Head Transplantation: What Makes Us Who We Are?

The Atlantic and the BBC report that 31-year old Valery Spiridonov has a disease that is wasting away his body.   As a last-ditch effort to save his life, he has agreed to a first-of-its-kind surgery that would attach his head to a healthy body that had just died, for example, from a gunshot to the brain.

Whether or not it works (and the quoted mainstream experts predict it won't,) it raises an interesting ethical issue and asks us to consider our identity: What makes us who we are?  
I explore those questions in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Communication Lessons from the Trump Win

No matter how you feel about the outcome of the presidential election, it certainly can’t hurt to try to derive lessons from it, including those we can apply to our own lives. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer communication lessons I have derived.

Living with Your Parents

Despite the supposed recovery, Pew Research reports that for the first time in 130 years, more 18-to-34-year-olds live with their parents than in any other living arrangement. 
Of course, that can be a source of tension if not misery. A number of my Millennial clients say their main reason to work is to afford their own apartment.

As my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer a contract between parent(s) and child that may make back-at-home living more pleasant for all concerned. It may, with adaptation, also be useful in negotiating an agreement with roommates.

Becoming a Better Judge

University of Chicago Assistant Professor Ed O’Brien studies how accurately we appraise ourselves. For example, are we, overall, better people than we used to be? And how accurate are our specific predictions, for example, how likely we are to lose weight? O’Brien also looks at what affects our recommendations’ accuracy, for example, what movie to see? Finally, he goes beyond description and opines on how we might actually improve rather than just think we’re improving.

Pacific Standard named Ed O’Brien one of the Top 30 Thinkers Under 30.  His research has been profiled on NPR, The Atlantic, TIME, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.  He is my PsychologyToday.com Up-and-Comer interview today.

Creating Your Physical Image

Our choices of clothes, makeup, even dog affect how we're perceived. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer ideas and questions to help you decide what you want.

We ARE World Citizens

Both presidential candidates have succumbed to divisiveness at a time in history that I believe we’d be better served by efforts to find common ground as world citizens.

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I describe how I’ve dealt with being a member of an identity group that has often stressed its victimhood and how I resisted. It may offer lessons not only for people in identity groups but how we might better address our internal demons, and more constructively come together to work for a better world.

My Search for Peace of Mind

Some people naturally have peace of mind. Without effort, they walk the earth with a sense of contentment. 

I don’t. My parents said I cried a lot as a newborn, was a colicky baby, in school was ever worried I was a bad boy or not smart enough, and from my earliest memory, feared death and dying. At age 10, I'd lie in bed calculating the percentage of my life I probably had left---in terror, unable to sleep.

So, clearly I've been motivated to try to find more peace of mind. And if you are not naturally blissful, perhaps the report on my attempts may be of use to you. It's my PsychologyToday.com article today.