Your family of origin shapes you:
in ways you don’t realize, you live out what they taught you.
Insights on Love and Marriage
Reconsidering Being Jewish
As a Jew, how much do we hide to keep safe? How much do we comfortably share that we’re Jewish without worry? Now, how much do we raise our voices loudly in protest of increasing antisemitism in this country and around the world? I drifted far from my Jewish...
My Jewish Mother
She was the daughter of immigrants from Eastern Europe who emigrated first to Winnipeg, Canada and then Los Angeles in the early 1900s. Refugees from pogroms, they believed fiercely that all four of their children should only marry a Jew. As a teenager, my mother...
Therapists Struggle Too
So sometimes I think the only thing that separates the client from the therapist is the desk. One therapist I know who sucks her thumb in between sessions, but she’s smart, responsible and effective in her work. Another therapist still puts his current marriage at...
Red Flags
Here’s another joke Bob used to tell: a man, newly out of prison, sat down on a park bench in Miami next to a middle-aged Jewish woman. She looked sideways at him, noticed his scruffy beard, his new cotton slacks and his jiggling foot. “I haven’t seen you around...
Couples Arguing in a Therapist’s Office
Here’s another old joke of Bob’s: A guy goes to prison. On the first day, he’s sitting in the cafeteria with the rest of the inmates eating their lunch and occasionally, one guy shouts out a number: 34! 45! 72! and everyone laughs when they hear the...
Nothing Quite Fits
Here’s another joke Bob used to tell: A man saw a commercial for a discount tailor offering brand new suits for only $25, but at that price, the fine print said, “No alterations.” Still the man thought what a great deal, so he went to Discount Suits, and looked...