Psychology

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.

The portrait of a good listener contains skills that are formed over time, through an honest interaction with others, motivated by the desire to understand and help them.

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.

Our reality isn’t always a calm place. Feelings of safety and peace that are so necessary for our well-being often elude us. What is happening today on a global level only goes to show how fragile our world is, and how easily we can lose control over the things we thought we had mastered.

It’s an invisible force, lurking and weighing heavily within, gradually convincing you that life isn’t worth much, that it’s better to let go. From the depths of depression, the journey back is incredibly tough, but not impossible. Kevin Breel is one of those people who can attest to this.

No one can live life without gathering regrets. An opportunity missed. A situation handled poorly. A conversation you wished you’d had before things got out of control. All of us have done more than enough to cringe in the dark about. But there are ways to have fewer regrets. Here are seven. 

Beginning with Cain and Abel, history has known famous and less famous stories woven around the devastating experience of envy.

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.”

It’s strange how popular the saying What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger is, when it’s obvious that it is not what hits you that makes you stronger, but the way you take the hit.

Temperance was once upheld by philosophers, saints and stoics. In a world dominated by indulgence, its call to balance feels more relevant than ever.

The most important human relationship you'll ever have is with your spouse. Protect it at all costs.

A smooth sea never gave a skilled sailor, said Franklin D. Roosevelt, suggesting that without hardship, challenges and even failures, we cannot become our best selves.

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

“To be fearless may be a gift. However, the most precious one is, probably, the courage resulting from developing the habit of not allowing fear to dictate your actions”, says the renowned Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy activist in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, in her essay titled “Free from fear”.

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.