Category: World events, a psychological view

Trust A Liar? by Art Smukler, MD, author & psychiatrist

by artsmuklermd, posted in Politics, Psychiatry, Self Examination, World events, a psychological view, Writing

Decades ago as a young psychiatrist, my patient Jeremy, a 16 year-old boy who I hospitalized on an adolescent unit because of rampant drug use, running away from home, and stealing, was doing well. He participated in group, individual, and family therapy, did his school work, followed the adolescent unit rules, and told me how he was “a changed person”.

His mom warned me numerous times that whatever came out of Jeremy’s mouth was a lie. Nevertheless, after 4 weeks of excellent behavior, I made plans to discharge Jeremy and see him as an outpatient.

That night I got a call at 4 AM. Jeremy was in full restraints because he had tried to burn down the hospital and then violently attacked staff members.

To sum up a frustratingly long story, after many months of intensive inpatient therapy I again believed that Jeremy was improving and transferred him from the closed unit to the open unit. The next day, a few hours after a therapy session with Jeremy in which I silently congratulated myself on how well my approach was going, I got an emergency call from the hospital. Jeremy had run away.

Months later he was caught robbing a convenience store and placed in Juvenile Detention.

Years later I ran into his mother. She reported that he never returned home and was currently in prison for assault and breaking and entering. She said that from the beginning she hoped that I could help Jeremy but deep down knew that it was hopeless. He was a liar from the time he was a little boy and that never changed.

So, my honest and focus-on-the-positive readers, what is the moral of this true Tale From Smukler’s Couch?

Don’t trust liars.

Whether they are spouses, politicians, investment counselors, or “friends”, liars lie. One important characteristic of sociopaths (people with no conscience) is that many of them are really likable. They are great con men and their lies are very, very believable.

Most of us want to see the best in our fellow humans, but that doesn’t work with liars.

Does this remind you of anyone I’ve been railing against?

Happy reading.

Art

#conmen, #liars, #sociopaths, #sociopathicpoliticians, #treatingsociopaths

TYING UP THE ROSES, by Art Smukler, MD, author & psychiatrist

by artsmuklermd, posted in Self Examination, World events, a psychological view, Writing

Over forty years ago, back in Yardley, Pennsylvania, a small town about an hour from Philadelphia, my wife and I bought our first house. We borrowed the $10,000 downpayment from a relative and with great trepidation signed all the necessary documents and prepared to become homeowners.

It was six months after I completed my two-years of service in the Air Force as a psychiatrist and my newly minted private practice was doing well. As an important aside, times were very different back then. A $57,000 house was a lot of money. Now, a starter home can be ten or twenty times that depending on where you live.

Anyway, on moving day, we loaded up our station wagon with our two tiny kids and everything else we could squeeze in the back and drove to the house to wait for the movers. It was a lovely one-story home on a small circle with five other homes.

As we approached the house, the Greenstones, an elderly couple, were parked in the driveway. I parked across the street and watched as they stood side-by-side holding hands and gazing at the home that they had lived in for over forty years. They got in their car, drove about ten feet and then backed up to where they started. Mr. Greenstone got out of the car and walked over to three rosebushes on the side of the driveway that looked like they were falling over. He took some twine and a scissors out of his pocket and spent the next ten minutes making sure that the bushes were straight. He stepped back, admired his work, and then got in the car and drove away.

Why you might ask, would someone care if the rosebushes were falling over in a home that they no longer owned? When you listen to the news, the horrendous lies of our former president, the lies that are supported by millions of Americans and publicly elected officials, the lack of ethics and honor in so many people around the world, why is Smukler obsessing about some silly rosebushes.

I’m obsessing about our loss of ethics, honor, and just doing the kind and right thing. Mr. Greenstone had no idea that we were watching him. He quietly and carefully did what he thought was right. That’s the kind of person I want to be, the kind of people I want to be around, the kind of world I want to leave for my grandkids. There’s nothing wrong in dreaming.

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Check out PATIENT X and LITTLE ITALY.

#MYSTERIES, #SUSPENSE, #ROMANCE, #ETHICS, #HONOR,