You are browsing the archive for media.

Shaken Babies and the Struggle for the Soul

March 13, 2009 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

The father of Camryn Wilson, the first baby born in Summit County, Ohio in 2008, has been sentenced for shaking the baby to death. Sentenced to a term of 15 years to life, the 29 year-old man will probably serve 20 years in prison. To his credit, he offered no excuses for his crime. Stressed from an argument with the mother, he couldn’t tolerate the baby’s incessant crying. He insisted on a guilty plea, even though the autopsy showed evidence of previous abuse that might have implicated others and clouded prosecutorial certainty, as his lawyer, no doubt advocated. Hopefully, the young man is on a path to recovering his soul. Apart from recapitulating my post made at the time of the early adjudication of the case, I can’t help but wonder at the symbolism of the media using victims of the Madoff scam as a symbol of loss, when, as a country, the loss of this child is so much more damaging.    

Read the original here:
Shaken Babies and the Struggle for the Soul

Five Reasons A Smart Young Woman Adores TWILIGHT (Part 2 of 3)

March 10, 2009 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

 In Rebecca’s own words: I never thought I’d be one of   those obsessive, maniacal, “OME”-ers (“OME”   stands for “Oh My Edward!”), especially since I mocked my sister endlessly when she first started reading the TWILIGHT series. I’d automatically lessened my opinion of people when I found out that they were followers (yes, followers).  But one night, sick of constant mockery, my sister handed me the initial volume. “Read a hundred pages,” she ordered, “and if you don’t like it, you can stop.”  Unfortunately for my pride and self-esteem, I made it far past the first hundred pages. In fact, I finished more than half of the 500-page book that night—and I didn’t start reading until 11:30. But because I found myself so quickly sucked in, I couldn’t stop thinking about why —why these books? Why this fascination for “Edward”? What is it that is so exceptionally obsessing about these books? When Gina asked me to explain my obsession, she asked for ten points. I thought a little bit, and then wrote the number ten at the top of the page. As I started to write, I realized how difficult it was to explain exactly why these books are so beloved. So here are my five best tries at explaining pop culture’s most recent obsession:   5. It is anything but realistic. Reading Twilight , I think of it as an alternate reality that I am a part of in some way or another; and Meyer includes enough specifics and details to make our image of that reality three-dimensional and vivid. For one, half its characters are vampires, but more than that, it ignores most high school or relationship clichés and is something completely different. It abandons, well, common sense, which would (I hope) require the main character to be alarmed, not flattered, if she found out a boy was spying on her every night. Because of the books’ other-worldly nature and the simplistic style of writing, it becomes easy to read them as you might read a trashy magazine—without thinking, without questioning, without making any connection to real life. And this is lucky, since the book really falls apart if you probe it any further. Sure, you can discover some pretty annoying messages without looking too hard—ahem, abstinence—but I found it quite easy not to think about messages at all. The books seem entirely detached from reality and are written, well, like drugstore novels, and thus seem separate from the world of political messages and life lessons.   4. Suspense. Since it is after all a vampire story, we for once don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. I admit that I have atrocious taste in movies, but in most movies I see, I can predict exactly what’s going to happen. And while I clearly enjoy that, since I go back to see new versions of the same movie every weekend, I also like not knowing exactly what’s going to happen—will he kill her? (Doubtful, since there are four books.) Will he leave her? (Again, doubtful, though he flirts with it in the second book.) Will she become a vampire? Yes, I have heard people call it boring, but, personally, I have never read faster—I literally ripped pages as I turned them. 3. One reason why I was so invested in the characters is because I, like every other reader, identified with Bella. I think she has a personality, certainly more defined in the book than in Kristen Stewart’s sullen representation of it in the movie—but I do know how easy it is to project yourself onto her. I read Bella as a more upbeat character, an essentially happy and outgoing girl, while my more quiet friend read her as slightly more brooding and intense. In any case, in uniting myself with Bella in my mind, I became that much more invested in the story—and in what is my next point…   2. Edward. It would be impossible to discuss the obsession with Twilight without addressing the pivotal character of Edward. The obvious explanation for the obsession as that all these girls are in love with this boy–myself included. Why? Besides the danger aspect (bloodsucking, death, eternal condemnation, and so forth), the best reason I can come up with after many months of thinking about this is that he exists solely for the needs and desires of Bella (i.e. the reader). He is rarely preoccupied with his own problems, which you’d think, as he’s a vampire, would be plentiful, and devotes himself entirely to her—exhibit A, he stays with her every night. Oh, and he loves her unconditionally.   1. Finally, it is very easy to see the Twilight -obsessed girls as a kind of cult. And, indeed, that’s a bit what it felt like when I first started reading. I was welcomed in with a “Isn’t he great ?” by my friends who were fellow obsessives—though not , I am proud to say, by any weird, preteen, Edward-devoted websites. Though the hearty welcome didn’t really make me feel any cooler for having read the book, it was kind of a thrill to be joined in this alternate reality by your friends—to discover that what you thought was a private universe that took place in your room was actually shared by people you know (and millions of others, predominantly twelve-year-old girls—though I prefer not to think about that). Ultimately, Twilight becomes more than a book—it is an experience.   (Next post: Five Reasons A Middle Aged Woman Loathes TWILIGHT)

