These days, I've been thinking a lot about why people are so polarized and so angry and hateful toward one-another. The right wing of politics has tremendous animosity toward the left and vice-versa; race relations are at an all-time low; Poland is lately declaring certain communities “LGBT-free;” and it seems like every other day we read about people harassing or bullying random strangers on the street for reasons of pure intolerance.

Not that long ago, we'd come far in terms of…

A lot has been written about the kinds of people who choose to lead a cult. Like Charles Manson, Jim Jones or Sun Myung Moon, these are power-crazed narcissists and sociopaths, highly invested in manipulating and controlling others to do their bidding. It’s not enough for these individuals to have personal power; they’re compelled to have others bend to their will.

But what causes a…

For many, many human beings, it’s painful to see the truth about our loved ones, and most especially about our parents and our partners, so we choose instead to go into denial.

Denial is a powerful human defense mechanism. We deny that the pain in our chest is serious because we don’t want to believe that we have heart disease. Unfortunately, when we deny a problem, we can’t fix the problem, and this is why far too many people suffer and even dies of untreated heart…

Lately, I’ve been noticing how a lot of people who are in abusive relationships have a habit of minimizing the bad behavior of their abusers. They rationalize and justify the other person’s behavior and it allows them to tolerate the unacceptable.

It’s sad that people are being abused but it’s even sadder that those who are most vulnerable seem to be protecting their abusers and creating justifications for their hurtful behavior. These victims of abuse need to see the truth of what’s…