Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous psychiatrist, was once asked following a lecture on mental health: “What would you advise a person to do, if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?” Most people thought he would say: “Consult a psychiatrist.” But he didn’t. He surprised everyone when he replied: “Leave your house, find someone...

In order to “graduate” from the outpatient psychiatric program of Laurel Hospital in Maryland, we had demonstrate a certain level of competence at assertion skills or confrontation. It’s no wonder why it took me three times longer to be discharged than the other patients. One day an older woman sat in the middle of the...

“You,” he said, “are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world, and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.” That quote comes from Emilie Autumn’s psychological thriller novel, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. I used it a few months ago in a post to describe Robin Williams and why, I think,...

I’m reading “50 Shades of Grey.” It’s come to that. I’m not very far, just at the elevator scene when they finally kiss. It’s the safest, cheapest, easiest solution so far that I’ve found to my problem: a libido that exists somewhere on the back of a milk carton (missing). This problem isn’t new, of course....

The best piece of marital advice I’ve ever heard came from an ex-priest, a kind and gentle man that has been married to his bride for longer than I’ve been alive. “Always err on the side of compassion,” he told me when I called him up all upset one afternoon after my husband and I...