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Do Psychologists Reject Science?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Do psychologists reject science (as Sharon Begley writes in her October 12, 2009 column in Newsweek Magazine)? In this column, Begley states that clinical psychologists (of the Freudian or psychodynamic type) ignore scientific data in favor of their own devices and experiences. In contrast, she lauds cognitive/behavioral approaches that ostensibly and strictly speaking presumably utilize such scientific bases to their treatment. The unalloyed truth here is that a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, or an M.S.W. in clinical social work, or an M.D. in psychiatry or an R.N. in psychiatric nursing solely, in the absence of further p...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 19, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Henry Kellerman, Ph.D. Tags: Personality behavioral approaches clinical psychologists clinical psychology clinician graduate degree henry kellerman jitters master of science newsweek newsweek magazine postdoctoral training postgraduate work psychiatric nurse Source Type: consumer

Aggressive athletes: Out of control and unapologeticEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
"It is wise to direct your anger towards problems -- not people; to focus your energies on answers -- not excuses." -William Arthur WardRecently, University of New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert was called out by ESPN for punching, kicking, shoving, and throwing elbows against opponents after her team fell behind in a conference tournament game. In her most blatant attack, she yanked back an opponent's ponytail, ripping her to the ground.News coverage of these incidents follows a time-worn pattern: the highlight reels run, the sports talk jockeys express outrage, the player makes a media apology, the commissioner s...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 19, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Jared DeFife, Ph.D. Tags: Media Morality Personality Psychiatry Relationships Sport and Competition Therapy aggression anger apologies apology athletes blatant attack Elizabeth Lambert ESPN externalization game sports individualism infamy jock Source Type: consumer

Different People, Different Places - Part 1Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Does your personality influence the sorts of places in which you thrive and the objects that you cherish?  You bet it does!   The personality factor that pops into casual discussion most regularly is extraversion-introversion.  Extraverts are energized by the social and physical environments that surround them.  Introverts gather more energy from their own thoughts than they do from things external to themselves.  Extraverts focus on the world outside themselves, while introverts are more centered on their own inner world.     Whether you are an extravert or an introvert has a big effect ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 16, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Sally Augustin, PhD Tags: Personality conversation partners couches decorating for the holidays design direct access extravert extraverts fireplace fish tank focal point intr introvert nbsp physical environments relish scents sensory input senso Source Type: consumer

Who is the Most Violent Person in Your Family?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
You may be surprised.Last week twenty-year-old Jim told his mother that he has always been leery of his younger, but larger brother, Andrew. Jim's cautiousness around Andrew dates back to the time Andrew shoved him off a dump truck breaking both of Jim's wrists. The boys were six and five-years-old. The brothers have rarely seen eye-to-eye and as young adults tolerate each other, are cordial, but nothing more. Their mother had hoped they would be best friends at this point in their lives.The story was related to me by the boys' mother who is upset by her sons' current relationship, but understands it better after Jim's exp...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 16, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Susan Newman, Ph.D. Tags: Anxiety Behavioral Economics Child Development Evolutionary Psychology Happiness Parenting Personality Psychiatry Relationships Resilience Self-Help Stress abuse best friends brother andrew brothers brothers and sisters c Source Type: consumer

Do You Grab Life by the Horns or Sit on the Sidelines?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
"The only things in this life that you really regret are the risks you didn't take. And God knows if you see a chance to be happy, you grab it with both hands and to hell with the consequences."--Grumpy Old MenI couldn't have said it any better. I hope I don't have to wait until I'm a fictional grumpy old man to realize this! Sure, life aint easy. But amid all the zings and zaps are quite a few tasty morsels. And if you aren't open to them, they will pass you by. Which type of person are you? Do you grab life by the balls (intriguing mental image, I admit) or tie yourself to the mast? As it turns out, this isn't such a sil...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 16, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D. Tags: Personality agreeableness big-five colin deyoung conscientiousness dimensions of personality emotional stability grumpy old man Individual differences intellect jacob b. hirsh jacob hirsch meni mental image meta-traits neurom Source Type: consumer

Hedonism (Sensuality) Doesn't ExistEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Some psychologists have talked about pleasure seeking or hedonism as a personality trait. I believe, however, that the construct of 'pleasure seeking' is invalid. Nobody seeks sensual pleasure. Here's why. The phenomenon of satiation disproves the construct of hedonism (sensuality). Suppose, for example, that a theorist defined sensuality to include pleasure from eating and sex. Such a construct implies that the need for eating can be satiated by sexual activity and vice versa. Since this is obviously invalid, the construct of sensuality is invalid. When a person seeks sensual pleasures, he or she is motivated by separate ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 16, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steven Reiss, Ph.D. Tags: Personality antecedent variables antecedents antiquity avoidance constructs experience pleasure hedonism logical error personality theory personality trait physical activity pleasure sex psychologists satiation sensual pleasu Source Type: consumer

