Psychology

In a world of many predetermined things, friends are the family we choose for ourselves. Often, their presence is what keeps us going. In Vital Friends, Tom Rath says that many of those who end up on the streets, divorced, or addicted to overeating, struggle with inner demons precisely because they are alone. They feel excluded, abandoned, unloved.

At some point, we've all come across the phrase "back in my day," a deeply subjective expression which encapsulates a universal phenomenon: the generation gap.

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.

“Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you.” With this message, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, launched the telephone. The door had opened to distant, personal and instant contact.

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.

Compromise is always present in relationships. It may pull us down, but it can also be a good reconciliation exercise when there are differences that cannot be resolved in any other way.

More and more people are choosing cohabitation over marriage. Many young people believe that cohabiting helps them to make better decisions about marriage by giving the couple a chance to "practise" before making a lifelong commitment. There is also a belief that cohabiting before marriage reduces the likelihood of marital problems or divorce.

“What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?” (Job 7:17-18)

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.

If you're unhappy in your relationship, do you think that formalising it with a marriage certificate will finally bring you happiness? The ever-increasing divorce rate is no coincidence, and experts emphasise the importance of taking a realistic approach to marriage.

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. 

Can you be happily married to anyone? The idea of ​​happiness as a thing of one's own creation persists in our times, although its cultural sedimentation belongs to the modern age.

Detecting an introvert is not as easy as we may think, because sometimes introverts are not shy or silent at all, they take responsibility, work extraordinarily in teams, and can even be skilled public speakers. Yet several traits can unveil the introverted character of an individual.

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.

Can the thinking of a single philosopher be so influential as to change the fundamental values ​​of a society and lead to tremors of transcontinental proportions, like the economic crisis that began in 2007? Could Ayn Rand's philosophy be the almost-imperceptible reason for transforming the United States, as Levine puts it, into a "selfish nation"?