Clinical Psychology
Crochet, Crafts and Mental Health
If you’re looking for a new hobby to take up, consider crochet. Why? The results of a recently published study from researchers in Australia give some possible reasons. In that study, the researchers surveyed over 8,000 crocheters to learn about how people saw the hobby as affecting their mental health. The vast majority of the…
Read MoreInternet Haters Might Be Psychopaths
Spend much time on the internet, and you’ll see that online comment sections can easily degenerate into a swirling, toxic stew of humanity’s worst impulses. Which makes them a perfect subject of study for psychologists. A new study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology picks up on the theme of comment section psychology by looking…
Read More4 Factors That Link Stress to a Decline in Work Ability
Some amount of stress is often a part of work, but too much stress can start to interfere with people’s ability to get their work done. An important question is under what conditions stress begins to derail people’s work lives. Understanding that might help with knowing what strategies people can use to cope with stress…
Read MoreFive Hours of Sleep a Night Biases People Toward Negative Interpretations
We all know that nothing good comes from cutting sleep out of your life. First, there are the cognitive effects. Sleep deprivation influences people’s performance in ways similar to alcohol consumption, which is what makes drowsy driving similarly dangerous to drunk driving. Then there’s the simple feeling of tiredness, having to get through the day…
Read MorePerfectionism Can Interfere With Seeking Psychological Help
As I’ve written about before, a desire to be perfect can bring many imperfect consequences, from insomnia to binge eating. Now, a new study suggests that perfectionistic tendencies may exacerbate mental health struggles in a more insidious way: by preventing people from seeking psychological help. In the study, researchers in Canada surveyed 299 college students…
Read MoreThe Dangers of Tying Your Self-Worth to Money
We’ve all heard that money can’t buy happiness, but that doesn’t mean that people’s ideas of “self-worth” and “net worth” don’t start to overlap sometimes. A newly published study gives a warning about the possible consequences of seeing money as something that gives you “value” as a person, so to speak. The authors of the…
Read MoreHappiness Is Possible With a History of Anxiety
Mental health conditions like anxiety can interfere in almost any aspect of people’s lives, with real consequences. And yet, in the long-run, that doesn’t mean happiness is unobtainable. I’m not saying that to provide words of inspiration. I’m saying it because a newly published study suggests it’s true. The study surveyed 2,128 adults in Canada…
Read MoreResources and Studies on the Psychological Impact of Coronavirus
It seems like one can’t check the headlines these days without some disconcerting bit of news about novel coronavirus, aka COVID-19, popping up. At least, that’s true in my hometown of San Francisco, where public health officials are now recommending social distancing. As a mental health blogger, I naturally tend to look at the psychological…
Read MoreWhat Label Do People on the Autism Spectrum Prefer?
A label might be “just a label,” but when that label is applied to a person it can have significance. That’s why people with neurological or mental health conditions often have preferences about the language used to discuss those conditions. This is something I sometimes think about when writing over on the ADHD Millennial blog.…
Read MoreA Text-Message Treatment for Social Anxiety
Online interventions are a promising new way of providing mental health support, as I’ve written about before. And the logical conclusion of that idea is that if we can treat mental health conditions over the internet, why not over text messaging too? A new study titled Text Message Safety Behavior Reduction for Social Anxiety suggests…
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