“Why do my friends and my priest urge me to forgive my mother?” asked my psychotherapy patient, J, with anguish. “They know my mother ignored me when my older brothers hurled shoes and called me terrible names. They know she refused to take me to the doctor or the emergency room when I was sick or h...

One hundred and thirty-four years ago, on September 5, 1890, Edwin Francis (the supervising principal of the Westfield schools) published the first edition of The Westfield Leader. Opened in competition with the Pearsallowned Union County Standard, The Leader has now long outlived not only all of it...

My friend Ann is a retired infectious disease specialist who spent most of her career treating AIDS patients at a Veterans Hospital. Ann’s career began almost a decade before the antiretroviral drug AZT was developed to treat the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in AIDS patients. And so she did he...

As summer winds down, vacations have ended, and we enter the final hot days of the season. Get ready for change. Many people find the summers to be a reprieve and a chance to relax, have fun. We can put our responsibilities of the daily grind on hold.We all know, soon school will begin for the kids....

A few weeks ago, one of our staff members was sitting outside at a sidewalk café in Westfield, watching nervously as a child on an electric scooter darted in and out of rush-hour traffic. The kid, a boy of about 9 or 10, seemed utterly unconcerned about the drivers blowing their car horns at him as ...

“Why aren’t you over it?” asked my patient’s best friend. “It’s been a year since you discovered your husband’s affair with his personal trainer. You separated and filed for divorce. Move on!”Questions or comments conveying expectations for closure after one year or so are commonplace. When grieving...

“What are burek and cevapcici?” I asked my Croatian friend when he described the menu at his favorite Bosnian/Croatian restaurant.Cevapcici is a homemade grilled sausage made of ground pork, beef, lamb, onion, garlic, and spices including cayenne and paprika. Burek, he explained, is a phyllo dough s...

“Can I come in through the back door?” or “Please schedule my appointments so I don’t run into anyone I know.” These requests were routine in the early part of my forty-year private practice as a clinical psychologist. Teachers didn’t want to encounter their students or students’ parents. Doctors wa...

Green Team Leading the way to living greener‘Skip the Stuff’ Ordinance Aims to Reduce Plastic Take-Out TrashA simple, effective solution to that drawer, the one full of unneeded condiment packets, chopsticks, stirrers, bundled packages and a LOT of plastic utensils, is now in effect in Westfield.Oft...

Why does it feel like as soon as NJ Transit announced a 15-percent rate hike, the trains literally came to a complete stop?Last week, riders were once again stranded all along the commuting corridor we call home — one of the busiest in the nation.NJ Transit is a mess. Trains rarely run on time, ther...