When I was working in psychiatric hospitals, I often heard people talking to themselves or imaginary others. On rare occasions while roaming a city street, I might come upon a certifiable psychotic, or a hallucinating alcoholic, but nowadays I hear people talking to themselves all the time.

I recently found myself in the bathroom at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts during a dance performance intermission. Standing next to me was a guy with both his hands at his fly talking loudly to himself. He was saying how excited he was watching the belly-dancer (who had just performed) — going on and on about her incredible moves, her oozing sensuality — all the while holding onto himself and smiling animatedly. I’m thinking it’s not be as bad as Senator Craig reaching under the toilet stall to shake my hand, but it’s really more than I want to know.

He flushes and when he turns, I see that he has a Bluetooth cell phone in his other ear. I followed the Bluetoother to the sink (he’s still talking), so I start talking as if I had one in the ear he couldn’t see. I start softly, mumbling repetitively…… I must keep washing my hands! I must make myself clean! He never looked up, so I escalated the volume….. The Devil is a belly-dancer! I have been seized by the Evil Inclination; I want to feel her body! I curse you Satan for contaminating me with this filth! I must make myself clean!

The Bluetoother is still talking, so I cranked it up to my best Shakespearean basso voice and exclaimed, Out, Out, damned spot!, which in short order was followed by, Help me Jesus! Only then did he look up at me and begin to move whispering “There is some nut-case next to me.”


The Blue Tooth is making a mockery of civility and class. There are 233 million Americans subscribing to wireless service (CITA); more than ¾ of the U.S. population has some kind of wireless device. This means more and more of us will be looking like we’re talking to ourselves in supermarkets, airports, and restaurants, until even the psychiatrists look like nut-cases. We are a culture that has made the line between the ordinary bananas and the flaming ones indistinguishable.

Last Mask of the Authentic Healer

Nov 30– Dec. 2, 2007
Franciscan Renewal Center, Phoenix, AZ
PDF Flyer
“This unique, experiential workshop is designed for healers and
those who are interested in expanding their therapeutic repertoire.
In the language of ritual and ceremony, we will explore the many
ways you can magnify your healing power.
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In this month’s issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, my colleagues report a huge increase in the number of American children diagnosed with bipolar disorder (or manic-depressive illness). From 1994 to 2003, psychiatrists found a 40-fold increase in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and it coincided with the rising use of antipsychotic medications for children.

I am not the only psychiatrist who thinks this surge is not real, but rather that kids are being mislabeled. Many doctors believe the bipolar disorder doesn’t even occur in children; we all agree it’s more difficult to validate psychiatric diagnoses in children. Nowadays, a kid with extreme mood swings who exhibits disruptive behavior or extreme irritability is bipolar, even though those symptoms can also be seen in lots of overlapping conditions, including ADHD, conduct and anxiety disorders, as well as depression. A generation ago, bipolar kids were apparently mislabeled as truants or troublemakers, but today we label problematic behaviors as mental illnesses. In spite of the fact that we can’t quite define these diseases, we know they can be helped by powerful prescription medications.

We are not witnessing an epidemic of bipolar children; what we are seeing is the result of the public’s awareness about what is a mental illness, largely spurred on by the heavy marketing of psychiatric drugs. Movie trailers, TV variety shows and Super Bowl spots are a marketing pipeline for selling drugs for mythical diseases. Like if you’re tired at the end of the day and unable to “wake up to life” you may have narcolepsy; if you’re shy at parties you could be suffering from a social anxiety disorder; feel like smacking the driver ahead, you may have an intermittent explosive disorder (all of which are treatable with potent medications). We are over-diagnosing; the U.S. ranks #1 in the world for mental illness, with 25% of all Americans now having a diagnosable mental illness!


From a generation of Americans who rebelliously experimented with drugs, we have become a generation who is now growing dependent upon them. This surge in bipolar kids is a wake-up call to an ever increasing demand for/ and access to, drugs to control behavior. We have to stop defining unacceptable behaviors as mental illnesses to explain and justify them, because if we don’t we will change from a self-reliant nation into a herd of functional drug addicts.

Last Mask of the Authentic Healer

Nov 30– Dec. 2, 2007
Franciscan Renewal Center, Phoenix, AZ
PDF Flyer
“This unique, experiential workshop is designed for healers and
those who are interested in expanding their therapeutic repertoire.
In the language of ritual and ceremony, we will explore the many
ways you can magnify your healing power.
MORE INFO and Registration

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here

In this month’s issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, my colleagues report a huge increase in the number of American children diagnosed with bipolar disorder (or manic-depressive illness). From 1994 to 2003, psychiatrists found a 40-fold increase in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and it coincided with the rising use of antipsychotic medications for children.

I am not the only psychiatrist who thinks this surge is not real, but rather that kids are being mislabeled. Many doctors believe the bipolar disorder doesn’t even occur in children; we all agree it’s more difficult to validate psychiatric diagnoses in children. Nowadays, a kid with extreme mood swings who exhibits disruptive behavior or extreme irritability is bipolar, even though those symptoms can also be seen in lots of overlapping conditions, including ADHD, conduct and anxiety disorders, as well as depression. A generation ago, bipolar kids were apparently mislabeled as truants or troublemakers, but today we label problematic behaviors as mental illnesses. In spite of the fact that we can’t quite define these diseases, we know they can be helped by powerful prescription medications.

