Hypnotherapy centre opens in Burnham - Clacton and Frinton Gazette

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Hypnotherapy centre opens in Burnham Clacton and Frinton Gazette Jane Williams, 45, of Tillingham, has been working in the field of physical treatments for several years, training to become a qualified hypnotherapist this year. Hypnotherapy is a form of psychotherapy used to create subconscious changes in patients, ... and more »

Hypnotherapy centre opens in Burnham - Maldon and Burnham Standard

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Maldon and Burnham Standard

Hypnotherapy centre opens in Burnham Maldon and Burnham Standard Jane Williams, 45, of Tillingham, has been working in the field of physical treatments for several years, training to become a qualified hypnotherapist this year. Hypnotherapy is a form of psychotherapy used to create subconscious changes in patients, ...

Hypnosis Might Help Treat Anxiety | Inverse - Inverse

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Inverse

Hypnosis Might Help Treat Anxiety | Inverse Inverse Hypnosis brings up images of hokey magicians in capes, swinging pocket watches, and people clucking like chickens. But in real life, hypnotism doesn't turn ... The Secret of How Hypnosis Really Works | TIMETIME This is your brain under hypnosis | CosmosCosmos Study IDs Changes in Specific Brain Areas During Hypnosis | Psych ...PsychCentral.com (blog) all 4 news articles »

Jody lost 39 pounds

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Jody lost 39 pounds. Learning how to fuel her body with proper nutrition and working out hard were key to her success. She also had a great coach and support group that helped her stay motivated. Check out her journey. What was your motivation? What really motivated me during my journey was seeing the weight and inches […]

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August 31, 2016 at 02:37PM

Fossil skulls reveal that blood flow rate to the brain increased faster than brain volume during human evolution

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Fibromyalgia responds to exercise - Idaho Statesman

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Fibromyalgia responds to exercise Idaho Statesman They also don't recommend biofeedback, capsaicin, hypnotherapy, massage, SAMe and other alternative therapies, and are strongly against chiropractic manipulation. EULAR did, however, offer a “weak recommendation” for mindful meditation, acupuncture ... and more »

Mantra for Peace - Aades Tisay Aades(iii) | DAY31 of 40 DAY SADHANA

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#Hypnosis; Female Hypnotist Brooke's Magic Hand induction - #ASMR #NLP

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Solfeggio 528Hz + 963Hz | Raise your Positive Vibrations | Miracle Tones

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Scientists call for regulations for brain stimulation devices sold directly to consumers

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Brain-Zapping Gadgets Need Regulation, Say Scientists and (Some) Manufacturers (IEEE Spectrum):

“Just a few years ago, the idea of electrically stimulating your brain in the comfort of your own home would have sounded pretty weird, and probably like a bad idea.

But the practice of brain-zapping—in particular, an easy-to-pull-off technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)—has quickly advanced from labs to living rooms. DIYers are building their own devices and trading tips online, while startups are bringing out consumer products.

With that as the backdrop, a group of neuroscientists and manufacturers met in New York City on Sunday 28 August to discuss potential regulations for brain stimulation devices sold directly to consumers…The group’s guidelines will also recommend that people with neural or psychiatric conditions consult their physicians before using any brain stimulating gadget. That category includes people with conditions like depression, anxiety, and addiction, who are already turning to DIY treatments using homemade or commercially available tDCS rigs…Some companies claim not only that their devices treat disorders like depression, anxiety, addiction, and chronic pain, they also boast of improving cognition, memory, and social skills. Many DIYers seem most interested in these enhancement possibilities of tDCS. ”

To learn more:

• Too early? Brain stimulation device Thync fails to get traction in the minds of consumers
•  Tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) as depres­sion treat­ment: much promise, some DIY risks
• 10 Neurotechnologies About to Transform Brain Enhancement and Brain Health

Under what con­di­tions does brain train­ing work? from SharpBrains

It Isn’t Our Fault: Being in Love with a Narcissist

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Note: Although I share thoughts from personal experience and refer to the narcissist as male, narcissism is not discriminatory.

Maybe you are feeling a desperate need to try and salvage a relationship you intuitively know is unhealthy and imbalanced; or maybe you are wondering why you can’t “let go” and “move on” from the loss of your relationship. It’s possible that you are in love with a narcissist, and now owning the blame for all the sudden problems or downfall. A narcissist is someone who will enter our life and consume our entire existence all for selfish benefit. Understanding the whirlwind and accepting the finality of a relationship with a narcissist will show that we possess tremendous value.

We are smart and confident, so why did we allow ourselves to fall for the narcissist?

He is too skilled to reveal any red flags when we first meet him. He is drawn to our beauty, kindness, and selfless nature because of his own emptiness. The narcissist will be attentive, generous, and impressive, at first. He will charm us with compliments on every small detail giving us attention with such intensity that we believe he is our “soul mate.”

Enchanting promises will be made that make us feel alive and invincible, and he will spend exorbitant amounts of time with us. We will quickly be mesmerized and feel so exhilarated, adored, loved, and then…

Almost instantaneously, the relationship will twist.

Time together will dwindle leaving us confused and craving any small amount of attention from him. We try to connect and share our accomplishments, but he will minimize our effort and make us feel inconsequential. We try to look beautiful for him, but the attention is gone. Intimate moments will leave us feeling used and insignificant.

The partner that once made us feel like royalty is now making us feel insecure and needy. The partner who was affectionate is now a stranger. The narcissist has taken our power to feed his own warped ego.

