Lecture to focus on becoming ‘plumb healthy'

Newton - The Sussex County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness will host a lecture by Herbert M. Potash, Ph.D., titled “Overcoming the Unhealthy Side of Your Personality,” at 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 16, at Sussex House, located on the grounds of Newton Memorial Hospital. Dr. Potash is a retired professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison and currently practices as a psychotherapist. Potash is a diplomate in professional psychotherapy of the International Academy of Behavioral Medicine and Professional Psychotherapy. Attendance is free, but registration is requested. The lecture is offered in conjunction with release of his new book, Becoming Plumb Healthy. This is the first in a projected series of lectures by different speakers, with the series titled, “The Sun-Streaked Road Ahead.” The word “plumb” in the book’s title, Potash said, refers to the underlying human capacity to deeply know what are the right choices to make in important life situations. “Plumb crazy” is a long-standing colloquial expression, but Potash affirms that people can also be “plumb healthy,” just as, in another sense, the tool called a “plumb bob” orients surveyors and carpenters to a perfectly vertical line by means of gravity. According to Potash, becoming “plumb healthy” means increasing one’s self-awareness and dealing in a healthy way with difficult life issues that include choice, guilt, anxiety, anger, death, and others. The lecture series is meant to present ideas and an opportunity for discussion on psychological issues that embrace a realistic sense of optimism and self-determination, among patients/clients and those concerned with them. Rather than embracing a “Pollyanna” sense of optimism, the series is intended to provide a bridge between varying populations on the basis of a common interest in seeing how optimistic and open-minded views and choices may be available and key to resolving emotional or interpersonal problems that may have seemed, until recently, intransigent and impervious to resolution. The National Alliance on Mental Illness is a support-group network with chapters nationwide. For more information on the Potash lecture, call 973-823-0122 or 973-764-5013. Call shortly before the event to see if there is a change due to weather.