“Ask Dr Neuman” Advice Column
Why some people do not marry. I remember talking to a woman who came to psychotherapy primarily with a history of depression, but who very soon began to speak about her wish to settle down and marry. She was about forty years old. As far as I could tell, she did not...
No More Sex until… The kids go off to college. Parents don’t like to have sex in front of their children. I take that as a given. Maybe it was different in prehistoric times. Maybe back then when a committed couple (I assume there was no marriage ceremony in those...
The developmental stage squeezed between childhood and adulthood is called adolescence. It corresponds more or less with certain physical changes, like puberty, but is really defined more by psychological changes that have to take place in order for an...
At least, the reasons they give for staying married. Not infrequently, patients come to my office telling me in detail everything wrong with their marriages. These complaints are not unusual, but they are usually heart-felt. They include a whole range of misbehaviors...
Everyone agrees that individual personality and behavior grows out of a combination of genetic influences and the influence of different aspects of the environment. This is a theoretical point of view. It is hard to imagine how it could be otherwise. In trying to...
It’s not about marriage, it’s about being gay. It seems that every day brings news of another state being required to allow gay marriage on constitutional grounds. Unless the Supreme Court unexpectedly puts a stop to it, gay marriage will become the law of the...
They didn’t use a blackboard and a pointer. Sex education is very controversial. On one side are the more or less liberals, on the other the more or less conservatives. The liberals take the view that sex is part of nature, and, therefore, should be taught as...
Love comes in many forms and involves a varying degree of commitment. Probably, the most unequivocal love is that which a mother feels for a newborn child. Nothing special is required from the baby to justify the parent’s attention and concern. That feeling is a...
There is, of course, the whole business of growing up. Someone may have been the class clown in grade school, the athlete in high school– or the nerd– and the partier in college. People change. Growing up, we are growing into and out of different roles,...
“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...
Family members have considerable influence on any one among them who is troubled by health anxiety, or any other emotional problem, for that matter. They can make things better, or worse. The following are guidelines for friends and family to follow in coping with...
An obligation to seek the truth. Nicholas Kristof gave over his column today in the New York Times to an account by Dylan Farrow of her being abused by Woody Allen when she was seven years old. The behavior she describes—inappropriate touching—is reprehensible. It is...