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           Thanks to Stephan Gellert for permission to use this Photo.

A recent and already infamous episode of Dr. Phil showed that, even with the ongoing writers’ strike, fiction and humor are far from extinct on the airwaves. This episode focused on Wade, who was brought to the Phil by Michelle, his wife. She had recently started to suspect that her husband was a compulsive liar and, as per usual, cheating on her. The standard schema of accusations, phil plashbacks, yelling, lie detector results, crying, and excuses resulted. No big surprises, until the last 5 minutes or so, where we learned that the next episode (today’s) would reveal how Wade admits not only to a long list of affairs and marital transgressions, but also multiple rapes and murders.

Apparently, after the show, when heading back to Iowa (to get their divorce) Wade told Michelle that he had vague memories of raping his ex-wife and a co-worker, as well as a time where he picked up a hitchhiker who refused to have sexual intercourse, leading him to a violent outrage, murdering and dumping the woman’s body on the side of the road. Adding to the intrigue, the audience learns of restraining orders, fruitless FBI investigations, death threats, stalkings, and suicide attempts from basically all the parties involved except Phil. While adding a certain dimension of excitement, and, perhaps most importantly, providing reason to extend the show for 2 more days, it’s also extremely unbelievable. After all, as Dr. Phil actually made clear on the first show, Wade is a compulsive liar, fibbing about little inconsequential things and distorting big, important matters. (more…)

             Thanks to global green for permission to use this Photo.

The ‘How to Be Happy’ article has become a staple of newspapers, magazines, books and, increasingly, of websites. We should ‘accept reality’, or ‘take a break’, or ‘be honest with ourselves’, or ’surround ourselves with happy people’.

These things are unlikely to do us any harm but that doesn’t stop them reading like a list of platitudes - the kind that people are always doling out but never follow themselves.

We can all create our own lists of happiness enhancing activities and argue endlessly about which is better and for whom. While that’s fun for a bit, I always want to ask: which activities have evidence to back up their claims for increasing happiness?

Psychologists have only started investigating this question relatively recently, so there’s not a very long list and it is obviously far from exhaustive, but at least there’s some research to back them up. The activities psychologists have investigated are gratitude, helping others, and firstly, visualizing your best possible self.

1. Visualizing your best possible self

Visualizing your best possible self may sound like an exercise in fantasy but, crucially, it does have to be realistic. Carrying out this exercise typically involves imagining your life in the future, but a future where everything that could go well, has gone well. You have reached those realistic goals that you have set for yourself.

Then, to help cement your visualization, you commit your best possible self to paper. This exercise helps draw on the proven benefits of expressive writing.

Click here to read the rest of this entry… 

               Thanks to Breidholt for permission to use this Photo.

In yesterday’s session of Behavior Disorders in Childhood, we were discussing Simon Baron-Cohen (not to be mistaken for his cousin Sasha) and his theory of Assortive Mating . Briefly, what Baron-Cohen is suggesting is that two systemizers who marry are more likely to produce a child with autism. Given the entrance of women to the workforce, the theory suggests that it is now easier for systemizers to find one another, particularly in tech fields, leading to an increase in children with autism.

Baron-Cohen is British, and his theories do not seem to trod on British sensibilities of gender differences as much as they cross American sensitivities. Baron-Cohen’s contention that women are “hard-wired” to be empathic and men to be systematic makes Harvard’s Larry Summers seem quite tame. Whether you buy into his theory or not, it is an interesting concept to explore. (more…)

                  Thanks to Kara for permission to use this Photo. 

Which of the following statements is true of childhood (vs adult) mania?

A.  Irritability tends to be more prominent
 
B.  The decrease in sleep is more pronounced
 
C.  Changes in appetite are less noticeable
 
D.  Racing thoughts are less common
 
If you got the right answer, you’ve wasted your life.  If you got the answer wrong, but then learned the correct answer, you are wasting other people’s lives. (more…)

Of all the prominent English artists who came to international attention during the reign of Queen Victoria, Richard Dadd definitely is in a class by himself. Born in 1817, as the fourth of seven children, Dadd showed early promise as an artist and began sketching at an early age. After his family moved to London, he entered the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of twenty.

Along with other artists with whom he studied, Dadd formed an important group that became known as the Clique although he remained the foremost artist among them. Their meetings throughout the 1830s and into the 1840s inspired a new style of painting that rejected academic high art and favoured more personal art that they felt should be judged by the public rather than academics. Given Dadd’s developing prominence in the art world, it was only natural that he was chosen to go with his patron, Sir Thomas Phillips, as a draftsman on a planned expedition through Greece, Turkey and Egypt. The expedition that began in 1842 was seen as an excellent opportunity for Dadd to expand his artistic horizons.

Absolutely nobody could have foreseen the profound change that would come on him over the course of the journey. (more…)

 
             Thanks to Liam Kelly for permission to use this Photo.

An award-winning social psychology experiment reveals why we often fail to bargain effectively with each other. This deceptively simple experiment examines the effect of two vital aspects of bargaining: threat and communication.

Bargaining is one of those activities we often engage in without quite realizing it. It doesn’t just happen in the boardroom, or when we ask our boss for a raise or down at the market, it happens every time we want to reach an agreement with someone. (more…)

 
        Thanks to Miles Vialpando for permission to use this Photo.

Today’s Dr. Phil show dealt with eating disorder, primarily anorexia and bulimia. I had expected it to be a particularly telling episode, especially from the previews, which showed Phil staring down an emaciated girl with the words “you are going to die…soon!” In fact, McGraw was far more reasonable and reasoned than normal. He went out of his way several times to say “it’s not as easy as saying: start eating,” and he did make several salient points.

(more…)

               Thanks to Timothy for permission to use this Photo.

Those of us who work with a tough Inner Critic — and try to keep it in check — know that there are an infinite number of “triggers” that can set it off. Hal and Sidra Stone devote most of a chapter in Embracing Your Inner Critic to recognizing and dealing with these triggers.

Here are a few of the triggers they identify:

Judgments: Any time someone else judges us or criticizes us, the Inner Critic takes this as an opportunity to agree and then some. Its job is to criticize us before others can — its way of protecting us — so to get beat to the punch makes it anxious. It’s important to note that these criticisms are not always direct — they can be from other people, from religion, from cultural expectations, from commercials, and so on.

If we aren’t working with our Inner Critic, these attacks are challenging. We not only have the exterior attack to deal with, which is painful enough, but we have the interior attack from an invisible foe. For most, the result is depression, anxiety, feeling upset, lack of energy, and/or just a vague sense of unease. (more…)

 
              Thanks to Max Baars for permission to use this Photo.

A reader asked me to read his book before saying that copycat suicides is not a real phenomenon. To be fair, his book is really good.  It is worth the price even as a reference guide/catalog of suicides and homicides that share similar characteristics, which are striking.   While the majority of the information is a google search away, the fact is that he actually did the searches.   It’s also a  good read– it neither bores you nor crams the conclusions into your head. (more…)

 
          Thanks to Herman Snerd for permission to use this Photo.

We all know that humans are natural born conformers - we copy each other’s dress sense, ways of talking and attitudes, often without a second thought. But exactly how far does this conformity go? Do you think it is possible you would deny unambiguous information from your own senses just to conform with other people? (more…)