Dr. Payton

Over the past several weeks the topic of listening has come up in my work. Often, the importance of listening or being listened to is not recognized. Frequently, people are upset because they don’t know what to do to help people who are distressed. They want to do something to help these people who are…

There has been a lot written recently about the placebo effect and how it shows that medications are ineffective because they are not more effective than placebo. In these studies, the placebo response is often in the 30-50% range as is the response to the active treatment being studied. Placebo controlled studies are ones where…

I recently took care of an adolescent boy in the hospital who had severe anger control problems and had become suicidal. He was hurting himself as he hit things and broke things instead of hitting people. He also was very impulsive and driving recklessly. He would become stuck on one thing and not be able…

The title is a quote from a Louise Penny novel and she entitles it as “the four sayings that lead to wisdom.” She includes this in her book Kingdom of the Blind as something that her main character Inspector Gamache learned when he was young. Louise Penny is a Canadian mystery writer who has won a number…

“I was there I remember it all too well” is a lyric from a Taylor Swift song “All Too Well” that seems to validate what she experienced in a relationship…does she need to validate herself? I don’t believe that anyone needs to validate themselves through some one else. So why do we do this? What…

The above is from the movie “Shaw Shank Redemption” in a letter written by Andy to Red encouraging Red to not give up and to join Andy after Red is paroled. And Red does just that. So, is that statement true. Is hope the best of things and will it never die? How is that…

The title refers to a quote from Thomas Jefferson about people who do not take responsibility for themselves and are thus like pick pockets are robbing others. The quote is referring to freedom of religion as an example of something that does not injure anyone when someone expresses their religious preference. “It neither picks your…

Recently I have been having moments of intense sadness that I realized were connected to hearing about conflicts between people that ends up reinforcing them being separate and even feeling against each other. Sad, because it is sad when people feel separated from each other. It does not need to be this way.  I believe…

The above is from The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo. It is a book about faith in oneself [Beatryce in herself] and this allows you to trust and have faith in others to help you. It is about being brave [doing what we know is right] so that we do not turn away from what is right…

The above title is a quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. She feels that we are meant to have a reciprocal relationship with other living beings [all living creatures]. A sharing, mutual enhancement, caring and being with each other that fills up our daily lives. This she calls reciprocity and will lead to…