Dr. Gary Bell's Absurd Psychology

When making a decision, we form opinions and choose actions via mental processes which are influenced by biases, reason, emotions, and memories. The simple act of deciding supports the notion that we have free will. We weigh the benefits and costs of our choice, and then we cope with the consequences. Factors that limit the ability to make good decisions include missing or incomplete information, urgent deadlines, and limited physical or emotional resources. When people are put in a familiar situation, their decisions are often fast and automatic, based on longtime experience with what works and what doesn’t. However, when encountering a situation they’ve never been in before, they have to take time to weigh the potential benefits and risks when choosing a course of action. They are more likely to make mistakes and face negative consequences. Tune in learn the art of making good decisions!

For centuries scientists, science writers and philosophers have encouraged us to trust our common sense (Lilienfeld et al., 2010; Furnham, 1996). Common sense is a phrase that generally implies something everyone knows. One of the definitions of common sense given by Wikipedia is, “good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.” Common sense psychology is a myth. What appears to be common sense is often common nonsense. Scott Lilienfeld, co-author of 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, says we should mistrust common sense when evaluating psychological claims (Lilienfeld et al., 2010).Some examples of common sense psychology include: Working while in high school will help students build character and value money. Children who read a lot are not very social or physically fit. People with low self esteem are more aggressive. The best way to treat juvenile delinquents is to get tough with them. Most psychopaths are delusional. We know what will make us happy. Tune in and learn how to access your own common sense!

There is a great deal of information available about depression. But when you live with a depressed person, it can be painfully difficult. Anti-depressants are the number-one prescribed medication in this country, but they are not a panacea. Many with depression continue to suffer, or at least have symptomatic periods. This, in turn, affects those who love them. It can be especially difficult when the person with depression is your child or a partner. Many parents feel it is their duty to rescue their adult children. But the feeling of helplessness often prevails when you live with a depressed individual. It may not be healthy to feel it is your duty to rescue a partner, and it's also not healthy to take responsibility for his or her feelings. For men who have depressed partners, feeling helpless is especially common. Generally, men are fixers. When they hear of a problem, their reaction is to fix it. But depression is not so easily fixed, therefore the result is helplessness and frustration. This can complicate the helping process. For women who have a depressed partner, it is common to feel like the connection between partners is missing or inhibited. If the depressive symptoms lead to withdrawal, the female partner may feel shut-out. The feelings and thoughts of a depressed person may be difficult to share, which might compound the problem and leave the partner feeling there is a lack of communication. Worse, some men turn depression into anger and may be easily irritated with their partner, thereby further exacerbating the problem Tubne in and learn how to recognize and deal with a depressed partner.

When children are raised with chronic loss, without the psychological or physical protection they need—and certainly deserve—it is most natural for them to internalize incredible fear. Not receiving the necessary psychological or physical protection equals abandonment, and living with repeated abandonment experiences creates toxic shame. Shame arises from the painful message implied in abandonment: You are not important. You are not of value. This is the pain from which people need to heal. Tune in and learn all about healing from childhood abandonment!

Relationship scientist Raymond Knee coined the terms “destiny beliefs” and “growth beliefs” to describe an individual’s general approach to seeking and maintaining romantic relationships. People with destiny beliefs assume there is one person out there who they are meant to be with (a soulmate). They believe once they find the right person, the relationship will be relatively smooth and easy. In contrast, people with growth beliefs go into relationships assuming they will need to get to know each other and grow together through shared experiences. Their relationships aren’t “meant to be” but rather are “made to be.” Whether we have destiny beliefs or growth beliefs predicts how we think, react, and behave in relationships. For example, people with destiny beliefs tend to be more rigid in thinking about their partners. If relationships are either “destined to be” or not, there is little room to approach problems with flexibility and openness to change. However, people with growth beliefs generally expect that challenges will arise, and their relationship will grow as they address those challenges together. Tune in and learn if you can make that Soul Mate love connection!

For anyone whose life revolves around caregiving, including the parents of special-needs children, there are inherent risks that can jeopardize both their own well-being and that of the people they care for. Insufficient management of one’s own stress as one cares for others can lead to emotional burnout and feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and paralysis. Experts advise parents to find a practice that works for them, whether therapy, exercise, mindfulness, or another approach. It may bring on feelings of guilt, but caregiving parents need to redirect some of their energy to self-care and remind themselves that these efforts will directly benefit their child. Tune in for all kinds of tips and information of how parents can take care of their children and themselves!

Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness — called a “psychosis”— in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, which are unshakable beliefs in something untrue. People with delusional disorder experience non-bizarre delusions, which involve situations that could occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, deceived, conspired against, or loved from a distance. These delusions usually involve the misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences. In reality, however, the situations are either not true at all or highly exaggerated. People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function quite normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner. This is unlike people with other psychotic disorders, who also might have delusions as a symptom of their disorder. In some cases, however, people with delusional disorder might become so preoccupied with their delusions that their lives are disrupted. Tune in and learn how pervasive and detrimental this disorder is!

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a prolonged exposure to stress. As a consequence, researchers showed an increased interest in measuring social and community uneasiness in order to psychologically support the population. This increased attention might help in managing the current situation and other possible epidemics and pandemics. The security measures adopted in managing the pandemic had different consequences on individuals, according to the social role invested. Some segments of the population seem to be more exposed to the risk of anxious, depressive, and post-traumatic symptoms because they are more sensitive to stress. Tune in and learn how COVID has changed our psychology!

There is a downside to being in control when it involves trying to control other people, because other people don't want to be controlled by you any more than you want to be controlled by other people. In therapy, we often hear that if we do not like the way in which others are behaving, we are better off changing our own feelings about their behavior than trying to change their behavior. The reason for this is that behavioral habits are notoriously difficult to change, even when a person really wants to change his or her own habits; if people are not interested in changing their behavior, it is almost impossible to make them change. Tune in and learn about the consequences of our obsessions for power and control!

Destructive behavior takes various forms: from subtle self-sabotage and self-defeating patterns to passive hostility to severe self-destructive symptoms, violent aggression and, sometimes, evil deeds. Commonly, destructive behavior in adults bears the impetuous, impulsive quality of childish petulance or narcissistic temper tantrums. Or an infantile neediness, dependency, and dread of abandonment. Or an irresponsibility and angry refusal to be an adult: the Peter Pan syndrome, or what Jungians refer to as a puer or puella complex. The archetypal Jungian notion of the puer aeternus (male) or (female) puella aeterna--the eternal child--provides the basis for what has come in pop psychology and self-help movements (see, for example, the writings of Dr. Eric Berne, Dr. Alice Miller, or John Bradshaw) to be known as the inner child. What exactly is this so-called inner child? Does it truly exist? And why should we care? To begin with, the inner child is real. Not literally. Nor physically. But figuratively, metaphorically real. It is--like complexes in general--a psychological or phenomenological reality, and an extraordinarily powerful one at that. Indeed, most mental disorders and destructive behavior patterns are, as Freud first intimated, more or less related to this unconscious part of ourselves. We were all once children, and still have that child dwelling within us. But most adults are quite unaware of this. And this lack of conscious relatedness to our own inner child is precisely where so many behavioral, emotional and relationship difficulties stem from. Tune in and learn about this incredible experience all of us have!