I begin with a poem about my youngest daughter titled "Emily Running," which I wrote in September of 2003:

My favorite time of day
is walking Emily to school in the morning.
We kiss as we leave our driveway
so other kids won't see us.
If...

(An invited conversation between myself [RDS] and Russian social philosopher and journalist Sergei Roganov [SR].)

RDS: You were kind enough to contact me after reading my article, "The Meaning and the Rhetoric of Evil" in the Russian Journal (English HuffPost version: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-d-stolorow/the-meaning-and-the-rheto_b_884927.html ), in which an article of yours was...

(Invited essay published in the Russian Journal, June 17, 2011)

It is crucial to distinguish between the meaning of evil and the rhetoric of evil. The question of the meaning of evil is an interpretive question: What do we mean when we use the word "evil"? The rhetoric of evil,...

The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 was a devastating collective trauma that inflicted a rip in the fabric of the American psyche. In horrifyingly demonstrating that America can be massively assaulted on its native soil, the attack of 9/11 shattered our collective illusions of safety, inviolability, and grandiose invincibility,...

I live and work in Santa Monica, Calif. The dangerous San Andreas Fault runs through San Bernardino, Calif., about 75 miles from Santa Monica. The San Andreas runs along much of the western edge of North America. Where the plates on each side of the fault are smooth, as in...

When my book, "Contexts of Being," was released in October of 1992, an initial batch of copies was sent "hot off the press" to the display table at a conference where I was a panelist. I picked up a copy and looked around excitedly for my late wife,...

Philosopher-psychoanalyst Carlo Stenger has written a brilliant and timely interdisciplinary book, The Fear of Insignificance: Searching for Meaning in the Twenty-first Century. Drawing on existential philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology, and other disciplines, he diagnoses, interprets, and points the way toward therapeutic transformation of the existential unease that haunts our...

Below is a letter I received from military psychiatrist, Dr. Russell Carr, describing the terrible toll the traumas of war have been taking on service members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families:

7 November 2010

Dear Dr. Stolorow,

It has been about a year since...

True to its title, Jacques Derrida's The Work of Mourning (2001) is a haunting book, consisting in a series of 14 texts, each memorializing one of his deceased friends. Interspersed throughout these texts are profound philosophical insights concerning the interrelationships among friendship, fidelity, human finitude, and mourning. I have found...

A really important lesson to be learned from 9/11 and its aftermath concerns America's collective grandiosity. Prior to 9/11, it was virtually unthinkable that America would be attacked on its own soil. On September 11, 2001, as we watched the terrorist attack on live TV, we saw the twin towers...

In my efforts over the last two decades to grasp the nature of emotional trauma (http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780881634679/), I have shown that its essence lies in the shattering of what I call the absolutisms of everyday life--the system of illusory beliefs that allow us to function in the world, experienced as stable,...

(This blog was coauthored with my son, Ben Stolorow, who is a working jazz pianist performing in the San Francisco Bay Area, both as a solo artist and together with his sister Stephanie under the name Stoli Rose.

"I can't stand living, but...

In my work over the last two decades attempting to grasp the nature of emotional trauma, I have shown that its essence lies in the shattering of what I call the absolutisms of everyday life--the system of illusory beliefs that allow us to function in the world, experienced...

Yesterday I received this moving account from Los Angeles psychotherapist, Dr. Nancy Sobel, describing her experiences volunteering on a medical team in Haiti. It illustrates the incomparable power of human understanding in times of devastating collective trauma:

"As I watched the compelling coverage of the earthquake on Anderson Cooper, there...

I live and work in Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California. The dangerous San Andreas Fault runs through San Bernardino, California, about 75 miles from Santa Monica. The San Andreas runs along much of the western edge of North America. Where the plates on each side of the fault are...

Richard Bernstein, professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research, has written an important philosophical inquiry into the phenomenon of evil (Bernstein 2002), an inquiry that will be of great value to psychoanalysts as they confront the problem of evil both in their consulting rooms with their patients...

Below is a letter I received from Dr. Russell Carr, a military psychiatrist who has been treating soldiers and Marines suffering from combat-related emotional trauma. It speaks eloquently to the need of traumatized persons to have their emotional pain met with attunement and understanding. This is a need that is...

In my book, Trauma and Human Existence (Routledge, 2007), I offered an account of the essence of emotional trauma: In shattering the tranquilizing illusions of everyday life, trauma requires us to own up to what these illusions have been evading -- human finiteness (i.e., limitedness, vulnerability, mortality, etc.) In virtue...

Dear Senator Snowe,

We are writing to implore you to act swiftly and strongly in support of true health care reform for all Americans. This must include a strong public option to help bring down the cost of health care by offering an alternative to the monopolies held by private,...

Do you remember when Bush used the bogus threat of weapons of mass destruction and the specter of nuclear annihilation to take us into war with Iraq? Do you remember when the McCain campaign tried to garner support with their deplorable "tribute" to 9/11 at the Republican National Convention, forcing...