Go here to read the rest: 
Five Reasons A Smart Young Woman Adores TWILIGHT (Part 2 of 3)

Sweet Caroline indeed

January 26, 2009 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

Caroline, it’s not you…it’s us. Okay? Why, you might ask, does a parenting blogger care about the issue of Caroline Kennedy’s recent foray into senatorial politics? The word is nepotism, my dears. Parents (except parents who are famous and/or well-connected) don’t like nepotism, and, as times get tougher for all of us, especially our children, parents like it less and less. Ms. Kennedy is obviously an accomplished lawyer, author and public-spirited soul. Yes, she evokes the grandeur of the JFK era. She can raise money. She came aboard the Barack juggernaut early and enthusiastically. She has, above all, name recognition. But didn’t it occur to Ms. Kennedy or those around her that name recognition can be a liability as well as an asset? To politicos who need to raise money, name recognition is a boon. But to struggling folks who are terrified about their kids’ prospects in a very competitive world, the question "Why should she get the job just because she is the daughter of a president?" is very real, and very compelling. As a therapist who sees teenagers and their families, I am constantly made aware of parents’ wishes to help their children get a leg up. Kids can get good grades, have stellar accomplishments and scintillating personalities, and still get rejected from top-flight colleges (not to mention the job world thereafter). If the parents are well connected, the kids have a better chance; we all know it, and few hesitate to use it. But the entire nation is still high from celebrating the up-from-nowhere victory of a man with a funny-sounding name, raised by his single mother, with no apparent advantages except mammoth quantities of intelligence, discipline and good old-fashioned grit, and with no obvious connections to anyone with name recognition. Does this sound like the time for anointing the relatives of the famous? Why is this so difficult to understand? The punditocracy all seemed to be in Caroline’s corner, and couldn’t see why anyone wouldn’t be. For example, Maureen Dowd in the New York Times (teetering precariously, as usual, somewhere between over-the-top snarkiness and certifiable insanity) was wild for the Kennedy bid, just as she is now snarling "Kirsten who?" about the new senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand. But the public was clearly, as opinion polls showed, less than wild for Caroline. The only commentator who seemed to be in touch with the public mood was Susan Dominus, in her "Big City" column in the Times . I am happy to let Ms. Dominus speak for herself (the italics are mine): "Maybe [Kennedy] started to sense that this moment was not hers- that what people are really embracing, in the new president and his family, is the flat-out miracle of their rise through a meritocracy …The spectacle of the Obama’s family success would be heartening at any point in history. But people probably never need to believe in the self-made man or woman more than when they’re feeling broke and scared." Amen, Ms. Dominus, and, as someone who listens every day to the scared, I salute you. We can still wonder why no other media types seemed to read the Zeitgeist correctly. But then, why should the well connected be aware of how the unconnected feel? I myself followed the Kennedy story in the papers and also on MSNBC. They’re the outfit that hired Luke Russert right out of college to be on-air talent for a national network. By the way, does that name sound familiar?   © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Original post:
Sweet Caroline indeed

Would you take this Intro Psych Course? [Of Two Minds]

