A Sense of Self
Remember the name of that long-running musical on Broadway: "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Forum?" Well... an odd thing happened to me in the street the other day when walking the dog....
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Do the Holidays Give You the Hiccups?
If too much holiday merriment is giving you the hiccups, you're not alone. Everyone gets hiccups from time to time, usually as a result of irritation of the stomach or esophagus. Hiccups happen when...
View ArticleWhy Don't People Vote?
It's just weeks away from the first round of presidential caucuses and primaries here in the US, and in coming months we will hear more about how low voter participation typically is in US presidential...
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If I Was a Parent (of Someone with an Eating Disorder)
The holidays are here, and I've been thinking about what it would be like to be the parent of a kid with an eating disorder. While the holiday season can be difficult for those with eating disorders,...
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Are You Okay With Your Teen Having Casual Sex?
I've been busy the past couple of hours reading and thinking about Stanley Siegel's most recent blog posts along with some of the commentary by other experts about his post In Defense of Casual Sex....
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Will Your Relationship go Farther if You're Similar, or Do Opposites Attract?
I was reminded of this cartoon when I watched a woman make a play for a friend of mine by insisting she was as addicted to coffee as he is! "Coffee coffee coffee, must have right now!" Of course coffee...
View ArticleKeep the Water Boiling
It takes a lot of work to get stronger, faster, and better at things. Getting skill, in other words, is hard. Our bodies are kind of thrifty and a bit reluctant to change. There is a threshold we have...
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Help for the Holiday Traveler
Airport security, packing "overwhelm" and other holiday hassles.
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7 Days to Our Heart's Desire
When we make the decision to dream, we reach into our creative psyche, a treasure chest for both our intuition and our secret wishes.Nestled within the world that we call the unconscious, the creative...
View ArticleTwo American Kids in a Small Swiss Village
It is often said that the best way of acquiring a language is to be immersed in it. This is what happened to two boys, Cyril (10) and Pierre (5) when their parents moved from Cambridge, MA, to a small...
View ArticleHoliday Gifts and Your Brain
It's the holiday season and you've been given a gift in a neatly wrapped box. You pick the box up, shake it, and judge its weight, but you can't figure out what's inside. Your curiosity peaked, you...
View ArticlePrimate Social Behavior: Nature "Versus" Nurture Once Again?
A recent article in the New York Times caught my eye concerning the strong role of genes in determining the social behavior of nonhuman primates. A team of researchers at the University of Oxford...
View ArticleLittle Things Mean a Lot
"Blow me a kiss from across the room...Touch my hair as you pass my chair, little things mean a lot." Kallen Kitty "The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is...
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Belief Contamination
The abhorrence we feel when encountering beliefs that contradict our own is so universal and so powerful that it's hard to imagine it's the result of anything other than natural selection, programmed...
View ArticleDo I Really Have the Best Job a Woman Could Have in 2012?
A former student of mine, now on the anthropology job market, shared a link to one of those end-of-year stories. This one, on Forbes, reports on the "Best Jobs for Women in 2012". Author Jenna Goudreau...
View ArticleThe Trouble With Democracy
Caplan, Bryan. 2007. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 276 pagesI. IntroductionCaplan's book is like the little girl with...
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Casual Sex: A Psychiatrist Responds
December 25, 2011In response to "Why I Advocate for Casual Sex" by Stanley Siegel, LCSW"Sex positive" sounds good and gets hits, but...any therapist worth his or her salt would be supportive of the...
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Belief is not evidence
Not enough evidence, god, not enough evidence~ What Bertrand Russell said he would tell god if asked why he didn't believe in him.What has contemporary cognitive psychology done to religion? It seems...
View ArticleDysfunctional Online Dating Dynamics: Pursuit and Distance
Given our fast-paced technological times, online dating is perhaps the most popular avenue for finding a mate. It's also a perfectly suited format for replicating dysfunctional relationship patterns....
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