Why are we hanging on to this relationship?

Our emotions felt heightened so intensely and quickly, and in a blur the table turned leaving our head spinning. We now feel blindsided, angry, and betrayed. It’s almost as though our heart couldn’t catch up with our brain quick enough to understand. So, we are left constantly questioning what went wrong.

We no longer feel a connection to him and wonder if the person devoid of all emotion is the same person we love. We fear the happiness we remember was just a fabrication in our mind. The narcissist has robbed a piece of our soul and we desperately want it back. This is a deeply confusing and emotional process because intellectually, we thought we knew better.

We are assertive and attempt to resolve these relationship issues, but he is so adept at projecting and leading us to believe whatever happened is our fault.

Simply questioning the narcissist will cause him to push further away and punish us with the silent treatment. Being ignored feels so horrid that we will forget why we were upset with him and apologize emphatically to try and win his forgiveness. He preys on this kind of attention, and is incapable of recognizing any personal fault. Our self-esteem has plummeted and our self-respect has diminished.

The narcissist will not show awareness or remorse for the imposed hurt so we assume the downfall was our fault.

We have become so intertwined in making this person happy that we will exhaust and lose ourselves in the process. We start to question our own morals wondering if we deserve this abusive treatment. We start to feel obsessed with “fixing” what is broken in order to feel better, and the more our efforts are ignored, the more persistent we become. We question who this person is that we are chasing and start to feel “crazy” because nothing is changing. It’s a losing battle because after depleting all we can give he no longer has any use for us.

The inevitable downfall with a narcissist.

This relationship is bound to end when we are no longer a conquest and cannot fill the emptiness the narcissist feels inside. The ending feels so awful because we put all our energy and effort into pleasing someone who was never going to genuinely reciprocate, and is too self-absorbed to acknowledge our pain.

The partner we once trusted has completed the narcissistic cycle of abuse and needs to draw the energy and innocence from a new victim. He will end the relationship just as quickly and smoothly as it began, and the coldness and apathy leaves us feeling worthless. He will cut off contact so callously that we feel so defeated and want to curl into ball and disappear. But, this experience has not been in vein, and regardless of how painful the ending feels, it is a gift.

Accepting reality and moving on.

Being under the narcissist’s spell is not our fault and recovering from this will take time. The most important first step is to commit to “letting go.” There is nothing positive that will come from seeing him after all this inflicted damage. We need rebuild and empower ourselves from this experience.

Solicit support from trusted loved ones and make a plan for when there is temptation to reach out to him. Making this commitment will bring relief as the poison is released from our body, mind, and soul. The air will feel fresher and we will welcome healthy people and kindness into our life, slowly beginning to feel like ourselves again.

Overcoming this emotionally torturous experience will produce a stronger self and allow us to feel more attuned, perceptive, and emotionally intelligent. Let’s take the time to define our convictions, keep our heart open and full of courage, and we will find our way to the loving fulfillment we deserve.

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Abraham Hicks - Stepping into alignment where your power is

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Abraham Hicks - Pull back the vibration that is not in your advantage

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Abraham Hicks 2016 - Feeling true love anyway (new)

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COMING SOON!

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DRS. OZ AND ROIZEN: Fibromyalgia responds to exercise - Dubuque Telegraph Herald

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DRS. OZ AND ROIZEN: Fibromyalgia responds to exercise Dubuque Telegraph Herald They also don't recommend biofeedback, capsaicin, hypnotherapy, massage, SAMe and other alternative therapies, and are strongly against chiropractic manipulation. EULAR did, however, offer a “weak recommendation” for mindful meditation, acupuncture ...

Alzheimer's Drug Shows Promise in Small Trial

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Patients who received the antibody therapy had reduced levels of amyloid protein in their brains after one year

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

The Ironic Effect Depression Has On Managing The Emotions

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The unexpected decisions depressed people make when regulating their emotions.

People who are depressed often do little to improve their mood, even when given the chance, a new study finds.

In fact, their choices often make them sadder, the research found.

Ms Yael Millgram, the study’s first author, said:

“Our findings show that, contrary to what we might expect, depressed people sometimes choose to behave in a manner that increases rather than decreases their sadness.

This is important because it suggests that depressed individuals may sometimes be unsuccessful in decreasing their sadness in daily life because, in some sense, they hold on to it.”

Managing and controlling your emotions is an important part of everyday life.

The researchers looked at the decisions both depressed and nondepressed people made in this regard.

In one trial people looked at happy, sad and neutral photos.

Participants were then given the choice of which photos to look at again.

Ironically, depressed people were more likely to look at the sad photos again.

In another trial, the researchers used happy, sad and neutral music.

Again, it was the sad music that was chosen by 62% of depressed people, as opposed to only 24% of nondepressed people.

Ms Millgram said:

“Depressed participants indicated that they would feel less sad if they listened to happy music and more sad if they listened to sad music, but they picked the sad music to listen to.

We were surprised that depressed participants made such choices although they were aware of how these types of music would make them feel.”

Why depressed people should chose to reinforce their depressed mood is not yet known.

Ms Millgram said:

“The most urgent task for us is to try to understand why depressed people regulate their emotions in a manner that increases rather than decreases sadness.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Milgram et al., 2015).

• Read on: Depression: 10 Fascinating Insights into a Misunderstood Condition

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Related articles:

PsyBlog’s new ebook, “Spark” is a step-by-step guide to using psychological techniques to achieve the goals you want.

Being passionate about a project or goal — no matter how big or small — makes us feel alive.

