Category: philosophical counseling
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A re-evaluation of CBT
The story began with a sense of deja vu. I kept meeting new conversation partners who, in the past, had worked with a CBT practitioner or who had studied CBT quite assiduously. Not to mention that I kept having conversations with acquaintances who swore by CBT; that I kept seeing, as if by Humean association,…
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Childhood… tire swings… growing up: A spiritual exercise in drawing material inferences
3.5 Morning. You’re welcome, and I’d be delighted. An aside: I love opening these rainbow colored documents and not at first being able to tell whose voice is whose. Did I say that? Did you? Does it matter? Well, no. Good morning, A. Not sure exactly what this document is. Reminders to me? Notes to…
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On walking home from school
I said, “If ever I have a girl, I would like to name her Marilynne. Wouldn’t that be something?” She said, “I think it would be something if you could name a daughter Marilynne.” I must have been 8 years old when I first started walking home from school. That would have put me in…
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Of parabolas, East of Eden, and biting philosophies
A scene: Late afternoon at the playground. A boy, towheaded, with eyes the color of turquoise, and a man, early 30s, with pelo dorado and eyes of wolf-blue. Green jacket against green tire swing against red corduroy pants. The man pushes the boy at regular intervals. The boy’s eyes draw a parabola on the way out,…
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If winter didn’t come, would spring or fall appear?
My review essay of Adam Gopnik’s Winter: Five Windows on the Season (Toronto: Anansi Press, 2011) can be read now or, pending that, fairly soon at Writing in Public. The book is comprised of a set of five lectures that Gopnik, a longtime New Yorker writer, Montreal native, and NYC denizen, delivered on CBC Radio in November…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 