The Essential Read

What, Me Worry? Why Worrying Does More Harm Than Good

By Jim Taylor, Ph.D. on April 16, 2013 in The Power of Prime

We all experience worry. We know that nagging feeling that something is wrong and the anxiety that it produces. Interestingly, thefreedictionary.com notes that “The ancestor of our word, Old English wyrgan, meant ‘to strangle.’ It was a small step from this meaning to the modern definitions ‘to cause to feel anxious or distressed’ and ‘to feel troubled or uneasy.'" Read More

Liberals and Conservatives Are Both Wrong About Teen Sex

By Michael Castleman, M.A. on April 15, 2013 in All About Sex

No matter what it does or doesn't teach, school-based sex education is a waste of money. Read More

The Crucial Nature of Media Literacy

By George Drinka, M.D. on April 15, 2013 in When the Media Is the Parent

Over the past few decades, we’ve seen the media permeate deeply into children’s lives. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation report sets the amount of media exposure for an average American child at eight hours per day, more time than with family or in school. Read More

When The Brain's Biological Clock Goes Haywire

By Berit Brogaard, D.M.Sci., Ph.D on April 13, 2013 in The Superhuman Mind

Patients suffering from psychological disorders are unable to properly coordinate events in time. They over- or underestimate time intervals ranging from several seconds to minutes. But what exactly gets messed up in the brain's time keeping mechanisms in psychological disorders? Read More

Performance Anxiety

By Vivian Diller, Ph.D. on April 12, 2013 in Face It

While you may assume performance anxiety is relatively rare, it's actually one of the most commonly reported symptoms among all social fears. And, unless you perform regularly, being in the spotlight is very challenging. If you expect it to be -- and prepare yourself using these tips -- then you may get through your performance with less wear and tear. Read More

The Guts Enough Not to Fight Back

By Christopher Bergland on April 12, 2013 in The Athlete's Way

In 1945 Branch Rickey, former President of the Dodgers, said to Jackie Robinson: “I’m looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back.” What lessons can each of us learn from baseball legend Jackie Robinson about mindfulness training and maintaining an evenness of mind? Read More

What Susan Patton, Princeton Snob, Gets Right

By Leslie C. Bell, Ph.D., LCSW on April 11, 2013 in Hard to Get

Susan Patton, author of an inflammatory letter to the editor of the Daily Princetonion last week, has been called a snob, a eugenecist, an anti-feminist, and clueless. I don’t deny that she got many things wrong in her letter. But the experience that she cites at a breakout session of the Women and Leadership conference held on the Princeton campus in February rings true. Read More

Homer and Homicide

By David McConnell on April 10, 2013 in Guy Vs. Guy

The Iliad, which recounts a couple of weeks during the penultimate year of the Trojan War, has long been our main cultural reference point when it comes to violence in battle. The poem exists in a kind of reputational haze as the preeminent “classic.” But when actually read, especially for the first time, the story is shockingly graphic and strange. Read More

Curbing Too-High Hopes for Children’s Success

By Susan Newman, Ph.D. on April 10, 2013 in Singletons

Parents fantasize about their babies before they are born. As the fetus moves in the womb, parents make predictions. As your child ages, being proud is very different from living vicariously through your child. Are your hopes too high? Read More

Irresistible Woman Fired by Married Boss?

By Scott Haltzman, M.D. on April 10, 2013 in Surviving Infidelity

After ten years on the job, Melissa Nelson got fired because her boss was infatuated with her. Not good for her, but is it good for the marriage? Read More

Autism Prevalence: Can It Be 1 in 50?

By John Elder Robison on April 9, 2013 in My Life With Asperger's

What does the latest autism prevalence report mean to us? What now? Read More

Women, Power and Margaret Thatcher

By Ian H. Robertson, Ph.D. on April 8, 2013 in The Winner Effect

Margaret Thatcher showed that the limits to women's power and leadership are social, not biological. But she also showed that women are almost as vulnerable to the cognitively and emotionally distorting effects of power. Read More

Is Arguing Really Bad for the Children?

By Terri Apter, Ph.D. on April 8, 2013 in Domestic Intelligence

We believe that parents should not quarrel in front of the children. Is this protectiveness or deprivation? Read More

My Ten Commandments for Marital Success

By Harriet Lerner, Ph.D. on April 7, 2013 in The Dance of Connection

The TEN COMMANDMENTS of marriage--or, hmmm...think of them as rules, or just pretty good ideas. Read More

The Great College Hoax

By F. Diane Barth, L.C.S.W. on April 7, 2013 in Off the Couch

My office was filled with tears and virtual (and some real) hair-pulling this past week as not just high school seniors, but their parents struggled to cope with letters telling them that their dream of getting into a top tier college was not going to coming true. Read More

13 of Psychology’s Newest and Coolest Ideas

By Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. on April 6, 2013 in Fulfillment at Any Age

Psychology is a field holding never-ending fascination. Whether or not you’ve taken a psychology course, you’ll find these 13 ideas, many of them fresh to the year 2013, to be ones that you can use in your everyday life. Even if you don’t actually use them, you’ll find them cool just to think about. Read More

We're Here, We're Queer, and We’re Willing to Work for Less

By Marina Adshade, Ph.D. on April 5, 2013 in Dollars and Sex

Two men are observationally identical and yet one earns 16% less than the other. Why? Because the lower income earning man has, at some point in the last five years, had sex with another man. That might sound like evidence of workplace discrimination, but new research argues that gay men are trading off higher salaries in favor working in more tolerant firms. Read More

The North Korean Dictator Is Behaving Rationally

By Ian H. Robertson, Ph.D. on April 5, 2013 in The Winner Effect

North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un is behaving rationally. The survival of his dictatorship depends on maintaining a sense of threat from the outside world, and empowering his impoverished people with images of military power and nuclear attack. But absolute power distorts rational judgment and there is a real risk of miscalculation. Read More

Savoring: Explaining the Happiness-Wealth Relationship

By Hal E. Hershfield, Ph.D. on April 4, 2013 in The Edge of Choice

The ability to prolong and enhance experiences might help explain the link between money and happiness Read More

The Mystery of Narcolepsy

By Meir H. Kryger, M.D. on April 3, 2013 in Sleep and Be Well

Patients with narcolepsy — a difficult and dangerous sleep disorder that can elude diagnosis — have the manifestations of REM sleep at the wrong times in the wrong places, sometimes with serious consequences. The three case studies I talk about here suggest that many doctors do not know enough about sleep disorders in general, and narcolepsy in particular. Read More

Find a Therapist
Find a nearby professional for face-to-face help