)

Gluttony of choice. That’s what its all about these days. No matter what you are looking for, the choices usually seem limitless. This of course applies to two important areas in life – choosing a pair of shoes and choosing someone to fall in love with.

The shoemaker

In frontier days buying a pair of shoes was easy. You went to the village shoemaker and ordered a pair. There was no such...

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Posted on 14 Apr 2011
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31

People don’t like me. I don’t like people.

Ahhhh…look at all the lonely people.

That’s my attempt at singing a Beatles lyric in print. Today’s post is about people who have few or no friends. There are many such folks. Some are happy about it and some aren’t. In clinical practice you meet many people who are relatively isolated and it doesn’t take too long to figure out why.

The question of social isolation was the topic of my column of March 22. In it I present two radically different reasons for this isolation. It is quite simple: some people are isolated because they don’t think much of themselves (or at least do not believe...

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Posted on 28 Mar 2011
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33

Psychologists make for lousy soldiers

I often think of all the talented artists and musicians who will never earn a living at their craft. It’s sad that we simply do not live in a world where such talents are rewarded. No, our current leaders are the ones with the most marketing savvy – whether they sell products or their political ideas. But what if we lived in war time? Or in a remote African tribe? Or perhaps in the roaring 20′s? Or the depression era 30′s?

I reality, the most successful people will be those whose talents match the circumstances of their time and place. Risk takers, for example, will thrive at times of...

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Posted on 08 Mar 2011
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32

I’ll trade you that needle for a bus ticket

In my last post I wrote about stigma by discussing how two similar experiences can be lived in radically different fashions. I used the example of losing a loved one. Because we live our lives through our subjective lenses it is easy to label someone as weak when they handle something less well than us.

As a follow-up to my earlier “Two deaths, two reactions” column, which focussed on depression, I looked at anxiety in my last column. In it, I tell a true story from a number of years ago which illustrates well how radically different our fears can be.

A striking thing about anxiety is...

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Posted on 02 Mar 2011
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35

What’s HIS problem? I’ve gone through worse.

Many factors contribute to stigma in mental illnesses but an important one involves assumptions made when two people experience the same circumstances. It is natural to assume that if we both stub our toes, we will experience similar pain, or if we both lose our jobs we will both have the same reaction. In reality, experiences are subjective. The experience of an event cannot be separated from the person living that event.

In the example of stubbing a toe, some people may claim that a stronger person can tolerate more pain and hence complain less. But how do we know if both individuals...

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Posted on 22 Feb 2011
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37

Take this pen and shove it!

Here is my column from last week. It is part of general talk I give on assertiveness and explains the problems that occur when we let frustrations accumulate too long. They almost invariably blow up in our faces.

In order to avoid this problem we must first learn to accept minor frustrations. This involves changing our expectations and developing a little more tolerance towards others. However, there is a limit to tolerance. For irritants that are a little too big to be accepted, we must learn to act on them and address problems before we blow up. It may require facing some minor...

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Posted on 31 Jan 2011
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35

How blue is blue: Understanding depression and burnout

Hi folks,

Every year the Douglas Institute hosts a series of lectures for the general public called the Mini-Psych School. We then produce DVDs of these lectures and post them on line. In 2009, I gave a lecture entitled How blue is blue?

Here it is in two parts. You might want to keep a can of Red Bull handy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1FCAYQVO8U

See part 2 on the Douglas website

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Posted on 18 Jan 2011
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