We are not witnessing an epidemic of bipolar children; what we are seeing is the result of the public’s awareness about what is a mental illness, largely spurred on by the heavy marketing of psychiatric drugs. Movie trailers, TV variety shows and Super Bowl spots are a marketing pipeline for selling drugs for mythical diseases. Like if you’re tired at the end of the day and unable to “wake up to life” you may have narcolepsy; if you’re shy at parties you could be suffering from a social anxiety disorder; feel like smacking the driver ahead, you may have an intermittent explosive disorder (all of which are treatable with potent medications). We are over-diagnosing; the U.S. ranks #1 in the world for mental illness, with 25% of all Americans now having a diagnosable mental illness!


From a generation of Americans who rebelliously experimented with drugs, we have become a generation who is now growing dependent upon them. This surge in bipolar kids is a wake-up call to an ever increasing demand for/ and access to, drugs to control behavior. We have to stop defining unacceptable behaviors as mental illnesses to explain and justify them, because if we don’t we will change from a self-reliant nation into a herd of functional drug addicts.

Last Mask of the Authentic Healer

Nov 30– Dec. 2, 2007
Franciscan Renewal Center, Phoenix, AZ
PDF Flyer
“This unique, experiential workshop is designed for healers and
those who are interested in expanding their therapeutic repertoire.
In the language of ritual and ceremony, we will explore the many
ways you can magnify your healing power.
MORE INFO and Registration

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here

If your friends are fat, the chances are you will be as well. That’s what researchers reported in the prestigious, New England Journal of Medicine, August, 2007. A person’s chances of becoming obese went up 57% if a friend became obese; 40% if a sibling did, and 37% if a spouse did. In the closest friendships, the risk almost tripled.

The researchers analyzed the medical records of people in the Framingham Heart Study, a landmark study which has been following the health of residents in that Boston suburb for more than 50 years. They found that it was not the people to whom you are genetically related; rather, the greatest influence in weight gain has to do with your friends. Even friends who are hundreds of miles away have just as much impact on a person’s weight as friends who are living next door.

What are we to conclude from this? Must we get rid of our fat friends? Here’s another possibility: most of the research focus has been on a hunt for obesity genes involved in appetite or in the burning of calories. Treatment has been centered on helping individuals curb their weight by better diets and exercise regimens. With this research it’s clear that it might be helpful to treat obese people in groups rather than individually. We are all interconnected, and if you love somebody as a friend you redefine what an acceptable weight is.


Remember this, there is a ton of research that tells us the more friends you have the healthier you are. If all else fails and you’re little bit heavy, find friends who are a little heavier and you’ll feel better when looking in the mirror.

Last Mask of the Authentic Healer

Nov 30– Dec. 2, 2007
Franciscan Renewal Center, Phoenix, AZ
PDF Flyer
“This unique, experiential workshop is designed for healers and
those who are interested in expanding their therapeutic repertoire.
In the language of ritual and ceremony, we will explore the many
ways you can magnify your healing power.
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Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here

When I was in my 40s, I made my first trip to Germany, my ancestral homeland. It took me that long to overcome my rage and judgmentalism. This is not something I say with pride, because if you carry that much anger inside of you it compromises your ability to be a healer. It was only when I came to work with American Indians that I saw it in a new light. Native people judged me in the same way I judged Germans; they saw me as another white man who shared responsibility for what happened to their people. I resented being lumped into that stereotype, but only then did began to look at my own.

Over the past 25 years, I have returned to Germany to visit and teach. Over this time I have learned to face some of my deepest wounds and let them heal. As much as I have come to love this place and people, I still get a visceral response when the Nazi memories come up. When they do, it invariably erases my good feelings and makes me sad.

I just returned from conducting a healing workshop with my Turtle Island Project colleague, Claudia Weinspach. We were at a retreat center in the beautiful forest town of Steyerberg. This picture-postcard alpine village is the home of Lebensgarten (the Garden of Life). Lebensgarten is a communal settlement founded 22 years ago under the principles of tolerance, love, and living cooperatively on the land. There are now 70 adults and 40 children living here; there is no Guru — people respect one another, seek consensus in decision making, and are ultimately answerable to themselves,

The community is welcoming, responsive, awake, and there is a palpable sense of peace and love. Each day, there are times for meditation, tea ceremony, singing in the Kapelle, and whoever shows up is welcomed. The community sponsors retreats, concerts, lectures, and runs a Gaia University program. In the afternoons, fresh fresh-baked pastry is served in the Garden, which in the evening is transformed into a pub.

The people and place moved me, until the second evening when after dinner we heard about the history of Lebensgarten. During World War II, it was a slave labor camp where the Nazis produced ammunitions. The older homes were built with German precision craftsmanship and are still touted as solid engineering marvels.

Listening to this story sent Goosebumps tingling down my spine, and I immediately felt myself in the belly of the proverbial beast, standing on the bones of my relatives. This response snuffed out my good feelings which were replaced by the ugly history of what happened here. At that moment it didn’t matter to me that no one in the room was even alive then or that I long ago gave up the whip of collective guilt.


I don’t want to forget what happened here, but I also want to embrace what’s happening here now. I want to give up my ugly reflexive response which keeps me from being present in the moment. This time, in the Garden of Life, I was able to move more quickly from reflexive pain to redemption and joy. I’m still moving ahead on my healing journey.

Last Mask of the Authentic Healer

Nov 30– Dec. 2, 2007
Franciscan Renewal Center, Phoenix, AZ
PDF Flyer
“This unique, experiential workshop is designed for healers and
those who are interested in expanding their therapeutic repertoire.
In the language of ritual and ceremony, we will explore the many
ways you can magnify your healing power.
MORE INFO and Registration

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here