Psychology

How do parents influence their children's marriages?

"If there is anything more heartbreaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light." (Victor Hugo)

Even in difficult times there are many things we can do at home to help children as well as teenagers to feel less worried.

Aside from fuelling jokes about how women impose unrealistic standards on men, or how men are just grown-up children who want their wives to be their mothers, the expectations couples place on their relationship define how they relate to each other, and influence marital satisfaction.

Some say that of all the opinions we can have in life, the most important is the opinion about ourselves.

One night while checking on his patients in a palliative care centre, the therapist risked asking a confusing question to a person whose universe had shrunk to the size of his sickbed: “What brought you joy today?” The answer was immediate: “Being alive.”

When confronted with someone else’s strong emotions—intense joy or heartbreaking pain—we often do not know how to react. In the case of joy, the other person usually doesn't mind, because his feelings console him. But in the case of pain, things are completely different. Misunderstood suffering can make the sufferer isolate himself from the very people who could help him. So, how can...

If you were asked to describe who you are, what would you highlight first?

I consider myself a fairly honest person. But when someone asks that innocent question, “How are you?” I’m often tempted to twist the truth.

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.

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.

Our daily habits and actions constitute our state of mind. However, few people know that we hold great power over our own thoughts. Developing this power could pave the way for happiness.

After 27 years of marriage, billionaire couple Bill and Melinda Gates publicly announced their divorce in May, sending shockwaves across the globe.

From a distance, it looked like a simple picture of a tree: nothing very artistic—more of a sketch in subtle shades of brown and green. But as I looked closer I noticed something unusual. The tree had been constructed out of words and phrases. Someone had collected snippets of information about their family and their ancestors, and written it down to form the...

“Many people feel out of touch with their feelings. Counselor offices and publishing houses have proliferated thanks to the need to help people to improve their communication skills, to restore their self-confidence and to help them relate to other people.” – Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative