If Heaven really exists, It would be a folky, bluegrassy, neo-hippie music festival. Forget the whole bit about angels floating around in nightgowns in the clouds. They’re wearing the skimpiest of clothing, enjoying their perfect bodies. They’re playing the guitar, the fiddle, the upright bass, the drums. They’re swaying with hula hoops and…

Who’s really the boss? — It sounds like a capitalist’s dream come true, monetizing your feelings. Except it’s already come true. There are many jobs that include emotional labor. Sociologist, Arlie Hochschild was perhaps the first to write, back in 1983, about emotional labor in her book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. In…

A Review of “Embracing the Void: Rethinking the Origin of the Sacred” by Richard Boothby — “How are you today?” It’s the most often-asked question, and the most seldom answered. It’s banal yet profound. We engage in it without thinking. Perhaps it’s just as well. If we did think about it, it might break our brains. Let’s try it and see. Whenever I go out to…

The musicians stayed on pulse. Then things bubbled up. The fiddler had a thought And made a decision. She pulled the band a new direction. It was the moment everyone knows. When you move over and make room for an uninvited guest. You never know what to expect when people…

You’ll need them if CBT doesn’t work — One of the nice things about being a reflective eclectic is I have loads of methods I can use to help people who see me for psychotherapy. Sometimes it’s simple. If you come in and say you’re anxious, I can teach you a method of breathing that may make you…

The stomach knew it wasn’t wanted. That’s what caused it to twist. It had trouble digesting that there were bodies And things could be done to them. At the same time, it was part of the body. Its job was to do disgusting things to other bodies. The stomach would…

The Geeky Guy knew about a lot of things. He knew: · Ohm’s law · Boyle’s law · And the laws pertaining to currents in a magnetic field. …

A good grief is grief that reminds us of the Abyss, but is not so terrible a loss as to destroy us — Here was the world-famous authority on grief; and there I was, your humble writer and shrinker of heads, sitting with him at a conference. He had just spoken about grief, the things that will cause it, what it does to people, and how to help them heal. He had many…

A review of “Many Minds, One Self” by Schwartz and Falconer — I have an image of being a practical, no-nonsense kind of therapist to uphold. A certain sort of underserved clientele flock to me because they think the mental health world is glutted with flakiness. Should I really be telling them that they are inhabited by multitudes and get them to…