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Showing posts with the label #Psychology

How to deal with holiday stress: The psychology behind why family time can turn adults into moody teens again

#holidaystress #family #copingmechanism #conflict #Psychology #Triple5LightTherapy #Couplestherapy #BlackMaleTherapist  No matter how far away from home we travel, most of us can’t escape our familial history — and the memories that come with it. Along with shopping, gift-wrapping, and cookie baking, I’m prepping for the holidays by accepting that family stress may get the best of me. While I haven’t lived at home for over 20 years, conflict around heated topics like politics can make me feel like a misunderstood teen again. Listening calmly and objectively to my parents becomes harder and harder, and I interrupt more. Once, I even rolled my eyes at my mom like a pouty adolescent. My behavior, however, isn’t meant to be disrespectful or cruel, even though it might look that way. It’s actually a normal coping mechanism known as regression. As a psychologist, I’ve heard hundreds of family tales similar to mine. For many of us, reuniting with loved ones during t...

Psychologists Have Created A League Table Of Scary And Revolting Animals Phobias

#Psychology #MentalHealth #Phobias #Animalphobias #Spider #Snake #Dog You may be best advised not to read this article late at night or before you eat. Psychologists at the National Institute of Mental Health and Charles University in the Czech Republic have surveyed a large sample of non-clinical volunteers to gauge their reaction to 24 creatures that are commonly the source of specific animals phobias. The results, published in the British Journal of Psychology, contribute to our understanding of animal phobias and could prove incredibly useful to horror writers. Among the key findings is that spiders were unique in being both intensely fear- and disgust-inducing in equal measure. The researchers said this may be due to their mix of disgusting properties – including their “quirky ‘too-many-legs’ body plan” – combined with the fact they are “…omnipresent in our homes, often lurking in the hidden dark places and capable of fast unpredictable movement.” In other words, the intense ...

5 Communication Tweaks That Increase Intimacy

  #Communication #trust #Empathy #Attachment #mirroring #reciprocating #apology #defensive #Psychology “Working on our communication” is one of the most commonly cited reasons couples seek relationship counseling. This is not surprising. Often, over time, even the best of relationships can fall victim to negative communication patterns. This is especially true for couples who find themselves under a lot of stress because, naturally, when our coping mechanisms are overtaxed, we default to older—more primitive and less mature—ways of coping (cf. Weinberger & Stoycheva, 2019). A colleague used to say that when we are distressed, we become caricatures of ourselves—i.e., our worst qualities become exaggerated. It gets harder to employ our most thought-out and balanced ways of interacting with the world. However, several tweaks only require a little time or effort, just repetition, and attention to our automatic behaviors that we can make to improve our connection with our partners. ...

The crazy story of how ‘Stockholm syndrome’ got its name

#Movies #Hostage #PattyHearst #Psychology #StockholmSyndrome #Sweeden “Is there something wrong with me? Why don’t I hate them?” In 1973, 21-year-old Elisabeth Oldgren posed this question to a psychiatrist in the wake of a robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, in which she and three other bank workers had been held hostage from Aug. 23-28. As the standoff neared an end, police were perplexed by the victims’ concern for their two captors: Despite cops’ orders that the hostages be the first to leave the bank vault in which they’d all been holed up, all four refused. ame> “Jan and Clark [the criminals] go first — you’ll gun them down if we do!” 23-year-old Kristin Ehnmark yelled back. The nationwide spectacle led to the genesis of the term “Stockholm syndrome,” in which a person held against their will comes to sympathize deeply with their abductor. In America, the phrase is more commonly associated with the 1974 case of Patty Hearst, the kidnapped heiress turned bank robber. It h...

Is it couple therapy, couple’s therapy, or couples therapy?

