The Joint Story: A tool for helping counseling clients move forward

The joint story technique is deceptively simple. I tell the client, “We’re jointly going to create a story."

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I explain how it works, why, with whom it works best.

The Psychologically Attuned Sports Team Coach

While out of favor among the intelligentsia, being on a sports team can be not just fun but developmentally potent.  Fortunately psychologically attuned coaching facilitates both.

I offer my ideas on how to be one in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Soothers: Instant De-Stressers

To reduce stress, some people rely on meditation or vacations. My PsychologyToday.com article today offers some less time-consuming options.

On Writing: A probably too-brief how-to.

A Medium.com article offered a list of the top 10 things adults would like to learn. #1? Writing.

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers a probably too-brief how-to.

In-the-Moment Journaling

Sure, counselors have special training and may be able to see you more objectively than you can. But journaling offers advantages: You’re not ceding agency to anyone, the counselor’s biases can’t creep in, you may know yourself better than a counselor does, you can use your journal more than weekly, and no matter how many “sessions” you choose have, they're free.

There is a variation on journaling that I believe is superior and, to my knowledge, hasn’t been proposed. My PsychologyToday.com article today describes it.

I'm From Another Planet

Many people feel they don't fit in, and I'm one of them. I thought you might find it helpful to read the ways I feel different. Perhaps it will encourage your self-acceptance or even desire to change.

Half-jokingly, when my wife and I went out to dinner with friends, I said, "I'm not from this planet." Actually, it's not far from the truth. For example:

I value an out-of-balance life. My life is utterly out of balance and I like it that way. I have worked 60 to 80 hours my whole life and now, as I approach age 69, I still work those hours and plan to continue until my health declines. I do it not for the money but because I believe that the more contribution, the more productive you are, the more worthy your life is.

I advocate reducing redistribution. I am a utilitarian: Most of my decisions, certainly my policy positions, are made on what will do the most good for the most people. Lest you think that makes me a socialist or Communist, no, I'm ambivalent about what yields the most good along the continuum from free-market to Communism, so I've ended up a mushy moderate.

But where I differ from the masses is that my utilitarianism makes clear that, except for a basic safety net, I believe that net ill accrues from redistribution from the Haves to Have-Nots--whether from the rich to the poor, able to disabled, the Israelis to the Palestinians. I believe we're wise to allocate financial resources and human effort not to those with the greatest deficit but to those with the greatest potential to improve humankind or their sphere of influence within it.

Said another way, I believe a dollar left in the hands of the people who have produced the most is likely to do more net good than a dollar wrested from them to give to the HaveNots. Do remember that current and especially Ocasio-Cortes/Warren/Sanders-proposed additional redistributions, for example, "free" (that is, taxpayer-paid) college and health care require not just soaking the rich but because there are so many more HaveNots than rich people and very successful corporations like Amazon, Apple, and Facebook , even if those were taxed at 90%, those radical redistributive policies necessarily hit the already hollowing-out middle-class, people who disproportionately have delayed gratification, spent years and a fortune on higher education, produced much and been compensated only modestly for all that and already pay the most painful share of taxes. The additional redistribution will be a death knell for much of the middle-class, that most worthy group.

I think materialism is foolish. So many people do jobs they dislike so they can live in digs in a "good" neighborhood, when in fact safety differences are trivial and children in "bad" schools, when controlled for socioeconomic status, do no worse than than in tony locales. So they can regularly buy new (more breakdown-prone and service-requiring) Beemers and Mercedes than hang onto older Toyotas? So they can wear designer-label clothes and jewelry that look and function very little better than clothes and jewelry costing 90% less? Foolish. I live modestly so I am free to do the work I want to do, often for free.

I am no funster. I dislike haha, trivial-talk, loud parties, getting high, dancing (bouncing one's body to deafening music for no purpose,) expensive, hassle-filled travel--What? So I can say I'm standing on the ground Julius Caesar stood 2,000 years ago? Big deal.

My pleasures are simple and sober: reading, gardening, playing the piano, hiking with my dog. When my wife and I go out to eat, we chose quiet, low-status restaurants, for example, the local family-run Thai or Indian place. We much prefer those to buzzy, frou-frou places with thumping music, $12 for a few lettuce leaves and $25 for a piece of chicken, a la carte, and per the restaurant consultants, not even bread included (It fills up the customer so they order less..Profit maximization, dude!)

