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Awareness: The Cornerstone of Changing Our Behavior
One of the most essential, crucial ingredients to happiness is awareness. Awareness is an incredibly powerful tool to help us change. Oh, I Didn't Realize That! Shortly after my wife and I were...
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Are all addictions created equal?
Years ago when I was just starting out as a substance abuse treatment counselor, I questioned the difference between being addicted to alcohol versus drugs. Like many, I was of the thinking that being...
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Beginner's Guide to Preconception Mental Health Care
About a year ago, my husband and I decided we wanted to have a baby. That makes it sound like we both came up with this idea; in reality, I explained that I desperately needed to have a baby now. He...
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New Treatments to Combat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
In the wake of disasters, accidents, abuses, and war, trauma survivors can face a host of problems including intrusive memories, nightmares, insomnia, irritability, hypervigilance, and emotional...
View ArticleWhy We All Need To Play
Last July I wrote an essay titled "Play, Play, and Play Some More: Let Children Be the Animals They Have the Right to Be." I had just had the pleasure of attending an incredible meeting called "Playing...
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All Isn't Fair in Love... Nor Work
A recent article in the New York Times investigated events and attitudes that led Apple to outsource the manufacture of its iPhone rather than continue to employ Americans to do the job.Betsey...
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Everyone Shines, Given The Right Lighting
Happiness interview: Susan Cain. I'm so excited for my friend Susan Cain. Her terrific new book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, just came out two days ago, and...
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And Now You Know the Rest of the Story (Thank you, Paul Harvey)
It's that time of year when we can all start feeling a little glum. The weather isn't so great. Germs are ricocheting from kid to kid, house to house. We end up stuck inside more, maybe on our...
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Why Isn’t Language Clearer?
Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me knows that I am addicted to puns. I know that they make everyone groan, but I just can't help playing around with the various meanings of words. I...
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Don’t Believe Everything Your Mind Says
For some reason, my publisher cut the best chapters from The User's Guide to the Human Mind. What happened to my haggis recipes and the chapter on Bigfoot? Actually, this essay didn't get cut; it's an...
View ArticleFriendship: The Whole Truth, Nothing but the Truth --- What Do You Think?
QUESTION Hi Irene, I've been reading your blog after googling to find out if anyone else had experienced similar issues to me. After recently spending some time away with a close friend, I realize I...
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How to Tell Someone at Work that He or She Smells
It is perhaps the most dreaded conversation managers face. Their brains race and their lips freeze because they have to tell someone with whom they work that he or she is emitting an odor that is...
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After a Diet, Your Body Remains Addicted to Food
A recent article by Tara Parker-Pope called "The Fat Trap" was a revelation for me as to why I sometimes feel like I'm addicted to food.Briefly, the article emphasizes what many of us chronic dieters...
View ArticleDo Romney and Gingrich Display An "Inner Life" Problem?
Both liberal and conservative political writers have been commenting on the negative public reactions to Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, despite their being the leading Republican contenders for their...
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How the Mind Creates Ideas
More and more quantum physicists are speculating about a correlation between how our creative minds process thoughts and the way the universe works. University of Oxford's mathematician Roger Penrose's...
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Words Can Be Your Relationship Deal-breaker
The reasons that relationships untangle and marriages end in infidelity or divorce might well be tracked to three key deal-breakers: money arguments, disagreements about children, and unkind words....
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Does Diagnosing Occur To Make The Clinician Comfortable?
Humans spend a lot of mental energy attempting to control the uncontrollable. People attempt to make sense of things. Yet, if you believe the world's great existential thinkers, the world is chaotic,...
View ArticleDon't know enough? Not good enough? Think again.
Grace* teaches in a school for at risk children. These youngsters can be extremely difficult, but other than occasional in-service training days, the administration does not offer the teachers much in...
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