Episodes

Popularity boils down to a mix of likability, visibility, and emotional intelligence. Rather than just being loud or having "clout," truly popular people consistently make others feel valued, possess high empathy, and exhibit confident, magnetic personalities. Tune in and learn all bout wht draws people to you!

What is human nature? This is a question that has perplexed philosophers and psychologists throughout the ages. Are people essentially socially constructive and altruistic or are they destructive and selfish in nature? Tune in and learn all about what it is to be human!

The psychology of marriage centers on the shift from survival-based unions to models of self-actualization. Historically, marriage was an economic and political institution. Today, partners view each other as sources of emotional fulfillment, which introduces higher expectations and greater psychological pressures on relationships. Tune in and learn how marriage has worked historically and how expectations have evolved!

Entitlement is an enduring personality trait, characterized by the belief that one deserves preferences and resources that others do not. Like boundaries, we recognize entitlement chiefly by its effect on us: envy, anger, and frustration. "Why do they think they deserve it any more than I do?" we wonder. And then, "Is it them, or is it just me?" Tune in and learn how to recognize and deal with entitled people!

There are some things that are so awful they really can derail people. And there are some people who are so fragile they are more easily derailed. But there’s a whole lot of people — most of us — who need to get on with our life and take responsibility for what we do with it. Staying stuck in the victim role completely undermines that process. Tune in and learn how peole acquire victim mentality and operate with it!

Boys learn at a very young age from their parents and others around them about expected behaviors based on their gender. These societal norms are described as masculinity ideologies. Masculinity ideology refers to the traditional and socially constructed definitions about the cultural norms and expectations regarding appropriate male behavior. Tune in and learn how to guide your son into manhood!

While need for human connection appears to be innate, the ability to form healthy, loving relationships is learned. Some evidence suggests that the ability to form a stable relationship starts to form in infancy, in a child's earliest experiences with a caregiver who reliably meets the infant's needs for food, care, warmth, protection, stimulation, and social contact. Tune in and find out what makes relationships deepen and grow!

The adverse experiences encapsulated by Complex Trauma typically begin in early childhood, are longstanding or recurrent, and are inflicted by others. Most often they are perpetrated within a person’s formative attachment relationships. Sometimes they are compounded by patterns of risk and dysfunction afflicting generations of families. Frequently, they intersect with structural and institutional forms of violence and oppression that beset certain peoples and communities, particularly those hold...

Relationships thrive on emotional and physical connections, and one of the most intriguing aspects of romantic bonds in the concept of a "turn on." But what does it really mean to be "turned on" in a relationship? Is it purely physical, or does it go deeper? Tune in and learn all about relationship turn ons!

For many, religion provides an important sense of meaning, belonging, and community, which can contribute positively to mental health and well-being. Some psychological research has associated religious practices with positive mental health outcomes and high scores on scales assessing self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism, and hope. Tune in and learn how religion can be weaponized and influence people's belief in God.

Brain fog is a type of cognitive dysfunction characterized by poor memory, difficulty focusing, confusion, and mental fatigue. People who experience brain fog often describe their thinking as sluggish or “fuzzy” and report that they find it challenging to form coherent thoughts or translate those thoughts into words. For this reason, persistent brain fog can be a significant obstacle to academic and workplace success, as well as interfering with other aspects of day-to-day functioning. Tune and ...

•Does your child procrastinate, forgets homework, resists chores or seems to “check out” during lessons? It is easy and tempting to label them lazy when this happens but decades of psychological research show that “lazy” is usually the wrong diagnosis. What looks like unwillingness is more often a symptom: an immature or overwhelmed executive system, sleep deprivation, low perceived control, task-avoidance driven by fear of failure or neurodevelopmental differences such as ADHD or sluggish cogni...

•Existential angst not only derives from the human inability to think, feel, and act in the world or experience a love for life, but also from the fear of the possibility of nonexistence and/or death. It can be lonely, isolating, and outright terrifying if one’s very existence is in question. Tune in and learn all about Existential Angst and how it effects you!

