Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

Happiness Requires Resistance

There are two types of patients: those who want to run the show, and those who want to be told what to do. As an anesthesiologist, I deal with both, and both make me uncomfortable. Giving patients too much freedom risks injury; denying ­patients their freedom makes me feel like a tyrant. What I . . . . Continue Reading »

By Our Wounds We Are Healed

Before #MeToo, before Black Lives Matter, Bessel van der Kolk argued for the centrality of trauma to human experience. President of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts, van der Kolk is author of The Body Keeps the Score, a book that has been a perennial best-seller since . . . . Continue Reading »

Filter Tag Articles