Psychologist Dr. Marsha Linehan developed dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), which is generally the first-line treatment of choice for borderline personality disorder, a condition that she herself has. It’s very skills-based, and many of the skills are more broadly applicable than just for BPD. The focus of this post, though, is some of the foundational concepts […]
Wisdom from DBT Creator Marsha Linehan Read More »
Spite: The Upside of Your Dark Side by Simon McCarthy-Jones tells us why spite can actually be a good thing, even though it probably doesn’t seem like it could be. An act is considered spiteful if it involves harming another person, but in doing so, also harming (or potentially harming) oneself. Spite causes us to
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I’ve noticed that a lot of people in the blogging world have quite a strong inner critic. I don’t, and II find it fascinating when it seems like people believe that they should self-criticize in order to do things properly, or in order to avoid being a bad person. So let’s chat about it. To
How Does the Inner Critic Get Started? Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is dependent personality disorder. Dependent personality disorder (DPD) falls within cluster C, the anxious/avoidant personality disorders, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). People with DPD believe they’re unable to care for themselves, and they
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I’ve long had issues with the whole self-improvement industry, but the idea for this post came from a quote that Suzette Benjamin shared on her blog: We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement… All the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. Pema
The Problem with Self-Improvement — Aren’t You Good Enough? Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is transactional analysis. Transactional analysis (TA) is a theory developed by psychoanalytic psychiatrist Dr. Eric Berne. This may not be the least bit relevant, but it helps set the scene—he has a pipe in his mouth in the
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is the diving reflex. While the reflex itself has nothing to do with psychology, it’s actually still relevant. The diving reflex is present in all mammals to some extent. It triggers a number of physiological changes that allow
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week, we’ll look at the 12 irrational beliefs and 3 major musts described by Albert Ellis, the founder of rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT). I was vaguely familiar with REBT as the therapeutic approach behind SMART Recovery. Recently, when I
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The topic of dead people goals came to mind a while back when I was commenting on a post by Quiet Person Loud Thoughts. I couldn’t remember where I’d first heard of it, but with some hunting around, it looks like I got the idea from Susan David’s book Emotional Agility. The original idea is
Do You Have Dead People Goals? Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is the stress bucket model. I first heard of the term stress bucket several months ago in a post by Caz at Mental Health 360º, but it’s been around for a while. It looks like it’s best known in
What Is… the Stress Bucket Model Read More »
