The show is “Hot Topics.” I do not know the personalities of the folks on the oversized screen of this breakfast room where we happen to be staying. They throw around the names of celebrities I never heard of and they tell their intimate family lives painting in broad strokes without any testimonial evidence. A “gossip” show, my mother would have called it.
My mother would have turned such shows off on the television. My grandmother of blessed memory, my “Bobie,” would have turned the channel back to the gossip show, and commented how my Mother, who seemed to think she was head of the household, ran the place in a way similar to Adolf Hitler. Read more on Estelle is Magically Stuck Watching Television…
Filed under culture, Family, Fashion, life, Memory, Mental Illness, News by on Feb 8th, 2019. Comment. 
t was an ordinary weekday in August. I had registered at the medical school in the morning. Walked around downtown a little (I was a powerful walker in those days).
I walked to the synagogue, not knowing if I would find anyone From the history in Wikipedia, the long tradition of the synagogue of Amiens is immortalized for all time. Read more on My First Day In Amiens…
Filed under Family, life, News by on Jan 23rd, 2019. Comment.
She was one of the regulars at Mme. Mareschal’s Cafe “les Arcades.” She took a hot cocoa on the morning of each market day — Thursdays and Saturdays and even Mondays. She had one of the best placements in market, just across the street from the street perpendicular to the rue Leon Blum. I gave some of her mentholated honey candies to a girlfriend in my medical school class for her birthday. She found them exotic, like me.
“Wow, those candies are like a high or something. I mean, they could clean your fingernails. ” Read more on When You Are Not Pretty Enough…
Filed under Family, life, News by on Jan 17th, 2019. Comment.
This piece in Reform Judaism really touched me.
Unike my grandmother of blessed memory, who had to escape the Russian revolution and come to the states for the freedom to practice the rituals of her faith openly, I have not been openly physically punished for being Jewish. I certainly have been discriminated against for being Jewish. Read more on It Is OK To Be A Jew At Christmas…
Filed under Family, Government, News, politics, Religion, Religion and Politics by on Dec 29th, 2018. Comment.
She had been one of the angriest patients I had ever seen. Yelling and screaming so much and walking out of my office so often that I had figured she was out of my practice.
She had been traumatized — not only raped, but abused in other ways — which she had been unable to detail.
Her husband had brought her back, and I gave her a little bit of medicine, slowly, then, I had been finally able to speak with her directly. Read more on Kindness Can Cure, Too…
Filed under abuse, depression, Doctors, Family, life, News by on Dec 27th, 2018. Comment.
Mature female patient: “So you’re Dr. Goldstein! Wow , you’re dressed so elegant! I mean I feel really self-conscious! I just threw on a t-shirt and shorts…”
Dr. G: “Don’t worry, darling. You got it right — I’m the one who’s supposed to get dressed up. Now, you’re not going to think much of me.” Read more on Dr. Estelle gets a new patient…smiling, laughing…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, depression, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, Education, Family, life, medicine, News by on Dec 24th, 2018. Comment.
Insight is the awareness of one’s own illness and/or situation.
This summary is as good as any textbook definition of this relatively amorphous concept that has completely infiltrated the fabric of psychiatric practice. Read more on Estelle The Translator…
Filed under Asperger's, Education, Family, life, News by on Dec 14th, 2018. Comment.
I’ve read things by Dr. Pamela Wible before and she is definitely on a piece of the right track. Read more on “Patient Profiling” as a cause of medical error….
Filed under Diagnosis, Family, Government, Healthcare reform, life, medicine, News, politics by on Nov 10th, 2018. Comment.
She was an older woman, gray-haired and distinguished, one of those Canadian imports who had never forgotten her British roots. They were as close by as her slight English accent. I had known many people in Canada just like her, who would say “I’m just an old Brit” because that is what they felt like, in the “melting pot” America was alleged at one time to be, or in rich ethnic salad of Canada.
We knew her from her singing. We sang in a “showcase” of sorts in the San Diego region. My husband’s rich and jazzy baritone, my humorous songs or French songs long before my post-menopausal “croak” set in. Read more on Back To The Blitz…
Filed under Brain, depression, Diagnosis, Family, life, medicine, News by on Oct 23rd, 2018. Comment.
https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/the-fringe-benefits-of-failure-and-the-importance-of-imagination-by-j-k-rowling
First, I must acknowledge James Clear. Without him, I would not have found this speech by J.K. Rowling, or a myriad of applied psychology writings that often hit me like a bulls-eye of a target — his website is recommended for perusal by the (applied) psychologically-minded, who might be reading me anyway. Read more on Failure Has Its Benefits…
Filed under Family, life, News, Psychology by on Oct 16th, 2018. Comment.