1400 years ago, after Mohammed died, the Caliphate was passed to Abu Bakr, one of Mohammed’s closest companions, rather than a blood relative of Mohammed. This is where the grudge started. Sunnis believe that the caliph should be elected or chosen for his ability and Shiites believe that it should be passed to a true inheritor or blood relative.

When the US went to war against Iraq to remove the weapons of mass destruction, it seemed like a simple in and out military excursion. Save the world and bring democracy to an area sorely in need of it. Now over a decade later, the Sunnis and the Shiites are still trying to destroy each other, not only in Iraq, but all over the Middle East.

What can reasonable people do to change hundreds of years of animosity? It appears that using conflict-resolution principles of discussing feelings and finding a middle ground have not been helpful. We’re not dealing with delusions and hallucinations that can be medicated away. We’re dealing with millions of people who are willing to die for their convictions.

My experience, although extensive, is limited to personal and family conflicts. But like with all therapeutic interactions, my goal has been to find the underlying conflict and try to help my patients find a solution. Religious zeal is always tough because there are millions of people who share the zeal. Darwinian, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Atheist or Mormon, the real beginnings of life still escape understanding. We’re stuck using the information we have in front of us. So here’s my thought…

Let’s start small. Are there any Sunnis married to Shiites? Any Jews married to Catholics? Believers in God married to Darwinians? Israelis married to Palestinians? Mormons married to Atheists? What’s it like? How are issues resolved? Can these principles be applied on a larger scale? Any other ideas? Sadly, having Notre Dame play Brigham Young on ESPN doesn’t solve the problem…

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.

First the bad news. A new patient left me a message that he didn’t want to see me anymore because I was too judgmental. Me judgmental? How is that possible? Then I thought about it for a while and shook my head. I am pretty judgmental about religion. My ex-patient had a good point. Who’d want to spend his time and money being judged? Parents and family can do that free of charge.

Now the good news. I commented in an on-line fiction group that when someone states what they believe, it is common courtesy to accept his or her belief. Trying over and over to push your belief, whether right or wrong, borders on abuse. Each of us has the right to our personal standards and ethics. Whether it’s abortion rights, gun control, immigration, or dancing in a strip bar, the right to a personal belief is essential. Often disagreements are fun and interesting. I think that trying to overwhelm someone with your belief, when they have clearly stated that they had enough, is not pleasant, helpful or respectful.

One writer commented;

Hear! Hear, Art. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I lead an adult bible discussion group on Sunday mornings at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami FL. Your standards, Art, so ably expressed, are the very essence of our group.
My point is, if a religious discussion group can hold to Art’s guidelines, why not a sophisticated group like writers?

So there you have it. Passion and intense feelings often overwhelm logical thinking and expression. We may cross boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed, or if crossed, should be done as if treading on fragile explosives.

Insulting or being insensitive to someone’s core beliefs will NOT get them to change or respect your position. So what can? Education, life experience, and maybe really caring about the person with whom you have the disagreement.

When it comes to a successful human interaction, being right is often inconsequential.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.

It might start off innocently enough. A group of guys go out for a night of bonding and laughs and wind up at a strip club. For most, it’s a few drinks, a bit of ogling, spending more money than predicted, and there it ends.

For some, it’s the beginning of an addiction.

In Skin Dance, a mystery, the main character Jake Robb, a psychiatrist, winds up talking to Candy, one of the dancers.

“Hi Honey,” an attractive young woman said, standing just inches from Jake, her breasts right in his face. She was dressed in black-silk shorts and a skimpy black-silk bra. Her hair was a mass of dark tangles and curls hanging halfway down her back. “I’m Candy. What can I get you to drink?” The researchers catalogued this type of behavior as counterfeiting intimacy, Jake remembered with a sigh. When it was actually happening it didn’t feel at all like it was counterfeit. Candy’s perfume floated around him, an aromatic web that under most circumstances would be difficult to resist.

