Description: Do you think you would be able to tell if someone close to you was contemplating suicide? There ARE things you could/should look for (more on those below). However, how do you think a mental health professional (Psychiatrist, Clinical Psychologist, Psychiatric Nurse, or Social Worker) would respond to this question? Does the typical “what… Read more »
Posts By: Mike Boyes
Fascinated With The Dark Side? Consider the Light Side!
Description: At least intellectually, we tend to be drawn towards the dark side. Why this may be is perhaps due to a belief that understanding the darker personality profiles that people around us may be operating under better equips us to notice and to protect ourselves from being taken advantage of. Within personality theory and… Read more »
How ARE Childhood and Adult Stress Levels Linked?
Description: We are seeing more and more research in recent years examining the physiological and developmental consequences of stress. For example, we now better understand the ongoing impact of developmentally early traumatic experiences on subsequent development and psychological functioning and well being at both an observational level and increasingly at a physiological causal level. We… Read more »
Research on the Impacts of Screen Time: What should it look like?
Description: Even if you are barely paying attention you cannot have missed media accounts and speculations regarding the impacts of screen time on development in childhood and on wellbeing among adolescents. Before we push panic buttons and start to crusade against another new technology (like we did about television a few decades ago) we should… Read more »
If Rats Have Empathy Do We Understand What Empathy Involves?
Description: How would you define empathy? Would feeling another person’s feelings capture it or at least part of it? Some sort of positive response would likely also need to be included in the definition, but it could be seen to follow from the first part. So how do we feel what someone else feels? We… Read more »
Wild Thing …. You Kama Muta Me
Description: There are a broad array of human emotions. Think of how many basic emotions you can name. Now, a harder question: Are there feelings or emotions that are hard to name or that, while we know them when we feel them or when we see them being experienced by others, we cannot come up… Read more »
What Could Possibly Be Adaptive About Buying Into Fake News?
Description: If you believe another person is not thinking properly about something what is the best way to get them change their mind and to think more clearly? If you thought that showing them some facts would be a good idea you are not alone as that is what most people think, especially when the… Read more »
Addiction to Heroin, Internet Gaming, or Cats: Where and How to Draw a Line
Description: Answer this question quickly off the top of your head: Is it possible for someone to become addicted to internet gaming? If you said yes, think about whether you mean that it is possible for someone to become genuinely addicted to internet gaming like someone could become addicted to heroin or whether you mean… Read more »
Clever Horses, School Children and The Pygmalion Effect
Description: What do horses that seem to be able to spell and do math, grade school children, and stereotypes of poor people or smokers have in common? The Pygmalion Effect. Well that is not enlightening but what about expectancy effects and not their own expectancies but expectancies or assumptions that other have about them? How… Read more »
Ralph Metzner: A Life Linked to the 1960`s, LSD and Human Consciousness
Description: While it might seem like ancient history to some the 1960’s were not that long ago (well OK, it was over 50 years ago). What have you heard or read that the 1960’s were known for? Student activism, Vietnam war protests, and experimentation with recreational drugs. Related to all of those things was an… Read more »
Books for Success!
