Psychology

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones, says a well-known biblical proverb. We don't have to be practicing Christians to recognise its truth.

Next to family and health, friends are among the top reasons that make us happy. But what if we are solitary, recluse or shy?

In an interview published by Inc.com, 24-year-old Romanian Ovidiu Dobrota, from Oradea, Romania, boasted that his fake news site Ending The Fed had a substantial impact in supporting Donald Trump in the presidential elections. According to a Buzzfeed analysis, his boasting is well-founded.

Many couples only realise after divorce the price they have paid for failing to find common ground, and a few even manage to rediscover the forgotten path to their partner's heart and to rebuild their relationship.

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

It is important to have a purpose in life, yet this is not enough. It really matters what your purpose is.

Our moral problem is man’s indifference to himself… We experience and treat ourselves as commodities, and [as if] our own powers have become alienated from ourselves… We are a herd believing that the road we follow must lead to a goal since we see everybody else on the same road. We are in the dark and keep up our courage because we hear...

What we think about ourselves, over time, becomes our reality. This is a good enough reason to identify thinking errors left running in the background and to seek out strategies for healthier thinking.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Nietzsche in one of his essays back in 1889. Easier said than done when you’re facing unemployment, illness, rejection, or a blank exam paper. We tend to see these as things we need to get rid of. This can’t possibly be the life we wanted.

Graeme Frauenfelder, 56, didn’t realise until he was an adult that he was the victim of a mental health problem that affects 1.8 per cent of Australian males and 1.7 per cent of females. He’d assumed that his feelings were typical of any kid. But Graeme’s problem has a name. It’s bipolar disorder, which used to be called manic depression. Bipolar disorder is...

Some people may feel particularly inhibited in social situations. Meetings cause them stomach-aches, conversations overwhelm them with shyness, and anxiety does not allow them to utter a single word.

Some psychologists fear that religion erodes self-esteem. Some believers fear that self-esteem endangers salvation. Who is right?

In October 2012, Forbes magazine published a list of the top 25 biggest regrets people have. According to the magazine, the most significant regrets are those concerning relationships with family members and friends, regrets concerning oneself, and career regrets.

Loss begets pain, but pain is not one-size-fits-all, so there are no recovery methods that work in all situations. We do have at hand, however, explanatory models of pain, studies that dismantle myths about grief and, above all, "a psychological immune system" that helps us recover from painful experiences.

The first time Judas's kiss was heard was in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, its echo is repeated whenever the trust of an unsuspecting soul is betrayed. Betrayal, especially when it wears the mask of faith, tears apart the moral fabric of those who are wounded by it.