The Psychology of...

Growing up, the CBC would play a family movie every Sunday night and every year around Christmas time, that movie would be Mickey's Christmas Carol. I looked forward to it every year. Goofy as Jacob Marley, the silly giant Ghost of Christmas Present, and the heartwarming message of good will to all men (and mice). The Dickens classic formed as significant a part of my childhood Christmases as any other holiday cultural phenomena and I'm grateful to Disney for introducing it to me but I think there is a key lesson from the tale of Scrooge that I missed thanks to Mickey Mouse's interpretation.  I have read the original version a number of times and in a number of languages but this year I attempted to read it to my 5 and 3 year old daughters. It took about a week of reading every night with them, and I'm not going to pretend like they loved every minute of it either but we accomplished the goal and I gained a fresh perspective on the classic by reading it aloud.

Here is a link to the English version of this post . J'ai 3 ans enseignant la psychologie positive aux enfants de l'école élémentaire. Le suivant est une compilation des conseils sur le thème, "Comment avoir un joyeux noël" 1)       Manger doucement et en pleine conscience  – Il n'y a rien qui plus m'anime que la nourriture de Noël. La dinde, la tourtière, les tartes! Trop manger est une tradition honorée chez moi. Mais pourquoi devrais-je déshonorer le repas le plus délicieux de l'année en le mangeant rapidement sans attention ? Manger doucement y avec intention nous aide à profiter de la nourriture plus que jamais, mais aussi et peut-être plus important, nous aide à graver la signifiance dans notre mémoire, pour que nous puisons continuer à en profiter dans l'avenir. 2)       Méditer  – C'est une occasion spéciale quand tu et 25 élevés de 6 ans profitent de 5 minutes de silence. Mes élevés recommandent au moins 5

Managing the behaviour and learning of one child is a challenge at times, but managing 25 when at least two of them have biological deficits that make attention a constant struggle is extremely difficult. As teachers and parents we're likely to lean towards psychopharmaceutical interventions so that we can at least be dealing with a level playing field and there is certainly a time and place for it. We worry sometimes about over-diagnosing and over-drugging our children but the reality is, there are no mental disorders MORE likely to be treated effectively by medications than ADHD. Meds just seem to work. But even if you're going to seek medical treatment for attention deficits, the literature says that the most effective treatment is a combination of medication and behavioural interventions. So that is what I want to flesh out today. What are some behaviour interventions that teachers can use, whether your kids are medicated or not. First off, there are two main streams of b

As mental health professional I recognize the damage that mental illness stigma has on our society. There is still a lot of work to be done to reduce negative stereotypes of people who struggle with something that they didn't ask for. There needs to be more resources for those who are ill and those sucked in the wake of illness. However, in our attempts to progress the awareness of mental illness I believe we have inadvertently sent some erroneous and dangerous messages that have done us more harm than good. Here are a few hard truths about mental illness that are not popular to talk about. 1) Mental illnesses are not noble diseases .  In today's society we are obsessed with the oppressor vs oppressed narrative and in an attempt to subvert the power of those at the top of our hierarchies we have unintentionally (or intentionally) maintained that hierarchy only in reverse, where you gain more social credit and power by being oppressed. I applaud people who are brave enough t

***This post contains words that are and should be offensive*** Growing up I was terrified of drowning, which was especially embarrassing when you grow up surrounded by water. I recall a specific time when I was treading water just barely in water that was well over my head and a friend wanted to roughhouse with me. This is normal, acceptable behaviour amongst most kids but I was extremely uncomfortable with being even touched while frantically trying to stay afloat. I tried to express my panic politely but firmly at first. "Leave me alone!" My request was denied. I was desperate. I needed to use words that clearly showed my dread and the necessity for this person to leave me alone. Luckily for me, I was not the type of kid to use profanity too often so I knew just the word that would communicate the message intended. "Get the fuck off of me!" Mission accomplished. Profanity is rude and shocking and powerful. It's meant to be so. People who use it on a

Homo sapiens have evolved to bond, trust, and cooperate with one another in a small tribe, no greater than a 100 or so, in which we can intimately know all of the tribe's members. How else are you supposed to trust someone if you don't know them intimately? How else could you convince people you don't know to build a monument for king they have never met? For most of human history this has been the case. That is until myth and story enabled super-human power. The ability to unite thousands, millions, even billions of strangers towards a cause, a belief system, or framework for morality. Nations, religions, and economic systems make it not only possible but desirable for one person to sacrifice much (taxation, tithing, going to war, etc.) in order to improve the life of some unknown that lives thousands of kilometers away from them. Legends, by this definition, are literally superhuman. Take Terry Fox. I didn't know him. Few people in Canada or the world knew

