Death and Life
Posted on August 11, 2008 - Filed Under Philosophy | Leave a Comment
Mortality is a difficult thing to talk about. One would expect that something so commonplace as death would be better accepted, but that is not the way most humans, at least the people I know, handle the issue. For most of us, death is ignored as long as possible, and then only momentarily dealt with [...]
Read More..>>Money Isn’t Everything (Happier Revisited)
Posted on June 30, 2008 - Filed Under Philosophy | Leave a Comment
Sorry for the long delay since my last post. I’ve been in an introspective cycle I guess.. At any rate I want to get the juices flowing again by following up on my last post regarding the book: Happier, by Tal Ben-Shahar.
Besides the need to balance present and future benefits in our lives, the author [...]
Happier
Posted on March 2, 2008 - Filed Under News, Philosophy | Leave a Comment
Happiness is one of those core emotions that I think just can’t be defined further. You know it when you feel it, and that’s it. Having said that, I agree with Tal Ben-Shahar Ph.D., that it really should be considered the “ultimate currency”, and the final measure of success.
Many may disagree, but I think the [...]
The Morality of Sexual Orientation
Posted on February 28, 2008 - Filed Under News, Philosophy | Leave a Comment
Some of you may have seen the recent news that researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have been able to control the sexual orientation of fruit flies, by exposing them to a chemical. Specifically, they were able to induce homosexual behavior in previously heterosexual male fruit flies. You can read the [...]
Read More..>>Sad in a Joyous Season
Posted on December 16, 2007 - Filed Under Philosophy | Leave a Comment
For most of us, the Holiday season is one of joyful anticipation. As children, we anticipate receiving presents with increasing excitement. As parents, we anticipate the happiness of our children. For those who are religious, there is the celebration of God’s blessing. And for all ages it is a time for family to gather and [...]
Read More..>>Confronting the Shadow
Posted on November 12, 2007 - Filed Under Philosophy | Leave a Comment
The Shadow is a concept which is pretty much unknown in mainstream psychological thinking. This is a result I think of the general avoidance and suppression of Carl Jung’s work which arose as a result of the split between Freud and he in the early days of psychoanalytic history. I want to give here a [...]
Read More..>>Dependency
Posted on October 11, 2007 - Filed Under Philosophy | Leave a Comment
Dependency and independence represent one of the fundamental issues which we as psychotherapists and physicians must struggle. There is a fundamental conflict between our dependence on our patients for our livelihoods, and our duty to encourage their independence and self-reliance, which I think is not acknowledged enough. This issue can be most easily appreciated in [...]
Read More..>>Using Medication
Posted on September 24, 2007 - Filed Under Philosophy | Leave a Comment
Medication presents me with an interesting and, at times, difficult dilemma. As a psychiatrist, it one of the more useful, powerful weapons in my arsenal for helping my patients feel better. However, its introduction can bring with it unintended ramifications. As an example, I recently saw a patient who had been struggling with a clinical [...]
Read More..>>Being a Doctor
Posted on September 18, 2007 - Filed Under Philosophy | Leave a Comment
I recently attended the annual American Conference on Psychiatric Disorders, which was held here in New York City on September 7th and 8th. This was a chance for me to reconnect with others in my profession, and to catch up on some of the latest research, which I feel the need to do periodically [...]
Read More..>>