Dear Drama Observers, Last week, I posted the first five of ten tips for managing holiday dramas from my ingeniously entitled ebook, “10 Tips for Managing Holiday Dramas.” This week, I’ll give you tips six through ten. In case you missed last week’s letter, you may read here. Holidays are fun occasions for some people […]
Dear Drama Observers, It’s the most (something) time of the year. Holidays are enjoyable for some and miserable for others. I’ve already had several discussions in my office this week with clients who are dreading the next month and a half because their holiday experiences have never been so “wonderful” or “happy.” I’m reposting something […]
Dear Drama Observers, This week, I’d like to tell you the contrasting tales of two individuals. As you know, I’m bound by confidentiality constraints, so I can’t use their actual names nor be too revealing about the details. So, I’ve altered some of the particulars, and I’ll refer to them using made up names, Ben […]
Dear Drama Observers, During my internship after graduate school, I had the opportunity to work on the locked unit of a psychiatric hospital. For those old enough to remember One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, this unit housed similar patients—those we sometimes use the word “crazy” to describe. However, most people in psychiatric hospitals are […]
Dear Drama Observers, “Every generation is invaded by barbarians,” wrote twentieth century philosopher, Hannah Arendt. “We call them children.” People sometimes ask me, “Do you see children as clients?” I usually respond with a somewhat smart aleck answer: “I do… they just have 50-year-old bodies.” Here’s what I’ve observed in my 30+ years of practice: Adults […]
Dear Drama Observers, I have a friend who was raised in a family with an alcoholic father who took center stage in most family dramas… More on that in a moment. In the small town where they lived, Dad was a revered figure. He’d fought in a war, returned home to build a thriving business […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’ll be traveling to New England this week to present a new seminar to mental health professionals entitled Emotional Manipulators: Effective Strategies to Manage the Manipulator and Empower Their Victims. Since my time is so limited this week, I’m re-posting part of a letter from February, 2018 having to do with the […]
Dear Drama Observers, There are some sports that would take me several years to notice if they ceased to exist. Like Olympic curling, for instance. Or underwater hockey—yes, there actually is such a thing. But, not so with collegiate football. I love almost everything about it—from ESPN’s College Gameday to ragging on certain commentators (whom […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’m not sure we’ll ever have Drama People completely figured out, but we sure would like to. Just about the time we settle on an explanation that seems to make sense, some plot twist occurs leaving us puzzled and befuddled. Almost two years ago, I wrote the following post to address this […]
Dear Drama Observers, We’re all familiar with the term “split personality” and hearing it might conjure up images of the 1976 movie Sybil, whose titular character was an individual inhabited by 16 alternate personalities. Or to give a more recent example, the 2016 horror-thriller movie Split, where the main character has been diagnosed with 23 […]