Close

Before Providing Criticism, First Ask For Permission?

by Jeffrey Rubin, PhD

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Recently, as I was eating dinner with a married couple the subject of how they deal with criticism arose. For the sake of privacy, I’ve changed their names to Sarah and Bob. In an earlier post, I addressed the question, “Unsolicited Criticism: Good or Bad.” Sarah and Bob agree with my conclusions in that post which in summary suggested…

Read More

Resolve Conflicts In Private Whenever Possible

One day I was presenting to a high school class a lesson on mature ways to resolve conflicts when a student we will call Tony raised his hand. When I called on him, he said, “Dr. Rubin, how would you resolve this? This here Tina (he points to her) and I were dating, and now I decided to end it. I’m seeing another girl. But…

Read More

Bob Dylan On Fools

by Dr. Jeffrey Rubin

Bob Dylan begins episode 47 of his show, Theme Time Radio Hour, with a beautiful instrumental version of “Why Do Fools Fall In Love.” After a few bars of this tune, it continues in the background as Bob begins to speak: James Thurber once said, “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time,” and for the next hour we’re going…

Read More

To Listen, Or To Criticize?

By Dr Jeffrey Rubin

In the above Sally Forth comic strip, we learn from Ted that Sally had a fight with her sister.  By the third panel, Ted begins to criticize Sally, saying she is coming off like a robot, and then he expresses his view that she had been kind of dismissive of her sister’s news about becoming engaged. In the last panel, I get the feeling that…

Read More