By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. She called me a “stupid bitch!”, said Angela, aged 14, referring to her exasperated mother. Angela’s parents brought her to my office complaining about her defiance, her angry outbursts and poor school performance. Angela shouted and cursed at her parents and they shouted and cursed right back. Mom and Dad routinely [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. “I think my husband is sexually abusing our baby,” a counseling client confided. The young mother reported disturbing observations including: mysterious abrasions on her daughter’s rear end, the child screaming every time the dad approached, and the kicker, “I saw him naked with an erection in the babies’ room last night!” [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. This week a man in rural eastern Kentucky, furious about how his wife prepared his eggs, shot five people dead, then killed himself. Stanley Neace’s hostile behavior over the previous few months prompted eviction proceedings from his mobile home park residence. Apparently his family lived, for a long time, with an [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. Ever have one of those days when everything seems to go wrong? Recently I returned from vacation to find our refrigerator had died a horrible death. Greeted by the lovely aroma of decomposing food, our plans to unpack and relax promptly self-destructed. After filling three large bags with waste from the [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. “What’s wrong with my brain?” Michael asked. A high level manager with a great career, Michael feared his anger outbursts at work might cost him his job. “Why can’t I just put up with crap and not react?” he wondered. Michael learned what happened to his brain and body when he [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. In this seventh month, on the seventeenth day it seems appropriate to take the Problogger 7 link challenge. It’s a good time to review old posts and share some highlights of our work over the last few years. Here are 7 links that fit into seven themes picked by Problogger’s Darren [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. We Americans are a worried bunch. News reports of plummeting financial markets, high unemployment, oil slicks and other disasters give us ample concern for the future. As a family therapist I see children as young as 10 worried about global warming, crime and the affordability of college. At 10 that’s a [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. Many years ago, as a lonely starving student, I took a walk to get away from my dingy apartment and my blue mood. I saw a rumpled flyer on the wall of a store. It read “Volunteers needed for suicide prevention hotline and food bank. No experience necessary. Training provided. Call [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. In the iconic 1967 film, Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman delivers the classic line, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Since then the line appears in movies, songs and the daily lives of humans everywhere. Some communication failures can be kind of cute. When my daughter was three [...]
By Gina Simmons, Ph.D. John got to work a little earlier so he could finish his report at a research institution before the rest of the staff arrived. As he entered the windowed office he was surprised to see two colleagues leave his work station. He touched his computer. It felt warm. He booted it [...]
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