positive psychology
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Temperament II: Players
This is the second installment regarding “temperament.” Temperament is a way I have come to see and understand people. It is not the only way and it may not be the best way, but it has been helpful for my understanding people for many years. Beginning with the Greek philosopher Galen two millennia ago there…
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Temperament I
This is the first of what I suspect will be several blogs on “temperament,” something I have been interested in for about 45 years. Let me indulge myself with a bit of history here, namely how I came into this idea of “temperament.” I started this rather odd profession of being a psychologist in 1966…
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Guilt and Shame
Guilt is good for you. Shame is bad for you. Guilt makes you a better person. Shame makes you a scared person. Guilt is good. Shame is bad. Period. Allow me to explain. I intend to describe these two very important experiences, which are quite different but are often conflated together. Guilt and shame “feelings”.…
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One taxi, two taxi, three taxi then four. Taxi (Life) Lessons in Portugal
Taxis: the good, the bad, and the ugly When Ron and I travel in a foreign country, we rarely use taxis, so the whole experience of using them is a bit “foreign” to me. We’re usually driving, riding the train, or just walking. But when I recently went to Portugal by myself, I had planned…
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Feelings IX: Joy From Intuition
This is the ninth in a series of “feelings”. Our most recent addition, Feelings VIII had to do with the feeling of joy, specifically related to the joy that one experiences in one’s five physical senses. Here we would like to explore joy that comes from what we might call our sixth sense, which I…
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Feelings VIII: The Sense of Joy
Feelings VIII: The Sense of Joy A couple of blogs past we offered Feelings VI: It’s All About Hurt, and then paradoxically offered Feelings VII: It’s Not All About Hurt in which we suggested that the feeling of joy is just as important as the feeling of sadness, which is the heart of “hurt.” Today…
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Feelings VII: It’s Not All About Hurt
How odd it must seem to start this blog with what seems like a contradiction to the title of the previous blog, “It’s All About Hurt.” All about hurt? Not all about hurt? What am I trying to say? I am saying that both are true, however paradoxical that sounds. In Feelings 6 we talked…
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Feelings 6: It’s All About Hurt
We have talked about the phenomenon of hurt in previous “Feelings” blogs, primarily in Feelings: 2 (Expressing Feelings), but it behooves us to return to hurt and unpack it a bit. I will cover the following things about “hurt”: Hurt is another of the important undefinable words that we can have an understanding about without…
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Mind over Matter IV: Addictions
This is the fourth blog in the Mind over Matter series. Initially we discussed the theory of mind and brain, noting that the “mind” is a real entity but undefinable, along with the different functions of the mind and the brain. In Mind over Matter II we discussed how the brain creates anger, anxiety, and…