Enjoying Your EmotionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Emotions have a bad rep these days. Especially in medical research, emotions are usually the enemies. This orientation is understandable with respect to rage, but laughing and crying also are treated as pathological. There are many studies of a new diagnosis called Emotional Lability (EL) and the even more extreme one, Emotional Incontinence (EI). "For Heaven's sake, stop crying: you are making a mess all over my new tablecloth." It seems to have occurred to only a few researchers that the absence of emotional expression might be a far wider problem, and possibly a much more damaging one. There is only one diagnosis that h...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Thomas Scheff, Ph.D. Tags: Anxiety Child Development Happiness Health Personality Psychiatry Relationships Self-Help ancient theory anger catharsis crying diagnosis emotional expression enemies fear grief horror movies medical research muscles Source Type: consumer

The Four Moral EmotionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In my last post, I wrote about the evolutionary value of emotions. One reason emotions are useful is that they get us to react quickly in response to danger. Although our rational (as opposed to emotional) minds do a lot to keep us at the top of the food chain, rational thinking is sometimes too slow for handling a threat (e.g. fighting a tiger). Sometimes, we need to react more quickly--and our emotions, like fear and surprise, help us do that. But of course supplying speedy reactions to tigers is not the only use of emotion. In this light, recent research on emotion has focused not just on issues of an individual's self-...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Ilana Simons, Ph.D. Tags: Evolutionary Psychology Morality Personality basic emotion basic emotions better chance bump cultures Debra Mashek disgust Extinction heartbeat ilana simons Jeffrey Stuewig Jessica Tracy June Price Tangney landlord litera Source Type: consumer

The Four Moral Emotions: Guilt, Shame, Embarrassment, and PrideEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In my last post, I wrote about the evolutionary value of emotions. One reason emotions are useful is that they get us to react quickly in response to danger. Although our rational (as opposed to emotional) minds do a lot to keep us at the top of the food chain, rational thinking is sometimes too slow for handling a threat (e.g. fighting a tiger). Sometimes, we need to react more quickly--and our emotions, like fear and surprise, help us do that. But of course supplying speedy reactions to tigers is not the only use of emotion. In this light, recent research on emotion has focused not just on issues of an individual's self-...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Ilana Simons, Ph.D. Tags: Animal Behavior Anxiety Evolutionary Psychology Happiness Neuroscience Personality Relationships Social Life basic emotion basic emotions better chance bump cultures Debra Mashek disgust Extinction heartbeat ilana simons Source Type: consumer

Libel in Fact: Aspiring to Rational Judgments Using DSM-IEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A 1964 poll Fact magazine invited members of the American Psychiatric Association to comment on then-Senator Barry Goldwater's personality. Last week, I continued my examination of the results of the poll, particularly focusing on the difference between, intuitive, automatic-seeming perceptions of personality versus logical, analytical reactions (see here).An example of a likely intuitive reaction was a respondent's comment regarding the Senator: "He frightens the hell out of me."In contrast to such intuitive reactions, diagnostic evaluations of Senator Goldwater ought to be more logical and analytical. Psychiatrists are t...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: John D. Mayer, Ph.D. Tags: Personality American Psychiatric Association checklists delusions hallucinations diagnostic and statistical manual diagnostic evaluations disorganized speech dsm iii dsm iv tr fact magazine impressions manifestations mental disorde Source Type: consumer

The Happiness of Doing Something New: the Audiobook Version.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
People often ask, “What's something surprising that you've learned about happiness?” Here's one thing: I was very surprised by the truth of the principle that Novelty and challenge bring happiness. I believed that this observation was true for a lot of people, but I didn’t think it would be true for me. I love routine. I revel in the little pleasures of my ordinary day. I don’t like to travel. I don’t even like to go to new restaurants. My favorite thing to do is to hang around the house and read in my pajamas. But I had to test that theory for my book, and I discovered – yes, this is very true. I realized – ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 13, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Gretchen Rubin Tags: Happiness Personality Self-Help Source Type: consumer

Thinking Matters: Psychotherapy, Dreaming, and PsychoanalysisEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Okay folks, here's the problem. When it comes to insight, listening with the third ear (meaning understanding connections as well as the underpinning to a conversation - even to a monologue one is having silently in one's mind), and especially to the personal tradition one has of practicing introspection, of practicing the sequence-analysis of the stream of consciousness, the psychoanalysts who have been at it for more than a 100 years are eons ahead of knowing what the hell is going on with people than all these naysayers who disparage psychodynamic psychotherapy (especially psychoanalysis). It's not even close as to who ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 12, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Henry Kellerman, Ph.D. Tags: Personality 100 years dream researchers early history efficacy eons introspection monologue naysayers personal tradition profound connection psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis knows - the other stuff doesn ' t. psychoanalysts ps Source Type: consumer