Everyone puts things off sometimes, but procrastinators chronically avoid difficult tasks and may deliberately look for distractions. Procrastination tends to reflect a person’s struggles with self-control. For habitual procrastinators, who represent approximately 20 percent of the population, "I don't feel like it" comes to take precedence over their goals or responsibilities, setting them on a downward spiral of negative emotions that further deters future effort. Tune in and learn how procras...

Assassination often involves a complex interplay of psychological factors. Perpetrators may become fixated on a particular target due to a sense of grievance or perceived injustice. These feelings may be exacerbated by social or political influences. The planning and execution of an assassination can also provide a sense of power and control to the perpetrator, appealing to their desire for significance or influence. These factors, along with others, contribute to the intricate psychology of ass...

Denial is a defense mechanism in which an individual refuses to recognize or acknowledge objective facts or experiences. It’s an unconscious process that serves to protect the person from discomfort or anxiety. For example, a loved one may insist that she doesn’t have a problem with alcohol, despite the fact that it interferes with work and family life. Or a loyal employee may refuse to see signs that his boss is stealing from the company. Tune in and learn all about denial and how to heal it!

Repression is a defense mechanism in which people push difficult or unacceptable thoughts out of conscious awareness. Repressed memories were a cornerstone of Freud’s psychoanalytic framework. He believed that people repressed memories that were too difficult to confront, particularly traumatic memories, and expelled them from conscious thought. Tune in and learn how repressed emotions can run your life and how to prevent them!

Somatic symptom disorder involves focusing too much on physical symptoms such as pain or tiredness. This focus causes major emotional distress and makes it hard to function. You may or may not have another medical condition that causes these symptoms. But how you think, feel and behave because of the symptoms can be extreme. Tune in all learn how to identify and work through somatic pain!

Mania is a state of elevated energy, mood, and behavior, most often seen in those with bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, or who have taken certain drugs or medications. While the feelings present in mania can be positive, energetic, or even euphoric, they may also manifest more negatively—as emotions like irritation, anxiety, or grandiosity. Tune in and lern how to recognize and work through manic episodes!

Curiously, many of my clients report that they don't feel "chosen" by their significant other, while remaining uncertain about what it would mean to feel chosen. Life partners are engaged in choosing or not choosing one another. It typically remains unspoken and may lie just below the surface of consciousness. To be clear about what counts toward feeling chosen brings a new level of depth and meaning to a relationship. Tune in and learn the power of being chosen!

Freedom, as described by the German social psychologist and humanist philosopher Erich Fromm (1941), is the final goal in the process of individuation. Fromm’s concept of freedom is close to David Shapiro’s (1981) concept of autonomy—becoming an independent agent in the world. It encompasses a capacity to manifest what makes you uniquely yourself without recourse to either self-absorption or self-abnegation. Murray Bowen’s concept of “differentiation of self” also entails this idea and ideal of ...

No one enters marriage expecting it to fail. You enter with hope, commitment, and the faith that love will see you through the hard times. But when things fall apart, it’s generally not because partners didn’t care. Often it’s because they felt disconnected, hurt, or unsure how to find their way back to each other. Tune in and learan how to keep your marriage strong!

It's not easy to break a covenant. Grounds for divorce in a covenant marriage are limited to abuse or adultery; otherwise couples must seek counseling and wait two years, as opposed to the six-to-12-month separation that is imposed in no-fault divorces. Tune in and learn all about staying in a covenant marriage!

In the realm of psychological inquiry, much focus has been placed on the "knowledge-action gap," which separates what we know from what we do. However, another critical yet underexplored area is the "question-answer gap." This gap is where uncertainty, the unknown, and the unknowable live, marking the distance between the questions we pose and the answers we seek. Tune in and learn all about how to live in uncertainty!