January 20, 2009 in Blogs, Brain & Behaviour by BrainAndBehaviour

From the syllabus: Why Psychology?! Psychology 100 is the most popular course at nearly every university and there’s a reason why. The science of psychology covers an amazing range of topics. After all, the mind can do many amazing things! Oh yeah, it also fulfils a GenEd requirement ;) Nearly everyone probably has a different idea of what psychology actually is. That’s not surprising since even people who have been in the field for many, many years still disagree what should be a part of psychology and what should not. Psychology covers topics ranging from depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia to how we generate and understand language, to why we have a particular cell in our brain dedicated to Halle Barry. Some ‘psychologists’ even study things like extra sensory perception (ESP) – although we won’t be studying that in this class (or probably any other class in the psych department). Our goals for this class will be for you to explore two basic ideas: 1.) What do Psychologists study? 2.) How does Psychology impact my day to day life? By investigating these two ideas through the course readings, attending and participating in class, and being diligent in your studying I hope that you will be able to both get a great grade in this course and understand what Psychology is. You will be able to critically explore its place in society as well as the media which so awfully messes it up most of the time. Is this way too much hand wavy b.s.? Or… would you rather see this as a replacement? General Information: This course is a general survey of the field of psychology. Topics include perception, learning, memory, thinking, motivation, emotion, personality, development, intelligence, therapy, psychopathology, and other areas of psychology. Read the comments on this post…

View post: 
Would you take this Intro Psych Course? [Of Two Minds]

The Superbowl of Mind Control

January 18, 2009 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

Squarely in the midst of the ‘is television mind control’ discussion is my very favorite medical emergency of the past 50 years. In 1997, 700 Japanese kids had near simultaneous epileptic seizures. And those were just the ones who were rushed to hospitals-so those are the only ones we heard about. Really, it could have been thousands. Japan’s version of the CDC went crazy. Seven hundred kids, simultaneous seizures, no clues. So weird it almost seems like television. Turns out it was television-or sort of. The reason for the seizures was later to be determined to be a program that aired an amped-up version of Pokemon. The crazy flashing lights is what did those kids in. And the power to induce changes in the brain that severe-yup, that’s what’s coming out of the box in our living rooms. University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszsentmihalyi and Rutgers University director of media studies Robert Kubey also figured this out when they used EEG technology to monitor brain waves during TV viewing. What they discovered is that TV viewing effectively acts like a narcotic-inducing both relaxation and passivity. If viewing continues this leads to drowsiness which later becomes depression which gives way to further reasons not to leave the couch. This is what we call "the cycle of addiction." But there is something of a difference (though often hard to detect) between addiction and mind-control. One is a choice, a difficult one perhaps, but a choice. The other, especially in its most effective form, removes the possibility of that opportunity before we even notice. This brings me once again to sports-or, sports journalists at least. Bill Simmons, the wry ESPN columnist, recently wrote a piece on erroneous sport’s predictions- it was sort of a over-the-top lifetime anti-achievement review. About two pages long and packed with media references. He goes from "The Longest Yard" to Ryan Seacrest faster than you can say Alfred Hitchcock-which he also says. There are a long couple of graphs devoted to his watching of the four-part Karate Kid marathon, in between watching playoff football. There are video games references and commercial references and Tony Bennet references. The whole piece is one giant admission that this guy does almost nothing but watch TV. And that’s on top of all the other TV he has to watch simply to be a sportswriter-which, as a sportswriter, I can tell you is considerably more than physically possible. And Simmons isn’t alone. Tune into almost any sports radio show and they’re filled with TV talk. Same thing with their television cohorts. Sports journalism has become de-facto advertisement for the rest for television, a shame since the thing that makes sports so wonderful is they’re one of the only forms of spontaneous entertainment left. Also, because sports is an on-going conversation, people who love sports also love listening to people talk about sports. And the people who talk about sports are also talking about how their lives are built out of television-which is fine way of giving the rest of us permission to do nothing but watch television. It’s really the most effective kind of propaganda-the kind we want to hear. Not all that much different from McDonald’s selling hamburgers to stoners. And considering that TV is now considered a public health catastrophe, just about as unhealthy.           © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Continued here: 
The Superbowl of Mind Control

