“Ask Dr Neuman” Advice Column
Why do people do self-destructive things? Even when those things feel bad? We all know men and women who do self-destructive things—the same things—over and over again. The list of these behaviors seems inexhaustible and extends into every aspect of life: work,...
An opinion. Psychotherapists do not presume to tell patients how to live. Not usually. That would be regarded as presumptuous. But still, secretly, therapists, like people in general, have their own ideas about how to live happily and effectively, even if they do not...
Psychopath, narcissist, borderline, etc. Psychiatric nomenclature, revised recently for the fifth or sixth time, does a poor job of defining disease. The problem is that most serious psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia or manic-depressive illness have no...
I grew up in Manhattan, and I do not remember anyone ever discussing the weather unless there was a hurricane coming—or a blizzard. In fact, I remember once, during a hurricane, going downstairs to buy a newspaper. I went for a piano lesson during a blizzard. Day to...
Ethical Issues in Dating Responsibilities and obligations. Recently, I heard about a woman who had complained bitterly of being treated “very badly” by men. Immediately– perhaps because I had been reading a thriller– my mind conjured up images of her having been...
Not all of these men and women are depressed. Many thousands of Americans kill themselves every year. It is said that for every successful suicide, there are ten men and women who attempt suicide. And for every one of those, there are ten who think of killing...
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...
Everyone recognizes there is a value to assertiveness. Achieving goals—any sort of goal—is more likely when someone reaches out to achieve them, rather than waiting around for “the right circumstances.” But sometimes assertiveness is confused with aggressiveness. For...
One of the elements of agoraphobia is the fear of becoming panicky while in a situation from which it is impossible to escape. It is the fear of being trapped; but when someone speaks of being trapped, it is not always clear exactly what is meant. Sometimes the...
Pretending to be someone else. We all have different personalities, even from birth. Some infants are more excitable than others, some more irritable, some more placid. Some have a louder cry, eliciting responses from parents that may be different from the way they...
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...
Falling in Love and Out of Love A subject of great interest. I read another article this morning by a woman who fell in love and then was rejected, “breaking her heart.” Then she meets a man whom she falls in love with and marries. As she put it in her last sentence,...