People call me a stick in the mud. I am but believe I'm actually more content with the aforementioned low-hassle, low-cost recreations and worklife than is most of the world with its silliness.

I am an atheist. 90 percent of people believe in some deity. Not me. I wish I believed in one--It's comforting to have a God to lean on when life's crap hits. but I can't place any faith in a God that would allow millions of people to die from earthquakes and excruciating cancer, let alone the countless babies born with horrific diseases that make them scream in agony for months and then die leaving bereft parents.

It's sad and yes lonely being so out of step or, as I quipped, from another planet, but that's my truth. I hope it's somehow helpful to you.

I offer a video version of this on YouTube.

Starting and Succeeding in Private Practice

Even though the unemployment rate is the lowest in 50 years, many people are attracted to self-employment. 

A particularly intriguing type of self-employment is a private practice. Whether you’re a mental health professional or a doctor, lawyer, architect, etc., many people prefer the autonomy and control of private practice over having to play by the rules and politics inherent in organizations. 

But starting and succeeding in a private practice can feel daunting. I hope my PsychologyToday.com article today will help.

Six Big Ideas for a Better America

Here are my best ideas for societal improvement. As you'll see, some would be described as liberal, others conservative, others apolitical.

Reduce concentration of extreme wealth. Extraordinary wealth is concentrated among a few ultra-wealthy individuals, corporations, and other entities. That is obscene when so many poor people exist and especially so because these entities are involved not in creating better products and services but "financialization," basically moving money around. So I'm not talking here about Amazon, Apple, or Facebook. I'm talking about big banks and hedge funds. These entities must realize some sense of obligation to the public and voluntarily redistribute some wealth or, much as I'm not a big fan of big government, if they resist, some tax increase for them would then be appropriate.

Reinvent how our leaders are selected. The metastasizing length and cost of political campaigns ensures that the best people don't run for office let alone get elected. A wiser system would have our leaders selected not elected. For example, a legislature might consist of the CEOs of the fastest-growing for- and non-profits, winner of Teacher of the Year, Plumber of the Year award etc, the most-cited philosophers and scientists, the most popular novelist, artist, etc. plus 20% selected at random. That would yield an unarguably excellent pool of people, uncorrupted by money from special interests: corporations mainly on the Right and activist groups mainly on the Left. The foxes are guarding the henhouse so the only way this could occur is if society's mindmolders: the colleges and media made this a Cause, so that politicians who refused to sign on, would likely lose.

Restore meritocracy. Starting in the '60s, society's mind-molders (the schools, colleges, and especially media--news (including the so-influential Google Search, entertainment, novels, movies, theatre) have manipulated us into believing that it's wise to redistribute resources from the best-and-brightest to the lowest achievers. Hence, hiring, promotion and college/grad school admission is decreasing emphasis on merit while increasing emphasis on getting more women, minorities, and the disabled.

Less obvious, the nation's financial and human resources are  being redistributed from those with the greatest potential to profit to those with the greatest deficit. That Alice-in-Wonderland thinking is no more rational than the owner of oil wells deciding to put the most money and effort into drilling the poorest-performing ones. That is a formula for reducing the U.S. to its lowest common denominator and arguably will be more devastating to the U.S. standard of living and worldwide competitiveness than most aggressions that Russia and China could perpetrate on us.

I am pessimistic that we'll ever restore more meritocracy. I believe we'll continue to increase our Marxist-derived focus on redistribution toward merit-indifferent egalitarianism because the colleges and media have been appropriated by the Left, which brainwashes the next generation to believe in the redistributive religion. And that cohort later will replace society's current mind-molders. So I see the anti-merit trend not as a pendulum but an inexorable descent into mediocrity's pit.

Reinvent education. Think back to all your teachers and college instructors. How many were transformational, not only teaching you the subject so you really understood it while you enjoyed the process but enhanced your appreciation of of the subject and transformed your life? If you're like most people, the answer is few or none. But in this wide world of ours, there is a small percentage of such extraordinary teachers. Thanks to the wide availability of fast internet, interactive-video online courses taught by these super teachers would enable everyone, rich and poor, from Harlem to Beverly Hills (indeed Aden to Zululand) to receive world-class instruction at a fraction of the cost of the assortment of live teachers, a few of which are transformational, many more of whom are not...or worse. The big obstruction here is not technology but the teachers unions, which fear loss of jobs. Yes, teacher jobs would be lost but more important is our children, our future.

