There’s one sure test to know whether I love someone: I revel in their happiness. I’m invested in their happiness. Working for, inspiring, sacrificing for their happiness fills me with happiness. Perhaps the most obvious place to observe this is with my children. There is simply no better day for me than when my children are thriving and happy. Conversely, it’s unlikely … [Read more...]
Spousal Abuse Question
I’ll always remember my favorite clinical supervisor as Wild Bill, though I never called him that to his face. But he had a long, shoulder-length mane and mustache that always recalled a favorite boyhood Old West hero, Wild Bill Hickock. More than anyone, it’s Bill’s fingerprints on my actual craft of talk therapy. He had a way of crafting questions that would dismantle a … [Read more...]
We Long for Close Relationships
We are made for relationship. We are social animals. Yet, we are ambivalent about intimacy: We seek it, we shun it, we long for it, we dodge it. We need it. A whole and authentic life is marked by the ability to forge lasting, intimate relationships. It’s a goal of mine – that, before I die, there could be a handful of folks who might say they knew me. Really knew me. And … [Read more...]