Dear Young Person: Alcohol, drugs and sexuality can enhance and create life. They work. They can alter your moods, change your perceptions and disinhibit you. It’s fun to be able to behave differently. Blotting out discomfort relieves anxiety. Going wild can release tension. Alcohol, drugs and sexuality have always been part of the human experience. […]
Teach Your Children Well
I’m not going to link to every reported instance of college or high school partying getting out of hand. Nor am I going to link to the number of emergency room visits that occur every weekend due to alcohol poisoning or drug overdoses; nor every instance of campus sexual abuse. In almost every adolescent community […]
How to Date in Five (not so easy) Lessons
I’m not sure why exactly it is easier to arm the student population than to simply reinforce the idea that sexuality is an extension of a relationship. I’m not advocating a return to a repressive sexuality. Rather, I’m thinking that the brilliant talented kids who constitute our country’s future might benefit from learning how to […]
Thoughts on Male Sexuality
In an age when sexuality has become openly commonplace, both boys and girls find it hard to recognize and value limits. Conversations offer a beginning point, an opportunity to sort out the new sexual mores for the twenty-first century. See my recent post on CNN.com for some thoughts about helping boys find an honorable sexuality.
The Mothers of Diversity
We live in a kaleidoscopic time. Social diversity accompanies globalization and technologization. We seek shelter with similar others only to encounter difference in every excursion. The tension between diversity and unity has never been greater. We are unique, equal, and still one humanity. Building diverse togetherness entails intricate stitch work – small threads of different […]
Status Anxiety
A mom stepping down the steps of her third-floor walk-up dreads attending the class parent meeting in another family’s Fifth Avenue doorman building. An adolescent male doesn’t invite friends to his home because he doesn’t to be judged poorly because of his family’s wealth. Another young man won’t invite friends to his house because he […]
Binge Sex: How Kids Learn About Rape
Is there an epidemic of binge sex? Is there a week that goes by without a story about teens or young adults drinking way too much who end up in an encounter of unwanted sexual contact and rape? In response to the recent onslaught of these stories Emily Yoffe’s post urged women to stop drinking. […]
The I’m not Frank Rich Syndrome: A Clinical Analysis
A funny thing happened in my practice last week. A number of people, no fewer than seven, lamented, “I’m not Frank Rich.” People are often unhappy and upset when they talk to me. Sometimes they discuss the impact of upbringing and sometimes their problematic temperaments. Never, however, had I heard so many people attributing […]
Who owns a country? The question of space, place and territory.
Far away, people in countries across the Mideast have been rebelliously signaling to their leadership that they want better governance and more freedoms. Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo spoke about a world where differences in religion become opportunities to better know each other and to create a shared world where all children grow up […]
Valentine’s Day: Something Real
There can be more to Valentine’s Day than marching out to the nearest store to buy something. There can be more to Valentine’s Day than longing for your partner to behave like someone else. There can be more to Valentine’s Day than wishing you were in a relationship. Valentine’s Day also offers the opportunity to […]