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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…

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On Slamming Insubordinate Student Down

Is There a Reasonable Alternative

By now, most of you have repeatedly seen the shaky video that shows a police officer grabbing an insubordinate sixteen-year-old female student, Shakara, who is sitting at her desk (see HERE). When the officer’s hand is very close to the student’s throat, she hits at his arm. The officer then flips her over and flings her to the front of the classroom. The student reportedly…

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Abusive Criticism In Big Time Sports

What can we learn from it?

It’s the bottom of the eighth inning. The talented star, Bryce Harper, front runner for the National League Most Valuable Player Award, hits a pop fly to left field that a professional outfielder is very likely to catch. However, there are times when such fielders do lose the ball in the sun or the stadium lights, and the ball ends up being dropped, allowing the batter…

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Comics, Conflicts and the Desire to be Liked

Habitual ways of acting often can’t be overcome by a single discussion. Thus, it helps to bring before our conscience some ideas a few times over the course of several months.  With that in mind, let’s review some of the ideas we have discussed earlier on this blog about conflict and the desire to be liked.  By utilizing a fresh new batch of comics I…

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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…

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Psychiatric Name Calling: Is There An Alternative?

The publishers of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) currently hold a monopoly for classifying the concerns that lead people to seek mental health services. Recently on this blog, in a series of articles, I have been pointing out numerous faults of the DSM.  To check out some examples of these, see my posts titled Name Calling by Psychiatrists: Is it Time…

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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…

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Killing People Because They Criticized Your Muslim Faith: Is It A Sign of Immaturity?

By Dr Jeffrey Rubin

Anyone who follows the news, has heard about the most recent terrorist act in France. This post, however looks at what occurred earlier this year against those who worked for the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.  The magazine had published articles and cartoons that criticize those who believe that the proper response to people making fun of a group’s religious beliefs is to kill them. …

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Einstein and Stupidity

by Dr Jeffrey Rubin

“Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe.”–Albert Einstein In the spring of 1914, Albert Einstein left his home in Switzerland to take a job at the University of Berlin in Germany’s capital. He was then, 35. He took the job with much misgivings.  When he was a young boy living in Germany, Einstein…

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Responding Maturely to Criticism: A John F. Kennedy Example

by Dr Jeffrey Rubin

Responding to negative criticism with lower developmental level skills can lead to an escalation of conflicts, violence, and the loss of valued friends. Among the benefits of utilizing higher developmental level skills are increases in how much people like and respect us. To encourage readers of this blog to think about the most helpful ways to respond to criticism, I presented a post titled “Responding to Criticism:…

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