This is the story, the narrative, of a survivor, Marsha Linehan, an innovator in the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD) using a method she and her team invented called Dialectical Behavioral Treatment (DBT). Linehan has written a memoir, not… Read More ›
Catching up on my reading while “sheltering at home” in Chicago, Susan Sontag’s (1933 – 2004) book length essay, “Illness as Metaphor” (1977) is especially timely in view of the psychological dynamics around the Covid-19 pandemic. The message of “Illness… Read More ›
If ever there was a time for online (tele/cyber) talk therapy, this is it. In case you were trekking through Tibet or living in a cave with Buddhist monks, allow me to clarify why. Key term: social distancing. It is… Read More ›
Book Review: Robert Whitaker and Lisa Cosgrove. (2015). Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform. New York and the UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 241 pp. [$33.81 – less if digital] This is an important book… Read More ›
George Steiner passed away in the fullness of time at his home in Cambridge, England, at the age of 90. This blog post acknowledges and honors him for his contribution, largely previously unnoted, to the understanding and practice of empathy…. Read More ›
Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) died at the age of 52 on January 7th in New York City of metastatic breast cancer. Wurtzel became a notorious “bad girl,” with a wicked sense of black humor, sparing few, least of all herself, and… Read More ›
Esmé Weijung Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays (Gray Wolf Press, 2019: 210 pp.) are an articulate and clarion cry to bring empathy to an arena in mental health where it has been missing. My take on it? Ms Wang seems… Read More ›
10. Empathy is the new love. You know how in fashion gray is the new black? Same idea. Empathy is the new love. What people really want is to be “gotten” for who they authentically are as a possibility. In… Read More ›
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6nngUdemxAnCd2B2wfw6Q6 People treat empathy as if it were an “on-off” switch. Turn it “on” for friends and family; turn it “off” for the “bad guys”. Turn empathy “on” for coworkers, customers, and insiders; turn empathy “off” for… Read More ›
One of the criticisms of empathy is that is leaves you vulnerable to compassion fatigue. The helping professions are notoriously exposed to burn out and empathic distress. Well-intentioned helpers end up as emotional basket cases. There is truth to it,… Read More ›
Empathy Lessons 