A friendly elderly man brings cookies and candy to the Y every day.
As soon as the children walk in the door, he offers the treats. Again, on the way out the door, the same treats are offered. And he makes it really hard to say NO. I’ve seen some of the…
Heather doesn’t want to keep thinking about the breakup she went through, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t get those unwanted thoughts out of her head. She finds herself ruminating: “I should have done this… Why did he say that? How could I have missed the signs?” The cycle is distressing and exhausting—and it…
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has sounded the alarm on what he calls a growing epidemic of loneliness. In his 2023 advisory, he described loneliness and social disconnection as a public health crisis—comparable in risk to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and more serious, in some cases, than…
Kurt made an appointment with a therapist because he was feeling increasingly anxious. What he didn’t expect was that beneath his anxiety was something deeper—unresolved anger. As the therapist explored Kurt’s history, a pattern began to emerge. Kurt had been holding on to resentment toward a relative who had wronged him years ago. While…