Tag Archives: psychology

Thought intruders

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Photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterharding/This week I wanted to push people down the escalator at London Bridge station on more than one occasion. I also had strong images of punching a man in the face who kept pushing his backpack into my legs on the 06.54 train from East Dulwich. The trains can be grim when they are especially crowded, but I have never actually punched anyone in the face, nor pushed anyone down the escalator. I have had these intrusive thoughts before though, just like about 80-90% of the non-clinical population (summarised nicely by Clark, 2005). Continue reading →

New Year’s Resolutions: it is possible to stick to them

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Pondering my own New Year’s resolutions this year led me to looking up what research has been done on this phenomenon. A very well-written paper from 1989 by Norcross & Vangerelli describes the origins of the New Year’s resolution. Apparently resolutions hail from Roman times, when people promised the two-headed God Janus that they would behave better. Janus looks both forwards and backwards and is whom the month of January is named after. Continue reading →

Let’s talk about sex

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Sex differences in brain connections found in a recent PNAS article have caused a media stir. The BBC reported that “men and women’s brains are wired differently” and that this might result in differences between what each sex does well. A backlash of comment debated whether this is a helpful position for gender equality, and whether the media story had covered the science accurately enough. Continue reading →

Age discrimination against ‘young people’ is alive and kicking

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A friend stumbled across this poster in the Lake District at Halloween. It reminded me of a sign that used to be up in our local corner shop when I was at school, prohibiting more than two children in the shop at the same time, in case of shoplifting. Because of course ALL children shoplift. And of course ALL “young people” are only going to buy eggs and flour to throw at other, presumably “old” people. God forbid that any of them might actually be BAKING. Continue reading →

Is Facebook addictive?

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In the wake of the National Security Agency (NSA) information sharing scandal many are questioning their use of social media sites and what they share over the internet. Yet how many people will actually come off Facebook? I wasn’t as surprised by the NSA story as many people seemed to be, but security aside I’m not convinced that Facebook does much to improve my quality of life. If anything it makes me more distractible, less efficient, and more likely to waste time looking at other people’s lives rather than live my own fully. So why is it so hard to leave it? Sure, there are rational reasons why I like it: I hear about social events on there, it connects me to international friends, I enjoy seeing other people’s pictures. But is there something else that hooks me in? Is Facebook addictive? Continue reading →

Writing about intense emotions makes us happier and healthier

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Baz Luhrman’s version of The Great Gatsby begins with Nick Carraway in a psychiatric asylum, talking to who is presumably his psychiatrist or psychoanalyst (clinical psychology didn’t exist in the 1920s, nor did Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) or no doubt Carraway would be having 6 sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy on the phone). Continue reading →