What Is Shadow Psychology?
Carl Jung was a famous psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, and one of the founders of modern-day psychology. He developed theories about why we think and feel the way we do. One of his major philosophies involves the meaning of the unconscious parts of the human personality. Jung and fellow theorist Sigmund Freud had many ideas about…
What is Catharsis in Psychology?
The meaning of catharsis in psychology continues to evolve. Originally, it was viewed as the conscious expression of feelings repressed due to a traumatic incident. Later, it was seen as an outburst of emotion that leads to a sense of profound enlightenment. In modern psychology however, catharsis can be defined as any form of expression…
The Myers-Briggs Personality Test: An Overview
Personality has always been a hot topic for psychologists and mental health professionals that wanted to shed light on the human mind’s vast complexity. When Psychoanalyst Carl Jung developed his theories on the subject, they were considered groundbreaking, and paved the way for the creation of one of the most popular personality assessment tools, the Myers-Briggs…
What is Hebephilia?
Hebephilia refers to the primary or exclusive adult sexual interest in pubescent individuals ranging from age 11-14. Hebephilia is differentiated from pedophilia, which involves exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children (up to age 13 according to diagnostic criteria). Both of these conditions are noted as types of chronophilia, sexual preference for a specific physiological appearance related…
What is Stendhal Syndrome?
If you’ve ever been to a world-class art museum, you likely saw some pieces of art that you found to be truly awe-inspiring. But, while viewing these masterpieces, did you experience the following symptoms: rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion, or hallucinations? If so, you may have experienced what’s known as Stendhal syndrome, a very rarely…
What is Apophenia?
Identifying patterns is a part of the cognitive process. On an evolutionary and biological level, recognizing patterns helps people survive. On a relational level, it helps individuals connect and relate to one another. However, this this mental process can also malfunction. Apophenia refers to the tendency to make connections between seemingly unrelated things. It happens…
Understanding a Conditioned Stimulus and Its Role in Psychology
Most people have at some point heard of Pavlov’s famous dog. Ivan Pavlov was a Russian psychologist famous for study on conditioned stimuli. He took dog food (the natural stimulus) and paired it with a bell (the neutral stimulus). The bell would be rung and the dog would be given food. After repeating this procedure…
Social Isolation and Seeking Help
Human beings have an innate need to connect with others. Psychological research has consistently demonstrated that there is a close correlation between the quality and quantity of close relationships people have, and their physical and emotional health. Emotional support and friendship act as important buffers to stress and have a direct impact on self-esteem and feelings of…
Petrified of Needles? You Have Trypanophobia
It is no secret that many peoples are not fond of needles. Nobody likes their arm to be wrapped in a tight tourniquet, only to be poked and prodded until blood is drawn. Unfortunately, needles are a necessary evil, as they are utilized for vaccinations and to assess a person’s general state of health. Children…
Knowing When It’s Time to Seek Therapy
Mental health conditions have long been stigmatized in our society. Individuals have been unfairly blamed for their symptoms, belittled, demeaned, and discriminated against. Ignorant and uneducated people have wrongly assumed that symptoms of mental health could be controlled better if the person only tried. Symptoms have been minimized and erroneously assumed to be insignificant or part…
How To Be Better Not Bitter
In life, particularly as you age and endure more life experiences, it can be easy to succumb to bitter feelings. Bitterness about not getting that job you really wanted. Bitterness about the one that got away. Bitterness that you make less money than your coworker who doesn’t work as hard as you. Bitterness about that…
7 Foods That Make You Happy
1. Banana We all know that bananas are full of potassium, which is good for counteracting the effects of sodium in the body and balancing blood pressure. But did you know that banana can literally make you happier? That’s right! Bananas contain a substance called tryptophan, which is an amino acid. The body converts this…
Is Smiling the Best Medicine?
Think about it, have you ever had one of those days, just everything seems to be going wrong and you’re really in a slump? Then suddenly, there’s a little smile. Maybe your coffee barista dazzled you with a smile, or you passed someone walking a dog that you just had to pet, and a little…
Finding the Work, Life Balance with ADHD
Work-life balance can be a complex and intricate juggling act. If you drop one ball, you risk dropping them all. A person needs to figure out how to keep balls pertaining to work deadlines, household responsibilities, parenting, socialization, financial responsibilities, and self care all suspended in the air at the same time. This can be…
Skin Picking Dermatillomania, Is It a Disorder?
Dermatillomania, also known as skin picking disorder, is classified as an impulse control disorder and pertains to continuous and compulsive picking of the skin. Dermatillomania is classified in the DSM-5 under the category of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related disorders and is a body-focused repetitive behavior. Skin picking disorder tends to have an onset in adolescence, but…
Can Binaural Beats Help Your Quality of Sleep?
In today’s fast paced society, sometimes getting to sleep can be a bit of a challenge. Worries and restlessness have a tendency to intermingle with sounds and noises, making sleep somewhat elusive for part of the population. For others, sleep may come easily, but can be of poor quality. These are the people who sleep all…
My Therapist Left Town, What Can I Do to Keep it Together?
Hollywood movies have reaped big incomes from topics such as this, but let’s deal with reality: Losing your therapist is not amusing. Let’s look at how you can keep yourself together and come out smiling. The first thing to do is to face your pain. Stare it down, acknowledging every aspect of it. You might…
Link Between Learned Helplessness and Mental Illness
Some of the best scientific discoveries seem to happen by accident. Penicillin, the microwave, and the inkjet printer are examples of some serendipitous discoveries. The psychological concept of learned helplessness was another accidental discovery. Psychologists, Martin Seligman and Steven Maier, were originally studying the relationship between classical conditioning and animal behavior when they accidentally discovered…
What is Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy?
