“YOUR EGGS ARE SHRIVELLING AND DYING INSIDE YOU! GET PREGNANT NOW!”
This essentially seemed to be the message I woke up to on Radio 4’s Today programme this weekend, where TV presenter Kate Garroway was championing the “Get Britain Fertile” campaign funded by First Response, the pregnancy test company. Continue reading
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) Edition V is in the limelight again. This new version of the American Psychological Association’s dictionary of mental illnesses is being released on May 18th. In the build up to this the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have released a statement announcing their intention to move away from the DSM diagnostic criteria. Continue reading
I spent last weekend in Devon, surrounded by the bright vibrant green which compared to London seems to be audaciously everywhere. Even the sides of a bypass by an industrial estate are lined with vivid green hedges. Continue reading
Why do we like looking at art that uses light and visual illusion? Light Show, at the Hayward Gallery, London, shows work from 22 light artists. Continue reading
I am feeling a sense of learned helplessness about what the coalition government are doing to the NHS.
Learned helplessness is a phenomenon associated with depression. A classic animal model of depression, learned helplessness occurs when an animal is repeatedly hurt or subjected to a nasty situation that it has no power to change. Continue reading
The Psychologist, magazine of the British Psychological Society, has updated its Reviews pages to embrace apps, films, TV shows and forms of media other than the written word.
January’s pages are here.
More juicy morsels coming up in February, including some Hobbit psychoanalysis.
Quite a nice post here on PsyBlog about 12 Christmassy psychology studies. Ho ho ho.
Matthias Lenke’s pictures of snowflakes give you a different perspective on the world
The recent death of Sir Patrick Moore, along with his magnificent eyebrows and his passionate enthusiasm for the stars, got me thinking about perspectives on the world. We seem to love looking at things that are either much bigger or much smaller than us. Continue reading
You don’t have to sit on a mountain to be able to do mindful meditation
Mindfulness meditation made it into a debate in the House of Commons this week, in the context of government explorations of ways to help people with mental health problems who are out of work. Continue reading
This year, for the first time, a television company funded a scientific research study. Not only that, but a research study which included people taking ecstasy live on TV. Channel 4 paid the costs of an experiment on the condition they could film part of it for a documentary: Drugs Live: the Ecstasy Trial. In the current climate of financial difficulties in higher education, this was no small gesture. University College London and Imperial College collaborated with the TV team in this novel way, which may provide a template for future science-media collaborations. Continue reading
Psychology magpie 