Strip bars offer visual candy, rocking sound systems, a full bar, and pseudo-sex (lap dances). Any of these might be attractive, but are they worth investing hundreds of hours and lots of money?

When you’re in love, anything is possible. The addict watches the love of his life up on stage, bumping and grinding and playing up to anyone silly enough to drape money over the brass rail, but still believes, with all his heart, that what she really wants is him.

The addict is empty and hungry for love. Candy capitalizes on that need and instinctively knows just how to work her way into the heart and wallet of this desperate, lonely character.

One day when this fantasy ends, it will be with a dose of emptiness, recrimination, and possibly the knowledge that searching for love in a strip bar is doomed.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.

While embedded with the troops outside of Baghdad, he wrote, “To march against the war is not to give peace a chance. It is to give tyranny a chance.” Kelly died in Iraq, in 2003, a courageous man backing up his words with his actions.

When Frank Sinatra died in 1998, everyone mourned Old Blue Eyes except Michael Kelly. Kelly hated Frank because he had invented Cool and Cool had replaced Smart. “Cool said the old values were for suckers… Cool didn’t go to war; Saps went to war, and anyway, cool had no beliefs he was willing to die for. Cool never, ever, got into a fight it might lose; cool had friends who could take care of that sort of thing.”

What was Smart? “Smart was Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca: He possessed an outward cynicism, but at his core he is a square… He is willing to die for his beliefs, and his beliefs are, although he takes pains to hide it, old-fashioned. He believes in truth, justice, the American way and love… Where there is a war, he goes to it.”

Psychiatry at its core is a medical specialty that values discovering the underlying truth and freeing a person from the bondage of hidden secrets. The cool quick fix of “just take a Xanax and chill” is not what most psychiatrists believe. The work of untangling the hidden past, in the end can free us to think and make decisions based on a reasoned approach to truth rather than the way we were programmed by our parents and society. I guess Michael Kelly and psychiatry have a lot in common. Not that I don’t appreciate Frank Sinatra’s contribution, I do, but I also appreciate the way an honest man thinks.

So, as I listen to Frankie croon, My Way, I think about wearing my old Armani sports jacket and decide instead to put on a pair of jeans and a battered leather jacket. Is that cool or smart? Maybe it just doesn’t matter. Maybe what’s really important is to just be myself. We’re all works-in-progress and to develop new approaches to life and keep learning is what’s important. It’s what’s important in my office and what’s important out of the office. I toast all free thinkers who aren’t afraid to learn and apply what they’ve learned, even though it may not be PC.

Special thanks to Dr. Bernard Feldman, definitely a free thinker, who gave me a copy of Bret Stephens’ article.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.

During her 3rd psychotherapy session, she shared that she had been molested by Sedgwick, a 40-year-old neighbor, when she was 7 or 8 years old. He touched her genitals on a number of occasions, but there was never any intercourse. Petrified and ashamed, she kept it a secret.

Sally said, “I heard that Sedgwick, that’s his name, lives out in the high desert. He’s been there for many years.”

“Have you considered calling him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Confronting him.”

“It’s been over 40 years.”

“I think you’re still suffering from what he did. He’s a pedophile. What he did was terrible and the wound he caused is still raw.”

Sally’s eyes welled with tears. She started breathing heavily and couldn’t catch her breath.

“Are these the same symptoms you described during your first visit?

She nodded and grabbed a handful of Kleenex to wipe her face and blow her nose. “Just thinking about him makes me freeze up inside. I hate that man. I just hate him!”

The next week, as she sat on the sofa facing me, she stared down at the carpet. Minutes later, she took a few deep breaths, looked up and said, “I did it.”

“What?”

“I called him.”

“What happened?”

“I said, ‘Sedgwick, this is Sally’.”

“‘I didn’t do anything’, he said. Can you believe that after 40 years, that was the 1st and only thing out of the creep’s mouth? I didn’t do anything.” Sally leaned forward in her seat and said quietly, “Then he hung up on me.”

I leaned forward in my chair. “What happened then?”