#BenCaldwell #MentaHealth #Psychology #HealthyRelationships  #Couples #Therapy #MFT By  Ben Caldwell ,  www.psychotherapynotes.com Okay, let’s not pretend this is an important question in the grand scheme of things. It is not. But for anxious types (like me) who want to make sure we’re using the right terminology, how do we describe that service of providing relationship therapy for two people?  Is it couple therapy, couple’s therapy, or couples therapy? I’m proud to offer a definitive, authoritative answer.* Read on. The evidence: AAMFT and state licensing boards The  American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy  seems content to not stake a flag in this debate. They manage to use all three variations in the  most recent issue of  Family Therapy Magazine . Heck, they’re all in the first seven pages. But we can draw some inferences from the organization’s title: While they don’t say “couple,” they do use the sin...

5 exercises to help you build more empathy (video)

    Angus Grieg #JamilZaki #Connection #Empathy #Human #Psychology #Psychotherapy #MentalHealth #BlackTherapist #Triple5LightTherapy Empathy — or understanding the thoughts and feelings of the people around us — is one of the most important and most trying parts of being a social creature.   But what exactly is empathy? And crucially, can we have more? Stanford psychology professor  Jamil Zaki PhD , director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory there, studies these very questions. In a TEDxMarin talk, he says that human empathy is actually a skill that can be developed rather than a fixed trait. “Empathy is a simple word for a complex idea,” he explains. “Research psychologists understand empathy as an umbrella terms for multiple ways that we respond to other people’s emotions.” Why is empathy so important?  Some of the reasons are more obvious: “It inspires us to help family members, friends, and strangers,” says Dr. Zaki. “It helps us see past differences and...

How to deal with holiday stress: The psychology behind why family time can turn adults into moody teens again

#holidaystress #family #copingmechanism #conflict #Psychology No matter how far away from home we travel, most of us can’t escape our familial history — and the memories that come with it. Along with shopping, gift-wrapping and cookie baking, I’m prepping for the holidays by accepting that family stress may get the best of me. While I haven’t lived at home for over 20 years, conflict around heated topics like politics can make me feel like a misunderstood teen again. Listening calmly and objectively to my parents becomes harder and harder and I interrupt more. Once, I even rolled my eyes at my mom like a pouty adolescent. My behavior, however, isn’t meant to be disrespectful or cruel, even though it might look that way. It’s actually a normal coping mechanism known as regression. As a psychologist, I’ve heard hundreds of family tales similar to mine. For many of us, reuniting with loved ones during the holidays can feel like psychological time travel. There’s a rea...

What is Compassion?

via GIPHY #Sel-Compassion  #Psychology  #Empathy What is compassion and how is it different from empathy or altruism? The definition of compassion is often confused with that of empathy. Empathy, as defined by researchers, is the visceral or emotional experience of another person’s feelings. It is, in a sense, an automatic mirroring of another’s emotion, like tearing up at a friend’s sadness.  Altruism is an action that benefits someone else. It may or may not be accompanied by empathy or compassion, for example in the case of making a donation for tax purposes. Although these terms are related to compassion, they are not identical.  Compassion often does, of course, involve an empathic response and altruistic behavior. However, compassion is defined as the emotional response when perceiving suffering and involves an authentic desire to help. by Emma M. Seppälä Ph.D.

A Single Dose of CBD Reset the Brains of People at High Risk of Psychosis

#CBD #Psychosis #MentalHealth #Medicine #Neuroscience #Psychology #Weed P sychosis, a severe mental disorder characterized by a loss of grip on reality,  can include unsettling hallucinations and delusions . As no one’s been able to pin down a single cause of psychosis, it’s been even harder to pin down a treatment. But researchers behind a new JAMA Psychiatry study seem to be on the right track. In the study, they report that they’ve found a way to reset the psychosis-afflicted brain using an unlikely plant: marijuana. Researchers are increasingly finding evidence that the  active components  of marijuana can help ease symptoms in people with  epileptic seizures ,  chronic pain , and  post-traumatic stress disorder , but there’s much to be learned about its relationship to psychosis. The most well-known  cannabinoid  Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol — better known as THC — has  previously been linked  to the development of psychosis...