The Meaning of Life
I had an interesting conversation with a teenager today. A good kid from a good family that attends a good church. I asked him what it meant to be a Christian. “It means you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.” Okay, that’s a nice, correct answer. What does it mean? “It means I’m [...]
Birthdays
“The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.” -Lucille Ball “When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It [...]
Happiness
“Do you feel happy right now; right this very moment?” I was eating lunch with one of my colleagues when he posed this question. “Well… I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. Mostly, I’m just feeling hungry.” Exactly, he went on to explain. I had taken the opportunity to staff a client I was [...]
Helicopter Parents
Penn State President Graham B. Spanier offered some thoughts and opinions about this generation of college students last year. He also had some thoughts about parents. In 2011, the first Baby Boomers will turn 65 (no need to raise your hands) and within 17 years, 70 million will follow suit. These baby boomers are the [...]
Confrontation and Hope
My first experience with therapy was when my parents brought my brothers and I to their marriage therapist in order to discuss their decision to divorce. I don’t remember the therapist’s name but I can picture him in his Mr. Rogers sweater, fiddling with his pipe. I use him as an example of everything that’s [...]
Cutting
I just did a short phone interview with the Baptist Messenger on the subject of cutting; specifically, what the church can do to help with teens who engage in this form of self harm. Below is an excerpt of something I wrote on this blog a while back. 10 to 20 years ago, I could [...]
Co-Sleeping
From NPR: A recent story about a string of five infant deaths in Detroit prompted a flood of e-mails from parents who sleep with their infants. Each of the babies in the Detroit cases was sleeping in a bed with an adult. The incidents led the chief medical examiner there to issue a strong warning [...]
More Quotes from Albert Ellis
“I had a great many sex and love cases where people were absolutely devastated when somebody with whom they were compulsively in love didn’t love them back. They were killing themselves with anxiety and depression.” “Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it’s conditional.” “There’s no evidence whatsoever that men are [...]
Albert Ellis
Albert Ellis, the controversial and often acerbic therapist died last week. Dr. Ellis pioneered R.E.B.T. (rational emotive behavior therapy), an model of counseling that influenced a generation of therapists. Ellis was no friend of religion: “For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.” Nor was he a fan of the [...]
