As a clinical psychologist I normally deal with people’s unwanted emotions (and my own for that matter). Yet the fact is most of our emotional reactions are normal ones, whether they are wanted or not, and they can’t all be “treated.” Sometimes our best option is to live with them…as best we can. Of course all [...]
Category Archives: Happiness
Distorted self-perceptions
As a psychologist, I sometimes joke that most clients fall into one of two broad categories. The first group (the majority) are those that think very little of themselves. For these people, my job is to try to convince them they are not as bad as they believe. Then there are the rest, the ones [...]
Long-term pain for short-term gain
“Stimulus-driven.” That’s how I used to describe my son Tommy when he was young. Having spent seven years in a Vietnamese orphanage, his arrival in Canada introduced him to an entirely new set of stimuli, especially at the dinner table. Whenever he liked something he would pile more helpings of it on his plate even [...]
The value of the pursuit
My first car was a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle. I bought it in 1981 when I was a student. I had no money in my budget for repairs so I bought a book called; How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Instructions for the Complete Idiot. It worked. I was indeed a complete [...]
The Power of Positive Thinking?
We are always told to think positively. I couldn’t agree more. Despite an occasional tendency to complain, I consider myself to be an optimist in general. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to think positively. Many people believe that saying positive things to themselves is the answer. If only life was that simple. In last [...]
How good is this post?
I have a confession to make. I sometimes make careless mistakes with my writing. Although I don’t like to let obvious grammatical or spelling errors slip by, I figure the alternative is worse. The alternative is spending an inordinate amount of time checking my posts and columns for accuracy. Frankly, I’d rather be golfing, or [...]
A great attitude…a great life
A friend of mine sent me a link to a site that she thought I might like (especially since I wrote a post on a similar topic on October 29, 2007). It is a video of a lecture given at Carnegie Mellon University given by Dr. Randy Pausch, a professor who has only a few [...]
Being in love and feeling secure
Ever since I was a kid, I heard expressions referring to insecurity such as, “He’s so insecure.” I never did quite know what it meant. It seemed to describe many people. Basically, anyone with anxiety about anything was described as insecure. Now that I am a psychologist, I use the term myself, but I do [...]
Christmas memories and the symbols that evoke them
I was struggling with what to write this week. Last year I wrote something called My Christmas Wishes and I thought I could come up with a new list. Well, nothing came. I then thought I’d try to address the idea of managing Christmas stress, a topic that comes up every year (media outlets always [...]
Depression and self-confirming negative biases
In today’s Metro column, I tell a story of how depressed people, or those who tend to think poorly of themselves, are always finding proof for their beliefs.The idea of a negative schema (a strongly held belief, or what is often called a “core” belief) is important in the treatment of depression. In cognitive therapy [...]
