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 secrets that we would rather keep to ourselves. Some involve past behaviours or situations (bouts with mental illness, criminal history, having been fired from a job, etc.) while others involve physical illness or deformities that were not even things we had any control over.

For some...

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Posted on 27 Jan 2009
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Desegregation

I have never quite understood the hype seen during each presidential inauguration. It just never seemed like that big a deal. On the other hand, while still way over the top, Barack Obama’s swearing in ceremony today was truly historic.

Part of me says; What’s the big deal? Blacks seem fully integrated into American society. Many people are of mixed ethnicity anyway (for example, Tiger Woods is 50% Thai, 25% African American, and the remaining quarter is half Chinese and half Native American). Sure, there are still pockets of segregation, but accusations of discrimination and racism are...

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Posted on 21 Jan 2009
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The depths of cruelty

In yesterday’s Montreal Gazette, former editor Norman Webster wrote about Tuol Sleng, the former high school that became S-21, the Khmer Rouge’s primary prison and torture center. Tuol Sleng and the Khmer Rouge regime represent everything that is wrong with human nature. And it is merely a single chapter in the long history of man’s inhumanity to man.

In contrast, perhaps, to my recent posts that might make you believe that all I see is love, tolerance, and positive sentiment in people, I am quite well versed in the crueler aspects of man. It is for this reason that I often write about “us...

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Posted on 12 Jan 2009
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23

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 is on the psychology of nostalgia.

It’s a Wonderful Film

It happens every time I watch Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Despite my innate cynicism and the fact I know every predictable scene by heart, I still cry when George’s friends and family toast him and sing Auld Lang...

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Posted on 24 Dec 2008
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Segregation

Us versus Them…

From time to time you will notice how themes keep coming back again throughout my posts. That’s because I believe we are not very complicated creatures. We just appear so. In reality, human nature appears complex because there are an infinite number of combinations and permutations that can manifest themselves as a result of these few simple principles. One of the ones that affects many human interactions is the tendency to engage in Groupthink. This contributes to conflicts between countries, religions, sexes, and even sports teams.

I’ve written about this issue on a...

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Posted on 19 Dec 2008
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24

Infidelity’s opposing forces

A colleague once remarked that humans were not biologically made to be monogamous. Hmm…an interesting issue. I would say yes and no.

I think there are two mechanisms in human nature that clash. One contributes to infidelity while the other favours monogamy. They both have to do with the survival of the species.

The first, of course, is our innate biological sex drive that ensures the propogation of human DNA. We simply wouldn’t exist without it. That’s why orgasms feel so good. They make us want to seek out the sensation over and over again. (It is also why adolescent boys have no time...

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Posted on 08 Dec 2008
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27

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 you learn something, you think you know everything. When you learn a lot, you realize how little you know.”

I would tell them this because mental health and psychology is a field in which far more is unknown than is known. In all such speculative fields, those who have...

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Posted on 01 Dec 2008
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Teen mental health

I just added a new link in the section “Some links” entitled Teen Mental Health. It is a great resource on a wide range of issues in adolescent mental health.

The blog is written by Dr. Stan Kutcher, and its purpose is to “share scientifically-validated information about adolescent mental health to advance the understanding of mental health and mental illness in young people.”

It is broad in scope, well written, and rich with multimedia links. Impressive site!

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Posted on 21 Nov 2008
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Memories: True or false?

Memory, more specifically false memory, is a topic I wrote about for a column a few months ago. I kept the final product on the back burner before finally deciding to publish it last week. I hesitated because of the trauma that sexual abuse causes. Research into false memories has had a major impact on the victims of such abuse. This research shows how easy it is to create false memories, which in turn create false accusations that can ruin many lives. On the other hand, many traumatic memories are real. Questioning the memories of a victim of sexual or other form of abuse, especially when...

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Posted on 11 Nov 2008
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26

A century and a half

September 26, 1958; a day that will live in infamy. This future goofball was born!

50 years, huh! How did that happen? Well, I suppose that since I’m here, I might as well celebrate.

I know that we use years as milestones because they’re easy to count. Still, I always thought it would be much cooler to use every billion seconds as a major milestone in our lives since they only come around every 31.69 years. Somehow it doesn’t seem so bad to say that I’m just over a billion and a half seconds old.

What I really wanted for my fiftieth birthday was for my four adolescent children to treat...

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Posted on 25 Oct 2008
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