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World of Psychology


Anxiety and Panic

Two Ways to Help Other People Understand What You’re Going Through

What are you going through? Do you have health issues that are invisible to other people? Have you wished for a way to communicate how friends and family members can help you? Wish granted. In this article, you will read about two ways you can let people know what you need and when you need it. Choose the one that suits you best, or use both at different times. It may be that these ideas prompt new courses of action that can heal misunderstandings between you and those you care about most.
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Children and Teens

The Effects of Positive Attention on the Impulsive Child

We’ve all heard the parenting proverb that a child who is acting out may actually be exhibiting attention-seeking behavior. And why not? We can understand this need because children are smaller, with less ability to command the attention of an adult or even other peers. They are just beginning to figure out what captures and sustains other people’s energy and attention, without much evaluation yet as to whether or not that attention is positive or negative. 

But young children also seek another important resource: power. According to Erik Erikson’s theory of development, from ages eighteen months to three years old, the child is working out the conundrum between autonomy and self-doubt. They are learning that they can do many things and discovering whether or not they can do these things by themselves.
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Children and Teens

Active Shooter Drills at School: How to Do Them Right

Threats to school-aged children are not new. From the 1940s through the 1980s, children in primary schools participated in bombing preparation drills, in case their school came under a bombing attack. After the mass shooting at Columbine by a pair of disaffected youth, the drills shifted from bombing to active shooter.

No longer did children sit in the hallway with their heads between their knees. Instead, teens and kids were taught how to lock the classroom door and shelter in place.

Unfortunately for too many children these days, well-meaning school administrators have taken it upon themselves to make an active shooter drill more "real," sometimes by even using prop weapons. These efforts are misguided, and at worst, instill a sense of dread and anxiety in children who look for their school to provide a safe learning environment.

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Anger

Podcast: Anxiety and Anger: A One-Two Punch



Do you struggle with anger? Did you know that some of our most hot-headed moments are actually rooted in anxiety? In today’s podcast, Jackie openly shares her own fuse-blowing moment when her husband’s keys were (gasp!) missing from the hook, and now she must face being late for therapy and perhaps even lie dying on the side of the road. How did she handle this catastrophic situation her mind so graciously forewarned her about?

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Psychology

The Psychology of Staying Put: Why Mobility in the U.S. Has Been Declining for Decades

Do you think that, over time, the U.S. has become an increasingly mobile nation? Is it your sense that people pick up and leave far more often than they did in the past? That’s part of our conventional wisdom, propped up by declarations in prestigious newspapers, scholarly journals, and popular culture. Remember those Carole King lyrics? “So far away / Doesn’t anyone stay in one place anymore?” 

There is one big problem with our belief that mobility in the U.S. has been increasing: It is exactly wrong. Sociologist Claude Fischer has shown that American mobility has been declining for well over a century. Because of improvements in data collection, evidence is clearest for the past 70 years. 
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Brain and Behavior

Turbocharge Your Brain 

Life sure does require a lot of thinking. The heavy lifting includes solving problems, charting the right path to our goals, and making important decisions. Each requires us to rev up our thinking engines and put our brains into gear. And, just like with a car, you can boost the effectiveness of your thinking power with a brain turbocharger -- easily.  
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Industrial and Workplace

A Meditation on Leaving a Job Behind and Taking Back Control

When you’re in a job that you dislike, it could be complicated to simply walk away. It’s tough to walk out the door without looking back and weigh the various consequences. But at the same time, walking away from detrimental situations also can be a beautiful exercise in taking back control -- taking back control of your life and yourself and all you embody, even if it’s not always so easy. 

In my personal experience, I planned to stay at a particular job for a decent amount of time. Then, when I started to see the writing on the wall, marked in red (you know, for red flags), I had to reconstruct my mentality. I was going to start looking elsewhere. I was going to put out my feelers to find a better situation while still ‘hanging in there.’ 
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Books

10 Strategies for Recharging on the Spot

While it would be nice to have an entire day to recharge, it’s not necessary. And if you wait until you have a full day off (from work or parenting or any other countless responsibilities you have), you’ll likely be incredibly exhausted—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

The good news is that there are plenty of ways to recharge on the spot, whether you’re responding to emails at your desk, sitting on the subway, or dealing with a tantruming toddler (yes, really).
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