Ron Johnson
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The Centrality of Safety
The more I do this work of psychotherapy, augmented by daily life experience, I see that safety is central to life, and any abridgement of safety causes alarm in a person’s psychological state, which then causes alarm in one physical state and one social system. In other words, I need to be safe first and…
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Surviving or Thriving
Some years ago I asked to talk to an African American man who had written a number of pieces in the local paper. In my email I said that although I had two Black sons in law and had Black men occasionally come to my office, I often felt that I was missing something important…
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You’re Killing Me
Have you ever said, “You’re killing me,” to anyone? Or perhaps some cognate of this expression like, “I’m dying here” or “I can’t live through this.” Or perhaps, you just thought such things and never actually said them to anyone. These kinds of statements can be frivolous, like being with someone who is severely besting…
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Thriving and Surviving
Some years ago I asked to talk to an African American man who had written a number of pieces in the local paper. In my email I said that although I had two Black sons in law and had Black men occasionally come to my office, I often felt that I was missing something important…
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Lost Children
There are many lost children in the world. We hear of “trafficking of children, often originating in Africa, and many other tragedies of lost children, the most recent being the apparent thousands of children killed in Gaza. I have seen many examples of “lost children” recently from many different perspectives including the loss of children…
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First Things First
Over the last few days I have had the privilege of visiting with several men who presented with complex situations in their lives: Sam is in the midst of an extended legal/court/attorney situation where there are problems with his wanting to have joint custody with children and a fair settlement with his former wife regarding…
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I Want to Be Tested
I am somewhat in the testing business. No, I don’t test for Lyme disease or cancer or most things that are medical in nature even though most physical and medical ailments have an important psychological origin. In fact, I actually do a fair amount of testing in psychological matters, sometimes personality features, sometimes diagnostic features…
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The Basic Anxiety in All Men
Since my practice is composed of entirely men, I frequently hear similar things from these men, and surprisingly from men of very different ages. I have come to believe that the central ingredient that men where when they get distress in some way is some form of anxiety. I will discuss the various faces of…
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The Paradoxes of Life
A math teacher once told me that there are two interesting things about math and science: (1) “Everything interesting happens at the boundaries,” he said, and (2) “To really understand math and science, you have to grasp the centrality of paradox.” How true he was. The whole idea of boundaries is quite central in math,…
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Resolution of Trauma
Not long ago I wrote a blog entitled “the only mental health diagnosis” identifying it as trauma-related, and hence PTSD. This remains my opinion of the plethora of diagnoses that are so popular these days. As I previously noted, people simply want to make sense of ails them, whether their feelings, their behavior, their thinking,…