Leeat Granek, PhD

A gift for all the mourners out there...

I recently heard a beautiful interview with Francisco Goldman about his novel Say Her Name on Writers and Company on the CBC. (For the Americans out there, that is akin to your NPR).

The majority of the interview is...

What is Passover really about?

The more I mull over the Exodus story, the more I think it's always been about change - or more accurately -- about our very human inclination to resist change.

At every point in the story, we come across resistance to the transitions faced...

I recently read a book that changed my life.

The Highly Intuitive Child by Catherine Crawford explained me to myself in ways that 11 years in university, a PhD in Psychology, and two years working in the profession failed to do.

In this short book, Crawford describes a...

I've taken to daydreaming lately.

When I was a kid, I used to dream about being the president of the world. To me this meant that I'd know all the answers to all the questions in the universe. In my fantasy I would sit on a giant throne like...

My earliest recollection of father's day took place in 1983. I was four years old and I was I was having my tonsils out. It was a traumatic experience for multiple reasons. I remember being ripped out of my mother's arms to be taken into surgery.

I was holding...

Mother's Day was always a joyful occasion in our home. When I was younger I spent weeks preparing for the big day. I hung big colorful signs on the bathroom mirror. I strung multicolored balloons across the living room and kitchen walls. I presented my mother with sparkly (in retrospect...

For the past two weeks I have been anxiously awaiting the results of a fellowship competition I applied for in September. This is how academia works. You are constantly trying to convince funding agencies that you are smart enough to get their money.

Applications are long and tedious and...

I recently sat in on a therapy workshop. It was one of those "lunch and learns" where health care professionals sit around with stale sandwiches to learn about the latest "evidence-based research" in the field.

We were asked to talk about our family motto's. This was meant to demonstrate how...

Eve Ensler made me cry. A lot.

Unabashed, overwhelming, relentless tears washed down my face, smearing my mascara, and giving me that overall unattractive raccoon/just watched Tears of Endearment/just got dumped by my boyfriend look, as I listened to her speak about violence against women in the world.

"My heart gets excited when I see you because I love you and am happy to be with you."

These words were uttered to me over the phone by a five year-old. She is my best friend's eldest daughter and she never fails to move me, sometimes to tears,...

I have always been ambivalent about Valentine's Day. I'm an academic. I have a litany of complaints as long as my arm about it. It's consumeristic. It's gender restrictive. It perpetuates false fantasies about love that are harmful and degrading to women.

Yet. Still. There is small part of...

When I was little there were three games that I hated with a passion.

The first was Duck Duck Goose. The anxiety of never knowing when you were going to be tapped "goose" was painful. The only thing worse than being tapped, was not being tapped, because it meant...

The back page of the New York Times, Week in Review section had an anthropologist and a psychologist claiming a solution to the mid-east crisis. It's not land, or money, or oil, or resources, or peace that the Palestinians and Israeli's want. It's words. More specifically, apologetic words. Acknowledgment words....

A few days I ago I posted a blog questioning the hype surrounding Obama. I'm Canadian and we tend to be a bit more cautious with our praise. Plus, we're not used to politician rock stars. Although some of my politically minded friends would kill me for saying this,...

I am Canadian and I have to admit Obamamania is funny to us here in the north. The American election, in general, got many Canucks scratching their heads.

We were dumbstruck watching the debates. We were confused by Palin. We were perplexed by the rouged lipped pigs and the leggy...

This week, sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman offered sage advice on Oprah. The woman in question had been faking orgasms for 24 years with her husband. Dr. Berman's advice to her and to women across America? Start telling the truth!

As appalling as this sounds to all the coquettes...

I'm a reject. At least I am this week and it's gotten me down.

Granted, I have put myself in a position with ample opportunities to fail. I am an academic, a writer, and single. This is a lethal combination when it comes to rejection because it is so...

I made it half way through day two of Oprah's "Best Life" series on TV this week before storming off in a huff. The two-week series is supposed to be about health, but nothing about these shows feels nurturing to me. Case in point: being obsessed with the measurement of...

The Madoff scandal hit Toronto this week, and like our American friends south of the border, we are enraged at Madoff's greed, selfishness and narcissism.

Jews, in particular, are shaking their heads and murmuring "a shande, a shande!", as the bad news continues to pore in. The New York Times...

I am a disillusioned shrink. A shrink who hates shrinks. Or at least a shrink who thinks we have become too dependent on psychologists and psychiatrists to solve our problems. This week alone I was told to go see a shrink, was asked to be someone else's shrink, and was...