Category: Psychology Articles
This is the fourth in a four-part series of articles on the literature on guilt. Please read the first three before reading this one. To continue… Clinical Aspects On a more clinical level, guilt has many correlates with mental illnesses. Anxiety is associated with major depression in about seventy-five percent of cases, and guilt, being a …
This is the first of a six-part series of articles on guilt, emphasizing specific examples, and how to deal with them. Written by a psychologist. In its most healthy and appropriate sense, guilt is an emotional warning sign that most people learn through their normal childhood social development. Its purpose is to let us know when …
The following is the first in a four-part series of articles on the literature on guilt. It is written as an introduction to the topic and should be read in order. In the literature, we find guilt to be the main theme in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Tennessee Williams’ A …
This is the second of a four-part series or articles on the literature on guilt. Please read the first article before reading this one. To continue… Social Processes Guilt often is assigned by social processes, such as a jury trial. In this case, it is more of a legal concept. Thus, the rulings of a jury …
This is the third in a three-part series of articles. Please read the first two and have your list of behaviors handy before reading this article. To continue, these are some of the many complaints and categories I hear about from parents. There are a lot more categories and infinitely more negative behaviors to be put …
This is the first of a three-part series of articles introducing an approach to changing teenager’s behavior. I’ve been a child psychologist for twenty-seven years. During that time, I’ve evolved a system for dealing with children. It involves some basic reinforcement strategies, but it also has some new ideas. People tell me they want the nuts …
To Review, there are three contingencies of reinforcers; immediacy, consistency and constancy. These are the aspects of reinforcers that create change. I’ve related all of them to increasing positive behaviors by applying the contingencies to each behavior you want to increase. The same arrangement works to decrease negative behaviors, if the contingencies are applied using punishments. …
Another term is Classical Conditioning. Remember when Pavlov (the Russian physiologist) rang a bell, and then gave a dog some food (meat powder), which made the dog salivate? Pavlov did this over and over with the same dog and pretty soon the dog would salivate just to the sound of the bell, anticipating the food. Well, …
This is the second of a three part series of articles on the psychology of guilt. Please read the first article before reading this one… Here’s another perspective, from psychology: “In this definition, guilt is a negative, paralyzing emotion, based on non-acceptance of oneself or the situation, and it leads to depression and frustration rather than …
This is the third in a three-part series of articles on the psychology of guilt. Please read the previous two articles first. In guilt dynamics, there are only two patterns of thinking or behaving—rectifying something you did not do or rectifying something you erroneously did do. Either way you are stuck. In general, this is a …
I’ve been a child psychologist for twenty-seven years. I also work with younger children, but the principles are the same for changing behaviors. But first, there needs to be a little preparation. Here’s an exercise and a description of thes process that we can use to change teenager’s behaviors. Take a sheet of typing paper and …
This is part II of a three part series on What To Do First When Changing Teenager’s Behavior. Please read the first article before tackling this one. What To Do First When Changing Teen’s Behaviors-Part II Here are some examples to help out. Positive (+) Behaviors Negative (-) Behaviors Talks Quietly Yelling Cleans room Doesn’t clean …
I’m a child psychologist and have been in private practice over twenty-seven years. This latest brief article outlines some things to watch for in teens when their behavior becomes a problem. This is one of a series of many articles recently published online about teenagers and their behaviors… To continue… Another cause of erratic moods is …
I’ve been a child psychologist for twenty-seven years. Here’sthe top thirteen teenager problems areas I see every day. 1) Out of home activities. Teenagers frequently want to “hang out” with other teens, usually away from the house, or if at home, out of parent’s earshot or eyesight. Who they hang out with and how far away …
I’ve been a child psychologist for 27 years. This is the second in a series of articles on how to deal with teen’s behaviors. Please read the first article by this same title (Part I) before reading the below… Parents have to negotiate most of the aforementioned areas, not just once but regularly. This is the …
This is the first in a three-part series on the psychology of guilt. It is written by a clinical psychologist who has been in private practice 27 years. The Psychology of GUILT(Ambivalence Turned Inwards) From etymology (the study of historical linguistic change, especially as manifested in individual words)… “Guilt stems from gylt ‘crime, sin, fault, fine,’ …
What is assertiveness? Simply defined, according to Wikipedia, which is actually pretty good at defining this term, assertiveness is: “…a form of behavior characterized by a confident declaration or affirmation of a statement without need of proof; this affirms the person’s rights or point of view without either aggressively threatening the rights of another (assuming a …
Teens, Driving and Dating I’ve been an outpatient child psychologist for over twenty-seven years, and have recently completed a ebook, How To Change Teenager’s Behavior. Below is an excerpt, summarizing some thoughts on teen driving, followed by dating (next article). To continue… Your task as the parent is to shape your teenager; training them, little by …
These two articles are part of a group of articles about procrastination, all written by an outpatient psychologist. Previous articles explain the relationship between conflicts, ambivalence, anxiety, avoidance, etc.; all of which might be read in order to fully understand the content of the current article. To continue… Sometimes, people go through lots of therapeutic steps …
Other Causes of Procrastination-Like Behaviors-Part IIThis is a continuation of the previous article, which was Part I. Please read that article first. To continue… Mental health is often an underlying factor. Think depression or bi-polar illness. Think anxiety disorders. These are serious conditions that clearly compromise an individual’s ability to negotiate even simple, daily tasks, much …