An Image Consultant's Girl-Crush on Michelle ObamaEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
To be clear, I voted for the other guy, the one who didn't win the presidency. I'm an occupational paradox: a college professor who usually leans politically right. That said, I publicly declare an enthusiastic girl-crush on our nation's first lady, Michelle Obama.<!--break--> My most direct source of fascination with Michelle isn't her obvious love of family or seamless transition into the role of America's First Lady. My ardor is more accurately attributed to her strong sense of self and her redefinition of how our first ladies might dress. While her physical frame communicates power and stature, her individual clo...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 12, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: LisaMarie Luccioni, M.A., A.I.C.I., C.I.P. Tags: Gender Media Personality Social Life Work appearance approachability ardor articulate speech attire authority bathing suit behavior clothing clothing choices college professor color color psychology degree direct sour Source Type: consumer

Introversion and the Energy EquationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
For the most part, what we "know" about introversion is still more theory than fact. We talk about introverts losing energy in social interactions but what, exactly, is that energy? What is energy directed outward? Or inward? We know what we think we mean when we talk about such things, but how do you measure them in a way that scientists can get a grip on? Nobody has figured that out yet.With that in mind, I learned of another interesting theory developed by Jennifer Grimes, a graduate student of cognitive sciences at University of Central Florida who started looking at introversion while she was an undergraduate at Welle...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 10, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Sophia Dembling Tags: Personality Carl Jung central florida cheek cognitive sciences continuum energy energy investment energy model extent extroversion extroverts graduate student introversion introversion and extroversion jennifer grimes jonat Source Type: consumer

The Rescued: Rapacious PartnersEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Initially, the covertly predatory style of rapacious partners may lead you to believe that you have found paradise in their arms, but sooner or later you feel like a victim. Desperate for nurturing and security, the rapacious partner manipulates to get what she needs, at times, through being irresistibly seductive. Her needs eventually leave her partner feeling exhausted, depressed, or confused. The rapacious rescued includes the depleting needy, the exotically unstable, the self-centered, and the rigid perfectionist subtypes. Please note that although we use feminine pronouns in our descriptions, rapacious partners are eq...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 10, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mary C. Lamia, Ph.D. and Marilyn Krieger, Ph.D. Tags: Addiction Personality Relationships Self-Help childhood history fear of abandonment feminine pronouns frequent questions insecurity love manipulation moods perfectionist physical abuse rapacious retaliation self destructive Source Type: consumer

You Today, Someone Else Tomorrow?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It is no secret that many of us are better at giving advice to others, than we are at choosing wisely for ourselves. Also, we often seem to be smarter at committing our future-selves than we are at committing for the present. For example, ask yourself when you will start exercising more, and the answer will be "next week" rather than "this week". Ask yourself when you will start eating healthier, and it will be "tomorrow" rather than "today". And ask yourself when you will stop procrastinating and the answer is always "later" and never "now".Then, of course, when "next week", "tomorrow", or "later" come around, we too ofte...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 9, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Daniel R. Hawes Tags: Personality bearing circumstances consequence Decision making emily emotion emotions entities few moments flexibility future future self hypothesis kathleen kennedy making decisions others princeton university pronin Source Type: consumer

Eight Tips for Feeling More Energetic.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Feeling energetic is a key to feeling happy. Studies show that when you feel energetic, you feel much better about yourself. On the other hand, when you feel exhausted, tasks that would ordinarily make you happy—like putting up holiday decorations—make you feel overwhelmed and blue. When my energy feels at a low ebb, I try one of these techniques (well, first I drink something with caffeine in it, but if I feel like I need to take further steps, I try these strategies): 1. Exercise—even a quick ten-minute walk will increase your energy and boost your mood. This really works! Try it! 2. Listen to lively music. 3. Get ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 9, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Gretchen Rubin Tags: Happiness Health Personality Resilience Self-Help Work blasts calories carton exercise good sleep holiday decorations introverts and extroverts lack of energy lively music low ebb low energy metabolism minute nap naps Source Type: consumer

Libel in Fact: Intuitive JudgmentsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In recent posts, I have been examining a 1964 poll conducted by Fact magazine. The poll asked psychiatrists to comment on then-Senator Barry Goldwater's personality.  The comments published in Fact provide some useful illustrations of how people judge one another.In 2007, Arie Kruglanksi and Edward Orehek of the University of Maryland examined how "dual mode" theories are key to understanding person perception. Dual mode theories state that a person draws on two somewhat different mental systems when judging someone.The first of the two systems is fast-reacting, and involves largely automatic recognition and quick ca...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 9, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: John D. Mayer, Ph.D. Tags: Personality arie automatic recognition damn fool dual mode dual mode processing fact magazine first impression illustrations libel logical analysis logical system magazine poll mammals pattern recognition person perception Source Type: consumer

