Episodes

Online message boards and communities comprised of incels—men who are involuntarily celibate—have gained notoriety in recent years due to mass killing events that were reported as being inspired by a misogynistic ideology that emerges from this group. However, there has never been a systematic psychological investigation of this population. In a fundamental sense, incels are characterized by their identity being framed around a perceived lack of ability to form and maintain sexual and/or romanti...

Technology addictions, also commonly known as digital addictions or internet addictions, are often overlooked due to the acceptance that society has placed on using digital devices. Technology addictions often go unnoticed by loved ones because the addicted individual may appear as though they are tending to something important such as work-related tasks on their digital device, when in reality hiding behind the screen is something extraneous. When a technological problem does develop and is not...

Talking about a past relationship is a tricky affair. What starts off as a fun round of twenty questions can turn into an icy chill in no time if you aren’t careful. Finding out more about past relationships is never a good thing, and yet, like all inquisitive fools, we go looking for dirt in our lover’s past. And when we do find the dirt, we dirty our hands and are left with a stench that lingers for a long time after the discovery. Talking about exes and past lovers may feel like a bag of bric...

The psychedelic experience feels as though this self-referential moment-to-moment updating of the ego has suddenly disappeared. The perception of our familiar self vanishes. The name given to this experience is ego death or ego dissolution. This distortion of our subjective experience of self is central to the psychedelic experience. People describe ego-dissolution as a diminished sense of self and an increase in the feeling of being at one with the universe, an experience felt as enriching. The...

Narcissism tends to develop in environments where there's a mix of both overindulgence and under-indulgence. Typically, it's an overindulgence in focusing on status, money, appearance, how things look to others or just to focus on external achievements, and there's an under-indulgence in teaching kids about compassion and empathy, really developing their sense of self and their self-esteem and connection to others. Tune in and learn all about how parents raise narcissists and how to prevent it!

Everybody gets depressed sometimes, typically in response to events or experiences in which goals go unmet and expectations are dashed, but such reactions tend to be short-lived. Depression is regarded as a disorder when low mood and other symptoms persist for more than two weeks. Mood dysregulation revealed by unrelenting sadness may be the sign most associated with depression, but the disorder can be reflected in impaired functioning in almost every system of the body, from sexual desire to pa...

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills. The concept of the Dunning-Kruger effect is based on a 1999 paper by Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. The pair tested participants on their logic, grammar, and sense of humor, and found that those who performed in the bottom q...

A near-death experience (NDE) is the conscious, semi-conscious or recollected experience of someone who is approaching or has temporarily begun the process of dying. An example is a cardiac arrest that is followed by resuscitation. People who recall near-death experiences have described perceiving a variety of surreal phenomena, such as seeing themselves from above or passing through a tunnel of light. Reports of these experiences sometimes include religious or spiritual interpretations and have...

I feel dead inside is a statement you might hear people make or something that you may have felt yourself. For anyone who has never experienced it, feeling dead inside can be hard to imagine. And, those who have struggled with it might not always have the right words to explain the confusion, sadness, and numbness that comes with this feeling. The meaning of feeling dead inside is to find it difficult to process emotions like happiness and sadness. When you feel dead inside feelings take on the ...

Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned people makes irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the belief that dissent is impossible. The problematic or premature consensus that is characteristic of groupthink may be fueled by a particular agenda—or it may be due to group members valuing harmony and coherence above critical thought. The term “groupthink” was first introduced in the November 1971 issue of Psychology Today by psychologist...

The phenomenon of abruptly disappearing from people’s lives isn’t new–but it seems to be more common today. Technology has made ghosting an easy way to dissolve relationships. According to a 2018 study, approximately 25 percent of men and women reported having been ghosted in a romantic relationship, and 22 percent admitted to having ghosted someone else. The Federal Reserve even recognized the phenomenon, in which employers reported being ghosted by employees in a tight labor market. Today ghos...

During the early phase of marriage, many couples barely come up for air due to the excitement of falling in love. Unfortunately, this blissful state doesn’t last forever. Scientists have discovered that oxytocin (a bonding hormone) released during the initial stage of infatuation causes couples to feel euphoric and turned on by physical touch. It actually works like a drug, giving us immediate rewards that bind us to our lover. Tune in and learn how to restart your love life with your partner!

