David M. Allen, M.D.

04/07/2026

Doctors who insist that alcoholism is a disease apparently believe in faith healing. You know, alcoholics stopping drinking after joining a 12-step programs and accepting the steps.

03/31/2026

Telling a kid firmly to “knock it off” when they are misbehaving is telling a kid to figure out what was wrong with their conduct and desist. It tells them: you’re a smart kid; figure what else to do yourself. You’re smart enough, and you can. ~ Abigail Shrier

03/23/2026

https://davidmallenmd.blogspot.com/2026/03/cultural-evolution-and-cultural-lag.html

How I first got involved with integrating psychotherapy schools.

evolution Psychotherapy Therapy rules conflict

Lancaster County Amish 03.jpg by it:Utente: The CadExpert Creative Commons Attributions , Share Alike 3.0 This is a continuation from...

03/17/2026

Parents who know they were abusive, even if they do not admit it, may secretly believe that their children are better off without them. Hence, they engage in obnoxious behavior to push their adult children away, thereby protecting the children from them. However, the parents also secretly long to have a healthy connection with their children, so they cannot seem to bring themselves to just cut off all ties directly. Their own conflict causes them to give off the double message inherent in "distancing" behavior: come here but get the hell away from me. Or as the singer Pink so aptly put it, “Leave me alone, I’m lonely!”

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03/10/2026

The fundamental attribution error and the antidote: Too often, we attribute other people's poor behavior to their character, while attributing our poor behavior to external/situational factors. Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ______." While it is possible that the behavior you are observing is, in fact, due to malice or some flaw in the person's character, Hanlon's razor provides a mental tool that allows you to first consider other options.

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03/03/2026

From the Dept. of mixing up cause and effect: Higher levels of physical activity and healthier sleep patterns are associated with lower odds of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among adolescents, according to findings published in General Hospital Psychiatry.

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02/24/2026

Concepts from academic fields outside of psychiatry and psychology with which most psychotherapists are unfamiliar but should know about, Part I.

https://davidmallenmd.blogspot.com/2026/02/evolution-and-our-ability-to-self.html

Individualism & collectivism by Pcardenass; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Ali ke 4.0 My model for the psychotherapy treatment of r...

02/17/2026

Can’t is not the same as won’t, but they kinda look alike. Performance is not the same as ability. Some psychology researchers haven’t figured that out yet.

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02/10/2026

Parents these days think it’s too dangerous to let their children play outside on their suburban front lawns or walk two blocks to school for fear that the children will be whisked away by sexual predators. They keep them indoors and let them be online all day. The irony is that sexual predators aren’t outside much any more – they’re mostly online.

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02/03/2026

From the Department of Redundancy Dept.: Someone needs to tell neuropsychiatrists who label every brain process that seems to differ in different groups a "disease" that all such processes (including all normal ones) are “mediated by the brain.”

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01/29/2026

A book about therapists actually looking at the mother-infant relationship and not judging it right off the bat. It also has some important ideas for therapists who treat adults.

https://davidmallenmd.blogspot.com/2026/01/book-review-getting-to-know-you-by.html

The author of this book has been working on the understanding and treatment of attachment issues between infants and very young children wit...

01/27/2026

I believe the correct translation of “Why do I have to listen to this?” in a conversation between a parent and a teenager in a situation in which the parent has been telling the teen over and over again about the same thing is actually, “Why do you have this compulsive need to keep telling me over and over again what to do? I will be oppositional so you can continue to indulge yourself!”

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