Why Mike Tyson Is Not A Serial KillerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Let's look at the construct of the serial killer persona for a moment. We carve nature at its joints and come to a conclusion that this persona is encapsulated by that sort of foreign and frightening aura carried by that individual who seems to not care, to not feel remorse, to not respond to reason. This is the kind of person that shoots dozens of classmates despite a nurturing familial environment, or the kind of person who kills people over the span of years and "the neighbors never suspected."The problem in popular culture, I believe, is that we too often make the mistake of over-simplifying this evil personality struc...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 8, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Jeremy Clyman Tags: Child Development Media Personality Psychiatry Relationships Therapy afterthought assumption boxing classmates conclusions dirty laundry familial environment film film history heinous crimes intimate portrayal joints li Source Type: consumer

Prior convictions and the end of ideologyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
People get set in their ways as the years pass by. When we get older, we settle into routines, our beliefs crystallize, and we adhere more strongly to our ideological worldview (our personal set of beliefs and values). When we're young, by contrast, we need to be open to possibilities. A great deal of flexibility is necessary, for example, if we're to learn a first language and adapt to a million other things in our environment. But flexibility becomes less important once we develop a stable understanding of the world. We then have years to build up justifications for our beliefs; we fill our lives with spouses and friends...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 7, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Ilan Shrira Tags: Personality adolescence adulthood age assumptions beliefs clash destiny development developmental sequence first language fundamental convictions ideology justifications myths perceptions personal set protective functions Source Type: consumer

Kellerman reply to Dr. Vee on Fort Hood violenceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Yes, this is a good comment. I've referred to it directly in my blog entry in analyzing the issue of how anger and ideology is linked to acting-out and violence, to wit: "If the strength of the anger is stronger than the strength of the resilience of the person, then the anger is likely to be acted out. This is true even under the rationalized or intellectualized condition of seeing oneself as a messenger of goodness or justice. In such a case the acting-out is given 'permission' and the consicousness of the anger, although felt, is rather held in virtual state while an intellectualized ideological rational takes over that...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 7, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Henry Kellerman, Ph.D. Tags: Personality Source Type: consumer

Shooting Spree: A Response to Constant Humiliation?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Why did Nidal Malik Hasan and other spree shooters murder their victims? One approach would concern the cybernetics of emotion involving recursive loops of shame and anger.Self-generated loops of shame alone are commonplace among those who blush easily. They report that the awareness of their blushing generates embarrassment, that in turn generates further blushing, and around and around, sometimes leading even to paralysis.Since normal emotions are extremely brief in duration, a few seconds, the idea of a feeling loop opens up a new area of exploration. Emotions that persist over time have been a puzzle for researchers, s...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 7, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Thomas Scheff, Ph.D. Tags: Personality Politics Psychiatry Relationships Social Life anger cybernetics doomsday machine embarrassment emergencies emotion emotion loops emotions extreme violence fear feedback loops inter group isolation malik hasa Source Type: consumer

Rampage ShootingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Why did Nidal Malik Hasan and other spree shooters murder their victims? One approach would concern the cybernetics of emotion involving recursive loops of shame and anger.Self-generated loops of shame alone are commonplace among those who blush easily. They report that the awareness of their blushing generates embarrassment, that in turn generates further blushing, and around and around, sometimes leading even to paralysis.Since normal emotions are extremely brief in duration, a few seconds, the idea of a feeling loop opens up a new area of exploration. Emotions that persist over time have been a puzzle for researchers, s...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 7, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Thomas Scheff, Ph.D. Tags: Personality Politics Psychiatry Relationships Social Life anger cybernetics doomsday machine embarrassment emergencies emotion emotion loops emotions extreme violence fear feedback loops inter group isolation malik hasa Source Type: consumer

Spree Shooting and EmotionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Why did Nidal Malik Hasan and other spree shooters murder their victims? One approach would concern the cybernetics of emotion involving recursive loops of shame and anger.Self-generated loops of shame alone are commonplace among those who blush easily. They report that the awareness of their blushing generates embarrassment, that in turn generates further blushing, and around and around, sometimes leading even to paralysis.Since normal emotions are extremely brief in duration, a few seconds, the idea of a feeling loop opens up a new area of exploration. Emotions that persist over time have been a puzzle for researchers, s...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 7, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Thomas Scheff, Ph.D. Tags: Personality Politics Psychiatry Relationships Social Life anger cybernetics doomsday machine embarrassment emergencies emotion emotion loops emotions extreme violence fear feedback loops inter group isolation malik hasa Source Type: consumer

Murder, Malice, and HopeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
      We are made uncomfortable by the radomness in our lives. When something terrible happens we search for explanations in the same way that primitive people did when puzzled by the complexity of the universe. Why does one person kill another, or 13 others? The fact that murder has always been a routine phenomenon of human existence does not dispel the horror that it implies or our desire to reassure ourselves that we are less likely to die this way if only we can understand the "motive" for such acts.      We can better grasp the idea of murder in certain contexts. We ac...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 7, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Gordon S. Livingston Tags: Law and Crime Morality Personality Politics Psychiatry american history binghamton ny cafteria Contexts deadly shootings death penalty ft hood george hennard greed health club highest homicide rate human existence inner c Source Type: consumer

