How to protect yourself from harm from “therapists”
“While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” — Dostoevsky
A therapist or, more appropriately, a psychotherapist, in this case, is a word we never associate with evil. The word evil is reserved for use in the religious realm as is the concept of the Devil (see Elaine Pagels’ “The Origin of Satin” or Bart Ehrman’s “God’s Problem”).
With the popularization of therapy, possibly related to its extolling by the wealthy and famous and availability of health insurance, change has come. Psychiatrists even considered whether or not if “evil” exists…
Why there is such urgency to get kids back in school and the pushback this is receiving from families
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. — Abraham Lincoln
The COVID-19 virus is flourishing at breakneck speed into the small towns and states where they thought they were immune. It was a “big city” problem and they were protected until they weren’t.
And with the virus came the danger to work and education as companies sent workers home and schools closed. Then came the unending din of a call to open the schools.
We heard that children would be fine, teachers would be safe, and kids didn’t get…
Will a VO weeks before an election make a difference?
Brad Pitt is an actor whose name causes ears to shoot up whenever he’s mentioned anywhere in the world. He is among the pantheon of film stars who can ensure box office dynamite when his name is above the title and, as a result, he can influence many fans.
The guy with the cowboy hat and the made-for-movies bod (remember “Thelma and Louise?”), Pitt has been involved in many humanitarian causes, but he’s always kept it quiet. When Hurricane Katrina devastated housing in New Orleans, Pitt assembled a planning and construction crew.
His environmentally friendly Make It Right Foundation…
An app may be opening doors to the high-powered film execs who can reveal talent where it would have languished.
I don’t care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you’re also writing your Oscar acceptance speech. — Nora Ephron
Writing a screenplay and you want to get noticed, get a meeting with someone who really matters in this industry? Your prayers may have been answered to some extent, and it’s not how you think.
Anyone who writes, even the most famous writers who went on to incredible fame, has a trunk full of scripts that may never see the light of day. Why? …
You think you’re having a COVID-19 nose swab, but they see billions in profit potential.
There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed. — Mahatma Gandhi
The COVID-19 virus is overtaking the world (a third surge is evident in the US now) and causing death and economic ruin wherever it is found, but not for all. Whenever there’s a disaster, therein lies the seeds for greed for those who see incredible opportunity in the wake of helplessness.
Who among us doesn’t feel helpless in the face of this virus that can kill so quickly despite the age or the social position of the patient?
Medications that heal and keep us healthy also can have psychiatric effects, and therein lies a problem.
Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided. — Paracelsus
Humans are prone to illness and disease; there is no doubt, but how these illnesses are treated is often misunderstood. Patients are thankful that there are medications today that were once mere far-fetched dreams in the minds of scientists. We not only have medicines, but we have medical procedures that save lives. Even here, there is no infallibility.
Over the years, psychiatric diagnoses have come and gone with cultural changes and revisions of the psychiatric “bible,” the DSM, but does the profession or the book contain all of them?
Freud may not have started a revolution in naming psychiatric disorders with his diagnosis of the wandering womb in women. The fact that wombs don’t wander but stay put didn’t seem to matter; it was a metaphor for hysteria, a diagnosis used primarily in women in the 19–20th centuries.
However, it had previously been used to diagnose men, too.
The word hysteria originated in the Corpus Hippocraticum (c420 BCE) as a natural explanation for a variety of diseases in women linked in the Greco-Roman mind to an animate or inanimate womb, but which in the last five centuries has evolved…
Marijuana has two components; THC and CBD. One makes you high, and the other may have myriad therapeutic uses. How do you choose, and is there a benefit?
We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption. — John Adams
Anxiety is one of the most prevalent psychological disorders of our modern age and, possibly, many centuries ago, too. To say that we are unique in this feeling of personal disquiet without evidence to the contrary would be foolish. But what have we done in terms of anxiety, and, most important of all, do we truly understand anxiety and its etiology?
I would suggest we do not have all the answers we constantly beat our chests professing that we do.
The age of making felt hats using mercury which led to the “Mad Hatter” disorder, may be gone, but environmental hazards still present physical and mental health problems.
Environmental pollution is receiving the attention it deserves, but too often, we think in terms of bottles, containers, and other serving or storage items that pollute our land and oceans. We forget to consider the many items we may use daily or at work that can have devastating effects on our mental health.
In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” she meets many phantasmagoric creatures such as the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter. It is the latter to whom we should pay more attention.
Why do they have such odd names, and could it have some connection to odd behavior? Workplace…
Writing needn’t be a hit-or-miss effort if you have the right tools to enhance and increase what you want to produce.
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader — not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. — E. L. Doctorow
Writing can be a lonely, difficult, and even heart-breaking process if you don’t have tools to help you. Would a mechanic remove a car tire without the proper tools? Well, writers can benefit from small, often free programs to improve and speed the process along.
If you are writing a book or an article, there is a clutch of programs and how-to videos to serve your purposes. …
Dr. Patricia Farrell
Dr. Farrell is a psychologist, WebMD consultant, SAG/AFTRA member, author, interested in film, writing & health. Website: http://t.co/VT8mvcAvRz
