Clinical Psychology
Writing Therapy to Develop “Good” Rumination
Repetitively turning over negative thoughts, or ruminating, is a behavior that has been explored as a target for therapy in conditions like depression. After all, it’s not hard to imagine that getting stuck in a cycle of replaying negative thoughts might harm mental health. So what’s the best way to stop ruminating on negative thoughts?…
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Reflecting on Life Lessons Can Help With Aging
In a general sense, life looks the same for all of us: stuff happens to us. We learn from that stuff, sometimes. We get older. Ideally, we have a sense that there’s some progression to our lives. Learning from our past experiences helps us live our lives more effectively as we get older, and eventually…
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Envy Might Drive Some of Social Media’s Mental Health Effects
Social media has facilitated both new ways of connecting with others and new ways of tallying how our lives stack up against theirs. In the twenty-first century, keeping up with the Joneses has become keeping up with the hundreds of people on your Facebook feed. Several previous studies have suggested that comparing yourself with others…
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Psychopaths Don’t Care About Cute Animals
Above is a picture of a very cute kitten. Surely that picture warms your heart. If you don’t look at that picture and go “aww,” what kind of person are you, a psychopath? Well, maybe so, says a new study. The authors of the study started with a premise we all know to be true:…
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The Mental Health Unknowns of COVID-19
For people around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant a major disruption to familiar ways of life. With changes being implemented rapid-fire in response to the immediate need to slow the spread of COVID-19, relatively little is known about what the long-term, secondary consequences of those changes will be. When it comes to mental…
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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…
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Internet 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…
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4 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…
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Five 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…
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Perfectionism 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…
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