Category: Psychology

  • Writing – pen to paper or fingers to keyboard – tradition over modernity

    Writing – pen to paper or fingers to keyboard – tradition over modernity

    These days, everyone is a writer.  That is what technology has done.  From the person who composes a short text message and garnishes it with the perfect emojis, to the one who prepares the agenda for an important board meeting, to the one writing in her own journal, everyone is writing.  Whether there is some […]

  • Bipolar disorder – the inner conflicts arising from trying to reconcile the Old and New Testament writings

    Bipolar disorder – the inner conflicts arising from trying to reconcile the Old and New Testament writings

    Bipolar disorder has become the accepted name given to the manifest inner conflicts of disturbed individuals.  While there are questions and concerns over the diagnosis of bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness) itself, there are special considerations that arise as a person’s beliefs are considered.  The source of those beliefs also invariably comes into question.  Aside from […]

  • How the diagnosis of bipolar disorder keeps a person psychologically trapped?

    How the diagnosis of bipolar disorder keeps a person psychologically trapped?

    If you have had even a minimal contact with books on psychology and psychiatry, it is impossible that you have not heard of bipolar disorder.  It was previously known by a more sinister name, manic-depressive illness.  The words, bipolar disorder, evoke a vivid imagery; manic-depressive illness is even more evocative!  The idea of a person […]

  • Can real happiness be found through objectivity?

    Can real happiness be found through objectivity?

    It would be difficult to place an exact event or time when a person experiences happiness for the first time.  One would very much hope, it was during the days of infancy, even before the faculties of reason had started to develop.  And so, by this way of referencing, happiness or the experiencing of it […]

  • Creating a defense mechanism by assigning all ideas to the intellect

    Creating a defense mechanism by assigning all ideas to the intellect

    The intellect can seem like a safe realm to keep and examine ideas. However, if human interactions remain at that level, something is soon realized to be missing. Our response to suffering, ability to empathize and connect also are affected. In the age of social networking, what can we practically do to rise above it?

  • Does social networking encourage jumping to conclusions?

    Does social networking encourage jumping to conclusions?

    What is Jumping to conclusions? Jumping to conclusions (officially the jumping conclusion bias, often abbreviated as JTC, and also referred to as the inference-observation confusion[1]) is a psychological term referring to a communication obstacle where one “judge[s] or decide[s] something without having all the facts; to reach unwarranted conclusions”.[2][3] In other words, “when I fail to distinguish between what I […]

  • What is one to do when confronted by stories of evil?

    What is one to do when confronted by stories of evil?

    I understand that so many of us would like to find a place of security and comfort, away from all the evil done in our world today.  And who are the doers of great evil?  Not the wild animals or some predatory birds; it is the people who live right among us, people who look and […]

  • The Guardian’s Cambridge Analytica & Facebook data story

    The Guardian’s Cambridge Analytica & Facebook data story

    The algorithm used in the Facebook data breach trawled through personal data for information on sexual orientation, race, gender – and even intelligence and childhood trauma Source: How Cambridge Analytica turned Facebook ‘likes’ into a lucrative political tool | Technology | The Guardian Public data has become a means of dispassionately looking at humanity for […]

  • Why mentors and teachers are especially needed to counter extremism?

    Mentors and teachers are a special gift to human society.  These cannot simply be understood to be professions or titles, or some kind of a degree that is earned from an institution.  Rather, these are linked to the personal qualities and concerns of the individual.  Even more so, it is connected with how a person […]

  • The exclusive focus on physical things will create an imbalance

    The exclusive focus on physical things will create an imbalance

    There has been a noticeable insistence on physical things in recent times.  It has been very deliberate, systematic, and evident of great intelligence.  Who are its proponents is not the most important thing.  One could, of course, examine the sayings of modern, atheist thinkers like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.  Listening to such intelligent men […]

  • Finding belief in moderateness in the nuclear age

    Finding belief in moderateness in the nuclear age

    Nuclear technology is not bad in itself.  We have understood the sun and the stars, and in a way, have harnessed the same power to a lesser extent.  We have controlled fission, and are yet to understand ways to control fusion for peaceful purposes.  The insistence on using solar energy to fulfill the requirements for electricity […]

  • Can today’s leaders improve our future by making more positive predictions?

    Can today’s leaders improve our future by making more positive predictions?

    Predictions are humanly impossible and are equally common.  Yes, as rare as they should be, they, in fact, form a part of everyday speech.  Whenever someone says, I will do this and I will do that, we are in a sense indulging in a prediction.  It is our certainty about life itself and our ability […]

  • How compulsion and desperation are driving the conversation toward extremes

    How compulsion and desperation are driving the conversation toward extremes

    A conversation has the power to liberate a human being.  It has the power to set free the mind from bondage.  Even one exchange of ideas is able to give a new direction to the thinking of a person, or the chance of realization.  Why would anyone want to do so?  The real reason has […]

  • The value of having a fluid mind to interact with a diversity of people

    The value of having a fluid mind to interact with a diversity of people

    Is peace a valid goal to have?  In the short term, it may not seem so.  In the long term, it is one of the ultimate desires.  The end of a war, the start of a conversation – it will all make sense if there is peace at the end of it.  If peace is […]

  • How can the youth protect themselves from addiction to technology?

    How can the youth protect themselves from addiction to technology?

    It has been with every generation, especially in the past 100 years that addiction to technology has been a very real possibility.  Since the start of the industrial revolution, the speed of change has been tremendous.  Dependence on machines and development in technology has gone hand-in-hand.  The younger ones, more enthusiastic and curious by nature, […]