Golden Globes, Oscars and the Droning Horrors of Thank You-itis

January 13, 2009 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

The 1st Golden Globe Awards show, sponsored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), was held in January 1944 at the 20th Century Fox studios in Los Angeles. The 66th   Awards were presented on January 11, 2009 in Beverly Hills, California. The Golden Globes are awarded every January, based on votes from around ninety (yes 90) international journalists living in Hollywood and affiliated with media outside of the United States. The Golden Globes is one of the three most watched awards shows on TV, the first two being the Academy Awards and the Grammies. You might think that the powers that be at the HFPA would bring down the hammer on so much really, truly, emphatically tedious and unnecessary time being spent by so many winners on thanking everyone who ever breathed on them, from their managers, agents, spouses, significant others, to their children, teachers, inspiring enemies and kindly strangers. Oh, did I forget pet Geckoes? Unless someone who is receiving an award is as witty as Brits such as Emma Thompson, who can thank people in her entourage and make it sound like an hilarious sitcom pitch, it should be required that thank you speeches be written by tried and tested comedy writers. Or,they should be limited to funny or poignant anecdotes and maybe a thank you to the HFPA since it provides the ceremony, the awards, AND the endless champagne flow which often loosens lips, sink ships, rubberizes legs and causes podium amnesia. The litany of "I want to thank…" read off a scrap of paper or torn Louis Vuitton price tag is quite boring and mostly meaningless to everyone but that person being mentioned. A personal, hand-written note on fine linen paper, a calligraphied "thank you so much for being there for me," delivered by someone dressed in livery should be sufficient. After all, would a person receiving an award be dropped by an agent or manager if he or she was not thanked on prime time TV? In Hollywood? Forgeddaboutit. Your value is in your earnings and your earnings figures "pop" when you win awards. As for obsequious manners and etiquette, save it for the IRS audit. If award winners know they are not permitted to disgorge a bolus of names known only to people in the "industry," then they can spend less time worrying about forgetting someone and more time working up a creative, even witty acceptance speech. Yes, people being tongue tied or verging on an anxiety attack or overcome with adrenalin may, on occasion, be funny-scary, moving, or exciting. Take Sunday night’s winner for best actress in a comedy or musical, Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky. She approached the lectern in the throes of hyperventilation from surprise, confusion, unpreparedness, and a BMI of -3; or when Ari Fulman, the Israeli writer/director/winner of the Golden Globe for best foreign language film, the animated, anti-war Waltz With Bashir, expressed his hope that war in the Middle East will, in the not too distant future be looked back upon as an historical curiosity, essentially a dead issue ( Enshala, Bizrat Hashem ). Or recall Cuba Gooding who lit up the stage and almost scaled the wall when he won the Oscar for his "show me the money" role in Jerry Maguire.   And Heath Ledger’s acceptance speech spilled out from the minds of the audiences. Mostly, though, award acceptors are compulsive thankers because they’re thinking about their next job, sucking up, making breathless appreciation an art form while not looking too ecstatic about beating out the competition. As for those who say they didn’t prepare anything because they didn’t think they were going to win but sure remember to thank their agent and the studio and, and, and… well, that’s why there in the acting profession. It’s all about faking sincerity, isn’t it? Don’t misread me. I truly enjoy watching award shows. I wish they would telecast more of them, like, say, the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) annual award show. It’s much more literate than most. And, yes, while most writers are not eye candy celebrities, some celebrities are there to hand out some of the awards and amuse the crowd. And some writers are buzz makers, like Diablo Cody (who wrote the marvelous Juno ). And, hey, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon won Oscar and WGA awards for their screenplay for the film Good Will Hunting. Not bad. Worth a look. In terms of irreverence or casualness bordering on outrageousness, I think the Globe show is almost as good as the Independent Spirit Award show (best independent films and performances).  The latter is real casual. Usually held in the afternoon. In a tent in Santa Monica. Overlooking the Pacific ocean. Very anti-establishment.  Indie Award actors are generally most playful and funky and annointed movies and actors tend to be, well… more independent-minded. Both Globe and Spirit award shows are generally more enjoyable than the Oscars because celebrities and winners tend to be more relaxed, less phony and exhibit less overt networking and fawning over the power brokers, maybe their next employers. They all, to greater or lesser degrees, must get over this "thank you-itis," and give the TV audiences the respect they deserve. Most award shows carried on TV only have their real financial profit by virtue of people tuning in to watch them. By contrast, there’s much less of thank you-itis on the Tony Awards (Broadway shows). The Tony show is one hour shorter than Globes and Oscar shows (smaller audience). But shorter may be better. Maybe allowing so much biz "kiss, kiss, call me, where would I be without you, ducky? " verbal smooching contributed to the Golden Globe’s telecast sinking to a record low TV audience, according to the overnight Nielsen ratings . That klunk puts the 2009 ceremony at a 26% decrease from the last full ceremony in 2007 (the WGA strike derailed last year’s ceremony). A thought: The Golden Globes’ and the Oscars’ ratings have been sinking like GM stock or Dubya’s approval scores. You gotta wonder — is it the economy, a decaying, senescent audience, or just too many outbreaks of thank you-itis? © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Original post:
Golden Globes, Oscars and the Droning Horrors of Thank You-itis