If the science of death remains a riddle (we’re still not exactly sure why the human body decides to die), the psychology of it has been one of our greatest conundrums. Others die, not us—or at least, that's what most of us like to think. The difficulty to conceive of our own deaths is perhaps some kind of survival mechanism to prevent it from actually happening. Rather than just being a biological impulse, however, our denial of death seems to be a psychological condition rooted in Freudian the...

Belonging is fundamental to humankind. The pursuit of it is the driving force behind our desire to be a part of groups, and its presence (or absence) has a direct impact on our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. Belonging grows from a feeling of connectedness with others, and the sense that you are a part of something. That could be with an individual, a group, or a larger community. But, a social connection doesn’t necessarily equate to belonging. More than just an acquaintance between ...

People tell white lies all the time in their daily lives. But if you’re in a relationship and start a pattern of telling little lies or hiding even the smallest things from your partner, it’s probably not going to end very well. Often times people will hide things from the person they love or claim to be telling these small lies for a few different reasons. One being whatever they are lying about may seem so insignificant, they don’t “feel that they need” to tell them. Or perhaps the “what you d...

A life lived without forgiveness is a life lived in the past. Living in the past is a conscious or an unconscious choice made through a connection to the past. In simple, the past is a time gone by and no longer exists in the present moment, but we choose to allow this past to occupy our minds, our bodies and our very existence. Living in the past is like choosing to cling to a chronic illness. Would you choose to be plagued with a chronic illness? Would you allow yourself to be injected with a ...

You feel attraction to someone who’s a hard nut to crack. They exude vibes of mystery and aloofness you can’t get close to. And you can’t help but keep trying to conquer their attention. Or, you seem to have found your soulmate. You both feel emotional and sexual chemistry. And you both see a clear perspective of starting a relationship. But they always avoid talking about their feelings and retract right before the important step. Can you relate to any of these stories? We’ve shared them not to...

Let’s start with the numbers and get that out of the way. Divorce is common, really common—in fact, according to the CDC, 2.9 out of every 1,000 people get divorced (as of 2017). In case that number seems lower than you thought, here’s some perspective, compare it to 6.9 per 1,000 people who get married. A little silver lining is that while it’s clear that divorce rates increased from 1990 through 2008, particularly for women over the age of 35; the rate is now declining. In other words, young m...

All bitterness starts out as hurt. And your emotional pain may well relate to viewing whoever (or whatever) provoked this hurt as having malicious intent: As committing a grave injustice toward you; as gratuitously wronging you and causing you grief. Anger—and resentment—is what we’re all likely to experience whenever we conclude that another has seriously abused us. Left to fester, that righteous anger eventually becomes the corrosive ulcer that is bitterness. Bitterness is a chronic and pervas...

Trauma is a person’s emotional response to a distressing experience. Few people can go through life without encountering some kind of trauma. Unlike ordinary hardships, traumatic events tend to be sudden and unpredictable, involve a serious threat to life—like bodily injury or death—and feel beyond a person’s control. Most important, events are traumatic to the degree that they undermine a person's sense of safety in the world and create a sense that catastrophe could strike at any time. Parenta...

Every couple’s situation and circumstances are different. So, too, are the reasons they drifted apart, ranging from a lack of communication to cheating. Still, there are certain exercises you can do as a couple and individual, plus small steps you can take with your partner now to increase love, trust, and intimacy in the hopes of keeping you together. When you think you may be on the brink of divorce, you may still have a glimmer of hope that you can save your marriage. You want to stay togethe...

Our inner child is a part of ourselves that’s been present ever since we were conceived, through utero and all the developing years after where we were young and developing into tender selves: baby, infant, toddler, young child and middle school year. The inner child can often recall good experiences as well as childhood fears, traumas, neglect or significant loss. It can be hard to pinpoint the exact event that is tugging at us, but we can start to notice our internal patterns that have left us...

We are becoming a nation of narcissists. We are so focused on superficial personal identity that it makes us obsessed with race, ethnicity, sex, and political ideology. Tattoos, body piercing ornaments, and body enhancement surgery have not been enough to satisfy our self-obsession. Like the legendary Narcissus seeing his reflection in a pool, we see and applaud ourselves because of our superficial external appearance. What matters most to narcissists and society at large, is their personal char...