It is invigorating to think about the changes you could make in yourself or in the world...

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Published: 1 July 2015

LIAM 271 – The Power of Journaling with Kim Ades

Every now and then, you cross paths with someone and learn a little about them only to quickly realize you’ve lived very similar lives and had very similar experiences. Such is the case between myself and Kim Ades, founder of FrameofMindCoaching.com. Like me, Kim discovered the cathartic, healing power of journaling to get her through a difficult period in her life. Kim, however, took journaling to a powerful new level and began using it to change the lives of many other people. She spoke with me about her experiences and describes the huge changes that can happen in your life through journaling. Listen to our conversation:

Listen on iTunes or Listen to/download this episode here:

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Have a question or topic you’d like addressed on the show? Please let me know by clicking here!

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• Kim Ades
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• Restory YOU! Personal Development Workshop
• Worry No More! book
• Download: Affirmations for Abundant Living
• LIAM Team Life Coaching Community

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The post LIAM 271 – The Power of Journaling with Kim Ades appeared first on Life Is A Marathon : Life Coaching | Self-Esteem | Personal Development | Personal Branding | Positive Thinking | Community.

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Ellen Shapiro's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Lynn Smith's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Monica Bosinov's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Laura Mazza Gonick's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Lorena Morales's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Montage's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Ina Bachman's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Deborah Fryer's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Jaqueline Kane's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Natalie Hill's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Mandy Dickson's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Wendy Rosner's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Laura Cullen's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Cathy Michael's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Nicole Lewis Keeber's Story: Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training Program

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Hypnotist Richard Barker Uses Comedy Hypnosis Shows To Reduce Stress - Digital Journal

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Hypnotist Richard Barker Uses Comedy Hypnosis Shows To Reduce Stress Digital Journal Orlando, FL - Richard Barker, self-dubbed 'the incredible hypnotist' is a bonafide hypnotist who uses hypnosis to bring about humor via his successful comedy hypnosis shows. According to his site, the hypnotist has performed thousands of shows in over ...

Power over matter— hypnosis with Paul Ramsay - The Carolinian

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The Carolinian

Power over matter— hypnosis with Paul Ramsay The Carolinian Cartoons, movies and childhood stories have led many people to believe that hypnosis is a form of mind control. This understanding of hypnotism is one of the most pervasive myths surrounding mental manipulation. Ramsay's widely recognized stage show, ...

People May Be More Cooperative After Listening to Upbeat Music

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Study subjects hearing songs like “Yellow Submarine” shared more than others hearing hard metalcore 

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

A paper in Psychological Science explores whether action video game play improves hand-eye coordination.

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Words of Hope for Anyone Struggling with Depression

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One of the worst parts about depression — and there are certainly many — is that it robs you of hope. Hope that you’ll actually feel better. Hope that the darkness will lift. Hope that the emptiness will fill up and you’ll feel motivated and excited. Hope that it won’t be like this forever. Hope that you’ll get through it.

“I’ve been struggling with depression for almost 35 years,” said Douglas Cootey, who pens the award-winning blog A Splintered Mind. “In that time, I have often felt hopeless, usually during times of suicidal ideation…Depression has a way of warping our outlook so that we only notice the bleakest parts of the world.”

The darkness stops feeling like a lens that distorts your reality, and starts to become your reality, said John A. Lundin, Psy.D, a psychologist who specializes in treating depression and anxiety in adults, teens and children in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.

“Depression often robs you of the memory of joy or happiness, so it becomes difficult to draw on happy memories to give one hope for the future,” Lundin said. Depression even makes hope seem foolish, like an illusion, he said.

Many people with depression aren’t able to articulate that they feel hopeless. Because doing so requires putting “words to an experience that just feels as real and encompassing as the air they breathe.” Saying you feel hopeless, Lundin said, can actually be a positive step. “[I]t holds the implication that hope is something that is possible.”

“Depression can be overwhelming,” said Cootey, also author of Saying No to Suicide: Coping Strategies for People Dealing with Suicidism and for the Loved Ones Who Support Them. “All those negative emotions are suffocating. This makes it difficult to believe that things will get better.”

Most of Rebecca Rabe’s clients say they’ve lost hope because they feel alone. They feel like no one understands what they’re going through. They feel like they can’t talk to anyone.

Loss of hope also might represent a loss of belief that you matter or that you can be loved, Lundin said. (This is something he works on with clients, helping them understand why they don’t feel adequate or lovable.)

What can you do when hope feels unfamiliar or impossible? What can you do when you’re in the middle of the storm?

Cootey stressed the importance of using a wide variety of coping strategies. “When I use my coping strategies to overcome depression, the next day isn’t a prison of more of the same. It’s a brand new day free of the sadness.”

Colleen King, LMFT, a psychotherapist who specializes in mood disorders and also has bipolar disorder, stressed the importance of having a treatment team and support system. This might include a therapist, doctor and several friends and family. Ask them to help you remember the times when you’ve felt better, she said. Ask them to “encourage you to be in the moment when you do experience temporary joy, even if it’s for a few minutes.”

Both King and Lundin suggested participating in activities that feel nourishing to your soul, activities that you love to do when you’re not depressed. Do them even if you don’t feel like it, King said. “You will most likely alter your mood at least a little bit, and [the activity] may be a welcome distraction from depression.” Plus, it helps to “arouse glimmers of hope that you can feel whole and healthy, again.”

