The first psychiatric office I rented had two mildly to moderately comfortable chairs in the center, facing in the same direction. We all know that psychiatry started with the patient lying on a couch, staring at the ceiling, and remains that way in “New Yorker” cartoons. Those of us in the know, we know that Freud was actually a pretty shy guy, not liking to stare his patients in the face, but rather letting their subconsciouses roam freely while staring at the ceiling.
We also know that the subconscious is a scary entity, full of (imagined) murder and rape and pillaging and such. The ideal when I trained was to sit face-to-face across a desk from the patient. Nobody I know actually did that. The reality slipped into 90 to 120-degree angles, exactly like what the classical psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan recommended. Read more on High Tech-High Touch Psychiatry…
Filed under News, Psychiatrists by on Jun 21st, 2017. Comment. 
I first learned that I was a “receptacle personality” in Baltimore, Maryland. I was serving our fine country in the US Army Medical Corps as psychiatrist to the 82nd Airborne Division in Ft. Bragg. NC
There was some sort of a training group there that all of the other active duty psychiatrists seemed to have attended. The Army – in its wisdom – had decided to take me – a trained neurosurgeon – and make me a psychiatrist.
Our country needed me (in this position, at least) and I obeyed, like a good soldier. Read more on Meet Dr. Receptacle…
Filed under Uncategorized by on Sep 10th, 2014. Comment.
I was so well-behaved and knowledgeable in elementary school that the only times remember being reprimanded, even gently, was when I was told to let other students answer questions occasionally.
I was pretty much always teacher’s pet. Even at gifted children’s school.
John Holt visited my fourth grade class once a week.
He had no pet. Read more on Circles — Sacred and Scientific…
Filed under News by on May 12th, 2014. Comment.