When life tries to slap us down, we instinctively turn to others for support particularly our intimate partners. Although this tendency to seek emotional support from loved ones to heal our wounds has long been recognized, it is only in the past couple of decades that substantial scientific evidence has been obtained ...
Date Posted: August 13, 2012
Categories: Codependency / Dependency, Couple Counseling, Post Traumatic Stress ...
Written By:
Brian Scott
Derek Bok, lawyer, professor and former president of Harvard University once said, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” I have to wonder if Mr. Bok had ever heard of Collège Alpin International Beau Soleil in Switzerland. At over $100,000 US per year for tuition, ...
Aug 10
Categories: Academic Issues, Child and/or Adolescent Issues
Written By:
Tony Brown
For years there has been a controversy surrounding the question of a causal link between exposure to violent media and aggressive behavior. At least as far back as 1986 when the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released, the public has been divided over whether not such media has a ...
Jul 28
Categories: Aggression & Violence, Child and/or Adolescent Issues
Written By:
Tony Brown
Asian Americans are the least likely of all Americans to be obese. That is what a Gallup poll, released a few days ago on July 17, 2012 in America reported. After reading about that report I decided ...
Jul 23
Categories: Child and/or Adolescent Issues, Parenting
Written By:
Tony Brown
I like to think of medicine from a biopsychosocial perspective, which focuses on the bi-directional relationships between body, mind and environment. Note that I did not reference a brain-body, but instead a mind-body relationship. The 33 billion or so cells which serve as the command center of our ...
Jul 19
Categories: Health / Illness / Medical Issues
Written By:
Tony Brown
“If you've never eaten while crying you don’t know what life tastes like.”
I came across this saying by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe the other day and thought that it would be a nice starting point to talk about the subject of crying. It’s not that Goethe cried a lot; ...
Jul 13
Categories: Empathy, Grief, Loss, Bereavement
Written By:
Tony Brown
In my years of practice as a psychotherapist, I have come to know that people can actually heal, not just cope better—the best hope current cognitive-behavioral therapy models offer. Depending on the difficulty of their problems and the degree of self-examination they are willing to do, ...
Jun 29
Categories: Control Issues, Self-Criticism, Shame
Written By:
Tony Brown
"The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days" ~ Ecclesiastes
Positive Psychology is an exciting and relatively new area of psychology. It aims to study scientifically what makes us humans happy and how we can improve our general level of happiness, well-being, and health. ...
Jun 19
Categories: Positive Psychology, Self-Care / Self Compassion
Written By:
Brian Scott
The condition now called Asperger’s syndrome (AS) was first recognized in children in the mid 1940s (Kanner 1943; Asperger, 1944). Since that time, children have been the main focus of attention by mental health workers so that most children with AS have been detected and diagnosed in ...
May 28
Categories: Asperger's Syndrome
Written By:
Brian Scott
Over 200 years ago, William Wordsworth alluded to the idea that nature has the power to restore our weary hearts and minds. In his poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798”, he eloquently describes how the ...
May 4
Categories: Spirituality, Stress Management
Written By:
Brian Scott
Most of us worry about the possibility of getting physically sick at some time in our life and that is why insurance coverage of medical diseases is so common. However, how many of us even think about developing a psychological illness let alone get insurance coverage for it?
Yet a recent and very ...
Apr 16
Categories: Adult ADHD, Agoraphobia, Anxiety, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ...
Written By:
Psych Mat Asia Editor
Sometimes memories of enjoyable and rewarding attachments in the past interfere with forming similar positive attachments in the present. This post is about psychological strategies to prevent such maladaptive memories of places where we have lived in the past from interfering with the formation of ...
Mar 27
Categories: Other
Written By:
Brian Scott
What is our risk of developing a mental illness over the course of our entire lives and which types of mental illnesses are we most likely to develop? These questions are not just academic in nature because the answers are of great practical importance to all of us. We need this information if we ...
Mar 13
Categories: Addictions, Inattention, Impulsivity, & Hyperactivity (ADHD), ...
Written By:
Psych Mat Asia Editor
Have you ever had thoughts, feelings or acted in ways that were unacceptable to yourself but felt powerless to control? The purpose of this post is to help you find ways to manage your mind so that you can live your life more in accordance with what your own judgment says is best for you.
As we ...
Feb 21
Categories: Control Issues, Life Purpose / Meaning / Inner-Guidance, Personality ...
Written By:
Brian Scott
Worldwide, a large majority of those with mental illness fail to receive adequate treatment and hence undergo unnecessary suffering. Arguably as tragic is the suffering experienced by the family members who agonize about the inexplicable and seemingly never ending mental anguish of their loved ...
Feb 7
Categories: Depression, Prejudice / Discrimination, Mental Health in Asia, Self ...
Written By:
Brian Scott
As a practising psychologist in Singapore, I often receive calls from distraught family members asking what they can do if they have a family member or friend who they suspect is suffering from depression but who is reluctant to see a mental health professional. The main goal in this situation, is ...
Jan 25
Categories: Depression, Family Problems
Written By:
Brian Scott