The second part of the one-two punch for reinventing education is to blow up the existing curriculum, especially in high school and college. So few students care about or, importantly, need to derive geometric theorems, know the causes of the War of the Roses, the intricacies of Shakespeare, stochastic processes in chemistry, etc. Indeed, there's little evidence for the oft-cited rationale for teaching such esoterica--that it improves critical thinking. What most traditional-age students need, want, and will work hard to learn and retain are such things as practical conflict resolution, financial literacy, career planning, relationship and sexual advice, the life well-led, etc.

Special mention should be made of entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship is the only true source of job creation. Government/taxpayer-funded jobs merely eat our seed corn. I am well aware that many businesses are "ethically challenged." So what's required is a K-20 ethical entrepreneurship curriculum.

Redirect research funding.  I recommend three areas:

Toward an intelligence and an altruism "pill." We should prioritize development of an intelligence "pill" and an altruism "pill," which in practice will be some sort of gene editing. Of course, environment matters but genetics predispose us in the same way as even a poorly tuned Ferrari will win a race against a well-tuned VW. As long as the "pill" were available free to the poor via Medicaid, as is the case with other medical procedures, it would decrease the achievement gap because the poor have more to gain. Clearly, the change-the-environment model has failed. We've spent $22 trillion over the last half century to close the achievement gap and it remains as wide as ever. 

Reducing substance abuse. Instead of racing to legalize marijuana, which is far more dangerous than the Big Tobacco-endorsed advocates would have us believe, we should be doing more social- and hard-science research on how to prevent and cure substance abuse. Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, opioids, etc wreak unimaginable pain not only on the abusers but on their families, employers, and society. For example, consider the pain and death that come from the victims of accidents caused by impaired drivers. Consider how much of our health care system is overwhelmed by the sequelae of drug abuse both to the abuser and to others.

Nuclear energy. We also must redirect energy spending from solar and wind to nuclear. Solar and wind are nice add-ons  but unless we're willing to live like Stone Agers, we need a far more potent yet clean source of energy. That's nuclear. And not withstanding what the hard-line radical green activists would have us believe, nuclear energy is not Chernobyl or Fukushima. For decades now, much of the world's electricity comes from nuclear energy, and the technology is quite safe and becoming more compact. With sufficient investment, I believe we'll see a time when our cars, trucks, buses, trains and planes are powered by clean nuclear.

Exit the Middle East, with one exception. For 2,000 years, the West has attempted to "fix" the Middle East--from Alexander the Great to Churchill to our recent travails in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, and our efforts to stop terrorism from Taliban to Hezbollah to Hamas. We must exit the Middle East except for modest support for Israel, the Middle East's only democracy, woman-friendly country, and the tiny nation responsible for very disproportionate medical and technological discoveries that benefit us all. From the PC chip to Waze, tiny-population Israel has won a dozen Nobel Prizes just since 1966. And Israel is surrounded by enemies sworn to its destruction, including from Hamas, the government voted-in by the Palestinian people.

In conclusion
Of course, I don't have the hubris to believe that these solutions are free of downsides or that this is a comprehensive list--Other items I could discuss include no-tax-return taxation, reducing existential-level government debt, etc. But the aforementioned are my best thoughts in a nutshell. I welcome your comments and questions.

I read this aloud on YouTube.

The Disliked Person

One-Minute Healthy, Filling Delcious Cooking

8 Minutes on Good Parenting of a Normal Child

Why I Exercise Only Moderately

I'm From Another Planet

Learning Smart

Smart Shopping

The World's Shortest Course in Dog Ownership

Gardening for Maximum Pleasure with Minimum Effort

5 Minutes on Life and Death

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers brief thoughts on living and dying well.

The Palliative Option: An underdiscussed way for counselors to help clients

We tend to praise MDs who offer a palliative option for end-stage patients. We're less likely to valorize counselors who do that with  treatment-resistant clients. 

