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Before Providing Criticism, First Ask For Permission?

by Jeffrey Rubin, PhD

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Recently, as I was eating dinner with a married couple the subject of how they deal with criticism arose. For the sake of privacy, I’ve changed their names to Sarah and Bob. In an earlier post, I addressed the question, “Unsolicited Criticism: Good or Bad.” Sarah and Bob agree with my conclusions in that post which in summary suggested…

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Resolve Conflicts In Private Whenever Possible

One day I was presenting to a high school class a lesson on mature ways to resolve conflicts when a student we will call Tony raised his hand. When I called on him, he said, “Dr. Rubin, how would you resolve this? This here Tina (he points to her) and I were dating, and now I decided to end it. I’m seeing another girl. But…

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Bob Dylan On Fools

by Dr. Jeffrey Rubin

Bob Dylan begins his Theme Time Radio Hour show about fools, with a beautiful instrumental version of “Why Do Fools Fall In Love.” After a few bars of this tune, it continues in the background as Bob begins to speak: James Thurber once said, “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time,” and for the next hour we’re going to…

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To Listen, Or To Criticize?

By Dr Jeffrey Rubin

In the above Sally Forth comic strip, we learn from Ted that Sally had a fight with her sister.  By the third panel, Ted begins to criticize Sally, saying she is coming off like a robot, and then he expresses his view that she had been kind of dismissive of her sister’s news about becoming engaged. In the last panel, I get the feeling that…

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