feelings
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Expressing Feelings III: Hearing Feelings
Expressing feelings is extremely difficult as we discussed in Expressing Feelings II. It is difficult to wander about in your mind to understand what you feel. It is difficult to find the right words that adequately communicate what you feel in your heart. And it is most difficult to try over and over again to…
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Expressing Feelings II: Practice
This is the second in a series of Expressing Feelings, the first installment being on theory, this one on the practice. In brief review, Expressing Feelings I: Theory we discussed: –There are four basic feelings: o Joy, when I have something I love; sadness when I lose it o Fear when I fear losing something…
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Expressing Feelings I: Theory
This is the first of four blogs on expressing feelings. This one is on theory; Expressing Feelings II will be on how practice expressing feelings; Feelings III will be on how to hear other people’s feelings, and Feelings IV will be on when not to express feelings. Let’s get started.
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Happiness II: Pleasure and Joy
This is the second of two blogs on happiness, the first being on “Wanting and Liking.” Here I want to discuss the experiences of pleasure and joy. Know, however, that all four of these words (wanting, liking, pleasure, joy), and probably many more, are approximate ways of understanding this feeling of happiness. We know a…
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Happiness I: Wanting and Liking
This is the first of two articles on “happiness”. The second one will be on “joy and pleasure.” Wanting, liking, joy, and pleasure all can lead to happiness, the seeking of happiness, and the finding of happiness. This article is on the difference between wanting and liking, which are both related to finding happiness in…
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The Other S Word
You already know the bad “S” word. But there is a much worse “S” word: stupid. When this really bad “S” word gets into people’s vocabulary, they are in real trouble. This really bad “S” word begins to dominate how people think of the world…and themselves. I do my best to rid my patients of…
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Love Is Not Enough
What an odd title: love is not enough. Is that true? How could that possibly be true? Isn’t love always good? If I love someone, isn’t that good in itself? Isn’t love always good? These are the questions I want to address in this blog. I actually borrowed this title from a movie and a…
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Why Good Men Lie
Jack is 55. He is an established and experienced tradesman who prides himself on his work. Work is clearly the best thing in his life and he thrives in it. He refers to going to work as “putting on my (tradesman) belt,” and looks forward to going to work, often getting up at 3 AM…
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I Don’t Want To Grow Up
I found myself saying something to a patient the other day that was one of those “My mouth said that” statements (note a previous blogs on this phenomenon). In other words, I didn’t know it until I said it. The statement was this: “You want to be grown up. You don’t want to grow up.”…
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America Depressed and Distressed
It is remarkable that the popular media has properly identified President Trump as a person with a narcissistic personality disorder. Sadly, this is certainly an accurate diagnosis for Mr. Trump although I prefer avoiding all such diagnoses because they just look at what is “wrong” with someone, which is never helpful. Instead of identifying someone…