Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

An article in The Wall Street Journal on April 4, 2023 ("Who Owns SpongeBob? AI Shakes Hollywood's Creative Foundation") raised an important copyright question. Perhaps a more important question, considering the poor state of education today, is whether the average person will be able to distinguish between the product of human creativity and that of AI. I remarked once, after reading my website posted first chapter of a novel I wrote decades ago (Lies In Progress), that I admired the writing but remembered virtually nothing of the plot and would be unable to re-write the book today. A fellow writer on the Authors Guild Community Bulletin Board explained this, stating that creative writing derives from the unconscious which closes when the production is completed. With which I agree. I can't conceive of AI producing the twists in even one of my short blog pieces which incorporate psychological fact with personal and professional experiences. Still, as I said, will today's average-schooled person be able to tell the difference, or value it?

An article in The Wall Street Journal on April 3, 2023 ("Milton Friedman's School Choice Revolution - Biden may write him off, but his idea is more popular than ever."} aroused this blog. The greatest factor in school achievement is for a child to have experienced a "good-enough" parenting. If all parents read first to and then with their toddlers, almost all children would be reading simple books by first grade. And, apart from emergency situations, to never say, "Do it because I say so," to children since this depresses the development of the capacity for abstract thinking, as psychologists have long known.

The teachers that I've treated are just as frustrated, having to teach classes of students speaking multiple languages, which can include unsocialized or (literally) crazed students creating classroom chaos and being ignored by administration, having parents who are clueless about parenting or too overwhelmed to provide it. Back to basics, as has long been said, and not the recent craze to avoid standards and achievement tests. The greatest benefit of the admission-test high school I attended was not its academics but that there were no fights or bullying (though being big, I was never bullied), and also no athletics and only rare parties (it was a different time). My dentist, another of its graduates, told me that once he almost got into a fight after making a deprecating remark but though the other student balled his fist he desisted.

An essay in The Wall Street Journal on April 1, 2023 ("We Need to Talk About Suicide"), by a person who attempted suicide three times, aroused comment. Though the biological imperative to live is powerful, all think of suicide at some point in their life, the critical factors predicting its lethality being the presence of suicide intent, the availability of lethal means (a gun or a drug), and the degree of self-control possessed. While the actual incidence of suicide compared to its thought is like the proverbial needle in a haystack, it should always be professionally evaluated. But sadly, Emergency Room evaluations can be unsophisticated, leading to unneeded hospitalization (the professionally "safest" decision) which has emotional risk, the person now viewing themselves as "a crazy person," unlike earlier when they considered themselves merely part of the human race. And as has long been said, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

An article about sleepovers in the March 30, 2023 issue of The Wall Street Journal ("Sleepovers Are Now a Battleground - Parents split on slumber parties, once a rite of passage — 'I've had parents ask me if we have a water filter'") aroused reader comment. Having long treated children, I've gained insight into this parent dilemma. What it comes down to is knowing your child's and your comfort with sleepovers, and how well the other parents are known. Which can be tricky when parents feel the need to interrogate them about the presence of animals, the storage of guns, and potential allergic substances. For a parent to be concerned about real potential dangers is not "helicopter parenting." I've heard of life-threatening allergic reactions which would terrify even the least risk-averse parent and remember as a child visiting a friend's home and his pointing a gun at me (a real not toy gun). Contrary to popular belief, sleepovers are not needed for a child's healthy personality development. Not until they're adult and it's with a potential mate, of course. Nuff said.

If all parents read first to and then with their toddlers, almost all children would be reading simple books by kindergarten. And, apart from emergency situations, their parents never said to them, "Do it because I say so," but rather gave explanation,  their adult functioning would be better too since the former depresses the development of the capacity for abstract thinking as psychologists have long known. The lack of a "good-enough" parenting is the unspoken, politically incorrect, "Elephant in the Room," that explains most inadequate academic and work performance.

Once, during a routine medical examination, I remarked to the physician that I never had a chronic illness and doubted that I would. "That's a good delusion. Keep it," she advised. Which is true since even the healthiest person can't predict the vagaries of their genetics or fate.
This remembrance entered my mind after speaking with a patient whose delusional belief seemed ego-syntonic, enabling them to work productively though with difficulty in relationships.
A delusion,which is a fixed false balief, can range widely in both the personal and political spheres. Feeling unjustified guilt about their child's autism (which is a vastly misdiagnosed condition), a mother might falsely ascribe it to vaccination or air polution. Similarly, masochistic behavior or anorexia nervosa (which has the highest death rate of all the mental health conditions) may be considered "normal" by its sufferer rather than accurately, as deriving from damaged childhood experiences which can be healed through psychotherapy. And one who attributes their or their nation's problems to a minority population may feel better even if their life situation remains unimproved, as happened in Nazi Germany and today's inhabitants of some nations.
What determines a delusion's benefit or harm depends on its effect: whether or not it enables adequate functioning as a productive member of society without interfering with the rights of others and the maintenance of sound physical health.