The Case of Nidal Malik Hasan's Shooting at Fort HoodEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I've been blogging about anger and repression for several weeks now, and the shooting at Fort Hood can figure into this discussion. My take on it is that Hasan was furious and he could not automatically repress this rage. The repression wasn't working because he was especially conscious of who he felt was tampering with his inner narrative. And this inner narrative was a confirming one most likely concerning something about his pride in being a Muslim and how he felt that this image of his identity-group was being attacked (and most likely in his mind, unjustly attacked). It was a rage that was born out of a need to protec...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 6, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Henry Kellerman, Ph.D. Tags: Personality Source Type: consumer

What is smart?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
"He's such a bright little boy!" My mother and her friends said things like that all the time, as they pointed to me when they thought I wasn't paying attention. Now that I'm grown, I can let them in on a secret: There was never a time when I didn't pay attention to grownups as a kid. I watched them really close, all the time. I may not have understood everything I heard, but I surely took it all in. But what did it mean? I got a new bike, and my mother said, "What a pretty red bicycle!" Everyone who saw it said the same thing. It was a nice, red bike. The attributes didn't change. It was always a bike, and always red. No ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 6, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: John Elder Robison Tags: Autism Cognition Creativity Neuroscience Personality attributes brainpower colors grownups intelligence john elder moms new bike paying attention phrases reasoning red bicycle red bike smart kids smart ones whim Source Type: consumer

Thinking Matters: RememberingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This is my 3rd blog entry. In each of the previous two, I've spelled out the relation of the appearance of psychological symptoms to a person's repression of anger. In this blog entry I will focus more on repression, but in this case it's about the issue simply of remembering. So, please remember that repression is always about how memory or remembering is conquered and rendered as erased. When you've got repression, you've got amnesia for the remembering. WARNING: The anecdote described here is real, and for children it may be a bit X rated, although I believe, essentially harmless. Introduction: The Innocence Project has...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 4, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Henry Kellerman, Ph.D. Tags: Personality anecdote blog entry case example dead of winter dormitory eye witness reports female patients henry kellerman hospital patients hospital security innocence project patrol cars psychological symptoms psychologist r Source Type: consumer

Reality as a Horror Movie: The Case of the Deadly Sweat Lodge (Part 2)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Self-Transformation . . . or Self-Delusion? The notion of instantaneous transformation can be enormously seductive to Westerners, almost always in a hurry to finish things and see results. Ray actually encourages such impatience by advertising his short-term retreats as experiences that will alter participants' lives forever. All they need do is pay an (exorbitant) fee and do exactly what he tells them to. But to realize our most cherished goals, can we successfully move beyond our assorted physical ailments and psychological dysfunctions merely through "transformative" thinking, positive visualizations, and boundary-break...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 4, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. Tags: Happiness Health Media Personality Philosophy Self-Help Spirituality brain power chaos theory einstein s theory of relativity exorbitant fee fairy-tale thinking fooling Mother Nature frostbite growth experience inaccurate sel Source Type: consumer

Introverts and FriendshipEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
My friend and fellow PT blogger Dr. Irene Levine, author of the excellent Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, invited me to contribute a guest post to her blog, The Friendship Doctor. Please take a look at  "The inside scoop on your introvert friends."I was interested to note that the subhead suggests that being friends with introverts is difficult. (Or at least not easy.) Ah, we are so misunderstood... Do you consider yourself difficult? I'd say it all depends on the standards by which we are judged.  (Source: Psychology Today Personality Center)
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 4, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Sophia Dembling Tags: Personality being friends best friend best friends blog dr irene extroversion extrovert fellow friendship introversion introverts irene levine scoop subhead surviving a breakup Source Type: consumer

Keeping The Ball RollingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
     I know an advertising agency owner who never fully takes a vacation.  He takes his family to fairly exotic locations, but never so alien that they are outside the reach of modern communication.  In other words, he is never further than a cell phone call or email away.  He checks in with the office several times a day – much to the chagrin of his family who want him to be fully engaged in the holiday at hand.  So, he ends up sneaking off under the guise of visiting the restroom, or going to the bar for a cocktail, in order to connect with his staff, a client or a prospect. ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 4, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Robert Wilson Tags: Happiness Personality Procrastination Self-Help Stress Work accumulation advertising agency business veterans chagrin control freak guise indiana jones knowledge skill mass times velocity momentum nbsp networking events Source Type: consumer

Everything You Lose Makes Room for Something NewEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Everything you lose makes room for something new.The flimsy postcard, bought at least twenty years ago and faded from its original pink, is taped to the edge of a metal bookshelf in my office. The simple hand-drawn image depicts a Victorian woman whose old-fashioned bonnet is being lifted off her head by the wind; it is about to fly away and she's trying to keep a grasp on the ribbons.I suppose the caption could easily have read "hold onto your hat" and that line would have resonated with someone else the way "Everything you lose makes room for something new" trumpeted its message to me.But out of everything I have ever lo...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 4, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Regina Barreca, Ph.D. Tags: Happiness Personality Philosophy Resilience Spirituality Stress amtrak station baubles belief that bonnet bookshelf caption carelessness fate finding fortune found gold earrings gone grasp grief hartford ink l Source Type: consumer

