A Positive Alternative To The Mental Disorder Approach
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Regular readers of this blog know that I have become disenchanted with the mental disorder/mental illness/medical model for addressing psychological concerns (see, for example, HERE). Today I describe how this came about, along with my reasons for preferring a psychological maturity approach. My Disenchantment With The Mental Disorder Model Let’s begin with my early education as a psychologist. At first,…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. As you might imagine, people who are viewed as wise tend to be more respected than people who are viewed as foolish. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few suggestions for improving our wisdom. Assessing Openness Consider, if you will, an old joke–If you want people to respect you for your wisdom, just agree with everything…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. On this blog, we have been exploring the various characteristics that help people earn self-respect and respect from others. Today we focus on one of these–staying in physical and emotional shape by taking a daily walk. It is, of course, true enough that some good people have earned an enormous amount of respect even without bothering to stay fit, but let’s…
Welcome to From Insults To Respect. Some of my blog posts are designed to help readers improve their skill at providing negative criticism. In them, I present a system of rating the maturity of each incident (see HERE). I then describe an incident or two in which someone provides negative criticism, and then readers are asked to use the rating system to assign a rating. Immediately…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today’s post is designed to clear up a basic misunderstanding regarding the nature of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, and to explain why it is vitally important to recognize its actual central cause. Today, most people conceptualize the main issues of the conflict pretty much like the independent, nonpartisan think tank Council On Foreign Affairs— “The decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is rooted…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. As each school year begins I like to once again post this discussion of how I would rate a school district’s handling of an incident in which a bus monitor was taunted by some middle school children during their bus ride home. Now, to be fair to the school district, I hasten to point out that the incident occurred several…
Feeling depressed? If so, you may decide to consult with a psychiatrist or other medical doctor. By doing so, chances are your description of your feelings will be translated into a language of symptoms, diagnosis, and mental illness, and you will leave the doctor’s office with a prescription for pills marketed as “antidepressants.” Unfortunately, this medicalization approach is so inconsistent with scientific evidence that many…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. About nine years ago I began this blog, and one of the first sets of words that I wrote were: We have all experienced name calling, insults and teasing, even the greatest presidents, the most talented athletes, and every member of your favorite band. If someone insults you, calls you names, or teases you, it does NOT mean that…
A Discussion of a Research Article About this Topic
Welcome to From Insults To Respect. A couple of years ago I wrote a post titled, “Am I Bad For Being Sad?” There I discussed the tendency in our society to promote the notion that when we experience sadness it is a symptom indicating there is something wrong with us. I then asked readers to consider the possibility that this notion may be disrespectful and harmful,…
During an early part of my psychological services provider career, I was hired as a school psychologist in Rochester, New York. There, students were regularly referred to me because a teacher or parent had become concerned about how a student was doing at school. When I met individually with these students, I first introduced myself, and then I’d say something like, “I was asked to…
