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 […]
Dear Drama Observers, Admittedly, last week’s letter was somewhat egg-heady as I talked about things like orbital velocity, escape velocity, and orbital decay. I’m hoping none of you experienced PTSD from being transported back to your eighth-grade science class. My point was to illustrate the dilemma experienced by people trapped in a Drama Person’s orbit. […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’ve had many such conversations over the years, but I was talking with a client recently who was describing a family member stuck in a long-term marriage with a vulgar, misogynistic, sexual harasser. Most everything that comes out of his mouth is inappropriate—thinly-veiled sexual innuendos and boorish jokes. He seems to take […]
Dear Drama Observers, In the early 2000’s, the state in which I live (Tennessee) was consumed by something called Operation Tennessee Waltz. In short, the F.B.I. set up a sting operation to expose a web of graft and corruption involving various state lawmakers. In one particularly revealing video made available to the local news channels, […]