by Vaughan

Remote Diagnosis Disorder

January 12, 2009 in Blogs, Mind Hacks by Vaughan

I’ve just found this funny post on ‘Remote Diagnosis Disorder’, satirising the tendency for people to diagnose each other with mental disorders on the basis of nothing but whims and prejudice. People afflicted with this personality disorder suffer from an uncontrollable urge to diagnose individuals as suffering from one or more psychological disorders, specifically individuals which the RDD sufferer has had little or no direct personal interaction with. RDD sufferers often diagnose specific mental illnesses and may go so far as to offer treatment suggestions. Rather than conducting a formal psychological exam, including a structured face-to-face or verbal evaluation, RDD sufferers are inclined to make snap diagnoses based on data such a very brief personal interaction, the opinions of third parties, asynchronous and/or indirect interaction (such as email), and the imaginary neuro-associations they’ve created for the people they diagnose. It’s particularly pertinent with the current tendency for media to obsess over the mental health of celebrities often digging up media commentators to give their arm chair ‘diagnoses’. For example, the media provisionally diagnosed Britney with schizophrenia , histrionic personality disorder , bipolar disorder , post-partum depression , multiple personality disorder , drug addiction and post-partum psychosis , to name only a few that turned up in a five-minute web search. You may be interested to know that most associations for mental health professionals ban the discussion of specific people in the public eye, because ignorant speculation from afar can be harmful, and if you’ve actually worked with the person you’re bound by medical confidentiality rules. Link to Steve Pavlina on ‘Remote Diagnosis Disorder’.

Read the original here: 
Remote Diagnosis Disorder

How Many Sloppy Seconds in a New York Minute?

December 5, 2008 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

Is that George Carlin I hear laughing from beyond the grave? When he died a few months ago, we posted a humble tribute to the great man and Psychology Today carried an excellent in-depth interview by Jay Dixit. Were curious George alive today, we’re pretty sure he’d be cracking up at the recent indefinite suspension of hockey-playing loudmouth Sean Avery. Apparently, Avery made an off-color remark about how a couple of his former girlfriends were dating other hockey players, using a phrase, composed of two innocuous words that somehow, when put together, become explosive: nitrogen and glycerine, sloppy and seconds. Watching the various news outlets desperately try to dance around the phrase without stepping on their own flat feet was most entertaining — especially since neither the phrase nor either of the words composing it have been declared officially verboten up til now, as far as I can tell. But now that the NHL’s offended enough to suspend the guy, no more sloppy seconds for anyone, apparently. Maybe we’re about to expand our habit of humiliating ourselves by saying stupid things like "the c-word" by expanding the inanity to "the s-s phrase." "In today’s news, another hockey player has been suspended for refering to his ex-girlfriend as ‘the s-s phrase.’"  It’s only a matter of time. There appears to be a tipping point at which we somehow determine that enough of us know the secret meaning of a heretofore obscure word or phrase that we have to stop saying it publicly. It’s an amusing process to watch, since knowing the hidden meaning means we all know what we’re avoiding, which makes the effort to avoid it seem what, hypocritical? Absurd? Delusional? It’s a funny thing: we seem to believe in the magical power of words. Don’t believe me? Try saying, out loud, the following sentence: "I hope my children get cancer." Even if you can do it, it feels downright creepy, right? It goes the other way, too. Remember when it was offensive to say something "sucked?" Well, no more. Whatever its salacious origins, the word is now as acceptable as oreo cookies. A few years ago, Seth Stevenson amusingly argued in Slate that we should all just relax and use the word freely without thinking of its, you know, meaning.  Which is fine by me, but why not apply that line of reasoning to all the other still-offensive words we use in ways not aligned with their literal meaning, like doctors prescribing drugs "off-label?" Strangely, it would be acceptable to say I though the film Rachel Gets Married sucked, but it would be offensive to say that watching it f*cked up my night. Go figure. Hypocrisy is like lying: you start out small but before you know it, you’re drifting into the emptiness, like an astronaut’s toolbag. © 2008 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Here is the original: 
How Many Sloppy Seconds in a New York Minute?