Schizophrenia Spectrum is categorized by the presence of one or more of the following: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, grossly disorganized behaviour, and negative symptoms. Delusions might be persecutory (belief that you are going to be harmed by someone), referential (belief that a gesture or comment was directed at you), grandiose (belief that you have exceptional ability or fame), erotomanic (belief that a person is in love with you), nihilistic (belief that something bad is going to happen), or somatic (worried about your health). These are all beliefs that don't change despite clear evidence against them. Hallucinations are not including in diagnosis if they happen when falling asleep or awakening as this is common. Hallucinations can occur across the senses but auditory ones are the most common in schizophrenia. Disorganized Thinking (speech) is typically when the individual switches from one topic to the next, speaking tangentially or c

These posts are merely for my own studying purposes as I prepare for the E.P.P.P. exam for registering as a psychologist. I retain information better when I teach it but few people want to hear me blab on about this stuff. So these posts are for anyone who is also preparing for the exam or is just curious about what type of things we need to know for it. While I strive for the correct responses I cannot guarantee that the information in this post is 100% correct. That is to say, I'm trying to internalize the material to the point where I can write a blog without referring to my notes. If you find an error please let me know so I don't memorize bad intel! Neurodevelopment Disorders are a group of conditions of intellectual and social impairments that have an onset in the developmental years (childhood) that include conditions like Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, Specific Learning Disorder, and Tourette's Disorder. Often these conditi

Gender stereotypes suck. They pigeonhole people into designated and sometimes undesired roles, they prevent good people from trying things they are interested in, and they can encourage shaming of anyone who breaks from the social mold. This is coming from a man who likes romantic music, being creative in the kitchen, and spending most of my waking time with children. Stereotypes would label me as feminine. I reject that notion, not because being feminine is undesirable but because I don't think femininity should have the market cornered on domestic activities. I am a MAN that loves to do these things. I'm not motherly, I'm a father.  That being said, I have to recognize that if you took a sample of 100 human beings who enjoyed cooking, playing with kids, and listening to Josh Groban, the likelihood that the majority would be female is high. It would be naive to deny the reality of these gender differences. It would be even more foolish to think we need to enforce t

They say the two greatest Canadian past-times after hockey are bragging and complaining about our health care. I am proud of our system but it is far from perfect. I am no expert but here are a few slight changes that I think could make our system more effective. Podiatrists - Did you know that many podiatrists get training and can become board certified for most surgeries below the knee? But in Canada their services are not covered under our universal health care plan. Recently my mother broke her arm requiring, eventually and unfortunately, 3 surgeries (we're hoping that's it). Because her surgeries weren't scheduled she was placed in the queue, requiring her to wait in a hospital bed, without eating or drinking. She needed to be ready for surgery at any point of the day. The ortho does not just operate on you, first come first serve. There are priorities, which make sense. So my Mom, because of other more serious injuries, ended up waiting for a week in total, fas

What's in a name? Well, some researchers, principally Dr. John Gray, believe that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is some what of a misleading title for this ever increasing phenomenon. It's not that people with ADHD have an actual deficit in attention, like they have less of it than the average person, rather it's an issue with how that attention is allocated and Dr. Gray prefers to use a term that gets at the neurological underpinnings of ADHD which is low or inhibited dopamine functioning. image from www.bbrfoundation.org Dopamine is the main neurotransmitter for our brain's reward system which in turn dictates functions such as memory, motivation, focus, and interest. Simplified, whenever we feel pleasure it is because of dopamine. If our dopamine functioning is diminished (through causes I will mention later) then we begin to rely on more intense experiences to stimulate higher levels of dopamine production. Without those intense experiences (think

I'm finishing up Enlightenment Now by Canadian, Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker and I came across a term with which I was unfamiliar. Here is my attempt to understand it by explaining it. If anyone out there who knows this idea better than I do, please add/revise my explanation. The benefits of simplicity are overlooked because of a bias bias . ie. Preference for more sophisticated models designed to avoid bias but may not lead to the most accurate prediction. When dealing with predictions, error occurs for two reasons, the first is due to bias , the inability of the model to represent certain patterns that are being observed. So if we're trying to predict how many men vs. women were going to apply for a job in engineering, our prediction model might be biased if we are only basing our prediction on past data, since today's women might be more likely to apply for engineering jobs than those of the past. The other type of error comes from variance, which is the

The stage has been set for years... Ideologically polarized media outlets editing interviews into patronizing and reductive sound bytes in order to appease the very advertisers who restrict their journalistic integrity... A post-tribal world whose borders have been redrawn across political and ideological orthodoxies. Echo chambers creating positive feedback loops that render good ideas fanatic and bad ideas unchecked. Healthy debate handicapped by motivated reasoning and inter-group loyalty signalling. A time when information, knowledge, and progress is more readily available and attainable than ever, yet we find ourselves buried deeper into our perspective teams living in parallel alternative universes. And out of this chaotic shouting match has arisen a set of new players, who challenge the existing machine, who are willing to enter the arena of debate and discuss difficult topics that strike fear into the hearts of mainstream advertisers. While they are ideologically di