We human beings are unique among our fellow animals because we have the ability to rationalize, justify and delude ourselves about our essential animal natures. Civilization requires, among other things, a fabric of brilliant self-deceits.

Yet we are also unique by virtue of our ability, if we are willing, to examine those self-deceits, and we grow by having the courage and the will to be honest with ourselves about our myriad, ubiquitous dishonesties.

This blog intends to explore the nature and extent of these deceits, the reasons for their existence, the truths that they hide, the hidden costs that they inflict, and the ways that we can grow by simply trying to be brutally honest with ourselves.

Which is so much harder than we can even begin to imagine.

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Mark O’Connell is a psychologist and a psychoanalyst who has a private practice in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He is on the faculties of the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Family and Couples Institute of New England. He is the author of two books: The Good Father; On Men, Masculinity and Life in the Family (Scribner’s 2005), and The Marriage Benefit (Hachette, 2008) He writes on love, sexuality, authority, parenting and more, and he  has appeared on numerous television and radio shows including Today and NPR’s On Point.