Spider-Man and the Psychology of Hiddenness
Spider-Man has been rebooted three times in a single generation. New actors, new timelines, new universes, and now, with Brand New Day, a new beginning that is not truly a beginning. By every rule of audience fatigue we should be finished with this character. And yet...
THE DESIRE BENEATH DESIRE: A Psychologist Reads Nolan’s Odyssey
The psychology of desire is complicated. It can be that emotion that drives us toward the most noble of human experiences. And yet it can also arrive uninvited. It can run amiss. Desire doesn’t always align with the person we are trying to become or honor our...
Sméagol: The Wound Before the Ring
Most of us have felt the pull at some point. When the world gets too loud, the relationships too complicated, something in us just wants to go quiet, to shrink the radius down to something manageable, to stop returning calls, to close the door. That impulse is not...
The Real Reason Your Advice Falls Flat
You probably know the feeling: Someone you care about is struggling. They’re stuck. They’re overwhelmed. They’re not thinking clearly. You can see what they need to do, and you want to help. So you offer some advice. A suggestion. A truth that feels obvious. And then…...
Why You Can’t Separate Brain, Body, and Relationship
Every once in a while, someone asks:Is this trauma response coming from the brain… or the body… or the relationship? The answer is yes. We like categories. We want to know if healing is neurological or emotional, cognitive or behavioral, relational or somatic. But the...
When Panic Hits: What to Do, and What It’s Telling You
Panic attacks can be terrifying. If you’ve had one, you know what I mean: your heart’s racing, your chest tightens, your thoughts spiral, and for a second—or several minutes—it feels like you’re going to die. Or like you’re going crazy. Or both. The good news is...
How Adultery Happens
How Adultery Happens: An Integrated Psychological Perspective Recently, a video surfaced online that took the country by storm: Andy Byron, the now-former CEO of Astronomer, caught on camera at a Coldplay concert with a woman who wasn’t his wife—the company’s head of...
Why Every Addiction Is a Trauma Story
When we think of addiction, our minds often go straight to the behavior: the bottle, the pills, the porn, the gambling. We focus on the what. But if we stop there, we miss the deeper truth—the why. The reality is this: every addiction is a trauma story. I’ve...
The True Cost of Being an “Always On” Dad
And for many dads, this constant state of responsiveness comes with a hidden cost: the slow disappearance of their inner life. When Every Moment Belongs to Someone Else If you’re a father, your life is no longer your own. That’s not a complaint—it’s a vocation. But...
Why the Force Still Moves Us
A Reflection on May the 4th, the soul and the fallible Mentor Spirituality entered into my consciousness through Star Wars. The original film carried with it the weight of transcendence beyond the material world, and it blew my six-year-old mind. I couldn’t articulate...