I do clinical work and writing. I also make mistakes in both, and that matters because the human mind is not a tidy folder you put in a drawer and forget. There is a short sentence I hear again and again in the therapy room the typical phrase of someone who represses childhood trauma. It … Read more
It is odd how a sentence dropped into radio can ripple through corridors of power and across editorial calendars. At the Medef summer gathering this year the organisation president chose to name three politicians not just as soundbite fodder but as actors who seem to grasp something many others do not. That declaration matters. It … Read more
I started noticing the gesture years ago. It is small and quick and somehow insistently human. You push plates together. You stack a saucer on a bowl. A server approaches and you have already done a little of their job. People call it manners. Psychology calls it a signal. I think it is both a … Read more
He thought he was doing a tiny kindness. A strip of grass sat idle behind his bungalow. A local beekeeper needed a sunny spot. No rent no contract no fuss. Months later an envelope with an official stamp arrives and what was meant as a favour becomes a reassessment of land use a reclassification and … Read more
I used to think the tiny lift of a hand when a car stops for me was nothing more than good manners. It is smaller than a handshake and less ritualized than a greeting, but psychologists now treat that gesture like a fingerprint. Thanking cars while crossing the street is a microbehavior that maps onto … Read more
There are moments in medicine that feel less like incremental steps and more like tectonic nudges. This is one of those pieces. A 44 year old who spent three decades learning the rhythms of despair finally found joy after a treatment that researchers now call a major scientific breakthrough. The science is messy and the … Read more
There is a peculiar, slightly embarrassing truth about volunteering to monitor seals. You do not need a PhD to matter. You do not need perfect eyesight or a lifetime of fieldwork. A pair of cheap binoculars a little patience and a willingness to learn are enough to make you part of something larger than your … Read more
There is a stubborn truth you can test at family dinners or HR meetings. People who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s carry a set of habits and mental grooves that younger adults sometimes find baffling and often admire. According to psychology those who grew up in the 60s and 70s developed 9 mental … Read more
Interrupting others is a small violent act we all commit. It can be rude or tender. It can be a power move or a show of affection. My point is blunt a single interruption often reveals more about the interrupter and the interrupted than about the subject of the conversation. In this piece I want … Read more
I never expected a quiet warehouse on the edge of town to become a battleground for common sense. Yet here we are. A retiree who leaves a warehouse free to a sports association must pay full property tax and the ruling has ignited protests from neighbors who saw a generous act turned into a tax … Read more