Psychology

Over the years, the concept of positive thinking has proved to be extremely versatile and has managed to lure millions of people into the grip of powerful promises, convincing them that life can offer more than what they have been able to experience so far.

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry – Winston Churchill

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...

One can hardly overestimate the role the relationship between a parent and their child plays in forming a matrix for the child’s future relationships, whether healthy or dysfunctional. The quality of the parent-child relationship is essential because it directly impacts the child’s social and emotional development, and its quality influences the child's ability to deal with future conflict.

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

The American Economic Review recently published the results of the largest randomized study ever conducted to measure the impact on the quality of life that deactivation ones Facebook account might have.

I don’t think I did anything significant the afternoon I saw the movie “Awakenings”. The feeling that I had reached the heart of the human condition strongly impressed me with the idea that we are born captive in a limited nature, and that gave me a heavy feeling of loss.

The mental load is a concept that has gained attention in the last little while. What if mental load had a baby?

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.

Almost all bookstores today have a section dedicated to books on change, except that the generic name given to this category is "personal development", or "self-help".

After a chance meeting of mutual friends, I was introduced to Tim and Sonia in a restaurant in central Toowoomba, Queensland, eight days before their home was washed away.

In the February 2023 issue of Signs of the Times, I wrote an article titled Gambling’s Dark Underbelly. Here in Australia, gambling is a multi-billion-dollar industry with a few very rich winners and millions of losers. In the article I concluded that “Gambling in any form is designed to bleed you for as long as you’re willing to bleed, with no regard for...

“You are always afraid people will judge you or know your weakness. It’s like being totally naked in front of a huge crowd,” says Bruno Feldeisen about the hidden struggle he had with anxiety.

Henri Nouwen once wrote about some trapeze artists who became his friends, emphasising the perfect synchronicity between them and the total trust that the one who jumps has when he lets go of the trapeze and remains in the air for a second, waiting to be caught by his teammate. But what if, at the last moment, when it is too late to...

Would you rather “achieve great things or be happy?” That question was asked in a YouGov survey (United States): 81 per cent said they would rather be happy; 13 per cent wanted to achieve great things; 6 per cent were uncertain.