Columnists, Articles
The upholstered clock
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
“Will you miss it?” I asked my wife as we stood at opposite ends of the couch in the middle of the floor, aimed at the sliding doors of our family room. “Miss what?” she replied. “Me neither,” I answered. And so, one day after the Salvation Army rejected our offer because of some fraying of the upholstery, the junk man came and carted the old couch away. The piece was one of two that we bought on a single visit to the furniture store 16 years ago as soon the builders had finished our new family room. The other [More]
Striking a Digital Balance
By John Grohol, Psy.D.
Technology is only going to keep invading the nooks and crannies of our life. We can help ourselves and our clients by treating it like a tool that needs our active guidance, instead of welcoming it passively into our lives as the enemy. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter – these are all services designed not only to gain your attention and brain cycles, but to keep it for as long as possible. They are designed from a neurocognitive perspective to take advantage of the stimulus-reward system – and they work wonderfully in keeping you captive. The solution to technologies designed to take [More]
Submitted for your approval, a reunion in the Twilight Zone
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
Our son and his wife were flying to Tokyo and we had just taken them to Newark airport. They were starting a 14-hour flight that would take them 11,000 miles from home, by any measure an enormous distance. I never suspected that a brief detour on our way back would take me even farther, not just to my childhood home but, through the corridors of memory, to the core of childhood itself. Neither did I expect that, when I arrived, I would be drawn to the house of a friend who, at that very moment a thousand miles away, was [More]
Saving our souls
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
Who knows why we do what we do? Why did I pick up that book at our town’s recycling center, start to read it, stop, and pick it up again all these years later? And, because it was there on page one of the prologue, this isn’t the first time that I read the passage that I have been turning over in my mind these last few months as if it were a newly discovered truth. The book is Roland Merullo’s novel, “In Revere, In Those Days,” and the passage is the narrator’s eloquent description of his knack of seeing [More]
School shootings offer no easy answers
By John Grohol, Psy.D.
Not a year goes by in America where we don’t suffer through another horrible mass shooting at a school, perpetrated by a young adult or teenager with a gun. Despite the outcry from both sides, however, there are no clear or easy answers on how to reduce or altogether stop school shootings from taking place. We are a nation born of violence, which we then codified into our Constitution. And while it’s perfectly sensible to suggest reasonable limitations on gun purchases, such solutions all but turn a blind eye to the reality of guns in our nation. Today, there are [More]
Parting words from our legal columnist
By Edward Stern J.D.
In 2001, I began writing this legal column. Over the years, I’ve written fewer and it is likely this one is the last. I am very appreciative of the opportunity to write and express views in this space, but now it is someone else’s turn with new energy and, perhaps, new viewpoints. It’s become concerning recently that issues that appeared to be resolved have re-surfaced to be debated and adjusted. Issues including “affordable care” and “parity” of treatment of mental health and physical health are again at the forefront. Another major concern is insurance as not all psychologists are able [More]
A proper introduction
By John Grohol, Psy.D.
Many of you are familiar with Psych Central, and hopefully for those of you who are, you’re as happy as I am that we’re able to carry on the wonderful publishing tradition of New England Psychologist. But I suspect there are many professionals who are unfamiliar with us or our history. The roots of Psych Central began while I attended Nova Southeastern University working on my doctorate. In my first year there in 1990, my childhood best friend took his own life back home. As anyone who’s been touched by suicide knows, it was a devastating loss. It also drove [More]
Causes of disenfranchised grief: A reminder for therapists
By New England Psychologist Staff
I’ll never forget my first lesson in the meaning of disenfranchised grief. While interning, I was assigned to a young woman who had been referred by her doctor for depression. In our first session, I heard her story. She had miscarried her first pregnancy only a few months before. “Everyone tells me to get over it,” she said. “When I was crying in the hospital, a nurse told me that miscarriage is nature’s way to end pregnancies that aren’t quite right and that I’m young so I will have other babies. But I wanted this baby I had already named. [More]
You know you’re getting old when…
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
We’ve all heard it said that you’re only as old as you think you are, but I’m proud of my three score and ten. This milestone is a privilege denied to many and each new day is a gift to be used well, enjoyed, and savored. I am also aware that 70 is not especially old. According to gerontologists, it is threshold of our senior years, the midpoint of a stage of life beginning at 65 called the young old to be followed, if we are lucky, by the old beginning at 75, and the oldest old at 85. Still, [More]