Valentine's Day Resolution: Install Love 2.0
"Oh, man, I hate Valentine's Day!" I hear this a lot in my office as February 14th approaches. Since I focus on helping people create healthier relationships, you can probably guess why. Valentine's...
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How Spanking Harms the Brain
Spanking erodes developmental growth in children and decreases a child's IQ, a recent Canadian study shows.This analysis, conducted at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, offers new...
View ArticleThe Most Efficient Way to Practice
The old cliche has it that practice makes perfect, but what makes for perfect practice? One of the first scientific bits of insight came over a century ago, when one of psychology's great pioneers --...
View ArticlePublic Speaking (and Book Promotion) For Introverts
My fellow Texas blogger, Sophia Dembling, recently wrote a wonderful post about the challenges of book promotion for introverts. I loved reading her interviews with the writers and discovering kindred...
View ArticleProviding "Contributory Activities" for Children with ASD
Many years ago while gathering information for my book The Self-Esteem Teacher I asked approximately 1,500 educators to answer anonymously a brief questionnaire. The first question asked, "Please...
View ArticleHappy Valentine's Day - Are You Listening?
She: “You need to work harder on this relationship?” He: “What the f— does that mean?” When a woman says the above to a man, he scratches his head and thinks, “Do I need a shovel, do you want me to fix...
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The Right Hemispheric Processor: A Different "Twice-Exceptional" Learner
I am standing in a small closet off the school's main office. It is a cramped space. No less than six fire proof file cabinets line the wall behind me as I pore over the contents of a folder laid out...
View ArticlePTSD Energy Therapies
After reading Dr. Norman Doidge's remarkable book, The Brain that Changes Itself, I tracked Doidge down by phone at his office in the University of Toronto to ask whether neuroplasticity (see my...
View ArticleSex and Violence: Male Warriors Revisited
A recent scientific paper advances the Male Warrior hypothesis, according to which men are evolved to seek out violent conflicts in order to get women. In a blog here on Psychology Today, I challenged...
View ArticleThe Income-Achievement Disparity: New Study, Old Problem
A recent analysis conducted by Sean F. Reardon for the Russell Sage Foundation book entitled Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances deserves serious attention by...
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Problem With Procrastination? Try This: Do Nothing
Just about anyone who has ever put off a troublesome task is familiar with one of my Secrets of Adulthood: Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination. When there’s some chore you...
View ArticleThe Inclusion of PMDD in DSM-5
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) have gotten a bad rap. Who can forget the dramatic PMDD ad that ran over a decade ago, where a woman kept struggling with her...
View ArticleHow to Respond to Insults from your Teen
Have you seen the video about the father who shoots his daughter's laptop?At the time I had viewed it on you tube, it had about thirteen million views. I read the description, and became surprised. So...
View ArticleSexy and Depressed
We are told the old adage, "when you look good, you feel good." We are sold the notion that for women to look good, they should look sexy. The media, in particular, presents a very specific image of...
View ArticleBoss Zuckerberg
How to Be a Successful CEOIn all the attention given to Facebook's public offering, it has been repeatedly emphasized that Mark Zuckerberg will retain complete control. The public can buy stock but it...
View ArticleShould You Romance the Dieter in Your Life With Valentine's Day Chocolates?
One of the easiest verbal traps into which we can fall is to respond to the question, "Do I look fat?" A negative response is believable only if the person asking the question is indeed thin. If the...
View ArticleIs It Time to Reconsider the Purpose of Amateur Sports?
Thirty million children are involved in youth sports in North America, under the direction of 4.5 million coaches and 1.5 million administrators. When these programs place inordinate emphasis on...
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Beware the Ides of February!
It was snowing last week in Rome. The pope made an appearance at St Peter's in a white coat, and the Colosseum was closed. But in Italy, the middle of February is usually the beginning of spring. A...
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Stack the Russian Nesting Dolls
“like the picture on the Quaker Oats boxthat shows a figure hold up a boxupon which is a picture of a figureholding up a boxand the figure smaller and smallerand further away each timea picture of...
View ArticleDogs Are Our Oldest Friends
As I have explained in previous blogs, dogs were the first species to be domesticated by humans—and vice versa, of course. New evidence shows they were domesticated long before anyone thought: at least...
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