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I make the case that the palliative-care option should more often be offered, and suggest possible wordings.

Developing a Business Idea Worthy of Shark Tank

Seeking to control their destiny, many people would love to come up with an idea and business plan that has a good chance of success without incurring much risk, the kind of business plan that would make even the toughest Shark, Kevin O’Leary on the TV show, Shark Tank, invest, or should I say bite?

My PsychologyToday.com article today shows how I help my clients develop such a plan.

Chameleon Commucation: Six Ways to Flex to Facilitate Effective Communication

We all default to a particular approach to interaction, whether professionally or personally: We’re more or less intellectual, patient, advice-giving, interruptive, etc.

Of course, we’re more effective if we can be flexible. That’s important in most interaction but especially so in managing people and even more so for helping professionals. Because of that and because this is Psychology Today, I’ll use helping professionals in the six examples I offer on my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Is Assertiveness Overrated?

Not so long ago, the ideal deportment was seen as restrained, modest, not pushy. But recent decades have seen increased lauding of, indeed training of, assertiveness. We’re even seeing encouragement of rude aggressiveness, exemplified by such slogans as “I’m loud and I’m proud!”

From where I sit, neither of the extremes: “the meek shall inherit the earth” nor “I’m loud and I’m proud” are defensible. The question is, “Where in that broad middle should you aim for?” It probably depends in part on your predisposition: Some people seem hard-wired for assertiveness, others for compliance, eagerness to please. But some of our level of assertiveness would seem under our control.

Most people exhibit their level of assertiveness unconsciously. Per some of my previous articles, for example,Work More? and Give More to The Neediest or to The Higher Potential?, I believe it wise that we make such decisions consciously, after due deliberation. 

To that end, my PsychologyToday.com article today offers a debate between an advocate for moderate assertiveness and an advocate for moderate restraint. Perhaps it will help you get clearer on where you'd like to aim for on that continuum.

Getting Good at Almost Anything: A 4-step plan for tackling tasks

Have you ever met someone who seems good at nearly everything? Sure, they probably have a high IQ, which means they quickly learn, retain, and apply knowledge to solve a wide array of problems. But IQ is relatively immutable, and the validity of pop-psych concepts such as "Grit" and "Growth Mindset" have been found to have less utility than their conceptualizers had claimed. See, for example, this regarding"Grit." See, for example, this regarding "Growth Mindset."

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers a more likely approach to getting good at most things. I’ve developed this 4-step plan for tackling tasks from my many highly successful clients and friends, plus, okay, from my own life. I present the plan via an example. Because it's in Psychology Today,  the example I use is a person who's trying to figure out how to deal with anxiety.

Burned Out: 22 questions that may help you identify baby steps up from burnout’s pit

You may think of the typical burnout as someone who’s been struggling to stay in the middle class. But burnout is an equal opportunity attacker. A number of my clients are seven-figure successful but felt burned out, empty, wondering whether all the effort was worth it. 

At the other end of the socioeconomic continuum, many people are burned out because they've been hold a job that sustains even a modest living and their personal life is equally dispiriting. 

Burnout can lead to undue sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, and the sense that nothing matters, or at least is worth working hard for. Indeed, my Psychology Today article, I Don’t Care About Anything has received 270,000 views.

What’s a burnout to do?
Burnout tends to be so all-encompassing that it must be tackled a bite at a time. Perhaps the questions I ask in my PsychologyToday.com article today will help you identify your next bites

Out of Step: How much do you want to follow the crowd? A self-inventory.

Some people fit easily within societal norms, and life is easier for them. But what if you’re not much of a follow-the-crowd person?

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers three composite profiles, which present many ways a person might be out-of-step. Their purpose is to help you inventory the ways you are and aren’t normative and what, as we enter 2019, you might want to change...and not.

Know Who’s Molding Your Opinions

Most of society mind-molders are not science-and-math people. They go into the communication arts—journalism, filmmaking, teaching, novel and screenwriting, etc. This gives them a conscious or unconscious bias against science and technology. That bias doesn't serve you. I make the case in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Moving Forward: A lesson from Holocaust Survivors

Being the child of two Holocaust survivors, I also got to know a couple dozen more. They taught me a lesson about moving forward. I share that in my PsychologyToday.com article today.