“I called back and his wife answered. I told her everything. Everything… She started to cry and said she was sorry.Very, very sorry. I got off the phone and it took an hour for me to stop shaking. Today I’m feeling pretty good.”

“You look good — stronger, not as anxious or troubled.”

The result was that within a month, Sally was symptom-free. She was on no medication, felt better both at work and in her personal life, and was even considering joining a dating service. I saw her again one year later. Except for the normal stresses of life, she continued symptom free.

Dealing with old wounds has no length-of-time rule. Just having the courage to try is often its own reward.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.

You don’t remember?

No worries.

99.99 percent of us have no clue as to what happened before age 5. What’s left of that distant past are only shadows and vague innuendoes (psychiatrists call them screen memories), but because we’re walking the streets in our big boy pants, we can assume that toilet training was a rousing success. Also, as a well deserved aside, the male obsession with breasts is also connected with those early not-remembered experiences.

What if, like Joe Belmont, in Chasing Backwards, you had to spend a year in a pediatric hospital, or like Tom Wingo, in Prince of Tides, your father’s brutal behavior haunted you on a daily basis or like Henry Skrimshander, in The Art of Fielding, your father’s critical perfectionism almost ruined you? And what if all those traumatic experiences were only vaguely remembered or not remembered at all?

Most of us weren’t extraordinarily traumatized, but just average kids trying to survive a strange and unfamiliar world. But since all parents are imperfect, every one of us has been to some degree wounded.

Our forgotten past, the Back Story that occurred before we could think clearly, is often the real story. It is the engine that gives us passion or takes our passion away. It is the engine that drives writers to write, physicians to heal, teachers to teach, mechanics to fix and on and on and on.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.

Their chances of success are probably less than making a bundle at a Vegas Craps table.

Commonly, fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. Who knows what percent stay married because of not wanting the children to suffer through a divorce, strict religious doctrine, and downright fear of change. So let’s say that we now have a total of seventy percent of people who are unhappy. That leaves a thirty percent happy rate! I may be exaggerating, but I’m entitled to a bit of poetic license.

So why is marriage so incredibly difficult?

It’s impossible to live up to an adolescent fantasy — sculpted bodies, flawless skin, perfect empathic resonance, great sex, a philosophy that love is more important than money, the expectation that your lover will always meet your needs… We all know that it’s a crazy fantasy. We’re not idiots. But, somewhere, deep in the reptilian part of our brains, WE WANT PERFECTION. So what’s the solution?

Be authentic, sensitive, realistic, practical, caring, and don’t expect your spouse to be able to read your mind! Say what you want and need. Accept the fact that your spouse may want exactly the opposite of what you want. THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE NOT LOVED. IT MEANS THAT YOU’RE MARRIED TO A PERSON WHO ALSO HAS HIS/HER OWN NEEDS.

No one can take better care of you than yourself. Educate your spouse as to what you want and need and let her educate you as to what she wants and needs. Cultivate your own friendships and don’t expect that all your needs can be met in the marriage.

So with this balanced approach, it should all work out just fine. Right? Not exactly. When you really get angry at each other, all logic escapes. Our reptilian brain is back! But, don’t lose faith and storm off into the night. Calm down, try to figure out why you’re so angry, and then express it to the best of your ability. Then, have the patience and courage to listen to why she’s angry. THEN COMPROMISE!

Welcome to married life.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist

The main reason most of the negative comments were filled with such anger was because the authors of the comments felt that I was stigmatizing their condition and unrealistically simplifying it.

I in fact did characterize BPD as an all or nothing disorder, a black or white way of looking at the world. It IS that way, but what I failed to stress is that a person suffering from this concrete approach to life can change. With therapy or self-examination or productive life experiences, they can learn to see the shades of gray in the human condition. They can better understand another person’s point of view, take responsibility for their part in the problem, and be a force that can resolve the problem.

