Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Psychology”
Can you change your brain? Recent research in the field of “neuroplasticity” suggests that the human brain continues to change and adapt throughout life. Furthermore, there is clear evidence that an individual can affect the changes to their own brain structure by how they pay attention to stimuli around them. The implication of this research is that, for example, a …
More and more studies are finding a link between religious and spiritual practices and improvements in mental health, including significant reductions in anxiety and reduced risk of depressive illness. While it is somewhat difficult to study this field, due to the wide variety of definitions and practices in the field of religion and spirituality, researchers are beginning to find ways …
Medical practitioners have begun to recognize an eating disorder associated with a concern for healthy eating, “orthorexia nervosa”, in which a zealous concern for healthy food leads to clinical concerns for possible malnutrition, micronutrient and macronutrient deficiencies, inadvertent weight loss and social impairments. Avoidance or refusal of foods due to fear of impurities, processed foods, additives and imagined contaminants, while …
2016 data now available from the Center for Disease Control show that suicide is now a leading cause of death for adults aged 25 – 44, at 16.9 deaths per 100,000, it exceeds the rate of death from heart disease in this age cohort. For those aged 15 – 24, suicide is now the second highest cause of death. It …
Another online resource that folks may appreciate is Bipolar Advantage, a program dedicated to helping people function at their highest potential during all mood states and levels. Their trademark is changing the discussion from “Bipolar Disorder” to “Bipolar IN Order”, where the student learns to thrive during manic and depressive episodes, and to consider the advantages of their states of …
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) teaches users a technique called “Acceptance Self-Talk”. This is a series of exercises that trains people to substitute new thoughts for old ones and encourages them to evaluate their thoughts and accept only what seems true and helpful. Depression is often characterized by recurrent negative thoughts that drag one down and become barriers to taking …
We’ve discussed the mental health strategy called “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy” several times in Moodsurfing (see below for links), and it’s an important feature of our Bipolar Disorder Workbook. It’s a multifaceted approach, and there’s a lot to unpack. This post explores the “commitment” part of it all. Once you’ve trained yourself to look squarely at your reality, without focusing …
Moodsurfing has often focused on improving the quality of intimate relationships, in a therapy session today I explored with a young woman the difference between checking up on her partner and building a more intimate and connected relationship. Early in a relationship it is pretty common to have anxiety about the other person. Are they really committed to the relationship, …
Internet addiction increases suicidality, according to a recent meta-analysis that looks at 25 published studies on the topic. Definitions of internet addiction, and other related disorders such as internet gaming disorder are still in flux, and the subject of much debate, but the broad outlines of a serious disorder are gradually being filled in. Several studies have documented links between …
Are you busy? Why? Are you rushing? Why? Being busy and accomplishing a lot of things is supposed to get us somewhere we want to be, or something we want to have. But is it working? We usually believe that we have to rush to get everything done and we have to get everything done in order to get what …
A new website designed for people experiencing physical symptoms that are not traceable to physical disease offers clear, scientific information, and also hope for those patients who sometimes spend years in the medical system trying to get relief for pain and other symptoms only to be told that nothing is wrong. The site refers to these symptoms as “functional symptoms.” …
Why is there such a difference between being alone or lonely? Sometimes there’s nothing more desirable than to take a break from a good hectic and demanding life in order to enjoy some peaceful solitude. And other times the idea of being alone taps into a terrible fear that perhaps we are unlovable. Several years ago I was sitting with a …
Many people who have been depressed for a long time, develop a pattern of interacting with others that is designed to protect them from disappointment, this pattern, the psychology of chronic depression, needs to be understood in order to help people successfully emerge from this devastating condition. Avoiding disappointment and rejection is obviously a good thing, but it can lead …
Avoidance behavior, or avoidance coping, is a way of trying to stay calm by trying not to pay attention to disturbing thoughts or feelings. Avoidance may work in the short run, but it also tends to take a short term problem and make it a long term one. James Edgar Skye, a bipolar blogger we follow, has a blog post …
When an elderly father starts to accuse his caring daughter of being devious, this sudden change in their relationship is what I call “crazy talk.” It can happen in almost any relationship, and it is hardest to deal with when it takes place in a very close relationship. A common reaction is to feel that it is important to convince …
Do you have an impossible job? An impossible job is a job where the scope of the work is so great that it is not possible to do all of the reasonable things related to that job. As an extreme example, if you are a busy emergency room doctor, there is no way you can do everything that you possibly …
Digital phenotyping is Tom Insel’s fancy term for using some of the vast amount of data that our cell phones collect about our behavior to try to inform assessments of mental health diagnosis, symptoms and risk. Two years ago an article in JAMA Internal Medicine highlighted significant deficiencies in the way that smartphone-based conversational agents like Siri or Cortona responded to …
Everyday Contemplation: Maintaining a Hush for Mental Health “Contemplation:” The word’s Latin root means “a space to view auguries.” (Those are implements used for divining the future.) I say that you don’t forecast the future by quiet sitting: you change it, and for the better! You reach into your heart, bring up from it your essence, and refine that into …
How can we reconcile acceptance and the unacceptable in our lives? A new blog post from Rick Hanson sparked me to thinking about the relationship between acceptance and acquiescence or even complicity. So many things are wrong with the world. Is there no role for righteous anger? And yet… Acceptance in the sense that Rick means is really about not …
A reader of this blog forwarded to me an article on “micro-progress” that promises a solution the the common problem of procrastination. Editor of Smarter Living, Tim Herrera, writes… “Of the countless articles, books and so-called lifehacks about productivity I’ve read (or written!), the only “trick” that has ever truly and consistently worked is both the simplest and the most difficult …