An article in the March 22, 2023 issue of The Wall Street Journal ("Choose What to Dream Tonight") suggests that a person can guide their dreams but I'm not so sure. The unconscious is powerful and, despite all the electronic gadgets used in brain research, one must respect its power. Elements in dreams arise from recent events like a movie viewed or long ago memories. If, before falling asleep, you tell yourself you will have a dream and remember it (as I advise patients to do) you'll be more likely to but this isn't certain since mental operations are complex. If you don't write the dream down upon awakening you likely won't remember it later since the conscious logical part of the mind largely takes over mental functioning then from the unconscious illogical part that creates dreams. Nightmares, which are very emotionally charged dreams, are remembered longer and common. Those unreceptive to dealing with their unconscious conflicts will tend not to remember their dreams, and dream remembrance seems also affected by some medications.

A March 11, 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal ("Parents Challenge Lottery Systems Used to Diversify Elite High Schools") aroused reader comment, virtually all opposing the ending of admission testing and underlying premise that all are equally talented. As one reader humorously wrote, "Ya know that NBA team is over represented by talented and tall men. We need to achieve equity so hence forth we open the NBA to tryouts by lottery."
The reality is that student achievement derives both from innate ability and having experienced a "good-enough" early life parenting during which psychodynamics develop and the basic ego capacities form including control of thinking and behavior, modulation of mood, and others. Poor parenting is the ever-present "Elephant in the Room" that politicians fear to confront, preferring to raise the false hot-button argument of "discrimination.".

Having attended a test-selective high school I don't believe that I learned more than I could at most high schools except that here there were no fights or other disturbances, no bullying, and few parties (to which I was never invited). Nor do I remember there being any school athletic teams. It's almost embarrassing to see how many leaders of industry and founders of startups will be celebrated at the school's upcoming anniversary celebration to which I received an invitation. And no, I'm not one of them.

To elaborate on my high school failings, I share the following. There was a boy in my grade that I envied since he seemed to have it all: preppy dress, many friends, even a girl-friend. As he once approached me, I fantasized he wanted to be my friend and that, through him, I would become popular too and maybe even get a girl-friend. This was not to be. He asked to borrow money which I lent him. He didn't pay me back and never spoke to me again. I felt humiliated, developed the deep hatred that an insulted teenager can, and his name (Eric) is the only student's name that I remembered. Decades later I read in the school newsletter that he died and compared my life to his. He too gained a doctorate though in a different field and I wrote more books that him. I also achieved something that he likely never did. Once, while driven in a limousine to a TV interview, the driver stopped at a red light, turned to me and said, "The last person who sat where you're sitting was Madonna." Eric, you bastard, I beat you, I childishly thought. Thank you, Madonna!

School can be distressful time for students caused by social discrimination or bullying or when family-based issues overwhelm. Then the normal symptoms of anxiety may arise: feeling restless or tense and impending doom; breathing rapidly (hyperventilating); sweating or trembling; feeling tired or weak; headache or stomach distress. All being quickly remedied in the school nurse's office who, in addition to her medical skills and counseling ability, offers juice and respite from stress. Thus, let all praise the school nurse, whose critical role is too-little appreciated despite she being a student's first line of defense when their parent isn't available.

A March 3, 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal ("Late to Work? Thank the Transit Union - A labor group in New York blocks a common-sense schedule update") aroused memories. Long ago I was hired as a hospital administrator at a huge, greatly troubled medical center facing bankruptcy which the federal government pressured to change. To say that I was unprepared for this task would be an understatement since I had no managerial experience and the city was historically corrupt. I joked that the local daily newspaper was read to see which of one's friends had been indicted. But I was unemployed and had unexpectedly been offered the post, likely because I wrote a book and had good credentials.

I tried my best, wanting to be a modern enlightened manager, speaking to the union representative in this light and intending for us to work together to improve things. Though congenial, he had none of it. For his workers, the hospital was a great job, they gossiping with each other and doing little else all the working day. Abandoning my warm friendly demeanor, I became a tight-lipped hardass and the setting became professional as I instituted needed education and procedures. I also began getting neck pain by the end of each day, interpreting this well-known symptom of stress as my employees giving me a pain in the neck.

Incidentally, I have no present animus toward unions, having been a member of both the Teamsters and the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers), and learning of many incompetent managers and unneeded worker suffering through mine and my patients' experiences.