Your Doctored Autobiography
From Why All Indiscretions Appear Youthful (NYT):
In recent years psychologists have exposed the many ways that people subconsciously maintain and massage their moral self-image. They rate themselves as morally superior to the next person; overestimate the likelihood that they will act virtuously in the future; see their own good intentions as praiseworthy while dismissing others’ as inconsequential…Now, scientists are beginning to learn how memory assists and even amplifies this righteous self-messaging. In piecing together a life story, the mind nudges moral lapses back in time and shunts good deeds forward, these new studies suggest — creating, in effect, a doctored autobiography.
Shoulding
CBTer Judith Beck uses a client vignette to look at guilt and the “shoulds.”
John holds certain values quite dear and believes he is violating those values when he doesn’t quite live up to them. He is plagued with the shoulds: I SHOULD work harder; I SHOULD be a better husband/father/son/sister/community member. Every time John perceives that he is failing to live up to his exacting standards, he criticizes himself. He always feels he is lacking in one important area or another. John doesn’t have a psychiatric disorder. He isn’t suffering deeply. On the other hand, though, he doesn’t have peace of mind…
And here, a PT blogger provides a simple antidote: “I wish…” “I’d prefer…”
Neighborhood Depression
A unsurprising study says that where you live affects your mood.
“One of the things we tried to assess was essentially community support — to what extent people in that neighborhood turned to others for child care, other forms of assistance — and whether they socialize and know each other. And it’s clear that in these negative neighborhoods there’s this inverse relationship in terms of their various problems and lack of strong ties.”
Socializing Time
Want to be more social? Think about time, a study says.
Does thinking about time or money make you happier? A new study…finds that people who are made to think about time plan to spend more of their time with the people in their lives while people who think about money fill their schedules with work…
Personality Delays Depression Treatment
False negatives in assessing depression occur with the outgoing and bubbly, a study says.
“When a person who has enjoyed socializing and whose mood normally is positive becomes depressed, friends and family often don’t recognize it. Depression is inconsistent with the expectations that people have…”
MBSR, Year One
On my blog at Psychology Today, a brief interview with Trudy Goodman about the dawn of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in anticipation of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s UCLA appearance this Wednesday.
Full Catastrophe Living (pictured) is Kabat-Zinn’s big book of MBSR. If you’re just curious and testing out mindfulness, you might try Wherever You Go, There You Are instead. Short and sweet.
Parents Need Sleep
A Q&A about the sleeplessness that comes with parenting.
Chronic insomnia has been linked to a range of medical problems, from loss of concentration to high blood pressure…But can getting up throughout the night to tend to new baby cause long-term health problems as well?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (For Free)
It’s free clinic day again at SCCC. Just show up 2-6pm today (Oct 3, 2010) at 5615 W. Pico to get some one-on-one CBT help. Not sure what CBT is? Here’s my rundown.
Couples Therapy
About.com helpfully rounds up the wisdom about couples therapy in Does Couples Counseling Work? and Benefits of Marriage Counseling.
There are people who stay in an unhappy marriage until the resentment builds and they feel they have no choice but to divorce. They don’t voice their unhappiness, they go with the flow hoping something will change and the problems will be instantly solved. Then there are those who “try” with everything they have to make the marriage work before they leave. These people are problem solvers who feel they owe it to the marriage to try to find solutions to the problems before they throw in the towel.
The one thing both have in common is that they rarely go to marriage counseling.
Looking for couples therapy in L.A.? Call or write to discuss what you’re going through and arrange an appointment: (323) 610-0112.
Being a Baby
Jonah Lehrer asks What’s it Like to Be a Baby?
[B]abies don’t have a spotlight of attention: They have a lantern. If attention is like a focused beam in adults, then it’s more like a glowing bulb in babies, casting a diffuse radiance across the world. This crucial difference in attention has been demonstrated indirectly in a variety of experiments. For instance, when preschoolers are shown a photograph of someone – let’s call her Jane— looking at a picture, and asked questions about what Jane is paying attention to, the weirdness of their attention becomes clear. Not surprisingly, the kids agree that Jane is thinking about the picture she’s staring at. But they also insist that she’s thinking about the picture frame, and the wall behind the picture, and the chair lurking in her peripheral vision. In other words, they believe that Jane is attending to whatever she can see
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