People work through personal struggles all the time. Some find different types of treatment helpful anywhere from medication, to therapy, to accountability through friendships. At a certain point, the treatment and the effort people put into change comes to fruition. They find themselves where they want to be. While there is relief in progress and…
What is the Locus of Control?
Locus of control is a person’s perceived amount of control they possess in their daily life. There are two types of control people have: internal and external. Internal locus of control focuses on each individual having control over their own life. External focus of control focuses on outside influences and factors that could have control…
Can Culinary Therapy Really Help?
The word “food” can mean many different things to a person, depending on their relationship with it. For some, food is comforting. For others, food is stressful. Similarly, the art of cooking food can be positive or negative experiences for someone, depending on who you ask. Cooking and preparing food are tasks that requires a…
The Benefits of Crying
Contrary to the beliefs of some, crying is an important component of mental health and wellness. The benefits of crying are often unrecognized, overlooked and under- appreciated, as it can be good for us both psychologically and physiologically. Those who consider it a sign of weakness may want to challenge this assumption and belief pattern….
Kleptomania and Why it is Complicated
Kleptomania is a relatively rare mental health disorder characterized by the recurring inability to resist stealing. People with this condition have experienced repeated, unsuccessful attempts to quit stealing. The urges and actions taken are not based on financial or monetary need. In other words, items that are stolen are not needed, have no monetary value…
What Are Nightmares and Can You Prevent Them?
Nightmares are very realistic and distressing dreams that wake you from sleeping. Nightmares occur more frequently during REM sleep which is the deepest part of sleep and where most dreaming takes place. Dreams in general can be different for each individual. There are certain recurring dreams or nightmares that people have in common including falling…
The Benefits of Smiling
As I’ve indicated in past articles on this page, smiling is good for physical and mental health. It causes a cascade of supportive chemicals to fill the human body. They include neurotransmitters, messengers traveling between your brain and body parts, called endorphins. They’re the happiness chemical and the reason that you feel relief after a…
Onychophagia AKA Nail Biting: Is It Pathological?
Onychophagia is a nail biting habit on more of an extreme level. Some nail biting habits are temporary or not very damaging. However, onychophagia is a long term and destructive habit that involves serious nail biting that is that is damaging to the nails and surrounding tissue. It is considered a pathological behavior and labeled…
5 Important Tips for Supporting Someone with PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves the mental and emotional stress a person experiences after going through some sort of trauma. Trauma can occur in one major event (like war or sexual assault) or events over the course of time (like chronic abuse). For many people, the trauma experienced leaves them struggling to manage high anxiety,…
Do We Really Repress Painful Memories?
The quick answer is yes, we really do repress painful memories. Not all bad memories are repressed. People still remember things like someone close to them passing away or abuse during childhood. However, there are certain painful memories our brains allow us to forget on a conscious level. It is our body’s way of protecting…
Pessimism– How to work to change it
You probably know pessimistic people and you might even be one yourself. Let’s skip past the consequences of choosing a pessimistic attitude that you probably know all about: Attracting toxic friends and love interests, Missing out on opportunities that you envy when other people enjoy them, Losing jobs, friends, stuff, happiness, a sense that life…
The Difference between Empathy & Sympathy
Empathy and sympathy or often used as if they are interchangeable. In reality, they mean very different things. While some might read the slight differences in the definitions as just semantics, there are important distinctions between the two words. More importantly, these two words elicit different emotions and different responses. The person providing empathy or…
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Your Motivation
Everyone has needs of some sort. If you are around a newborn or a young child even for a few minutes, you understand the importance of meeting needs. When a baby cries, they usually need something whether it is food, comfort, or even a diaper change. As people age, some of their needs evolve while…
Dentophobia: Why are You Scared of Dentists?
Most people likely do not enjoy going to the doctor or the dentist. At best, it is inconvenient and simply disrupts your day. At worst, it can be completely unsettling and even terrifying for some people. Even if you have a clean bill of health every time you go and you have never had a…
Semantic Memory: What is it and Why is it Important?
Researchers have long studied the way human memory works to determine how memories are stored both short and long term and the functions and purpose of memory storage. When people think about memory, it is common for them to first think about how their own experiences in life get stored in their brains and how…
What is Déjà Vu and Why Do We Feel It?
Perhaps as you are reading this, you are overcome with the odd feeling that you have read this article before. It is strangely familiar, but for the life of you, you cannot quite put your finger on where or when you have read it in the past. Then, your eye catches the date and you…
What is Proximity Psychology?
The idea of proximity psychology is the tendency to develop close relationships with those who are geographically near us. Relationships take time to build. We are going to have better and easier opportunities to develop relationships with people we see on a regular basis. The more contact we have with someone, the easier it is…
Do You Have Survivor’s Guilt?
Mental health professionals frequently discuss the aftermath of terrible tragedies to help understand the impact that these events have on those who survive them. Many describe those who endure terrible, tragic things as experiencing what is often called “survivor’s guilt”, or feelings of guilt that impact the way they feel about their actions during the…
What is Social Comparison Theory and How Does it Affect You?
In this day and age, social media has become a necessity, a way of life, as opposed to a fun way to pass idle time. Local law enforcement utilizes Facebook to catch criminals, businesses use Twitter to promote themselves, and products are featured and sold on You Tube. In addition to these logistical purposes, more…