It often feels like depression will last forever, King said. Which is why she also suggested placing prompts at home and work to remind yourself “that you are having a depressive episode and that it’s not a permanent state of being.”

Don’t underestimate the power of small steps. Rabe, LMFT, who specializes in treating children, teens and young adults with depression, anxiety and trauma, shared this example: She worked with a woman who was struggling with depression and complained about “not being able to do anything.”

They worked on tracking small but significant accomplishments and setting small goals. “For example, she would strive to check 10 things off her list. Sometimes just getting to therapy got her these 10 checks.” After all, getting to therapy is anything but trivial. It involves getting up, showering, getting dressed, driving to the office, making the appointment on time, talking in session and driving home, among other tasks. Her client also started reaching out to supportive loved ones (instead of isolating herself); taking walks; and writing in her journal—all of which has helped to diminish her depression and create a more positive outlook.

“I’ve been through the worst my mind can throw at me. I’ve felt the pain of suicidal depression,” Cootey said. “I’ve wished and even planned for my own death, yet I learned an important truth: Depression lies to us.” This is another reason it’s helpful to surround yourself with support: These individuals can help you see through the lies, he said.

“You do have worth. You will overcome this. You won’t be sad forever.”

There is always hope for someone struggling with depression, Rabe said. “People are resilient human beings, and they can do so much more than they think they’re capable of.”

Also, remember that “how hopeless you feel does not correlate to whether you can feel better,” Lundin said. Depression is an illness that extinguishes hope. It’s the nature of the disorder.

Thankfully, therapy and medication can help. So can participating in support groups. “Some depression requires a short treatment to work, and other takes a long time. But I have never met a patient who didn’t see significant progress if they stuck with it.”

If your therapist or doctor doesn’t seem to be helping, seek out new providers, King said. “Having a trusting and caring treatment team greatly assists with creating confidence and hope for the future.”

For people who don’t respond to therapy and medication, other treatments are available, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), Lundin said.

With good treatment, effective and varied coping strategies and compassionate support, you can feel better. The heaviness gets lighter.  The world becomes brighter.

So no matter how hopeless you feel right now, please don’t throw away your shot. Hope and relief are not some foolish illusion. They are real. They are possible.

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Stop Internet Addiction - River Sounds Subliminal Session - By Thomas Hall

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September Shape, Study and Step Challenge

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It’s September Challenge Time. This is a very straight forward, yet powerful, challenge. There is a daily task to complete that is focused around weight loss and nutrition goals. There is a daily goal for steps (minimum – maximum). AND…this month we’ve added some exercises for shaping the legs and butt (by popular demand). We want you […]

Related posts:

1. Lesson 6: What I See in the Mirror
2. Lesson #2: Practice the 3 Ds – Delay, Distract and Decide
3. Free Vegetarian Meal Plan – Week 4

August 31, 2016 at 04:34AM

Needy robot babies may make teens more likely to have real babies: Infant simulators didn’t curb teen pregnancy and may promote early parenthood.

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You Know Those Parasites that Control Our Brains?

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The headlines you've seen about microbes' fiendish abilitiies to take over your mind might be just a tad exaggerated

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

10 Simple Ways to Stop Stockpiling People's Energy

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iPad Game May Help to Diagnose Autism

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A new UK study suggests autism could be diagnosed by allowing children to play games on smart phones and tablets.

University of Strathclyde researchers believe the technology could offer an accessible and less intrusive way to diagnose the developmental disorder.

Dr Jonathan Delafield-Butt, of Strathclyde’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and colleagues used fun iPad games to track players’ hand movements – gathering information that can help identify autism.

The study, appears in the Nature group journal Scientific Reports.

Dr Delafield-Butt, a Senior Lecturer in Child Development, said: “We have shown that children with autism can be identified by their gameplay patterns on an iPad.

“This is potentially a major breakthrough for early identification of autism, because no stressful and expensive tests by clinicians are needed. Early detection is important as this can allow parents and children to gain access to a range of services support.

“This new ‘serious game’ assessment offers a cheaper, faster, fun way of testing for autism. But more work is needed to confirm this finding, and to test for its limitations.

“This study is the first step toward a validated instrument. Interestingly, our study goes further in elucidating the origins of autism, because it turns out that movement is the most important differentiator in the gameplay data.

“In other words, it is not social, emotional, or cognitive aspects of the gameplay that identify autism. Rather, the key difference is in the way children with autism move their hands as they touch, swipe, and gesture with the iPad during the game.

“This unexpected finding adds new impetus to a growing scientific understanding that movement is fundamentally disrupted in autism, and may underpin the disorder.”

Anna Anzulewicz, Director of Research at Harimata, a company that develops mobile technology for improving early assessment of developmental disorders, said:

“Early assessment of autism allows timely therapeutic intervention, but professional diagnosis of the disorder is difficult and time-consuming.

“Our aim was to develop a test that would be intuitive, fast, fun and engaging for the children. iPad-based games seemed to be perfect, and they are embedded with powerful sensors, which allow for the precise measurement of the children’s play dynamics.”

In the study, researchers examined movement data gathered from 37 children with autism, aged three to six years. The children were asked to play games on smart tablet computers with touch-sensitive screens and embedded movement sensors.

Investigators discovered autistic kids displayed distinct play patterns including greater forces at contact and a different distribution of forces within a gesture. Gesture movements were also faster and larger, and used more space.

“These data support the notion disruption to movement is a core feature of autism, and demonstrate autism can be computationally assessed by fun, smart device gameplay.”

