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Is the “Lesser Evil” Really Less than the “Greater Evil?”
2024 presidential candidates: Former President Donald Trump (left) and current Vice President Kamala Harris IMAGE/ABCNews When faced with two adverse unethical options, a person may try to avoid the more harmful immoral choice. This is ancient strategy people have talked and written about, and applied in various situations. In the US political parlance, the term […]
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Stages of Grief, Disempowering the Abuser, Healing
When the bureaucratic well runs dry, you as survivor of DV are on your own, especially when family and friends are riding in their own Private Idaho. Preface: According to band member Kate Pierson, “Private Idaho” was inspired by the feeling of being trapped and isolated, like a prisoner in solitary confinement. The song originated […]
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We Are in Collective Alexithymia
No words for emotions — alexithymia New psychology research shows maltreatment in childhood is linked to alexithymia in adulthood. Its etymology comes from Ancient Greek. The word is formed by combining the alpha privative prefix ἀ- (a-, meaning ‘not’) with λέξις (léxis, referring to ‘words’) and θῡμός (thȳmós, denoting ‘disposition,’ ‘feeling,’ or ‘rage’). The term can […]
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Second-Hand, Third-Hand, Vicarious Trauma
I’ve been helping my friend from another country navigate the legal system, green card in hand, and a husband who attempted to suffocate her to death. The people in both camps — defense and prosecution — are interestingly together bedfellows, working the “system” hard, juggling which judge is this or that (pro- or con-), and […]
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The Causes of Dogmatism
Orientation In part I of this series, following the work of Judy J. Johnson in What’s so Wrong with Being Absolutely Right: The Dangerous Nature of Dogmatic Belief, we identified dogmatism — not as the content of a particular ideology but as a process of thinking, emoting and acting. We distinguished dogmatism from fanaticism and […]
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There is Something to Intergenerational Capitalist Trauma
My colleague Rachel Yehuda studied rates of PTSD in adult New Yorkers who had been assaulted or rapes. Those whose mothers were Holocaust survivors with PTSD had a significantly higher rate of developing serious psychological problems after these traumatic experiences. The most reasonable explanation is that their upbringing had left them with a vulnerable physiology, […]
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