Dear Drama Observers, I’ve seen lots of couples for marital counseling over the years and some come into my office more stuck than others. One very subjective measure of their stuck-ness is how I feel when I see them on my schedule. If they’re growing, changing, and making progress, I look forward to their session […]
Dear Drama Observers, Years ago, I had a friend who read a book which dogmatically asserted that all humans fall into one of four personality categories. Let’s just call the categories A, B, C, and D. Though I disagree entirely with the book’s premise, I have fewer problems with the categories than what my friend […]
Dear Drama Observers, There’s a point I want to make in this letter but first let me tell you two stories that illustrate the point I want to make. Story #1 In the summer of 1997, I went downtown early one morning and a man with a mask knocked me out, slit my throat, and […]
Dear Drama Observers, As I’ve said before, we use many terms to describe Drama People but “Drama People” is not usually one of them. You’re not likely to tell a friend, “That fellow is such a . . . such a . . . drama person. That just seems so inadequate, so namby-pamby, so not […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating. When our kids were little, my wife took them with her to grocery-shop one afternoon. She piled them into the car, drove to the store, got them out of the car, walked up and down the aisles, filled the cart, explained a million […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’d like to say a few things about the tension between winning and principles… but first let me tell you a story. As Larry King once said before marrying his seventh wife, I’ll try to keep this short. My dad dropped me off at college one Sunday night to begin my freshman […]
Dear Drama Observers, People lie for many reasons. I’ll occasionally hear someone tell me, “So-and-so is a pathological liar,” but a closer look would suggest that so-and-so is not so much a pathological liar as a pathological conflict avoider. Saying what’s true might cause conflict so a lie is told to dodge the tension. But […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’ve always been taken with Samuel Clemens (1835-1910) who is best known by his pen name, Mark Twain. He was a prolific writer, but he was also a pioneering observational humorist. No one else thought to comment on the hilarities of everyday life. He was to his era what, say, Jerry Seinfeld […]
Dear Drama Observers, Have you ever had that experience of reading or hearing a term that you sort of knew what it meant but weren’t quite sure? You were familiar with it, but since it’s not part of your everyday vernacular, the term’s meaning was a tad obscure. Faustian bargain is one such term for […]
Dear Drama Observers, If you’ve been reading this weekly missive for a while, surely you’ve noticed a recurring theme of mine—the confusion that surrounds Drama People. I saw a client for the first time recently and she described her Drama Person in a way I’d never heard before. . . But I liked it. “It’s […]