Category: Psychology Articles
I’ve been a child psychologist for 27 years. This article is a continuation of the concept of “The Dance,” which I developed to help parents understand their role in guiding their progeny. Please read the first article before perusing this one… The Dance happens when you as the parent resist, then back up as the child …
I’ve been a kid psychologist for 27 years and write a lot of articles and ebooks on various psychological subjects. Here’s one on a principle that everyone should know, not just parents. It took me about a year to figure this out. When I first started working with families, I noticed that some families just “clicked.” …
This is the second part of an article about applying the 4:1 Rule to teenager’s behavior. Please read the previous article first… Written by a psychologist. To continue… The critical ratio is 4:1. It’s a subtle point, but one that took me a long time figure out. In this specific way, we are choosing which positive …
This article was written by a clinical psychologist who has been in private practice 27 years. It is one of a host of articles on procrastination, many of which should be on this blog. Please read the other articles to understand the basic terms of this one, specifically ambivalence and its relation to procrastination. The trick …
Teenagers and Needs I’ve been a child psychologist for over two and a half decades. I’ve written hundreds of articles, this one on Teenagers and Needs. The overall theme is How To Change Teenager’s Behavior, which is covered in depth in an ebook by the same title, linked to the author’s website, below. In the present …
Wikipedia has the common definition: “A mood is a relatively long lasting emotional state. Moods differ from simple emotions in that they are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event.” Being more global, moods can mask feelings, which are sometimes more intense and often more fleeting. Feelings …
Over-reaction to limit setting can occur in the context of any event that produces any emotion. Your teen will likely be sadder than usual when there is a frustration with a relationship. S/he will be more hurt than usual when there is personal injury involved, again, usually relative to peer interaction. Pick a feeling and pick …
I’ve been a child psychologist for 27 years, and have developed a system of changing both kid’s and teenager’s behavior. I’ve written lots of articles about children, many of which, hopefully, are on this website. The following article deals with a particularly poignant movement through time between parents and children. I call this “The Dance.” This …
In my wanderings about the literature on guilt, I ran across some quotes. Some are sprinkled throughout an ebook I’ve written on guilt. Here’s some I thought were good: “Guilt is anger directed at ourselves.”–Peter McWilliams “If I had my life to live over again, I’d be a plumber.”–Albert Einstein “If you wind up with a …
I found some more good quotes on guilt… “Guilt is the reason they put the articles in Playboy.”–Dennis Miller “Food, love, career, and mothers, the four major guilt groups.”– Cathy Guisewite “No work for love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made …
In my capacity as an outpatient psychologist, I have worked with children of all ages for over twenty years. Usually parents drag their kids into my office complaining of a litany of bad behaviors, ranging from not cleaning up their rooms, to getting bad grades, hitting their siblings, or worse, stealing, fighting or doing drugs. I …
Sex is THE big subject parents avoid. The interesting thing is that by the time teenagers begin dating, they already know way more about sex than parents imagined. Why? One reason is that elementary school children now attend sex-ed classes at earlier and earlier ages. Sometimes this occurs in the sixth or even the fifth grade. …
This is the sixth in a seven-part series of articles on dealing with guilt. Please read the first five before reading this one. Written by a psychologist. To continue… Can I make those irrational beliefs conscious and better deal with them, then? Here’s some techniques I sometimes use: • Decide that if you must feel guilt, …
This is the last in a seven-part series of articles on dealing with guilt. Please read the first six before reading this one. Written by a psychologist. To continue… There are some who will not abandon religion in their quest for a guilt-free existence. Unfortunately, religious people often suffer the greatest guilt. “I’m an Irish Catholic …
This is the third article in a seven-part series of articles on dealing with guilt. Please read the preceding two articles before reading this one. Written by a psychologist. To continue… To be assertive requires that we first choose to be assertive, consciously or unconsciously, and then have handy a vocabulary of our feelings. Then we …
This is the fourth in a seven-part series of articles on dealing with guilt. Please read the preceding three articles before reading this one. Written by a psychologist. To continue… Guilt-inducing ploys mislead or misdirect you. Because many irrational beliefs lie behind guilt, you may be unable to sort out the dynamic, much less your feelings. …
This is the fifth of a seven-part series of articles on dealing with guilt. Please read the previous four articles before reading this one. Written by a psychologist. To continue… How do you get “in touch” with these irrational beliefs and the inner feelings or reactions they create? How do you turn ambivalence and conflict outwards? …
As with all ambivalences (see below), procrastination pops up when there are conflicts over values, ideas or feelings. We are aware of some aspects of these; that is, we may have a conscious experience of the conflicts. Or, the conflicts may be between what we are aware of and what is out of awareness. Many a …
This is the first of a seven-part series of articles on dealing with guilt. Written by a psychologist, it outlines the current approaches to resolving this thorny experience. These articles should be read in order. Everyday, we interact with others and situations that can induce feelings of guilt. You might have the feeling of responsibility for …
This is the second of a seven-part series of articles on dealing with guilt. Please read the previous article first. Written by a psychologist. As has been said many times, guilt can be remedied through intellectual rigor or by changing cognitions of the dynamics; making conscious the understanding that the source of the guilty feelings was …
