After spending more years in school than I’d care to admit, I’ve begun taking on the role of tutor in my family. Sadly, most of the academic “problems” I encounter aren’t understood in light of the wealth of knowledge we have about learning, psychology, and organizational strategies.

Good clinicians not only have to stay abreast of the research, they have to bring some common sense and seasoned skepticism to their analysis of the research findings in order to incorporate only sound, reliable, and proven methods into the practice of their art.

I have never in my life felt so relieved and so inspired by the results of an election as I am by the selection of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. Today, the world is a better place.

An offense involves fighting hard enough to secure a goal and remove obstacles to that goal. A defense involves expending just enough energy to ward off an attack or prevent injury.

Often when someone says that another person is being “passive-aggressive,” they really mean something else. Let’s clarify just what passive-aggression is — and what it isn’t — with the help of a framework for understanding human aggression in general.

True “acting-out” is an outward manifestation of an emotional conflict that can’t be consciously recognized by an individual. Acting-up is NOT acting-out.

For neurotics, behavior such as denial is an unconscious defense mechanism that protects against the experience of unbearable pain. With disordered characters, what we commonly perceive as unconscious defenses (e.g., denial) are more often deliberate tactics of impression-management, manipulation, and responsibility-avoidance.