The crazy lady strikes again for Saturday, September 16, 2006

The Flock is my favorite of all the books written by patients with dissociative identity disorder, or DID (formerly known as multiple-personality disorder). It is essentially a memoir jointly written by Joan Frances Casey (who had DID) and her therapist, Lynn Wilson. These are, of course, pseudonyms. However, I assume that this story is true, unless I am told otherwise. The Flock tells the story of Casey's experiences with DID, starting with her decision to seek therapy at her student health... Sign in to see full entry.

Discovery Health Channel ran You: The Owner's Manual, a program based on the book of the same name, which book was written by Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen. (They ran this program on September 16, 2006.) I watched both this and Oprah Winfrey's show with these two doctors on September 15, and the two shows were virtually identical, the only difference being that Winfrey interviewed Drs. Oz and Roizen in between taped segments. (The taped segments were lifted from today's Discovery Health... Sign in to see full entry.

This news story illustrates the Law of Unintended Consequences to perfection. In the story, Russ Bynum of the Associated Press describes a ghost town, abandoned by undocumented immigrants who were moved from the town he describes back to their homeland, in an attempt to enforce American immigration laws. I have two relevant observations about this situation. First of all, the town mentioned in the story should not have been that economically dependent on undocumented immigrants. The only reason... Sign in to see full entry.

One of the few areas that psychotherapists get right is that there is a distinct difference between emotional truth (the way you feel events happened, and your reactions to those events) and factual truth (objectively-verifiable events or scientific facts). This entry is specifically devoted to emotional truth - the way I react to certain people, and to certain tasks that I must perform for those people. In a series of recent phone calls, emails and blog comments, I promised to help Constance... Sign in to see full entry.