Category: Recent Press Only

U.S. News and World Report writer Ruben Castaneda interviewed me for a story on work-related anxiety for the magazine’s consumer health focus.  I appreciate opportunities to talk about what Freud called “the psychology of everyday life.”  There’s a lot we can understand about the psychological pressures we are all subject to at work and in relationships without veering into the realm of psychopathology.  In other words, it is normal to have a lot going on both consciously and unconsciously in your emotional world, including, at work and we shouldn’t wait until things get so bad someone needs therapy before figuring out how to deal with these ubiquitous forces.  To read the article, which appeared on December 13, 2018, click here.

I had the opportunity to write a piece for commPRO.biz, an online publication for communications professionals. Crisis management always involves assessing the company’s capacity for empathy with those who have been injured by its behavior. In this case, there is an empathy deficit that needs to be bridged by outside consultation. Read the piece here.

CNN’s Jen Christensen reports on a study that suggested that trans-cranial electrical stimulation of the prefrontal cortex might inhibit someone’s intention to commit a violent act.  I comment on the intriguing implications and the practical problems that would be involved.  My colleague Dr. Jesse Viner, founder and medical director of Yellowbrick Consultation and Treatment Center is also featured in the piece. In addition to psychoanalytically informed individual, family and group psychotherapy, Yellowbrick offers its patients interventions that target the brain, known as neuromodulation.  Dr. Viner says, “The larger point of this study may be how it shows the real possibilities of more direct brain interventions.”

My take is that the classic bio-psycho-social model is still very much the way to approach facilitating change in humans, whether it’s treating psychiatric patients, addressing the psychology of business impasses or promoting social change.  Read the story here.

Forbes’ editor  Anne Glusker writes about the importance of people skills in business, also popularly known recently as emotional intelligence.  I’m quoted on the importance of empathy and trust. Read the piece here.

It can’t be said often enough:  the vast majority of gun violence incidents cannot be linked to mental health diagnoses.  I’m all for more resources for mental health treatment and training but they will do nothing to decrease our epidemic of gun violence.  Only decreasing access to guns will.  Pleased to be quoted in a great article by Huffington Post’s Lindsay Holmes.  Read it here.