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If optimism helps us get rid of problems more easily, too much optimism does the exact opposite: it amplifies them. Pushed to the extreme, positive thinking prescribed as an antidote to suffering prevents us from accepting reality as it is and starting to look for solutions that can make our lives easier.

Things happen anyway, whether good or bad. Why put extra effort into trying to respond positively when certain things happen? Why be grateful?

They say self-esteem is a vital ingredient for success in life. But what if everything we were taught about self-esteem is wrong?

Born in Canada, in 1935, Don Richardson was a missionary who fervently carried on the Renaissance spirit of the great missionaries. Having studied at the Prairie Bible Institute and the (Wycliffe) Summer Institute of Linguistics, together with his wife, he worked as a missionary among the Sawi of Papua New Guinea for 15 years, and translated the Bible into their language. His books,...

Procrastination is self-harm, psychologist Piers Steel says. A kind of self-harm that we can become addicted to if we do not detect the reasons behind it and especially the effective strategies to counter it.

The importance of humour, including in the workplace, is often undervalued, as a series of studies suggest.

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”

We often treat burnout syndrome as a diagnostic fad. In reality, overworking has become the norm, and its consequences are serious enough to urge us to identify the best strategies to prevent it.

Whether we see ourselves or not as living collections of our habits, we know from experience that, once formed, our habits are not as malleable as we would like them to be.

A common source of jokes and stories with subtext, the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law appears to be characterised by particular sensitivities.

In my humble but literary-educated opinion, Tim Winton is Australia’s finest living novelist. Since winning publication of his first novel in a competition for young writers in 1981, he has had 10 more novels published, as well as collections of stories, plays, books for younger readers and a handful of non-fiction works. Winton has won Australia’s top literary prize—the Miles Franklin Award—on four...

Advertising makes the teenage years seem like the best years of life. However, adolescence is a time of great emotional turmoil for both children and their parents. It's a time when many important decisions are made, with life-changing consequences.

"If I cut off your arm, will your husband take you again?" "My husband loves me very much." So he started cutting. "There was no alternative."

The days that we don’t see the suffering of others are few. We have learned to let our feelings of helplessness wipe our conscience and we move on, forgetting that we are not required to heal the suffering of all mankind, but to do the best we can, every day, with what we have available to us. In the case of Norma Romero...

There is no monster under the bed—that much is certain. But how do you convince your child of this, when they come to you, for the hundredth time, with the same fear? When you constantly use the same unheeded command, "Stop fooling around and go to sleep!", this is a sign that you need to learn more about your child's anxiety, and how...