Category Archives: Psychology

The Old Hag-A Special Kind of Sleep Terror

It’s a night like any other. You go to bed and drop off to sleep, but just as you start to drop off, you are jolted back into wakefulness. You hear a loud humming in your ears, and you try to sit up, but you find to your dismay that you are completely paralyzed. YouContinueContinue reading “The Old Hag-A Special Kind of Sleep Terror”

Koro: The Genital Retraction Syndrome

Back when I was researching unusual psychiatric symptoms, I came across a group of diagnoses that have been referred to as “culture-bound” disorders. The term refers to specific types of disorders that occur only in a specific culture, and they tend to be caused by a specific pattern of symptoms that only occur or makeContinueContinue reading “Koro: The Genital Retraction Syndrome”

Unusual Psychiatric Disorders: Another Occasional Feature

Ever since I became a psychologist, I’ve been fascinated by some of the unusual diagnoses and syndromes that lurk in the dark corners of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, 5th Edition (DSM-5) and academic databases. At one point I even started a book on the subject, but life got inContinueContinue reading “Unusual Psychiatric Disorders: Another Occasional Feature”

Favorite Fiction-An Occasional Feature-The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

Between 1978 and 1983, I lived in New York City while I was going to graduate school. It was quite an adjustment given that I had spent 1974-1976 at what was then New College in Sarasota, Florida. I had spent my first year of college at Ohio State University, pretty much because I had to.ContinueContinue reading “Favorite Fiction-An Occasional Feature-The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe”