For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings have become brilliant at dealing with scarcity. Suddenly we’re confronted with the opposite problem: overabundance.

True psychopaths are neither as common nor as easy to identify as the popular media would have you believe. But many do go unnoticed or are totally misperceived. Avoid victimization by those devoid of empathy, remorse, and conscience by understanding more about this personality type.

Philip Davies, a British Member of Parliament, caused a stir recently when he suggested that in order to improve their chances of finding a job, disabled people should be entitled to offer to work for less than the statutory minimum wage — theoretically making them more attractive as potential employees. An interesting idea or shockingly ill-advised?

In my work as a therapist, I find that lying — to oneself and to loved ones — is a major obstacle to change. For many, the advice “just tell the truth” misses the myriad causes of lying and the skill set necessary to tell the truth even when the stakes are high.

It’s so easy to fear, misunderstand, or dislike those people, places, and things about which you are truly ignorant. But sometimes getting know to them does more than take away the fear or the potential for misunderstanding; sometimes it turns strangers into family.

As the latest media circus in the U.S. demonstrates, having some regret simply isn’t enough to make a person mend their ways; and important lessons can be gleaned by distinguishing between selfish, personal regret and genuine repentance.

In therapy, we talk a lot about the importance of ‘meeting the client where they are’; in other words, seeing them for who they are and what they’re dealing with at that time, rather than who or where we think they ‘should’ be. Little did I know I’d be using the same lesson in my relationship with the newest member of the family.