My mother thinks I’m not normal

So how much of a freak am I anyway? There is no question that there are tendencies I have which cause me problems from time to time. Of course I am not alone. We all have fears and worries, we all get down from time to time – sometimes quite seriously. Don’t we almost all have trouble concentrating? Don’t we all have bad habits that cause us grief? Do these issues make us mentally ill?

There was a great editorial a while back in the Los Angeles Times written by Allen Frances MD. In his article, Dr. Frances bemoans the tendency to medicalize relatively normal tendencies. While some of...

Read more →
Posted on 03 May 2010
1 comment
28

La colère

Salut à mes lecteurs Francophone. Voici une entrevue que j’ai donné en 2008 sur la colère.

Read more →
Posted on 19 Apr 2010
Leave a comment
32

Spurious correlations and you

One of the interesting things in life is in how we make use of observations. We all try to understand why things happen and when we observe a connection – or more accurately, what we BELIEVE is a connection – we feel as if we have gained a sense of control over our lives. Knowing why something happens allows us to take corrective steps. When I was young my father started experiencing Angina. One Sunday he had a particularly bad day. Given the traditional pasta meal, he believed that the sauce was what made him feel worse. For many months following that observation, he always ate his pasta...

Read more →
Posted on 18 Apr 2010
Leave a comment
25

Am I smart or just lucky?

We are constantly facing new challenges. Yet while some of us seem to be better at dealing with them than others, skill and intelligence are not the only qualities that set people apart. Two people with the exact same abilities will have radically different experiences when facing new challenges based on their attributional style and confidence level.

It is easy to feel like an impostor, yet this feeling has little to do with our actual level of competence. In my March 9 column for Métro, I decided to re-visit this theme from a different angle. I always meet people who are very good at...

Read more →
Posted on 22 Mar 2010
Leave a comment
31

Losing a lover, preserving love

One of the great challenges in life is dealing with a loss or a break-up. Almost everyone has had to go through it at some point in their lives. If you want to know what depression feels like just think back to the last time you went through a separation – dry mouth, loss of appetite, loss of pleasure in activities you normally enjoy, trouble sleeping, etc. While anyone can be depressed following a break-up, people who consult have often had to cope with a long-standing pattern of failed relationships.

For some people, the pattern can be caused by their “difficult” nature – such as a...

Read more →
Posted on 08 Mar 2010
1 comment
51

Haiti: Can help really help?

Every time a tragic event occurs I receive a call form someone in authority and am asked if I, or a team of my colleagues, can provide some psychological help. Whether the events are local (the suicide of a patient, the collapse of a highway overpass, the accidental death of a circus performer) or international (the Virginia Tech killing spree, the 2004 tsunami, or the recent Haitian earthquake), these events affect such a large number of individuals that it is natural to want to do something for them – something that will ease their suffering. While it is natural to want to help, what...

Read more →
Posted on 15 Feb 2010
Leave a comment
36

Pithy aphorisms and media shrinks

“Where do I get my ideas,” is probably the most common question I get asked. I have no idea how to answer it. To be honest, I don’t usually set out to write about a topic. I simply go about my business of living a normal life. I talk to people, I see things, I hear things, I observe myself and others, and every once in a while, I say to myself, “Hey, that would make a great column.”

While there is an ever-increasing science base to what psychologists do, the profession is still more art than science. Most of the situations and circumstances people find themselves in are unique. For this...

Read more →
Posted on 01 Feb 2010
1 comment
32

I get bad thoughts

Every once in a while, very unpleasant or disturbing thoughts come into my head. Since there are many of them, it begs the question, “Am I one disturbed human whack-o?”

Although some people might think I am, I believe I am relatively normal (“relatively” being the operative word here). What I am referring to are thoughts that we all get but are embarrassed to admit. Here is a short list of thoughts or images that I have either had myself or that have been reported to me by clients. Some of them are funny and embarrassing, others are mortifying. None are unusual:

Less disturbing ones can...

Read more →
Posted on 26 Jan 2010
124 comments
83

The rising tide of dementia

January is Alzheimer’s awareness month. Last week, media picked up on some alarming reports about the rising social and financial impact of dementias. As the popularion ages, it is estimated that within 30 years one person in Canada will be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or other form of dementia every two minutes. Currently the rate is one every five minutes.

I thought this would be a good week to post something I published in Métro during Alzheimer’s awareness month three years ago. (English and French versions will be included)

As a bonus, I am also including two touching stories that were...

Read more →
Posted on 12 Jan 2010
Leave a comment
28

All I want for Christmas is a big smelly monkey

I don’t indulge in bowls of sorbet very often, yet the idea of cleansing the palate appeals to me. Whenever I play poker with my brothers and a few friends, and it’s my turn to deal, I choose to play straight poker (no wild cards) as a means of cleansing the poker palate after several hands of crazy wild card games such as Kings and littles, blind baseball, low in the hole, fours whores and mustached men (one basically needs five of a kind to win that last one). In a similar vein, I decided to cleanse the Christmas wish palate with something a little different for my last column of the...

Read more →
Posted on 23 Dec 2009
1 comment
31