Month: March 2021

Ecopsychology as liberation psychology

Ecopsychology as Liberation Psychology

Published by Nicci Attfield

There is no doubt that human society is living in times of profound crisis. Both Black Lives Matter and Climate Change protests have been taking place throughout the world. As a result, the radical ecopsychologist, Andy Fisher argues that we need to not only find a way of re-entering into a relationship with life but also of exploring those ways that capitalism, colonialism, and industry is failing the earth so that we can create helpful change. It is only by exploring how social and ecological injustices have created harm to both human and non-human communities that we can work towards liberation for all beings.  How does a liberation ecopsychology model view our current world? Liberation psychology explores how the past has shaped the present, taking into account how this impacts all of life. Social injustice shapes our current world. Derrida shares the need to be reflexive about our liberal democratic society in his work Spectres of Marx. Explaining that repressed aspects of our history remain with us, shaping the present, he points out that this …

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personality disorders

Why are personality disorders difficult to distinguish from healthy personalities?

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Everyone has a personality, comprised of strengths and weaknesses Get to know anyone well enough and you will begin to see that s/he struggles dealing with certain aspects of life, work, and relationships.  These weaknesses in someone’s personality can even be so vulnerable that people can have acute episodes of anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders. In other words, no one is perfect, nor does a healthy level of functioning depend on someone moving closer and closer to perfection over time.  This basic truth makes it tricky to differentiate someone with a disordered personality from a flawed, but mostly normal personality organization. In order to determine if weaknesses in a person’s character meet criteria for a personality disorder, one of two things need to be present: 1. You have a great deal of reliable data about a person’s life across time and context, or 2. You need a great deal of experience and expertise recognizing signs and symptoms of personality pathology. Distress and impairment are often context-dependent Narcissists can be extremely high achievers. Obsessive-compulsive Personality …

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The Montessori Method: The 5 Principles

The Montessori Method: The 5 Principles

Published by Sophie Fleetwood

What do Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow and His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge all have in common? They are the beneficiaries of the century-old student-focused Montessori education, which has produced some of the most innovative thinkers on the planet. Little Bets author Peter Sims wrote in his Wall Street Journal blog, “Ironically, the Montessori educational approach might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia.” “You can’t understand Google unless you know that both Larry and Sergey were Montessori kids.” Yahoo CEO and former Google vice president Marissa Mayer told Wired magazine, “In a Montessori school, you go paint because you have something to express or you just want to do it that afternoon, not because the teacher said so. This is baked in how Larry and Sergey approach problems. They’re always asking, ‘Why should it be like that?’ It’s the way their brains were programmed …

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Self-deception and charm

Charmed by deception: Why we love to believe the lies others tell themselves

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Why are people who lie to themselves so charismatic? Everyone lies to themselves.  Self-deception (a.k.a., denial) is a necessary defense mechanism. However, some people overuse denial and/or deploy it as a defense in a rigid, maladaptive way. So what does charisma have to do with self-deception?  To answer this, I’ll rephrase the questions ever so slightly: What is it about people who believe their own lies that makes them so charismatic?  The answer to this question is quite simple.  If someone believes their own lies, then most other people will believe them, too. Humans are amazingly sophisticated when it comes to interpreting social behavior.  We’ll naturally spot any incongruity between what a person says and how they behave.  When someone lacks conviction in something, most people can detect the discrepancy between the words and the delivery. Narcissists are masters at this.  They can often speak their grandiose notions of themselves into existence.  How can they do this? Remember The Little Engine that Could? Simply believing you can actually can sometimes actually make it happen. But …

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5 Secrets to a Healthy Work-Life Balance | Madelaine Claire Weiss

5 Secrets to a Healthy Work-Life Balance

Published by Madelaine Claire Weiss

5 secrets to a healthy work-life that unlock your creative flow, connect you to your personal power and unleash a transformation of your life as you know it. Sounds like a tall order but stop and consider this: the Japanese invented the word karoshi to describe death by overwork. In the west, we call it work stress and it’s equally dangerous to our health. Work stress describes the destructive physio-emotional responses that arise when the demands of a job are not aligned with the abilities or needs of the worker resulting in ill health and/or trauma.  There are 120,000 work stress-related deaths per year in the US, with 77% of professionals reporting they experienced burnout that significantly impacted their work and quality of life. According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms of work stress include: Developing a cynical attitude toward work Procrastination Irritability and impatience Sluggishness Difficulty concentrating Dissatisfaction with achievements Disillusionment Numbing through substance- or food abuse Changes in sleep patterns Unexplained headaches, stomach or bowel problems, etc. Moving from misery to self-mastery I help high achievers master their minds so they can …

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psychodynamic definition

Everything you need to know about psychodynamic psychology

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Psychodynamic meaning / Psychodynamic definition The American Psychological Association Defines psychodynamic theory as: “a constellation of theories of human functioning that are based on the interplay of drives and other forces within the person, especially (and originating in) the psychoanalytic theories developed by Sigmund Freud and his colleagues and successors, such as Anna Freud, Carl Jung, and Melanie Klein. Later psychodynamic theories, while retaining concepts of the interworking of drives and motives to some degree, emphasize the process of change and incorporate interpersonal and transactional perspectives of personality development.” APA Dictionary Characteristics of Psychodynamic theory There is an unconscious As much as we want to be self-governing, rational beings, we mostly are not.  Starting from this assumption allows for a coherent understanding of why people act either irrationally and/or in ways that hurt us more than help us.   Most of the time we don’t have good reasons why we act the way we do.  The unconscious mind helps to explain this.  Consciousness has influence over things.  In fact, the subjective experience of consciousness does an …

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parents borderline personality disorder

Are the parents of individuals suffering from BPD aware of the role they had to play in the development of this disorder?

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

The most widely held theory of etiology for BPD is that sufferers of borderline personality disorder have both a temperamental predisposition (genetic emotional sensitivity and receptivity to one’s emotional environment) AND an emotionally invalidating environment during sensitive developmental periods. I would add that the larger context for both of these etiological factors is an intergenerational history of trauma.  Explaining this is beyond the scope of this question, but an important point to hold in mind. This context is necessary to answer the question, since we have to consider how likely parents are to really empathize with the pain of their children. And, the short answer is that parents are not likely to fully comprehend how they have contributed to their child’s BPD.  The reasons for this are as follows: Parents don’t tend to be aware of their contributions to the disorder without significant soul-searching because they are the source of the emotionally-invalidating environment.   “Awareness” as used in the original question, in my reading, implies more than just intellectual understanding.  Parents can cognitively “understand” that they …

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Schizoid Personality Disorder

How does the modern world promote schizoid personality disorder?

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Schizoid Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of asociality, and is what many people refer to when they colloquially describe someone as “antisocial” (in the sense of lacking interest in socializing with others). Before getting into factors in modern society that promote the schizoid personality type, here are a few things to understand about schizoid PD: Schizoid PD has been grouped with other “Cluster A” personality disorders.  Cluster A personality disorders are marked by “odd or eccentric behavior.” Other Cluster A disorders include Paranoid Personality Disorder & Schizotypal Personality Disorder Schizoid PD is theorized to be on the Schizophrenia spectrum, meaning that the genotype and phenotype of schizoid PD are “cousins” of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Recent estimates suggest that 1% of the population meets criteria for schizoid personality disorder Identical twin studies show that there is a 30% concordance rate of schizoid PD between twins While there may be a significant genetic component of schizoid pd, many have speculated that aspects of modern life may be responsible for a growing number of cases …

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