One of my faults as I writer is continually forgetting how to write for normal people. Before graduate school, before writing journal articles, and well before going into private practice I enjoyed writing (and reading) and never had to think about footnotes, bibliographies, scientific notations, and the so called APA (American Psychological Association) format used for academic papers, experiments, and theoretical investigations in the social sciences. After getting my Ph.D., my regular, “just Cliff”, creative writing and “storytelling” pretty much disappeared. It was sort of like a writer’s block but only worse because I couldn’t compose a sentence without reflexively citing a supporting body of research or seminal study, like (Bandura, 1969) or (Milgram,1968) or phrases like, “empirical studies are sparse” and “experimental control is lacking and statistical validity can be challenged based on several of the existing criterion variables…”.

Much of the blogging and writing I have done over the past few years is, therefore, a kind of rehabilitation for my creativity and spontaneous self-expression. I’m not sure if that’s exactly the same thing as what used to be called “right brain” writing but it definitely feels liberating. See, it’s happening right now where my “science mind” wants to cite new research in neuroscience that disputes the oversimplification of a right brain versus left brain dichotomy and that both hemispheres of the brain tend to signal and provide feedback to one another…. I refuse to cite a reference. Look it up yourself if you want to. Anyway, I guess I just wanted to make this “mea culpa” about my stubborn persistence to write again, not from my sometimes hyperactive sometimes dictatorial brain, but from my gut and soul. Whether anybody cares or reads what I write is up to you and involves another kind of personal exercise which is learning to be satisfied with myself and not needing external validation. Ok, well, maybe just a little bit….Either way, dont get me started about external validity!! Finally, I do enjoy making people laugh and hope someone gets a chuckle from my blog from time to time. When I force one of my three grown sons to read something I wrote, all I ever hear is crickets.  Chirp, chip……chirp.