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Oct 12, 2020

Are you happy?

Should you expect to be happy? Are you entitled to be happy? How the heck can anyone be happy in this plague year of 2020?

Here’s a great short read that brings some insight to these questions in the context of COVID. Laurie Santos is a psychology professor at Yale, the host of a popular podcast called The Happiness Lab and teaches a course at Yale called “The Science of Well-Being”. Almost a quarter of Yale undergraduates take it, and through Coursera, 3 million people worldwide are now enrolled.

Oct 12, 2020

Aug 14, 2020

Doomscrolling into the light

Aug 14, 2020

I learned a new word the other day: “doomscrolling”, defined as “the act of endlessly scrolling down one’s news apps, Twitter, and social media and reading bad news,” by Ariane Ling, PhD, a psychologist and clinical assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at NYU Langone Health in New York.

My name is Eric, and I’m a doomscroller. Twitter is my drug of choice. Well, I’m probably not a hardcore, down-and-out, gutter doomscroller - but guilty enough nonetheless.

Aug 14, 2020

Jul 16, 2020

Acceptance and resilience in these times

Jul 16, 2020

If anything is clear about “pandemic times”, it’s that we are living with profound uncertainty. None of us imagined the pandemic six months ago, and much of what we hoped about its course and impact has been upended. It’s now clear that the disease in the US is different and worse than in most other countries. The ability to tolerate uncertainty, anxiety and adversity is resilience. How can individuals muster resilience in this mess?

Jul 16, 2020

Jun 17, 2020

Seeing Today in Context

Jun 17, 2020

I have been astonished that the Civil War, now over for 155 years, has emerged as a major theme within the unfolding civic upheaval over white supremacy

Jun 17, 2020

Jun 1, 2020

Coping with Job Loss and other Disasters

Jun 1, 2020

My intention this week is to offer some thoughts and resources to those facing or threatened with job loss as the unemployment rate in the United States nears 25%…

Jun 1, 2020

May 13, 2020

Holding Space in a Zoom World

May 13, 2020

I’ve been surprised by the amount of good counsel that’s flowed into my inbox these days: either I’ve gotten more discerning, or the crisis is stimulating a lot of hard and generative thinking about how to productively adapt…

May 13, 2020

May 1, 2020

Safety at Work, Outer and Inner

May 1, 2020

Safety is on everyone’s mind these days but it is a concept with many sides to it, the most obvious of which is: I hope that you and your loved ones are safe. As we all know, many are not. Some of you are on the front lines of caring for those afflicted. You’re particularly in my thoughts, and so are those of you that are working, directly or indirectly, on new diagnostics and therapeutics for this new disease…

May 1, 2020

Apr 11, 2020

Travel Guides for This Very Strange Journey

Apr 11, 2020

I hope you’re navigating another week of lockdown / isolation / Zoom meetings / home schooling / frantic and nerve-wracking clinical responsibilities. Thinking of all of you, have had the opportunity to connect with some, and although I am sure that you are all quite inundated not only with professional and home responsibilities, I thought I would offer these in the hope that they might bring a slightly different and hopefully helpful perspective to bear on our current situation…

Apr 11, 2020

Apr 4, 2020

Taking Measure of the Pandemic

Apr 4, 2020

I’m drawing your attention to a couple of articles that I’ve found insightful in the current crisis. I cannot say that I know the authors' future predictions are correct or that the recommendations are right for you. You all have complex and demanding professional obligations, and family and personal lives that need your attention now more than ever. There is no formula or guru who can determine what is right for you…

Apr 4, 2020