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 […]
Dear Drama Observers, A common topic of discussion these days is civility . . . or its lack thereof. Things do seem to be getting worse [see: “Congressional Hearings, 7/12/18”] and perhaps that’s right. Or maybe it’s always been this way but we’re now more readily aware of it, what with the rise of social […]
Dear Drama Observers, There’s so much in the news these days about civility—or its lack thereof—that I had planned to say something about it in this week’s letter. But alas, given the revelry of vacation, it’ll have to wait. Instead, I’d like to post something called “The Porcupine Dance” which is actually the first chapter […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’m on vacation this week so I decided to send you a “Best-Of” edition of The Drama Review. I’m concerned that referring to one on my letters as a “best-of” might sound a tad egotistical. Which doesn’t really worry me though because I’m re-running one that wasn’t written by me but by […]
Dear Drama Observers, In my early teens, my parents sent me to a North Carolina summer camp where we could see Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi. Mount Mitchell majestically looms at 6684 feet. I grew up in a state where the highest elevation is 806 feet. . . I was duly […]
Dear Drama Observers, For several years now, I’ve traveled and conducted seminars about manipulators or what I refer to in this letter as Drama People. That’s a pleasant little topic, no? Manipulators are nothing if not perplexing. The mental discombobulation they generate often elicits numerous hard-to-answer questions. For example: I would never do something like […]
Dear drama observers, I realize there’s a chunk of click bait on the hook of this week’s letter entitled “We Should Argue More.” It sounds like I plan to bizarrely extol the merits of knock-down-drag-outs, fighting like cats and dogs, or conversational cage matches. I actually will argue that we should argue more. But as […]
Dear drama observers, I saw a client once whose struggles mainly centered around one theme: her husband’s jerkiness. I realize “jerkiness” is a made-up word but it’s just nicer and less vulgar than so many of the other terms one could use. You know, those derived from the combination of body parts and cuss words. […]
Dear drama observers, It’s become cliché to say we live in polarized times. The Civil War is often described as a time when “brother fought against brother.” While we’re not charging each other like the armies of George Meade and Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, we’re currently in a civil war of sorts in which […]
Dear drama observers, I have a good friend who has said to me for years, “I don’t know how you do what you do,” to which I’ve replied, “Well, I don’t know how you do what you do.” He’s always referred to my profession as “all that psycho-freako stuff” and I usually retort with some […]