I have found a better way to get at the truth than my psychiatric articles: FICTION
CC’S PARENTS’ MARRIAGE A play in 2 Acts Simon Sobo CAST OF CHARACTERS CC: 19 year old CC is extraordinarily beautiful with long straight dirty blonde hair with streaks bleached by the sun. She is a student in Jeremy’s class JEREMY : 26 year old teaching assistant, with only his completed thesis remaining before he …
A few words about where this chapter occurs in the story: It is 1968. CC, a college senior has fallen for a charismatic teacher, a young man with his head in the clouds, in love with ideas. Half the girls in his class are also taken with him. CC is the most beautiful of them. …
Chapter 21 Mimi Moscowitz’s Shopping When her daughter Evelyn was born in 1927, Mimi Moscowitz expected that her daughter would grow up to be a princess. However, becoming royalty didn’t mean sitting on a soft pillow. When it came to Evelyn, Mimi was a strict taskmaster. It’s worked very well. On the one hand, …
This is an article that appeared in the WSJ on January 12, 2018. It is very relevant to the way psychiatry is being practiced (eg Evidence based medicine) Our poorly understood psyche has yielded to the temptation of numbers, the comfort of exactness, offering experts the illusion of scientific certainty about subjects they have delineated. …
“You seem to be the idol of only a crawling swarm of small souls, who love to glorify your most flagrant unworthiness in print or praise your vast possessions worshippingly; or sing of your unimportant private habits and sayings and doings, as if your millions gave them dignity.” Mark Twain 1869 Wait there’s more: ”Poor …
Chapter 8 Looking Back at Berkeley 1968 Mark is shopping on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. It has a large parking lot, which means he can drive there. The hippy revolution has not reached Shattuck yet. It looks like the downtown main street of any small city in America …
Chapter 22 Dora Educates CC Mr. Gordon has his coat on near the door of Jay’s apartment. Jay kisses Dora and their baby after he puts on his coat. They are rushing to get out of the apartment. Jay shouts to his father. “Do you have the tickets?” Mr. Gordon pulls out the two tickets …
1876. Cornelius Vanderbilt lies close to death in his New York townhouse. Outside, a carnival-like atmosphere of reporters, those who made him a household name, gather to wait for the end. Cantankerous old Vanderbilt is not done yet. He’s not ready to die. He allows a journalist, Michael Burch, inside. He’s worried about his legacy. …
After Ferguson two New York City policeman were assassinated, then the five at Dallas and three in Baton Rouge. As could be expected from the President, and throughout the black community, the reaction has been both shock and sympathy for the fallen officers and their families. They are calling for love, not hate, reconciliation not …
My retirement from psychiatry has allowed independence from fears that caused temperance in my opinions about issues, which all along deserved a passionate campaign for change. This is an article about the stranglehold that insurance companies have had on health care, particularly mental health care, for more than 20 years. It’s been ten years …
An excerpt from Chapter 5 of After Lisa addressing this question : (Looking down at the playground from her 5th floor 73rd Street window, watching little Maria on the swings, enables Deborah to stay calm. They have just returned from the hospital where the outlook looks grim for her 12 year-old daughter Lisa. She …
The Fear of Death An argument with Freud, and a reconsideration of his ideas. This book is an attempt to introduce the obvious into psychoanalytic theory, that the fear of death plays a seminal role in our …
Based on a true story Chapter 1 October 1999 New York City Glittering crystal chandeliers brightly illuminate the Plaza Hotel’s Grand Ballroom as the sound of Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz sweeps through the room. Sipping cocktails, guests lightly applaud the MacDonalds as they glide around the center of the ballroom, the floor to themselves. Several …
Ten years earlier. Two tents have been pitched at a clearing high in the mountains. It is a day to worship the fall foliage, sunny, the air with a bite to it, crisp, clear, newly cold. Far below, the farm fields form squares of contrasting green color, fall crops of lettuce and broccoli, …
Chapter 3 Two hands slap at an overturned card, a jack. Lisa and Ritchie try to out shout each other. Michael watches quietly. “Slapjack!” Ritchie, now eleven, is sitting on twelve-year-old Lisa’s hospital bed. Both want to win badly. Happy rock n’ roll plays in the background. Lisa has mastered her bubble gum, cracking it …
CHAPTER 4 As soon as they return from the hospital to their fifth floor West 70th Street apartment Ritchie goes to his room. Michael turns on the Jets game in the living room. Deborah settles by the window that looks out at the asphalt playground five stories below. It is late afternoon but the children’s energy …
Chapter 5 A week later. They’ve been to the hospital again. Maria has bumped it up to still another level. Standing on the swing, she holds on to the ropes and momentarily lifts her body into the air as she flies back and forth. Each time she returns to earth she is bracing …
Link to psychiatric articles by Dr. Sobo
Sixteen year-old Ritchie Russell seems like a lot of boys his age, grumpy, hours and hours in his room with the door closed, playing blood splattering video games. He once had a great smile. Gone. He once liked to sing. Not in years. Loud angry music blasts through his door. His parents hope Ritchie …