The Science of Speed Dating - Part IIIEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Mimicry is pervasive in everyday interactions. We routinely find ourselves converging in speech and mannerisms to our friends and associates, or even the characters of our favorite TV shows. And it is also not unusual that, while engaged in conversation, we subconsciously adjust our posture to be similar to the stance of the person we are talking to. This type of subtle mimicry in social situations has convincingly been shown to have an effect on the person being mimicked; the effect usually occuring to the end that people have more positive feelings for those who mimic them than for those who do not mimic them.In 1983, fo...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Daniel R. Hawes Tags: Evolutionary Psychology Personality attribution confederate confederates everyday interactions favorite tv mannerisms mimicking personal traits Physical attractiveness positive feelings posture psychologists richard maurer so Source Type: consumer

Reality as a Horror Movie: The Case of the Deadly Sweat Lodge (Part 1)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
 Horror movies are hardly known for their depth. They may be knee deep in gore, but they're pretty shallow in meaning. Mostly, they're about revenge if (beyond sending chills down your spine) they're about anything at all. The stark tragedy of self-styled guru James Arthur Ray's crudely constructed (and massively overcrowded) sweat lodge is a different "horror story" altogether. Sickening almost all its 60 or so occupants--and finally killing three of them, while hospitalizing 17 others, this "personal growth" experience gone wrong is replete with meaning. What I'd like to explore here are the lessons that I think we ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. Tags: Happiness Health Media Personality Philosophy Self-Help Spirituality breakfast buffet chills debacle difficulty breathing Elizabeth Lesser evolution of consciousness exploiting spiritual traditions growth experience horror mo Source Type: consumer

Libel in Fact: When are Data Good Enough?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When are data good enough? Researchers and scholars often face this question.  I face it as I examine responses from the 1964 Fact survey of psychiatrists.Last week I described some "wild analysis" on the part of several psychiatrists who responded to the poll. The psychiatrists were evaluating then-Senator Barry Goldwater's personality. The term, "wild analysis" refers to an evaluation of someone's personality based on unsubstantiated theory and/or implausible reasoning. Mr. Warren Boroson, the former managing editor of Fact at the time commented on last week's post: "The person who edited the letters from psych...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - November 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: John D. Mayer, Ph.D. Tags: Personality academic background ethics fact magazine fact survey ginzburg Goldwater case libel libel trial managing editor negative impact negativity opines personality judgment peter kane phrases professor peter psychiat Source Type: consumer

Emergence research: Just how did matter become mattering?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I work in a field called emergence which is trying to solve such gynormous mysteries as how information emerges from energy, how life emerges from chemistry, how selves emerge from atoms, how soulishness emerges from life, how purpose emerges from non-purpose. We're not asking whether they do. Evidence suggests strongly that they do, and not the other way around with God, the great purposeful and informed soul in the sky making atoms and chemistry. We're not asking why they emerged either. Or where or when, because it's safe to assume they didn't just emerge here in our neighborhood of the universe. No, we're asking pre...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 30, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. Tags: Personality Philosophy Relationships atoms attributes biology chemistry chlorine gas combinatorial logic context Contexts determinism emergence evolution free will john stuart mill mysteries origins of life personalitie Source Type: consumer

Five Great “Don’ts” of a Happiness Project.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Several people have said to me, “When you’re making a resolution, it’s better not to say ‘No’ or ‘Don’t’ to yourself. You should keep it positive. Find ways to say 'yes'!” I think there’s some merit to thinking about resolutions this way – but I don’t agree completely. First of all, sometimes it feels good to say “No” to yourself. For instance, I resolved No more drinking (mostly), and that resolution has made me much happier. (If you're giving something up, you might want to take the "Are you a moderator or an abstainer?" quiz.) Also, sometimes following a “Don’t” can make you very happy....
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 30, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Gretchen Rubin Tags: Happiness Health Personality Relationships Resilience Self-Help acts of kindness blog great don money quiz random acts of kindness resolutions self control word of mouth Source Type: consumer

Complexity, Coherence, and HalloweenEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This week I had the pleasure of being contacted by a reporter from the Orange County Register (our local paper) with the question: "Q: Why do so many people enjoy going to scary movies, or putting themselvesin scary situations?" Such a fun question, I figured it was blog-worthy. Below is my un-edited response. Hopefully, he will use a line or two that works for his purposes. More likely, I (ironically) scared him away for good. Perhaps it will add something to your Halloween experience, or scare you away too. Either way...Nearly every theory of personality can provide an answer to this question, "Why do we like to be scare...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 29, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Dr. David Pincus Tags: Creativity Evolutionary Psychology Law and Crime Personality Spirituality biological level boredome chaos theory coherence coherent properties complexity theory contact sports halloween halloween experience horror films ironi Source Type: consumer

