Everything's Made Up and the Points Don't Matter: Money, Desire, and Idolatry
Exploring desire, board game victory points, and why money functions as a perfect vessel for human fantasy.
Paul’s Substack
I'm an associate professor of counseling psychology. This substack is a collection of my projects that explore the intersections of psychoanalytic theory, theology, philosophy, psychotherapy, board games and more.
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Latest posts
Choose Wisely
What if the trap isn't picking the wrong cup, but believing there's a cup that can bring our longing to an end?
Windows and Mirrors
On games, Jean-Luc Marion, and why an idol is just a window that silted over into a mirror
A God-Shaped Hole?
Exploring psychoanalysis, Meister Eckhart, and why the desire for certainty turns God into an idol
The Scandal of the Sacrifice: What We Learn When Play Becomes Literal
The Bunny Song, the demand for certainty, and why we rewrite our villain songs
Claude and your left brain are teaming up on you, but don't worry, I got your back: AI, therapy and a clinician's musings
A guest essay by Aaron Mitchum, MA, LCPC, SEP, Psychoanalyst
Freedom Feels Like Loss
Education, the Big Other, and the Cost of Unsettling Our Desire in the Age of AI.
The Words We Forgot Were Metaphors
C.S. Lewis on being “wired for connection”
Something Always Resists
Form without encounter, the illusion of control, and why true education can never be tame
The Professor Who Trusts Truth More Than Certainty
Reclaiming the holy calling of higher education from the illusion of infinite knowledge.
The Cobra Effect and the Formation of Wisdom
There’s a story economists like to tell, probably apocryphal, but instructive.