Psychology

I believe that every Eastern European has, at some point, realised when meeting a Westerner that their interaction could be improved if they were more open themselves, as the foreigner usually is.

If shame were personified, its main characteristic would be its ability to creep into the darkest depths, avoiding any trace of light and any discussion of itself.

How did the phrase “time is money” come to steal the true meaning of time? Time is not money, it is life.

Along with the rising death toll due to coronavirus complications, a usually latent aspect of our fear becomes harder to ignore. Despite the fact that it is the only certainty we all share, realising that our own end is a reality we might need to confront sooner than we had thought leaves many of us fervently searching for consolation.

It is as surprising as it is real: negative characters like Dexter Morgan, from the eponymous Dexter, and Walter White, from Breaking Bad, have been cropping up in popular culture more and more often lately. Since when, how, and why have anti-heroes gained so much popularity?

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.

In 2004, Frank Warren, an American businessman, had "a crazy idea," as he himself describes it. He printed 3,000 postcards, wrote his address on them and a series of instructions, then left space on the back for the sender to write secrets they had never shared with anyone before.

I believe that doubt is a part of faith, not its opposite. It took me quite a few years to say this without feeling guilty. I needed to have many experiences before I could accept that questions are legitimate and not a sign of spiritual decay.

In an argumentative discussion each party involved must be able to express their point of view without constraints, discrimination or other interferences. This is, in fact, an important prerequisite for the effort to overcome differences of opinion. In practice however, often things are far from this ideal. Not only do interlocutors not respect each other’s right to free speech, but they also resort...

The TV-series Friends was recently reviewed in The New York Times as “enormously easy to watch”. This characteristic however does not make the show unique, nor can it account for its popularity today, more than 15 years since its final episode.

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.

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

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day. – Emily Dickinson

I was a young student looking for a good paying job to support my family and my studies. On that day, I found myself in the head nurse’s office at the nearby nursing home for the elderly.

Although we may not like everyone, we want everyone to like and accept us. We raise our eyebrows suspiciously if someone treats us with indifference or, worse, with hostility. We feel misunderstood and rejected. And the feeling of rejection is as intense as physical pain.