Robert Hammel, Psychologist

04/22/2026

"We must let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."

― Joseph Campbell

04/18/2026

As childhood trauma survivors, much of how we try to be in the world is wrapped up in unconsciously trying not to be like one or both of our abusive parents. ⁠We are so focused on not being like an abusive parent that we lost our true self - as we were born.⁠
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As children, when we see a parent be abusive or struggle with mental health issues, we often devise a strategy to do the opposite. ⁠
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Some examples: ⁠
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*If we have a selfish or manipulative parent, we become selfless or overly honest to the point it doesn't serve us. ⁠
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*If we have an aggressive parent that acts out, we'll develop a passive way to be even to an extreme level. ⁠
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*If we have a fragile or inactive parent, we can develop a strategy around intense action and taking things on, unable to tolerate anything stagnant or feckless. ⁠
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We think this is who we are or our identity, but I believe it's more our trauma self - born out of survival and not our inherent nature. ⁠
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In my groups, I often talk about this issue and who my father was as a teaching moment.⠀⁠
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He would indiscriminately be nasty and rude to waitstaff, bill collectors, and us. It was global for him. If he felt slighted or cheated in any way, he'd act out. As a boy, I'd hate him for that, but I also swore I'd never be like him.⠀⁠
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So, I became incredibly passive and accommodating, to my detriment. I wasn't aware of how much psychic energy I was putting into not being like the man in any way. We would do this more markedly if we hated how the parent was in the world as a child. This needed to be healed in therapy. ⁠
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Becoming more real is foreign because we often don't know how to be outside our survival strategy. However, being around others on the same path and practicing realness, which involves taking vulnerable risks, got me to break that survival identity. ⁠
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What do you think?

04/16/2026

When a child is growing up in childhood trauma, they will quickly learn to hide things. Young children are already conditioned to know that talking about things going on in their world will make them worse. This is especially true at home, which is where we learn to hide. ⁠
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When we are being bullied by another child, bringing it up with a parent usually brings indifference, criticism and a big reaction. It's better to hide it. (problems)⁠
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When we have an abusive adult at home, we don't bring it up at school for not wanting to bring on more trouble. We are often specifically told to not talk about what happens at home, or an outside perpetrator will make the same threat. It's better to hide it. (abusers)⁠
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When we don't have our homework done because of domestic violence in our home the night before, we try to hide or lie about why we don't have it completed. We're too preoccupied to know to ask for help around homework so we do our best and present we don't need it. (needing help) ⁠
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As adults, we can find ourselves still hiding. ⁠
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Some examples:⁠
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*not telling a close friend about our abusive partner⁠
*not asking for help from HR about a stalking coworker⁠
*not wanting people to find out about our coping strategies ⁠
*not wanting to have partners meet our family, so we make excuses⁠
*not asking for needs with roommates or work, so we pretend they ⁠
are not issues for us when they are.⁠
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Our inner adult can recognize that we have some power in our adulthood that we never had growing up. Sometimes that power is just telling the truth⁠
about what's going on for us to fight through the urge to not make waves and create more trouble for ourselves. ⁠
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You're not in trouble like you used to be.

04/11/2026

A message from the AMA's Section of Pediatrics: RSV is the #1 cause of hospitalization for infants under 1 in Canada - but it’s preventable.https://www.albertadoctors.org/media/zc0ns5hi/pediatrics-rsv-infographic.pdf

04/11/2026

Also they will have their phones and be listening to music and texting the entire time.

04/11/2026

04/11/2026

One of the more painful dimensions of the human experience is feeling lonely in a crowd, surrounded by people but unable to make a connection. It is naturally more difficult to tolerate your own separation from others when they seem just within reach.

“Eleanor Rigby,” by the Beatles, describes this kind of isolation. Rigby “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.” Wilco describes something similar in “How to Fight Loneliness.” The song’s protagonist advises, “You laugh at every joke,” and “Fill your heart with smoke,” to essentially hide how lonely you feel.

It’s a variety of loneliness that may have especially devastating consequences. Cornell University psychology researcher Anthony Ong and a team of colleagues recently decided to look more closely at the health impacts of something they call “social asymmetry”—the mismatch between how lonely you feel versus how socially connected you actually are by objective measures.

They followed nearly 8,000 older adults in England for about 13 years and tracked who developed heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and dementia as well as those who died. They split people into a few groups. Those who were both objectively isolated and also felt lonely; those who weren’t isolated but felt lonely; and those who were socially isolated but felt fine. The first group, they found, had higher risk across every health outcome. The second group—lonely but not isolated—had significantly higher risk of heart disease and death. The final group were fine on all health measures except dementia risk.

Feeling lonely, then, may be generally more dangerous than being alone.

Nautilus spoke with Ong about whether we’re in an epidemic of loneliness, whether there’s a magic number when it comes to age and loneliness, what chosen solitude has to do with happiness, and how the findings might affect evolutionary theories about cooperation and social connection. Ong expressed surprise at the dementia risk result. “It suggests that when it comes to these neurobiological phenomena, it’s more than a feeling. It’s your actual social world that may be protective,” he explains.

Read the full conversation: https://nautil.us/the-costs-of-feeling-lonely-in-a-crowd-1279612

04/10/2026

The quote comes from Chapterhouse: Dune, often regarded as the weakest novel in the series.

Frank Herbert’s idea challenges that of Lord Acton, the 19th century English historian and moral thinker best known for the line, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Herbert’s view shifts the emphasis away from corruption caused by power itself and instead suggests that power attracts people who are already predisposed to corruption.

This closely parallels Friedrich Hayek’s argument in The Road to Serfdom, where he claims that centralized systems tend to elevate the most unscrupulous individuals, a pattern he associated with the political extremes of the WW1 and WW2 era.

Both perspectives ultimately suggest that power does not simply corrupt, but selects for those most willing to wield it.

Image credit: John Schoenherr

04/09/2026

Congrats guys, we did it