Autism spectrum disorder is a childhood neurodevelopmental disorder, and its global prevalence is estimated at one in 160 children.

Source: University of Strathclyde

The awesome power of the subconscious mind - Coeur d'Alene Press

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The awesome power of the subconscious mind Coeur d'Alene Press To become familiar with the miracle of the human mind and the human body is be acquire awesome power. This power is magical because it literally allows us to create new bodies. One that is more flexible, more fluid, more dynamic, more creative and ...

Bipolar Teens’ High Risk for Substance Abuse May Persist as Young Adults

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Following up a previous study that discovered adolescent bipolar disorder was linked to greater cigarette smoking and substance use disorder, a new study finds that risk of substance abuse was even greater five years later, particularly among those with persistent bipolar symptoms.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators also found evidence that the presence of conduct disorder, in combination with bipolar disorder, may be the strongest influence on the risk of smoking and substance use disorder.

Study findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

In the new study, researchers discovered ongoing bipolar symptoms appear to predict substance use issues.

“We also made another interesting finding — that those originally diagnosed with bipolar disorder who continued to have symptoms five years later were at an even higher risk for cigarette smoking and substance use disorder than those whose symptoms were reduced either because of remission from bipolar disorder or from treatment,” said Timothy Wilens, M.D., co-director of the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine, who led both studies.

“Both those with active symptoms and those whose symptoms had improved were at greater risk than our control group.”

The original study, published in the June 2008 issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence, analyzed extensive data — including family histories, information from primary care physicians and the results of structured psychiatric interviews — on 105 early adolescents diagnosed with bipolar disorder and a control group of 98 with no mood disorders.

Among those participants, with an average age of 14, the rate of substance use disorder among those with bipolar disorder was 34 percent, while it was only 4 percent in controls. The risk for smoking was 22 percent for those with bipolar disorder and 4 percent for controls.

For the five-year follow up, structured psychiatric interviews were conducted for 68 of the original participants with bipolar disorder – 37 being lost to follow up – and 81 control group members.

Among those in the bipolar group, 23 no longer met criteria for the disorder, 36 still were experience active symptoms and 9 had symptoms that did not meet full criteria.

During the five years since the original study, more members of the bipolar group developed new cases of substance use disorder than did controls, leading to an overall incidence rate of 49 percent versus 26 percent.

In the new analysis, researchers found that controlling for conduct disorder caused the increased levels of substance use disorder to disappear.

That result suggests that co-occurring conduct disorder plays a significant role in the risk associated with bipolar disorder.

“We were surprised to find that conduct disorder, but not ADHD, played such a large role in mediating the increased risk of substance use disorder among those with bipolar disorder,” says Wilens, who is an associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

“While this might be result of having only a few participants with bipolar disorder alone, it may be that it is the presence of conduct disorder that drives substance use disorder as adolescents with bipolar disorder become young adults.

Since symptoms of bipolar disorder usually appear before substance use disorder develops, clinicians following youth with bipolar disorder should carefully monitor for cigarette smoking and substance use, along with treating bipolar symptoms.”

Wilens and his colleagues are also analyzing a subgroup of study participants who received detailed brain imaging in an effort to understand the brain circuitry involved in these disorders and their interaction.

They also plan to investigate factors underlying the persistence of bipolar disorder and the impact of treatment on the incidence of smoking and substance use disorder.

Source: Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)

Abraham Hicks 2016 - You constantly receive evidence of your alignment (new)

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Psychopaths Feel Fear But Have Difficulty Detecting Threats

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For many decades, fearlessness has been considered the hallmark trait of psychopathy and has been blamed for the bold risk-taking behavior commonly found in the personality disorder. Now new research shows that psychopathic people may be capable of feeling fear, but they seem to have difficulty detecting and responding to a threat.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, is the first to provide strong evidence that an individual’s conscious experience of fear as an emotion may be quite separate from his automatic ability to detect and respond to threats.

Researchers at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam and Radboud University Nijmegen reviewed brain and behavioral data to look for any link between fear and psychopathy in adult individuals. Their definition of fear was based on state of the art knowledge of the neurobiological and cognitive underpinnings of this emotion.

Then they created a model that separated brain mechanisms involved in the conscious experience of fear as an emotion from those involved in automatic detection and response to threats.

Using this model as a reference, they first performed a conceptual analysis of the work of earlier theorists, going back as far as 1806. They found that only one theorist incorporated the construct of fear into a model of psychopathy.

The evidence for impairments in brain areas involved in the experience of fear was less consistent than is currently assumed, indicating that the experience of fear may not be completely impaired in psychopathy.

The researchers then demonstrated that psychopathic individuals may in fact feel fear but have trouble in the automatic detection and responsivity to threat, providing direct support for the claim that the conscious experience of fear may not be impaired in these individuals.

Another meta-analysis examining the five other basic emotions found that there may also be impairments in the experience of happiness and anger, but the lack of consistency in the current literature prevented making any strong claims.

“As a consequence of our research, some very influential theories that assign prominent roles to fearlessness in the aetiology of psychopathy will need to be reconsidered and made consistent with current neuroscientific evidence,” said researcher Sylco Hoppenbrouwers at VU Amsterdam.

“Such re-evaluations of key concepts will lead to increased precision in research and clinical practice which should ultimately pave the way toward more targeted and more effective treatment interventions.”

The findings are the first to provide strong evidence that the automatic and conscious processes may be separate in an individual. The proposed model not only applies to psychopathy, but can also be used to further increase conceptual precision and generate new hypotheses for research on mood and anxiety disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder.

