We were all saddened by the recent apparent suicide of Master Corporal Sylvain Lelièvre of the Canadian Forces. It was the fourth reported suicide this past week alone. Every suicide is complex and we can never know exactly which factors go into one person’s decision. Mood is affected by our temperament, our biological makeup, and [...]
Tag Archives: trauma
Can I Go Back There?: Understanding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
I hosted our annual Mini-Psych lectures again in 2012. The first three lectures are posted on our website (Mini-Psych 2012) and the last two should be ready in the next week or two. As part of the series, I gave a talk entitled Can I go Back There?: Understanding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, in which I [...]
Pavlov rears his ugly head
I once walked out of a restaurant with two colleagues just as the bell rang at the elementary school across the street. The three of us, all in their forties at the time, slumped our shoulders and said, “Damn! Recess is over.” This little anecdote illustrates a simple psychological reality called classical conditioning. Any stimulus [...]
