Psychology

We see it in movies, read it in modern children’s stories, and hear it in romantic songs: love is the most beautiful, most desirable, and most precious asset of humanity. Many argue that if there is anything that can save the world from itself, it is love. But how is it that love itself has led to profound systemic issues, by dissolving the...

We’d been married only a few weeks when we discovered that growing our spirituality as a couple was going to be much more complicated than the instructions on the packet suggested.

"When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything, about anything at all, not even about himself" (Milan Kundera).

"You? Fat? No way!" "With all due respect, officer, that wasn't a red light!" Every day, billions of lies leave the mouths of billions of people. Lying is a moral pollution that we declare harmful, but seem to believe is indispensable in life.

I have always imagined that well-being, bright prospects, good health and a clear purpose in life tend not to inspire questions about the meaning of life very often.

“Am I still human if I’m afraid?” The question asked by a well-known fictional character can be the starting point for reflecting on how we learn to live with our fears.

While the form and content of books may evolve, their essence and function will remain unchanged—“the book will remain what it is”. This is the view expressed by renowned literary figures Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco in their 2009 dialogue series titled This is Not the End of the Book.

Children who fall prey to bullying cannot save themselves, just as the children who have become accustomed to bullying others will not give up this behaviour without outside intervention. As the phenomenon of bullying spreads, with harmful consequences on children's development, the need to know and apply strategies to combat it is becoming more pressing.

In a world of many predetermined things, friends are the family we choose for ourselves. Often, their presence is what keeps us going. In Vital Friends, Tom Rath says that many of those who end up on the streets, divorced, or addicted to overeating, struggle with inner demons precisely because they are alone. They feel excluded, abandoned, unloved.

Problem gambling in Australia and New Zealand is an issue seldom talked about, but we ignore it at our peril.

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.

Related to the subject of boredom, Blaise Pascal wrote: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you,” wrote the prophet Isaiah—and some jumped to the conclusion that those who do not experience peace do so because they lack a sound mind or faith.

We have trouble understanding and accepting the image of a loving God, as we have grown too familiar with the type of love that offers itself only when it finds in a person the qualities that make them easy to love.

The loss of a loved one unbalances us; we are never ready for it. Here are a few recommendations given by psychologists for such a situation.