As I perused Abigail Shrier’s new book, Bad Therapy—which argues that American kids are over-diagnosed with mental health ailments, overtherapized, and underdisciplined (and is a must-read for everyone, especially parents)—I learned that among the reasons why Gen Xers first became enamored with psychotherapy was their admiration for the award-winning 1997 film, Good Will Hunting. This movie, for which I share great admiration, stars Matt Damon as 20-year-old Will Hunting, a mathematical genius from South Boston who was orphaned and abused... Read more

The recently concluded synod on synodality could have gone in a lot of different directions—a nothingburger, a schism, or anything in between. To this Catholic at least, the possibility that the synodal process would end in a substantive report that is not symbolically beholden to the politics of the moment—liberal or conservative—seemed like too much to hope for. Political Ideology The modern Church in the West, like Western society more generally, seems ever more polarized along lines that have less... Read more

Recently, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota, whose Word on Fire ministry has made him one of the Catholic Church’s most prominent online voices, has been arguing in various venues that the “dumbing down” of Catholicism has stymied rather than enhanced the Church’s efforts at evangelization in the modern West. The dumbed down Catholicism on offer today in many Catholic parishes and even more Catholic schools and universities, as defined by Barron, emphasizes social justice as divorced from the rest of... Read more

I am a mom to three boys. My oldest two attend what is by today’s standards a fairly traditional parochial school; the youngest is not yet school age. For a boy, my oldest son is by nature somewhere above average in conscientiousness and exceedingly high in agreeableness (like his father). His little brother is by nature less than average in agreeableness but exceedingly high in conscientiousness (like me). The adult-pleasing orientation of my firstborn, the task-orientation of my second-born, and... Read more

The other day, I listened to a discussion featuring Dan Savage, the longtime sex and relationship columnist, and Esther Perel, the Belgian-American psychotherapist and author. I happened upon it after hearing Savage on Ezra Klein’s New York Times podcast last week. Years ago, Savage coined the term “monagamish” to describe long-term relationships (like the one he has with his partner of three decades) that are open to both parties having sexual liaisons with other partners subject to mutually agreed upon... Read more