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The Passive Wound: When a Father Is in the Room but Not in the Room
The Passive Wound is the most common of the five father-wound patterns I see in clinical practice, and it is also the easiest to miss. The reason is that it is defined by something that does not happen rather than by something that does. The father is in the house. He comes home from work.…
Read MoreThe Absent Wound: When a Father Is Gone
The Absent Wound is the most visible of the five father-wound patterns. The father isn’t there. Through death, divorce, abandonment, incarceration, deployment, or distance, the boy grows up without the male presence he was developmentally wired to need. But what makes this wound complicated isn’t the absence itself. It’s what the boy decides about himself…
Read MoreA Letter to the Father Who Knows He’s Failing
You’re Not Too Late Dear Dad, I know you’re reading this at midnight. Or during your lunch break. Or in the parking lot before you walk into the house, trying to figure out how to be different tonight than you were last night. I know because I’ve sat across from hundreds of men who looked…
Read MoreThe Five Boys Who Changed My Life
Before I Had a Credential, I Had a Calling Before I was Dr. Clay, I was Captain Lessor-USAF. No PhD. No license. No program. No book. A guy in his twenties proudly serving his country who knew what it felt like to grow up without a father who showed up—and who couldn’t stop noticing the…
Read MoreThe Wound Nobody Talks About
When Dad Is in the House but Not in the Room When people hear the words “father wound,” they think of the absent father. The dad who left. The dad in prison. The dad who died. And yes—that wound is devastating. Nearly one in three American boys is growing up without a resident father, and…
Read MoreThe Father He Watches
Why Your Son Is Studying Every Man in the Room There’s a boy in every classroom, every dugout, every youth group who is doing something the adults around him don’t realize. He’s watching. Not the way kids watch TV or watch a game. He’s watching the way a student watches a master. He’s studying. Every…
Read MoreWhat Thirty Years of Working with Angry Boys Has Taught Me
When Everything Changed The first boy who changed everything was fourteen. Big for his age. Referred for “behavioral problems”—which is clinical shorthand for “nobody knows what to do with him.” He’d been expelled from two schools. His mother was exhausted. His stepfather didn’t want him in the house. Every adult in his life had the…
Read MoreHappy Father’s Day!
On this special day, Father’s Day, I hope all the fathers out there remember they are the “conductors of the family train!” If you follow me, you know that another one of my favorite poems is by Rudyard Kipling “If.” My dear friend and United States Air Force buddy sent me this poem. Please enjoy!
Read MoreThe Wisdom of a Farmer!
So many males, both young and old have lost their way. The Industrial Revolution may have given us a more “modern” society, but it took away a very crucial time, the teaching and wisdom a father passes on to his son…..a “rite of passage.” Since then, every male has carried that as a “wound.”
Read MoreGrieving a Loss
The sudden loss of a loved one, relative, friend, co-worker, or classmate can be overwhelming. It can put us in a state of shock, disbelief and feeling numb all over.
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