“While psychopathic individuals may suffer from a dysfunctional threat system, people with posttraumatic stress disorder may have a hyperactive threat system, which later leads to them feeling fearful,” said Inti Brazil at Radboud University.

Source: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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Wadeana lost over 65 pounds

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Transformation of the Day: Wadeana lost over 65 pounds. She had enough of feeling self conscious, miserable and depressed. This mom of 3 wanted to be a living example of happiness and health for her family and loved ones. She figured out what worked, did the work and now she’s in love with fitness and feeling […]

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August 31, 2016 at 12:56AM

Difficult to Communicate Emotions in Email/Text

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As our everyday communication becomes more text driven, researchers worry that the ability to communicate emotions may become compromised.

For example, is “OMG I just LOVE pizza” a sarcastic statement or is it heartfelt?

On a more serious note, misreading the emotional content of a message can have damaging consequences — especially in our relationships.

In the new study, researchers explored if certain factors allow a person to better infer emotions from messages delivered over communication channels such as email or text.

Intuitively, if the receiver of the message is a friend, they should be able to understand the sender’s emotion better than a complete stranger.

Investigators at Chatham University, however, found that friends are no better at interpreting correct emotional intent in e-mails than complete strangers.

The finings from Monica A. Riordan and Lauren A. Trichtinger appear in the journal Human Communication Research.

For the investigation the researchers conducted three studies to find out the effect of contextual information on the confidence and accuracy of affective communication via e-mail.

In the first two studies, writers wrote two e-mails, indicating the presence or absence of eight different emotions in each e-mail. One e-mail was based on a predetermined scenario, and the other freely written. These e-mails were then read by strangers, who rated each e-mail for those same eight emotions.

The third study tweaked the procedure to test the effect of relationship. Writers wrote two e-mails (one based on a scenario, the other freely written) and indicated whether eight different emotions were present in each e-mail they wrote.

Writers then sent these two e-mails to both friends and strangers, each of whom rated the e-mail for the same eight emotions, then wrote response e-mails.

Saliently, although writers were confident their friends would interpret the emotions in their e-mails in a more accurate way than strangers, this was incorrect. Likewise, although readers believed they would be able to ‘read’ the emotions better in letters from friends than strangers, this was found to not be the case.

Therefore, although everyone was highly confident in their e-mail writing and reading abilities, the ability to detect emotions in textual messages is very difficult. This observation held true even when verbal and nonverbal cues, like emoticons, all caps, or repeated exclamation points were added to the message.

Past research has sought to determine how we communicate our emotions in environments from which facial expressions, vocal intonation, body language, and other cues are missing. But many of the studies have flaws in that they are based on artificial stimuli that third parties are asked to rate. It is difficult to determine whether nonverbal or verbal cues are substitutes for emotion without examining the communication as a whole.

“As e-mail, text messaging, and other forms of computer-mediated communication become more dominant forms of interaction, the communication of affect becomes more difficult, primarily because facial expressions, gestures, vocal intonation, and other forms of expressing emotion are lost,” said Riordan.

“It is clear from this study that readers can determine that we are angry, but cannot determine HOW angry. The loss of this subtlety could lead to consequences in many forms– especially in our relationships, where the difference between annoyance and rage can be vast, and a simple misinterpretation of an intended emotion can lead to a drastic alteration in that emotion.”

Source: International Communication Association/EurekAlert

The Psychology of Donald Trump & How He Speaks

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Donald J. Trump will go down in American history as one of the most unusual politicians of all time. He is an enigma to everyone in the political establishment (and to much of America) as he continues his 2016 run for the American presidency.

What makes this Republican nominee tick? Why does Donald Trump speak the way he does, saying clearly outlandish things, then taking them back a day or two later? Let’s find out.

I’m not the first person who has had serious concerns about the mental health and stability of Donald Trump. Many others have commented on their concerns before me, especially about Trump’s apparent narcissism.

But I felt that these issues were best summarized in a short article to explain why these concerns exist in the first place. After all, when there’s a presidential election, a candidate’s mental health is usually not even a concern — much less the focus of the amount of media attention given to Trump during this presidential election season.

Does Trump Suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Therapists, researchers, psychologists, and experts in mental health appear pretty consistent in their belief that Trump suffers from narcissistic traits consistent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

“Textbook narcissistic personality disorder,” echoed clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis. “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there’s no better example of his characteristics,” said clinical psychologist George Simon, who conducts lectures and seminars on manipulative behavior. […] “Remarkably narcissistic,” said developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Maria Konnivoka, writing over at the Big Think over a year ago nicely summarized the evidence for Trump’s personality symptoms. But for a reminder, let’s look at the symptoms for this disorder one by one.

• Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
  Trump does this regularly, exaggerating every achievement of his. Remember when he proudly proclaimed he “knew” and was “friends” with Russia’s President Putin, then later acknowledged he had never even met him?
• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
  Trump constantly proclaims how great everything he suggests he will do as president will be “fantastic” or “the greatest.” His entire business career appears focused on creating the impression that this is one successful, brilliant, power guy. But he’s actually been a pretty mediocre businessman according to most yardsticks.
• Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
  Trump bought and refurbished the 118-room, 20 acre, multi-million dollar estate called Mar-a-Lago in Florida, allowing him to associate with only those others who can afford the $100,000 membership fee and $14,000 in annual fees.
• Requires excessive admiration
  “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected,” said Trump at one point.
• Has a very strong sense of entitlement (e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations)
  “I’m running against the crooked media,” said Trump. Trump apparently wants to eviscerate the First Amendment, arguing that Congress should “open up our libel laws” (making it easier for people to sue for libel). If someone prints or says something negative about Trump, he immediately attacks back (usually with a name-calling tweet).
• Is exploitative of others (e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends)
  After 9/11, apparently Donald Trump — not a “small business” — took advantage of $150,000 in government funds to help small businesses. He’s also been accused of taking advantage of the tragic Orlando shooting and U.S. bankruptcy laws — exactly as you’d expect a billionaire to do.
• Lacks empathy (e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
  When a grieving U.S. Muslim mom and dad who lost their son during the Iraq war in 2004 appeared at the Democratic national convention to berate Trump for his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the country, this was Trump’s tangential, non-empathetic response to their grief: “His wife … if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.” (Or, look at the way he mocked a person with a disability.)
• Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
  While I’m certain Trump believes others likely envy him, there’s not as much support for this one: “One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people—I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others” (p.59, Trump: The Art of the Deal).
• Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
  Trump: “You know, it really doesn’t matter what (the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” (Or, again, look at the way he mocked a person with a disability.)

How Trump Uses Indirect Speech

Trump is a master of speaking indirectly to whoever his audience is. This is when he doesn’t come out and explicitly say something, but rather simply implies it. Psychologists call this indirect speech and Trump excels in it.

Here are a few examples of it:

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

The implication is that Trump was asking a foreign power to intervene in a national election through illegal activity. He later walked it back — as he does nearly all of his indirect speech comments — by claiming he was “only joking.”

“Only joking” or “don’t you get sarcasm when you hear it?” are rationalizations used by others when they want to say something, but don’t want to stand up for what they said. It is the type of speech that psychologists see regularly used by cowards and bullies, not usually politicians or distinguished statesmen.

“If [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks… Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Most people took this to mean that Trump was calling for the “Second Amendment people” to “do something” about it. Later, Trump claimed he was only encouraging those folks to use their voting power, but many people took this comment to mean something more nefarious. “[…] Literally using the Second Amendment as cover to encourage people to kill someone with whom they disagree,” commented Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, after he heard Trump’s comments.

Indirect speech has many benefits. By not saying what you mean, you encourage every listener to form their own opinion about what you intended. That means his supporters will hear one thing, while his detractors hear something completely different. If anything he says is taken the “wrong way” by too many people, he can simply negate it: “You misunderstood,” “Only joking,” “That was sarcasm.” It’s a perfect linguistic and psychological trick that Trump exquisitely deploys to his benefit. It allows plausible deniability for anything he says. This makes it very hard to pin him down on anything he says, much like trying to nail jello to a wall.

He’s had to walk back so many of his comments, people have lost track of the count. Just last week he claimed that President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the presidential race, were literally the “founders of ISIS,” the Islamic terrorist group that has its roots during the time of the Bush presidency:

“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS… I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton. … He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?”

The next day, typical of Trump’s behavior, he took the comments back, after it became clear everyone knows he was lying about Obama’s “founding” status in ISIS. (President Obama, of course, had nothing to do with the founding of this terrorist organization based in the Middle East.)

Trump: Crafty Liar or Just Plain Bullshitter?

The other week, the Washington Post’s Fareed Zakaria had an insightful article about whether Trump’s constant lies are purposeful behavior in service of some ultimate goal, or are they simply symptoms of a “bullshit artist:”

[Princeton professor Harry] Frankfurt distinguishes crucially between lies and B.S.: “Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point. . . . In order to invent a lie at all, [the teller of a lie] must think he knows what is true.”

But someone engaging in B.S., Frankfurt says, “is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all . . . except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says.” Frankfurt writes that the B.S.-er’s “focus is panoramic rather than particular” and that he has “more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the ‘bullshit artist.’ ”

Trump — with his indirect speech patterns and ability to step back from any lie he tells — appears to be the consummate American bullshit artist.

And if he wins this presidential election, he will have shown that the American people will buy any line of B.S. it hears, as long as the person shelling it out is confident enough in the telling.

 

Reference

Lee, J. J., & Pinker, S. (2010). Rationales for indirect speech: the theory of the strategic speaker. Psychological Review, 117(3), 785.

Morning People May Self-Sabotage Less at Night, Night Owls Less at Sunrise

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A new study discovered people are more likely to undermine their performance at stressful tasks when they’re operating at “peak capacity” based on their preferred time of the day.

Psychological researchers at Indiana University investigated the connection between people’s circadian rhythm and risk of “self-handicapping,” or self-sabotage and discovered the counterintuitive connection.

Their findings appear in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The discovery that people self-damage during their preferred or best times is surprising. In other words, “morning people,” who reported greater alertness at sunrise, self-handicapped more in the morning, and “night owls,” who reported greater alertness at sunset, self-handicapped more in the evening.

Self-handicapping is defined by psychologists as when an individual seeks to protect their ego against potential failure in advance by creating circumstances, real or imagined, that harm their ability to carry out a stressful task.

A classic example is failing to study or staying out too late the night before an important test or job interview.

The behavior also extends to mere claims of debilitating circumstances, such as imagined illness, fatigue or stress. Other studies have linked self-handicapping to other self-destructive behaviors, such as aggression, overeating and drug or alcohol addiction.

The study also found that people chronically prone to making excuses reported the same stress levels at “off-peak” hours as peers who do not engage in this behavior. Only at peak hours did these individuals report higher levels of stress as an excuse for poor performance.