Thick Skin Pays Off in Leadership

December 1, 2008 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

Women still dodge low balls in the public sphere . They are ready to brush off personal attacks to focus on what matters to them in politics or in the workplace. Whether we are talking about Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, we all agree that thick skin pays off in leadership positions. The most humiliating moments for either one of these two candidates may have been when their personal lives were questioned: for Palin, needing to "prove" to the world that her youngest son was really hers and not her daughter’s (a lioness in defense of not one but two of her cubs) or putting up with the media’s criticisim of a woman not being able to be a good mother and an effective leader at the same time. While hers has been a recent bout with the sometimes heartless media, Clinton’s putting up with her husband’s infidelity disclosed to the world while in power has been public for years. After something as embarrassing as her marriage made public, I don’t believe there is anything that nominee for Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, can’t face. These women have what it takes in a tough world: they have thick skin. Pros of having thick skin in the workplace: 1. Although most people like to be liked, others strive on getting things done regardless of whether they win the popularity contest or not. 2. Disregarding both hurtful and senseless criticisms will allow you to focus on the bottom line, the common goal, without being distracted by personal attacks. This does not mean that leaders don’t listen to others’ advice; it just means they should be able to filter personal attacks and dismiss them. 3. Inner strength shows itself not when the world is praising you but when others are critical. It is easy to feel powerful when everyone around you is smiling at you, but the criticisms truly show who your true friends and foes are. Some cons about having thick skin in the workplace: 1. Many see this inner feeling of self-assurance as outward arrogance, creating distance between the leader and his or her employees. 2. Because others may perceive this "arrogant" leader as cold, robotic, and manipulative, many will suggest that the leader does not care about or even understand them. 3. This strength may be perceived as unemotional in others, particularly if the leader is a woman. The gender expectation is that a woman leader is generally more dramatic or more emotion-driven. Food for thought: Do you have thick skin or are you a drama queen? What are the advantages you’ve observed in leaders with thick skin versus the prima donnas? When is it a good idea to have thick skin and when is it a good idea to speak up about unfair comments? Do you notice gender differences in the way men and women control their emotions in the workplace? © 2008 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

See the original post:
Thick Skin Pays Off in Leadership

The Missing Ingredient in Weight Loss

December 1, 2008 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

No wonder most people struggle with losing weight and keeping it off. No one ever taught them how. It’s not just a matter of willpower and a healthy eating plan. To be successful, you have to learn a set of cognitive (thinking) and behavioral skills, that, I predict, you’ve never learned, much less mastered.  For example, I would bet that you don’t know the precise steps to:   motivate yourself every day get yourself to use good eating habits consistently, even when you don’t want to cope with hunger, craving, and the desire to eat get back on track immediately when you make a mistake deal with feelings of unfairness, deprivation, discouragement, and disappointment handle restaurant and special event meals deal with people who push you to eat food you’re not supposed to.   I’ll cover these skills and more in this blog. To reinforce these skills and learn more, you can read The Beck Diet Solution book and workbook and The Complete Beck Diet for Life . I want you to know it’s not your fault that you’ve struggled. You just didn’t know how!             © 2008 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Read the original post:
The Missing Ingredient in Weight Loss