“Ask Dr Neuman” Advice Column
These are sneaky guys. In the wake of the Paris bombings Donald Trump and Ben Carson have come out strongly in favor of monitoring immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, and, to be on the safe side, Muslims in general. I think they underestimate how difficult...
Should we discourage the practice of executing witches? It has recently been reported in the newspapers that Saudi Arabia has beheaded nineteen criminals, including one person who had been caught practicing sorcery. The Saudis consider sorcery a serious crime and go...
The doctrine of “assumption of risk.” Everyone agrees there is too much litigation, except for a few malcontents and trial lawyers; and who cares what they think anyway? People sue when doctors operate on the wrong limb or when a pothole has been neglected so that the...
“Bloody Kansas” Kansas is considering a new law which will allow parents (or someone they designate) to strike their children up to ten times, even if the result is bruising. The previous law governing child abuse was considered too vague. It seemed possible...
Violence is extremely common, violent crimes occurring literally in the hundreds of thousands every year. Individuals assault each other impulsively, almost casually, even those whom they love. The causes of violence are, consequently, the subject of much attention....
On a psychiatric ward. This is a trick that works every time. Imagine a patient on a psychiatric ward who has managed to obtain a knife and is menacing everyone with it. I have no trouble imagining this scene since I have found myself on a couple of occasions in the...
A caution against being too hopeful. It is natural in the face of a calamity to set out to prevent it happening again. “Do something,” people will demand. But sometimes it is not clear exactly what can or should be done. If nothing useful can be done, there is...
California’s law against “gay conversion therapy” California recently passed a law against therapies designed to assist young people to give up their homosexuality. A federal court has just decided that the law does not violate constitutional provisions guaranteeing...
Ten ways to get clean away even though you’re caught red-handed.The following is excerpted from my third Abe Redden novel, “Come One, Come All”; but there was such a person as Leon. I met him when I was practicing in the Bronx. He had just come up from his basement...
Heading off a murderThere was a time when I worked as the chief of a forensic unit in a psychiatric hospital. Most of the time I was simply required to make a determination of whether someone charged with a crime was able to stand trial. This was less complicated than...
A long time ago, I was walking with two other medical students across town to a restaurant. I was doing the sort of thing I did when I walked: I sort of knocked against things with the side of my hand. I would give a little sideways punch to a lamppost or a railing or...
Many years ago, I saw a patient who had a number of problems, the only one of which I remember now was alcoholism. He was a nice guy, I remember thinking, considering he was in the throes of a divorce—which often brings out the worst in people. But when he drove an...