Anger Is the Key (Part2)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Anger leading to psychological/emotional symptoms (cont.)Okay, so to recap in 4 short steps:1. Your wish for something is thwarted;2. You feel disempowered about that and of course angry about it (because anger is a reempowerment, and that's what you need - a reempowerment);3. But, rather than express the anger, you suppress it, or more accurately, you repress it;4. Because of this repression you will necessarily pop a symptom.Now what? How do we cure this symptom? (The symptom could be anything from a sudden phobic reaction to something, it could be a panic attack, it could be an intrusive thought that you can't s...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 28, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Henry Kellerman, Ph.D. Tags: Personality absolute genius anger civilization cure your own symptom emotion emotional symptoms Freud intrusive thought Panic Attack repression short steps Source Type: consumer

Online gaming creates another selfEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It is easy to assume that fantasy gaming is "bad" or "harmful." Rumors of Dungeons & Dragons luring susceptible kids to the dark side added to its geek creep factor back in the 1980s, forever linking the game to deviant and antisocial behavior. Indeed, it's human nature to demonize what we don't understand. Such has been the case with MMOs (massively multiplayer online games) like World of Warcraft. Society still considers gamers to be as introverted, inarticulate, and emotionless as their armored avatars. News stories tell of how virtual relationships wreck real-life ones. ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 28, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Ethan Gilsdorf Tags: Personality antisocial behavior avatars computer games emotionless ethan gilsdorf expletive fantasy freaks and gaming geeks fantasy gaming fantasy role playing games harry potter books human nature leaks life and death massivel Source Type: consumer

Are You a Gargoyle on Roller Skates?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A colleague of mine always seems in a rush. Walking across campus he looks a lot alike a gargoyle on roller skates. The upper part of his body seems anxious that he's going to be late. The lower part seems like a pouting, lagging child being dragged along. Speed is funny. Sometimes a desire for quick results only delays progress further. You can be moving quickly, it's true, but you may be going in the wrong direction! In the end, frustration may be paradoxically increased by going faster because we may be moving away from, rather than toward, our desired goal. In psychotherapy, if the patient is bored, the pace of the ses...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 27, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Robert Wicks Tags: Anxiety Happiness Personality Procrastination Resilience Self-Help Spirituality Stress Therapy balance boredom clam colleague disciple discouragement effor frustration gargoyle haste incremental change lente openn Source Type: consumer

Disarming Your Buttons: How Not to Get Provoked (Part 4 of 4)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
 • Stopping Trigger Thoughts. "Trigger thoughts" include all your false assumptions and beliefs that lead to getting your buttons pushed. Almost inevitably, these thoughts involve logical fallacies. So internally refuting them isn't really a matter of deluding yourself through glib affirmations, but questioning the unwarranted notions that may in the past have led you to lose your cool. Below I list seven types of distorted trigger thoughts that can prompt you to overreact. If you're able to change these irrational thoughts, the distressing emotions deriving from them should change as well. Better, the things that f...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 27, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. Tags: Personality Relationships Self-Help Therapy Work affirmations anger assumed intent belief that button-pushers button-pushing thoughts cognitive distortions cognitive restructuring conditional assumptions distressing emotions Source Type: consumer

Disarming Your Buttons: How Not to Get Provoked (Part 3 of 4)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
"Inoculating" Yourself Against External Irritants Part 1 of this post focused on better understanding the origins of your hot buttons, while Part 2 centered on resolving past disturbances that created these buttons in the first place. Now, in the next two parts, it's time to look at ways of preparing yourself in the present to better cope with people and circumstances that still seem to threaten your mental and emotional equilibrium--outward forces that continue to activate your not-yet-disconnected buttons. No less an author than Albert Ellis has written a book entitled How to Keep People from Pushing Your Buttons (1995)....
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 26, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. Tags: Personality Relationships Self-Help Therapy Work Aaron Beck Albert Ellis alteration assumptions behavioral rehearsal behaviorists circumstances cognitive behavioral therapy cognitive therapy coping with anger covert rehearsal Source Type: consumer

Dr. Phil Style Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral TherapyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Dr. Phil will be the first to admit that you cannot expect to accomplish much in one session (or a show), but rather, he intends his intervention to serve as a catalyst for change. He generally employs the concepts, strategies and techniques of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in a limited way; on the show, he helps to define the problem and find a better direction. While he makes it clear he is not one who advocates endless, non-directive therapy, he does often recommend that people who are suffering from a variety of difficulties seek treatment with a skilled CBT therapist.Experienced therapists who have been trained i...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 26, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Allison Conner, Psy.D. Tags: Personality Relationships Self-Help Therapy aaron t beck aaron t beck md anxiety disorders automatic thoughts behavioral behavioral therapy CBT cognitive behavioral therapy cognitive therapy congitive core beliefs depression Source Type: consumer

