Essays
Ideas for people willing to stay with a question a little longer.
I write about the moments when the answer that made perfect sense begins to cause trouble.
This is more or less how I think.
The essays may begin with pain, identity, judgment, control, relationships, or what it means to trust yourself. They may also begin with Spider-Man, a missing hatchet, a roller-coaster line, a flag planted in unfamiliar ground, or a conversation with one of my children that they probably did not expect to become an essay.
I’m interested in the stories we create to make sense of what happens—and what becomes possible when we become curious about those stories before allowing them to decide what something means about us.
These essays are not instructions for getting life right. I remain insufficiently qualified for that position.
They are invitations to look again, stay with the question a little longer, and notice what reality may be showing us that our first explanation could not.
Featured Essay
The Test Becomes the Judge
A missing hatchet, a possible stalker, and an actual conversation with my daughter about how quickly the mind can turn scattered information into a very convincing story.
We use tests to help us understand how we’re doing. The trouble begins when the test stops providing information and starts deciding what the result means about who we are.
From the Essays
You’re Going to Change, and It’s Okay
Why connection matters when we are afraid of what we are becoming
Spider-Man, the Hulk, Jean Grey, and a bottle filled with dry ice all have something to teach us about change. Apparently.
When something powerful is happening inside us, control can feel like the safest answer. This essay considers another possibility: that connection gives us somewhere to remain while we become someone we cannot completely predict in advance.
The Difference Between Surrender and Suppression
When letting go is not the same as disappearing
Standing in line for a roller coaster can produce a remarkably complicated negotiation between the part of you that wants the experience and the part trying to get you safely back to the parking lot.
Fear does not necessarily mean we should leave the line. Calm does not necessarily mean we have surrendered. This essay explores the difference between remaining present for what life brings and controlling ourselves so thoroughly that the experience never fully reaches us.
When Identity Becomes More Important Than Relationship
Why the flag was never the point
We plant flags to give ourselves somewhere to stand. Father. Leader. Therapist. Christian. Business owner. Warriors fan. Some flags carry slightly greater consequences than others.
Identity helps us enter relationships with a sense of orientation. But when protecting the identity becomes more important than participating in the relationship, the flag that helped us enter the land becomes the thing we defend from it.
Stop Asking Men How They Feel
What becomes possible when we understand someone before asking them to see themselves differently
Before asking a man how he feels, it may help to become interested in the story that makes those feelings make sense.
This essay explores why advice, interpretation, and even empathy can arrive too early—and how being genuinely understood can create enough stability for emotion, difference, and connection to become possible.
About the Writing
I began writing because I had ideas I wanted to explain.
I kept writing because explaining something has a way of revealing the next question.
Some essays begin with something I believe. Others begin with a conversation, a contradiction, a moment with my family, or something I’ve encountered in more than twenty years of sitting with people. Increasingly, they begin when an explanation that once made sense no longer seems to hold everything it needs to.
I’m willing to make an argument. I’m also willing to discover that it is incomplete. Occasionally, the person finishing the essay does not entirely agree with the person who began it. This is less efficient than starting with the conclusion, but considerably more interesting.
I don’t think answers are useless. Sometimes an answer gives us somewhere to stand.
I’m simply interested in whether I can remain open to reality—and what becomes possible when a better question asks me to look again.
New Essays
Stay with the conversation.
I publish new essays as I write them.
If you’d like to receive the next question, story, or conclusion I may later complicate, you can subscribe here.
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Brandt maintains a separate clinical psychotherapy practice.
Information about therapy, availability, fees, and becoming a therapy client can be found on his clinical practice website.