words matter

Honest naming is a kind of ethical responsibility. We have a moral duty not to simply accept a harmful narrative, even if it comes cloaked in positive associations as a result of tradition, efforts by the powerful to preserve that power, or ignorance. We must not cave in to peer pressure from dead people.

I think of the act of naming as diagnosis. Though not all diagnosed diseases are curable, once you know what you’re facing, you’re far better equipped to know what you can do about it.

key to the work of changing the world is changing the story….One

Prompt power is not benign! The questions we ask ultimately determine the answers we find.

A simplistic explanation of Hong Kong’s anorexia surge—along with koro and hysterical fugue—would be that mental illness is always and everywhere a case of social contagion. That’s wrong. What we call worry and sadness are universal human traits, and many psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, show up around the world. Watters’s most interes