Do you feel trapped in a relationship you can’t leave? Of course, feeling trapped is a state of mind. No one needs consent to leave a relationship. Millions of people ...

Love can’t exist without boundaries, even with your children. It’s easy to understand external boundaries as your bottom line. Think of rules and principles you live by when you say what you will or won’t do or ...

BOOK REVIEW.
Many different types of people, for many different reasons, read memoirs about mental illness. Some may be suffering from an illness themselves and are looking for guidance or inspiration. Some may have questions as a result of their friend’s or family member’s suffering. Others may be professionals in the mental health field. Then there are ...

“You complete me.” It’s the most destructive idea about love in American culture. It may make for a good line in a movie. But the notion makes for very unstable relationships. It doesn’t work ...

BOOK REVIEW.
After my girlfriend, whom we will call Elle, had her first full-blown manic episode, I began to read several books on bipolar disorder. These included books on medications and the use of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), which Elle received after being involuntarily committed by her parents. In her manic states, typically after several days with little or no sleep, she ...

BOOK REVIEW.
What’s the difference between personality psychology and social psychology? In essence, personality psychology focuses on the person, while social psychology focuses on the situation—how people act in different situations, or how situations affect individuals. In exploring how and why the two fields might be integrated, The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology recounts the history ...

BOOK REVIEW.
Is the battle of the sexes between men and women real or a social convention? It turns out that men and women compete not only for gender equality in the workplace, but also via the very structure of their bodies and the chemical composition of their bodily fluids. The 21 essays in The Oxford Handbook ...

I’ve always been regarded as quiet. I revive myself through quiet time, reading, listening to music, or journaling. I have never enjoyed big parties, really loud music, or talkative people. While I appreciate these things on occasion, I derive much of ...

I was surprised to learn that this grove of aspen trees is actually one organism, sharing one root system. Each of us also is a community of 70 trillion cells that work together. Biologist Bruce Lipton believes that together we’re “one ...

Shame is so painful to the psyche that most people will do anything to avoid it, even though it’s a natural emotion that everyone has. It’s a physiologic response of the autonomic nervous system. You might blush, have a rapid ...

BOOK REVIEW.
Steven Hassan, a highly respected opponent of destructive cults, has written a new book called Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs. Though the intended audience is a limited one — families and individuals whose loved one is trapped in a destructive cult — the wider audience could be mental health ...

BOOK REVIEW.
Introverts certainly are having a moment -- Susan Cain’s Quiet landed on the New York Times Bestseller List as soon as it came out in January 2012 -- and it’s about time.  The Introvert’s Way by Psych Central's own Sophia Dembling continues this trend.  Unlike Quiet, it not only provides scientific and cultural background ...