For a friendship to be real it has to have certain characteristics: it has to have honesty and respect…recognition of the essential goodness of the other and a desire to share one’s inner thoughts and ideas. It also has an element of receiving the other. To be a...
I think each of us grapple with our own mortality when our parents start to struggle with their health. And when the disease has a genetic component to it one of the greatest fears that niggle at the back of your mind is ‘will it happen to me?’ That is a big ‘niggle’...
We use masks to cover our insecurities and wounds, often placing a mask between our inner world and our outer world. What we share with others is carefully contrived to conform to a view of ourselves that we want the world to see. This is particularly true of...
This article bugged me all weekend. On Saturday morning, the Saturday Life section of the Ottawa Citizen led off with a front page story about the increase in suicide among the elderly – especially men. While the experts gave varying opinions an underlying...
Recently at a presentation I was giving on cognitive interventions with individuals with Alzheimer’s disease I was asked if I’d heard about the use of coconut oil as a treatment regime. I have to admit that I didn’t really have an opinion on it as I...
Cicero called old age – ” the autumn of life” and certainly each stage of life has its own beauty and its own tasks. There is a dignified maturity to autumn that is restful and calls upon us to reflect…a certain sharpness to the air and shadows...
