Do you remember where you were when you heard about the 9/11 attacks? Or about the bombing at the Boston Marathon? Those are flashbulb memories – vivid, detailed and imperfect.
The process of therapy is challenging and takes courage.
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If you or someone you care about experience an emotional problem it won’t be long before you hear that cognitive behaviour therapy, or CBT, is probably the treatment of choice.
Shame can hurt, but it can also be used to motivate positive behaviour.
Rob/Flickr
Public shaming has a long history and has now gone online through social media. But shame can also be a powerful force to encourage positive behavioural change.
Uncertainty is an unavoidable part of life but for many people, it triggers harmful levels of stress. The good news is that there are a number of things you can do to handle uncertainty better.
Studies have shown that mentioning misinformation – even in the process of combating it – can cause it to stick in listeners’ minds.
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The idea that we can achieve happiness by maximising pleasure and minimising pain is both intuitive and popular. The truth is, however, very different.
It’s time for lovers to exchange images of the organ really responsible for their emotions on Valentine’s Day.
Emil Jeyaratnam/The Conversation
In William Shakespeare’s comedy Merchant of Venice, the play’s heroine Portia sings: Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head. If you look at Valentine’s Day cards, it’s clear fancy…
Distraught Seattle Seahawks fans after their team lost the Super Bowl.
Jason Redmond/Reuters
“The worst call in Super Bowl history,” read a headline in my hometown Seattle Times after Seahawks’ head coach Pete Carroll seemingly threw the game away with his ill-fated decision to pass – rather than…
The tweet is mightier than the sword.
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The British Army is bringing in a new brigade, specialising in psychological warfare, and particularly the use of social media. Whereas the infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineers have been staple units…
Peter Sarsgaard stars as the psychologist Stanley Milgram in the new film The Experimenter.
BB Film Productions
Why have the landmark psychology experiments of the post-war era proved so enduring? Designed as dramas about human behaviour, experimenters drew on theatrical techniques and tailored their results for…
Security conscious. Behind Boris Johnson’s analysis of terror.
BackBoris2012 Campaign Team
Last week, London’s mayor Boris Johnson generated a largely negative reaction when he described European jihadis as “wankers” – people who feel they are failures and that the world is against them. Now…
Don’t leave your peace of mind behind.
Jaromir Urbanek
If you forgot your phone at home, you may get a sense of being incomplete in some way, the itch you just can’t scratch each time you reach for your absentee phone. Our phones have become such integral…
The sex ratio in your community may affect what you’re looking for in a relationship.
Hearts image via www.shutterstock.com.
Hoarding looks weird and is often cruelly parodied on television, where shows suggest that the solution to a compulsive desire to keep stuff is simply a matter of heroically chucking it out. But for those…
“I will definitely give up smoking – that’s my New Year’s resolution,” she stated emphatically as she thumped her fist on the table to underline her determination. “All very well”, I thought, as I sat…
Do we need religion in order to be moral? George Washington cautioned against “indulg[ing] the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion”, and today more than half of Americans believe…
People do disgusting and disruptive things on airplanes. They show little regard or patience for fellow passengers and their needs. Inconsiderate behavior on the part of passengers can make air travel…
A woman views the floral memorial outside the fenced off Lindt Chocolate cafe in Martin Place in Sydney.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
It’s the question everyone is asking – could the Sydney siege have been predicted and therefore prevented based on the past behaviour of gunman Man Haron Monis. Monis’ troubled history was well known to…