Most of the negative comments I received were from people who had obviously gained the ability to see life in a more three-dimensional manner. My two-dimensional descriptions would understandably be anger provoking.

I wish to thank all the commenters who expressed their feelings in a way that was helpful and caused me to rethink my approach. Best Wishes.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist

As an author, the symptom that I think is so wonderful is their ability to first idealize and then to devalue. A woman meets a man, fawns all over him, is overtly seductive and sexual, tells him that he’s the most perfect guy she’s ever met, and proceeds to do everything in her power to show her love.

But, it doesn’t take long for Mr. Perfect to disappoint Ms. Borderline. He goes out with his buddies, watches a little too much basketball on TV, or stares a little too long at Angelina’s tattoo. Ms. Borderline goes bonkers. She becomes overtly depressed, explosively angry, and can’t stop telling Mr. Perfect that he’s a jerk. When Mr. Perfect can’t take it anymore and decides to end the relationship, Ms. Borderline becomes clingy, sexually seductive, and tells Mr. Perfect how sorry she is and that she really loves him.

So Mr. Perfect changes his mind and decides to stay. Two days later, he comes home ten minutes late, and Ms. Borderline again goes nuts. She rants, she threatens, and she’s verbally and even physically abusive. When he again decides to leave, she becomes suicidal and threatens that if he leaves, she’ll kill herself. Then Mr. Perfect feels sorry for her and decides to stay.

So what’s the wonderful part of this nightmare? USE MS. BORDERLINE AS A CHARACTER IN ONE OF YOUR NOVELS! She’ll make a wonderful, homicidal, jilted lover, like The Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction, or a wonderful, difficult heroine, like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, or a hostile, bully father, like Bull Meecham in The Great Santini.

Since the heart of a novel is the tension and conflict that the author creates between his characters, Borderline Personalities are built for conflict. Their all-or-nothing, black or white, approach to life is the perfect way to drive another person crazy. Since you hopefully don’t have to live with one, have her, or him, torture your protagonist.

If you’re living with a person suffering from a BPD, stop being an enabler and seek therapy. If she refuses, make an independent decision to do what you need to do to have a better life.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.

Listening to the voices from our unconscious is not an easy task. It means taking time to evaluate rather than just react. Listening and letting feelings percolate is what good therapists do, and it’s exactly what you can do for yourself. Then, when you know what you feel, and maybe even where the feeling originates, you can choose to take action or not to take action.

But sometimes, even a psychiatrist has no clue where certain feelings are coming from. In Skin Dance, a mystery, Dr. Jake Robb is miserable after Jennifer, his wife, leaves. His brother Ken tries to help.

“Jake, I know you’re the shrink and I’m the attorney, but you have to admit that what’s really bothering you isn’t that crazy patient you were telling me about, but Jennifer. Hiding out isn’t going to bring her back. If you were treating yourself, you’d never advocate a treatment of social withdrawal and overdosing on carbs.”

Sighing, Jake felt himself sinking lower and lower into a puddle of depression. Mose Allison’s melancholy voice coming from the stereo wasn’t helping the situation.

“Listen Bro. We’re going out tonight. I’m not taking no for an answer.” Ken’s tone was insistent, undercurrents of worry lacing his words, like scotch through soda. “You won’t believe where we’re going…”

So Jake, like most of us, wasn’t clear on why he was feeling so down. He’d have to work hard to figure out the source of his depression. In Jake’s case, his life would depend on it. For us, our happiness and piece of mind may not be a life or death situation, but it will be an essential component to having a satisfying life.

So how do you do it?

Write down your dreams, fantasies, feelings, and the way you’re behaving in stressful situations. Then try to connect the patterns. Are the patterns a repetition from the past? Are you displacing feelings from your childhood and aiming them at a spouse or friend or child? It’s certainly not easy to discover what’s hidden in the unconscious, and a therapist might be necessary, but I assure you, learning to play a Stradivarius is a much better choice than battering your way through life. Except maybe if the bad guys are closing in…

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and…drum roll… The popular blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.