Body Language MythsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Myths About Nonverbal Communications:The first myth claims that because we know so much about body language now that it is easy to spot a liar. The second myth, and it is exactly that, a myth, is that eye aversion is indicative of deception. Beginning in the 1970's so called body language experts began to prattle that body language was the key to determining if someone was lying. Both law enforcement officers and the general public bought into this, and even today, with shows such as Fox Television's "Lie to Me" http://www.fox.com/lietome/ the myth continues. In 1985 Paul Ekman and other researchers looked at this myth and...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 25, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Joe Navarro, M.A. Tags: Personality assertions aversion body cues body language confessions dna exonerations Fox Television interviewee language experts law enforcement officers liar myth myths Nonverbal communications nonverbals paul ekman pitc Source Type: consumer

Science of Speed Dating - Part IIEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Since there has been quite a bit of interest in the topic, I have decided to publish the second part to my recently begun "Science of Speed Dating" series here after all. If you previously read this evolutionary psychology discussion by fellow blogger Satoshi Kanazawa or stumbled over the original version of this post on my other blog, you will encounter some redundancy (I am sorry about that, but check back in for part 3). Otherwise, or maybe even nonetheless, I hope you will enjoy this post:By turning speed dating events into social science experiments, psychologists are gaining new insights into human behavior and mate ...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 24, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Daniel R. Hawes Tags: Evolutionary Psychology Gender Personality Relationships Sex attractiveness eastwick eli finkel human behavior mate selection minute speed new insights northwestern university researchers original version redundancy satoshi k Source Type: consumer

Your Humor= Your Strength, Your Creativity, + Your IntelligenceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Sometimes we try so hard to be happy that we can't possibly have a good time.These times make it especially necessary to be in touch with the asurdity, the ridiculous, the funniness, and the irony of the everyday.Having a sense of humor about troubled times is like having a sense of humor about sex or death: humor allows you to have perspective on an otherwise potentially overwhelming prospect.Humor allows you to elevate and explore rather than denigrate or hide your feelings.Humor doesn't dismiss a subject but rather often opens that subject up for discussion, especially when the subject is one that is not considered "fit...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 23, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Regina Barreca, Ph.D. Tags: Happiness Personality Philosophy Resilience Self-Help Stress absurdity challenge denigrate embarrassment eye opener first move funniness funny generosity having a sense of humor irony joy laughter leap listener li Source Type: consumer

Perspectives: Asperger's and EmpathyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Some time ago, in my post Empathy, Mindblindness and Theory of Mind, I wrote about Asperger's and empathy.   In a new feature, here on the Asperger's Diary blog, I thought I'd share another Aspergian perspective on this hot button topic.  <!--break-->This video was created by Bev at Asperger Square 8.  Being a visual thinker myself, I really enjoy how she is able to convey her point simply, clearly and visually - with only a few words (and a little whimsy thrown in).  What do you think about what she has to say?From time to time I'll be featuring videos, profiles and stories highlighting diff...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 23, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Lynne Soraya Tags: Autism Cognition Happiness Morality Neuroscience Personality Social Life asperger ' autism spectrum diary different perspectives e mail empathy few words hot button nbsp new feature profiles theory of mind visual th Source Type: consumer

Harmony morality: The Heart of Morality (4a of 9 parts)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Whom do people typically admire for their moral behavior? Those driven by Bunker morality, like Osama bin Laden or Hitler? Although perverted people (e.g., Charles Manson) are sometimes admired, this is atypical (or a naïve adolescent fantasy). Most people don't want to put on the sweater of a murderer (Rozin, Markwith & McCauley, 1994). No way.Rather, people typically admire those who are courageous and humanitarian, who treat others with deep respect, and who act beyond their own interests to help others, like Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine and gave it away, or Norman Borlaug, who brought about the green...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 23, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D. Tags: Evolutionary Psychology Morality Personality Relationships Social Life adolescent fantasy altruism charles manson compassion florence nightingale green revolution helpfulness Hurricane Katrina jonas salk looters love mammal Source Type: consumer

Bipolar Disorder Plays Role in Patricia Cornwell's Financial MeléeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Bipolar disorder plays a role in a lawsuit that mega-bestselling author Patricia Cornwell has filed against her financial advisers, on the premise that they are responsible for her loss of some $40 million dollars over the last four years.According to the Baltimore Sun, the famous writer of mystery novels - who suffers from biipolar - claims that Manhattan-based Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP burned through her money and that of her partner, Harvard neuroscientist Staci Gruber.The complaint reads in part: "Ms. Cornwell is a best-selling crime novelist whose ability to write is dependent upon the ability to avoid distractio...
Source: Psychology Today Personality Center - October 22, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Anneli Rufus Tags: Law and Crime Media Personality Anchin baltimore sun bestselling author bi polar disorder bipolar Block & business affairs crime novelist distractions famous writer financial advisers gruber Kay Scarpetta medical conditio Source Type: consumer