“What this study tells us is that self-handicapping requires thought and planning,” said Dr. Ed Hirt, professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and an author on the study.

“People who are feeling uncertain about themselves and start to fear that they might fail are more likely to identify potential excuses and self-handicap when they’re at their peak than when they’re not.”

“When an individual’s positive self-views are threatened, they may lash out against the source of the threat, compare themselves to others worse off than themselves, or engage in self-destructive actions, such as substance abuse,” added Julie Eyink, a graduate student in Hirt’s lab and lead author on the study.

“Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to get caught in a negative spiral, in which self-handicapping leads to lower self-esteem and higher failure beliefs, which prompt more self-handicapping.”

To conduct the study, IU researchers administered intelligence tests to 237 students (98 men and 139 women), half of whom were told that stress had been found to affect performance on the test and half of whom were told that stress should not affect the result.

The tests were randomly administered at 8 a.m. or 8 p.m. to volunteers who had been previously categorized as “night people” or “morning people” based upon a survey shown to accurately predict circadian rhythm. Study participants were also assessed for their tendency to self-sabotage through questions about their stress levels prior to the exam.

The tests and morning or night preference assessments were given two weeks apart, and participants were unaware that circadian rhythm would be a factor in the study. The individuals who administered the tests were unaware who had been labeled “morning people” or “night owls.”

The results were that people who scored higher in terms of risk for self-sabotage reported greater stress levels at hours of peak performance.

A high or low tendency to self-sabotage did not make a difference at off-peak hours, however. Both groups reported the same stress levels at these times.

“The results seem counterintuitive, but what they really show is clear evidence that self-handicapping is a resource demanding strategy,” said Eyink.

“Only people who had their peak cognitive resources were able to engage in self-handicapping.”

Based solely on the study, she said people who want to avoid self-sabotage might conclude they should engage in stressful tasks at off-peak times. But she also warns that such a strategy would require carrying out tasks at a time when a person lacks all the cognitive tools required to achieve top performance.

“Ultimately,” she said, “I would advise that working to avoid self-handicapping — through actions such as healthful practices, seeking help or counseling — is the best strategy.”

Source: University of Indiana

Wisdom is more of a state than a trait

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By Christian Jarrett

We all know the kind of person who did really well at school and uni but can’t seem to help themselves from forever making bad mistakes in real life. And then there are those characters who might not be surgeons or rocket scientists but have this uncanny ability to deal calmly and sagely with all the slings and arrows of life. We might say that the first kind of person, while intelligent, lacks wisdom; the second kind of character, by contrast, has wisdom in abundance. The assumption in both cases is that wisdom is a stable trait – how much someone has is an essential part of their psychological profile and remains constant through their life.

But a new study says this way of viewing wisdom is mistaken. The research in Social Psychological and Personality Science used a diary approach to gauge people’s wisdom in response to everyday problems, and the results showed that there is more variation in one person’s wisdom from one situation to the next, than there is variation in the average wisdom between people. Wisdom, it seems, is more of a state than a trait.

Igor Grossman and his colleagues recruited 152 men and women in Germany (average age 27) to complete a daily diary for nine days. Each day they were emailed and asked to recall a specific negative experience from the previous day, to describe it in detail, including how they responded. Most of the recalled experiences were arguments or disputes of some kind. To look for signs of wisdom the researchers specifically asked the participants to say whether they showed intellectual humility (for example, realising that they couldn’t know for sure what the consequences of the incident would be) and self-transcendence (for example, seeing the situation from the perspective of different people).

The researchers found that there was considerable variation in how much wisdom people showed from one situation to the next. Yes, if they averaged a person’s wisdom across the nine-day study period, some people did tend to show more wisdom than others. But this difference between individuals in average wisdom was smaller than the fluctuations in wisdom typically shown by individuals from one situation to the next.

What’s more, it was a person’s display of wisdom specific to a given situation, not their average or trait wisdom, that was more strongly associated with the psychological fall out they experienced from that situation. Put differently, handling a situation with greater wisdom than is normal for you is beneficial, for example in terms of experiencing less negative emotion, seeing the bigger picture and feeling more forgiving, whether your trait levels of wisdom are high or not. And conversely, being a generally wise person is little benefit for a specific situation if you happen to handle that situation unwisely (which was a common thing for people to do, regardless of their trait wisdom).

Another finding was that people generally tended to handle difficult situations with more wisdom when there were other people present, as compared to when they were on their own. The act of keeping the diary also seemed to lead to a general increase in wisdom levels (especially self-transcendence) as the study progressed, no doubt because the study prompted beneficial self reflection.

Of the various demographic measures that the researchers took, such as gender, education level and age, only age was related to average levels of wisdom shown across the study, with older people showing more wisdom.

The researchers said their results dovetail with “the recent shifts in views on malleability of other human characteristics that have long been regarded as fixed, such as intelligence, which are now seen as greatly influenced by sociocultural and motivational factors.” They also said their study suggests that the common practice in psychology, of measuring wisdom with a single questionnaire item, is likely to be flawed and unreliable. So too is the other usual practice of testing a person’s wisdom according to how they’d handle a particular situation. Because people’s wisdom varies so much from one situation to another, Grossman and his colleagues said you’d really need to test someone on at least nine separate occasions to get a handle on their trait levels of wisdom.

—Wise Reasoning in the Face of Everyday Life Challenges

Christian Jarrett (@Psych_Writer) is Editor of BPS Research Digest.