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Tom Moon, M.F.T. Year: 2018

Year: 2018

Still We Rise (SF Bay Times, October 18, 2018)

In the days following the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, I talked with women and gay men who had been re-traumatized by the whole spectacle. I heard stories of rape, beatings, threats, and bullying, almost always at the hands of young men. Some said that they had never told their stories before, and almost all said that…

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Pride in a Time of Fear (SF Bay Times, June 21, 2018)

This month my mind has been wandering back to memories of the San Francisco Pride celebrations of the late 1980s and early 1990s. That period in our history was such a radically different time. Then, as now, I worked as a psychotherapist near the Castro with a predominantly gay male clientele. During those years, half…

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What Really Causes Depression? (SF Bay Times May 3, 2018)

In the late 1980’s, when the Prozac family of anti-depressants became available, I saw the new drugs make dramatic changes in the lives of many people. Patients who had been lost for years in the black hole of deep depression suddenly found a new buoyancy and a re-awakened capacity for pleasure. They re-discovered hope and…

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Rehearsing and Rehashing (S.F. Bay Times April 5, 2018)

Recent findings in neuroscience suggest a pessimistic conclusion: that the way we’re wired makes it easier for us to be unhappy than happy. The complex human brain isn’t an organ for dispassionately investigating the world. It evolved as a tool for anticipating and overcoming dangers, for protecting us from pain, and for solving problems; so…

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Stop Trying to Meditate

My friend Jack worked fifteen-hour days non-stop for months. What sustained him through this marathon was the thought of his planned trip to Hawaii at the end of the project, when he’d have nothing to do but lie on a beach for two weeks. When the day finally arrived and the job was done, he…

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Thoughts on Turning Seventy

My husband and I marked my 70th birthday in February with ten days of non-stop partying in New Orleans. I mention this because I know all too many people who can’t imagine the 70th birthday as anything other than a disaster to dread and mourn. I haven’t found it so. I’ve faced my share of…

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Surviving Unrequited Love

Q: There’s a guy in my circle of friends who pushes all my buttons. I’m totally in love with him, and he’s so hot that whenever we’re in the same room, I can hardly keep my eyes off him. He’s friendly to me, but that’s all. It’s obvious that he will never feel for me…

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Divorcing Family in January

Kirk has fallen into the depression he regularly feels at the end of the year. He tries to explain it all as Seasonal Affective Disorder, but it doesn’t take us long to find a deeper cause. In late December he will be going “home for the holidays.” Every year for a week he leaves his…

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