Although I once brushed it off as trite and unrealistic, I’ve come to realize that Fromm was right: there is an art to loving.

We seem to have lost something. What it might be is hard to say. But it has something to do with our willingness to reckon with the truth.

The recent death of actor Leslie Nielsen touched me with sadness; he was a good actor and a funny man, and his films made me laugh till my cheeks ached. It made me reflect on how — if at all — any of us can expect to be remembered after our death and whether our existence will be marked in any meaningful way.

Ask the Psychologist contributor Dr Jim Bierman has passed along a special code good for 50% off his book Of Sound Mind to Marry. The discount is paid for partly by authors giving up their royalties on the sales, so thank you Dr Bierman!

As a young student with ADD, doing any writing was the furthest thing from my mind. But having taken that step so many years ago, I still receive an average of 8-10 letters or emails per week from persons in all walks of life and from places far and wide.

Of all the work I do with clients, I find organization to be one of the “secret weapons” to better mental health. From Fortune 500 high-fliers to those struggling just to get enough to eat every day, finding a way to collect, control, and act on all the “stuff” in life increases not only productivity, but also peace of mind. And if you understand organizing, you also understand several concepts central to the therapeutic process.

Does consciousness exist along a continuum, beginning in the simplest forms of life, rather than being an event which springs out of nowhere once a certain level of evolution has been achieved?