Was It a Symptom of Mental Illness or Nourishment For Her Creativity?
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. From time to time I have been discussing two distinct ways of looking at the nature of depression–the medical model and what we may wish to refer to as the creative temperament view. The medical model views people who experience depression as having an illness that requires, as the first line of treatment, taking pills that are called “antidepressants.” The enormously…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today’s topic, a problematic condolence call from President Trump to a grieving soldier’s widow. What Happened Myeshia Johnson’s husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, died in an ambush in Niger on Oct. 4, 2017. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Johnson received a condolence call from President Trump. Mrs. Johnson then told ABC news that the president struck a callous tone during their conversation–telling…
On Sunday, November 5, 2017, I sat down in front of my computer to write this week’s blog post. Just as I put my fingers on my computer keyboard, a little message popped up in the lower right hand screen of my monitor. I glanced over to see that at a Texas church in the small town of Sutherland Springs numerous people had been shot and over twenty had…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. From time to time, I like to provide posts that offer some suggestions derived from my parenting course, “How to Discipline Your Children and Have Them Still Like You.” For example, in one such post (see HERE), I explain how to teach children to deal effectively with criticism. In another (see HERE), I provide child discipline suggestions made by William James,…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. I hope the beauty of spring is helping to make your daily challenges more pleasant. Regular readers know that from time to time I write a post advocating that mental health service providers change the way people access their services so that it becomes more respectful and more consistent with the principles of science. What I mean by this, is…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. I hope all is well in your neck of the woods. Recently, I wrote a post titled “On Being Gullible,” the goal of which was to guide gullible people we care about toward more discerning ways. We focussed on three sets of skills that people use to avoid being gullible–Plausibility Checking, Trust Calibration, and Assessing Argumentation. In my earlier post, I…
Welcome to “From Insults to Respect.” Today we spend a little time on the topic of being gullible. We begin with a parable that illustrates someone who is acting gullible. Then we sift through a research article that deepens our understanding of this topic. Our goal throughout is to guide the gullible people we care about toward more discerning ways. A Short Parable The scene,…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. A few weeks ago I asked for some feedback on a presentation I was preparing to deliver at the American Psychological Association’s 2017 Convention in Washington DC. I here want to thank all who chimed in. After reading the many comments, mostly from Facebook and Google+ members of groups/communities that I belong to, I thought long and hard on…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Regular readers know that I have, from time to time, been dealing with a conflict regarding psychiatric diagnosis. Said briefly, there are many people who immediately lose respect for anyone who questions the validity of the mental illness/mental disorder theoretical construct. On the other hand, many people have lost respect for the psychiatric profession because of its pathologizing approach of…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Regular readers know that I have, from time to time, been dealing with a conflict regarding psychiatric diagnosis. Said briefly, there are many people who immediately lose respect for anyone who questions the validity of the mental illness/mental disorder theoretical construct. On the other hand, many people have lost respect for the psychiatric profession because of its pathologizing approach of…
