Clown Therapy
British people hate clowns, get help: UK Circus Offers Therapy for Clown-Fearing Adults.
A circus touring Britain has launched a unique “clownselling” service aimed at overcoming peoples’ fears associated with its show’s starring duo, a spokesperson told NewsCore on Wednesday.
The free workshops allow those suffering from Coulrophobia — the fear of clowns, rated as Britain’s third biggest phobia behind spiders and needles in a recent poll — to confront their feelings and even access their own “inner clown.”
A Female Sex Pill?
NYT: Push to Market Pill Stirs Debate on Sexual Desire
[M]any experts say that unlike sexual dysfunction in men — which has an obvious physical component — sexual problems in women are much harder to diagnose. And among doctors and researchers, there is serious medical debate over whether female sexual problems are treatable with drugs. Some doctors advocate psychotherapy or counseling, while others have prescribed hormonal drugs approved for other uses.
Your Best Face
New feature at OKCupid helps ID your most alluring profile picture with the help of other users. Comes alongside this iffy move: OKCupid Hides Good-Looking People From Less Attractive Users. Unsavory–though a Consumerist commenter may be onto something re the attractive users thing:
I think it’s just a ploy, I received the same email too and my matches don’t seem to have changed. Probably just a way to draw people back in that haven’t been signing in as often.
Depression and Weight Gain
NYT (again): Exploring the Links Between Depression and Weight Gain.
In a society enamored with thinness, many assume that being fat is depressing — that if there is a cause and effect relationship, it’s obesity that makes people feel down. But “there is an alternative explanation,” said Belinda L. Needham, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, “and that is that being depressed actually makes you gain weight.”
The Neuroscience of Contemplation
Another from the Google lecture series.
Richard J. Davidson [explores] recent scientific research on the neuroscience of positive human qualities and how they can be cultivated through contemplative practice.
What Babies Know
Study at ScienceDaily: Babies Grasp Number, Space and Time Concepts.
“We’ve shown that 9-month-olds are sensitive to ‘more than’ or ‘less than’ relations across the number, size and duration of objects. And what’s really remarkable is they only need experience with one of these quantitative concepts in order to guess what the other quantities should look like”…
Patient Voices
At NYT.com, the Patient Voices page features patients talking about a variety of psychological (and other) ailments, including ADHD,OCD, Bipolar Disorder, Eating Disorders, and so on…
Change Your Mind, Change Your Brain
Another in the Google lecture series, this one from scientist-turned-Buddhist monk, Matthieu Richard, author of Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill.
Mindsight, The Lecture
Daniel Siegel speaking as part of the Google Personal Growth Series last year, around the time he published Mindsight.
A Little Book on the Human Shadow
Something to consider reading: A Little Book on the Human Shadow, by Robert Bly.
You may know Bly as the author of men’s movement tome, Iron John. He’s also a poet, public speaker, and engaged reader of lots of psych lit–particularly Carl Jung, Alice Miller, and Marie Louise von Franz.
Shadow reproduces a series of readings by and interviews with Bly, tied together with Jungian themes. Who or what do you hate? Take a careful look. It may be that the qualities you despise most are the very qualities you were encouraged (or forced) to refuse yourself as you were growing up–irresponsibility, carelessness, greed, rage.
Bly encourages reconnecting with these despised traits–to honor the items stowed “in your bag.” How? Art, expression. Especially helpful is an exploration of how these “shadow” dynamics play out in romantic relationships. Not unlike the longer, less poetry-filled, more widely read Getting the Love You Want, by Harville Hendrix. Take your pick.