How Negative Energy Effects Adults, Teenagers and Children: What We Can Do To Change it
posted by Bob Livingstone, LCSW on May 21st 2013
"Negative energy has a profound effect on adults, teens and children. People who carry around this adverse attitude can appear to be very powerful to those in their presence. Negative energy is expressed by put downs of you or your friends. These comments are stated either directly to you or behind your back. The comments may be an accurate description of how this person feels or they may be made up in order to accelerate drama. " More...

Stressed at Work? You're Not Alone
posted by Carrie Steckl, Ph.D. on May 21st 2013
"Feeling stressed at work is certainly nothing new. We all know someone who is pulling his or her hair out in the cubicle - heck, it might even be us. But did you know that over 8 out of 10 people are stressed at work? That's right - according to a 2013 Work Stress Survey conducted by Harris Interactive and Everest College, a whopping 83% of employees report that they are seriously stressed out at work. Yikes! " More...

Critical Thinking is Not Critical, Just Looking for Truth & Reality: The Heart of Asking Questions That Reveal "What Is"
posted by Will Joel Friedman, Ph.D. on May 20th 2013
"There is rarely if ever all the information wanted, and decisions are made only upon what information is available anyway. Samuel Butler knew this in remarking, "Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises." The difference between information and the premises we derive from information is precisely what critical thinking aims to ferret out and this article addresses. " More...

Of Trauma and Psychological Resilience: The Cleveland Tragedy
posted by Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D. on May 20th 2013
"We seem to have an ability to endure lots of adversity. But, how much? How much can you endure beyond the daily and expected stresses that life brings with it? " More...

New York City's Correctional System Gets a Clue about Treating Mentally Ill Inmates
posted by Carrie Steckl, Ph.D. on May 17th 2013
"Imagine that you work at a prison and are faced with disciplining a mentally ill inmate. What would you do? Would you give the inmate a brief time out? Refer him or her to the staff psychologist to develop a treatment plan? Talk to the inmate to try to determine what may have triggered the disciplinary problem? These might all be good options. But according to an article in the New York Times, none of these strategies was practiced over the last several decades in the New York City correctional system. Instead, any inmate who broke the rules, whether or not he or she was mentally ill, was sentenced to solitary confinement. " More...

Sadistic Personality Disorder: The Cleveland Tragedy
posted by Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D. on May 17th 2013
"How is it possible that one human being can perpetrate such pain and suffering on other human beings as happened in Cleveland with the three women who were kidnapped as teenagers and held in captivity for ten years? Not only were they held captive but were beaten, raped and dehumanized in every way possible. Why... " More...

Breaking the Spiral of Negative Thinking
posted by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. on May 16th 2013
"When you’re feeling depressed, the part of your brain that is responsible for impulse control, executive function, and rational thought is not as active. This is the prefrontal cortex and studies have shown a reduction in activity in depressed brains. Yet, when depressed, the brain seems really good at making negative interpretations about all kinds of things and it seems so convincing and believable. What follows are physical lethargy, uncomfortable emotions or continued numbness, and more isolating behavior. Here is one good think to consider doing when depressed to nip downward spirals in the bud. " More...

On Becoming More Perceptually Objective, Empathic and Accurate: Or Getting Your Head Out of the Clouds of Negative Assumptions and Premature Judgments
posted by Mark Gorkin, LCSW ("The Stress Doc") on May 16th 2013
"After an exhilarating five days in the Tetons and Yellowstone National Park, the flight home quickly brought me down to earth. This trip also revealed how bias can easily cloud our thinking and judgment. The focus of this essay is about my capacity for too quick and negative assumptions about the sleeping mother's motives and seeming parental inattention. Actually, I had made a common perceptual mistake and misjudgment based on a social psychology framework called "Attribution Theory."" More...