Except for people in our bubble, we often can’t talk politics without
risking the relationship.
Alas, if we can’t discuss divergent views, we
must rely on the media’s view, which, alas, tends to be a view from just one bubble. Hence our exposure to ideas is truncated, and wisdom doesn’t reside only on one side of center.
And it’s important we talk politics. It dramatically affects our lives, from education to health care to national security, plus where and how redistributively our tax dollars are spent.
In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I make the case for being passionate about moderation.
We all end by having to complete the same project: dying.
It’s all well and good to plan how we’ll do that final project, but I
don’t think we can predict accurately. No less than Elizabeth
Kubler-Ross who became famous for asserting that we all go through the
same five-step process from denial to acceptance, herself never reached
acceptance. My dear friend
who at 90, in bad, bad shape, bought a revolver and said that if it got
much worse, he’d shoot himself. Well, it’s a year later. he’s far worse
still, and he’s still alive.
That said, it can’t hurt to describe how I hope I’d handle my final
project. I do that in my PsychologyToday.com article today. Perhaps it will motivate me to stick with that honorable plan
or inspire you or me to at least not die as badly as we otherwise might.
Some research finds that screen time correlates with everything from depression to violence.
But, of course, correlation doesn’t equal causation. And, as I try to demonstrate in my PsychologyToday.com article today, logic suggests that screen time plays little or no role in causation. I argue further that, except when the quantity is extreme and/or the quality is poor, screen time is a significant net plus.
I know someone whose child is finishing his senior year in high school with a 1.5 GPA. He has “learning differences” including “poor executive functioning” and is doing lots of drugs. The parent
has decided to send him to a wilderness residential school for
drug-abusing kids in hopes “that will better prepare him for college.”
If I were his parent, I'd do something quite different. My PsychologyToday.com article today explains what I'd do.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been a school psychologist, and my conversations with current ones indicate that the field has changed some, but I sense that school psychologists still might benefit from my viewing the profession with fresh eyes.
My PsychologyToday.com article today offers some thoughts on how I’d practice school psychology. They embed principles for how others might choose to practice.
I can’t myself out of bed. It's hard even to think about everything I have to do:. Ugh: Get dressed—I’ll skip the shower. Sit in the gridlock; I can’t stand it. And mass transit takes much longer still, as I smell the B.O. of the other sardines on the train who didn’t shower.
Then I’ll sit there, pushing paper, covering my ass, smiling at those phonies, so I can keep the records for this non-profit, no different than keeping the records for that widget company I worked for before. Whether they donate to us or the other charity, buy our widget or the competitors, BFD. Then I have to deal with the kids, help make dinner, help with the homework .Clean up. Uuhhhhhh.
The reverie is broken by the kids busting in:
I’m hungry
How come you’re not up, again!
What should I wear?
That’s my toy!
Anthony is hitting me!
Where’s my lunch! It’s late.
You gotta drive us to school! Dad had to leave for work early!”
With the kids there, you manage to resist doing what you want to do: pull the covers over your head,. You murmur, “In a minute.”
Of course, many people can't even imagine feeling that way, but it's more common than you may think. As always, there are no pat answers but perhaps one of more of the ideas I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today might help:
Every two weeks, a psychotherapist consults with me about his practice. Today, he asked me,
I have a client who keeps coming back and every session says
everything’s fine. He comes back because he likes reporting on what
happened that week and telling me his plans for next week. I feel okay
about continuing to take his money but I’m bored just listening to him
and am wondering if there’s a way to add more value. Do you have
any suggestions?
I asked if he had queried the client about a wide-enough range of
life’s aspects that might unearth a fertile area for exploration. The
therapist asked me if I had a list of such aspects. When I gave him one, he suggested
that other therapists and counselors might benefit from seeing it, so I provided it as my PsychologyToday.com contribution today.
The effective counselor asks good questions. Of course, many of the best
questions derive from what the client says. But I’ve found 10 questions quite valuable in many circumstances. I list and describe them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.
For better or worse, an internship is increasingly a prerequisite to
getting hired.
Plus, a good internship can provide real-world learning
experience that will make you more confident and competent as a
professional and, at minimum, reduce the Imposter Syndrome that’s
pervasive among new graduates who feel longer on theoretical than
practical learning.
My PsychologyToday.com article today aims to help you or someone you care about to land an appropriate internship and how to make the most of it
I gave a talk yesterday at UC Berkeley on time management. What generated the most enthusiasm was the concept of The Voice.
I explained that many of my most successful clients and those most contented with their life have a little voice ever whispering in their ear, asking four questions. I describe them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.
It’s psychologically rewarding and just plain fun to reminisce about
your life. Normally, we do it by revisiting signature accomplishments,
for example, graduation, first job, marriage, kids.
A walk through the music of your life can often elicit less obvious
nuggets. For each song or piece of music that was important in your
life, you might write its emotional significance for you.
To kick off
your thinking, my PsychologyToday.com article today tells what I wrote about the music of my life.
If there’s a motto that career counselors, celebrities, and pop psychologists would agree on, it’s “Follow your passion!” Yet a case can be made for taking virtually whatever job drops in your lap and using it as a springboard to a better job and career.
I make the case in my PsychologyToday.com article today.
I hold many popular views but, by definition, you’re likely to have heard those before,
perhaps ad nauseam.
Perhaps the six unpopular beliefs I hold and describe in my PsychologyToday.com article today will thus be
of greater value to you.
It's remarkable how irrationally we choose what to learn, teach, or
research. We can be as simplistic as, “That seems interesting.” Or “My
advisor is researching Indo-European linguistics so I'll study that.” Or
“I fell into this job as a soda-flavoring taster so I might as well dig deeper.”
We might more wisely choose what to learn, teach, or research based on just this single criterion: How likely will my focusing on this significantly improve my life and that of my sphere of influence?
My PsychologyToday.com article today offers a look at three diverse examples.
Countless articles, books, and lectures attempt to propose the cure for procrastination. Those efforts divide into two categories: tactics and emotion-centered approaches.
Both may be over-complexifying the solution. I myself have been guilty of it. For example, just yesterday, I wrote an article offering lots of anti-procrastination tactics. Earlier, I wrote an article focusing on the emotional.
But after a rewarding exchange with procrastination expert Tim Pychyl who had read the aforementioned tactics article, I decided to offer you a simpler approach. That's my PsychologyToday.com article today.
It’s been 39 years since I finished my PhD at Berkeley, and I was
honored when, recently, I was invited back to give a presentation to
Berkeley's current 4th-year school psychology doctoral students about
lessons I’ve learned and my predictions for the future of school
psychology. I made that presentation today, and my PsychologyToday.com article today summarizes what I told
them.
