we fear no god but each other

My professional life as a psychotherapist is devoted to helping people do just that. But doing so is difficult. As children, we not only lacked an alternative model with which to identify, but we invariably felt that being part of a bad family was better than having no family at all.

To heal the wound left by the Death Mother, it’s helpful to understand her origins and how she came to be such a terrifying expression of nature.

First, nothing, I mean nothing, was discussed or normalized in my family. Not feelings or fears or periods or friend problems or puberty or money issues or extended family members who struggled with addiction and mental health issues—nothing. We are all good. Any question or attempt to understand the things that were clearly not good was immediatel

Once a month, without fail, my mother and her sister would fabricate a “letter from China” from their late brother and read it to their mother.) Then six months later, I was at the Venice Biennale, and a friend of mine said, “Oh, I saw your mother; she’s really not looking well after this tragedy.” I said, “What tragedy?” Then I called her. It drov

Some of the deepest pain and wounding that we carry with us throughout our lives comes via this generational suffering. I often ask people, when they identify a difficult feeling such as anger, upset, rage, or resentment: “Which of your parents does this feeling remind you of: your mother or your father?” Usually, when they touch upon some of their