psychologytoday.com

When we think about being present, we usually picture putting our phones away, slowing down, or practicing mindfulness. We imagine learning to quiet our thoughts and focus on the moment. But there’s another kind of presence that rarely gets discussed. It’s the kind that happens in our conversations. And it may be one of the overlooked reasons so many helpers, parents, leaders, and partners end conversations feeling emotionally drained.

The segregation cell, the jail’s antiseptic name for solitary confinement, was about four feet by four feet. Beige brick, a red steel door, a six-inch window of scratched plexiglass that looked out on nothing. No horizon. No depth. For a man in the full grip of mania, it was close to unbearable. The air felt thin. My mind ricocheted off the walls.

Psychedelic medicine reached an important turning point this week. The U.S. Departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services announced a partnership to accelerate research on psychedelic therapies for military veterans with PTSD, depression, traumatic brain injury, and substance use disorders. At nearly the same time, the FDA finalized its long-awaited guidance for sponsors developing psychedelic medicine, announcing a public hearing on their future therapeutic use. Together with the recent executive order, these actions suggest psychedelic therapies are moving from the scientific margins toward mainstream clinical medicine.

Key points::

Here’s the key question. What happens when millions of individuals make the same “cognitive trade” simultaneously? It’s not a failure of any single mind, but one that manifests in the aggregate.

Key points

The Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) diagnosis was originally introduced in DSM-III as a new category separated from the other “borderline” condition of schizotypal personality disorder. Until this point, the “borderline” concept had served as a metaphor for conditions on the border to schizophrenia and mood disorders. The “borderline” concept was, thus far, a well-established severity indicator for any marked character disorder, which was now turned into a distinct category or syndrome including diverse symptoms such as mood and identity problems, self-mutilating behavior, feelings of emptiness, and episodic aggression. In a 2016 interview, “the father” of BPD, John Gunderson, offered a candid reflection about the initial conception (and perhaps vagueness) of the BPD diagnosis:

Building on previous research viewing morality as comprising several different domains, researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois investigated the “weight given to various moral acts and how social judgments may differ as a function of social domain.” In other words, they wanted to find out whether or not all categories of “moral” behavior are created equal.

Acquired situational narcissism deserves a closer look, particularly as fame, success, and notoriety are more accessible to more people. Acquired narcissism explains how seemingly “regular” people can develop egos that begin to resemble narcissism or, in some cases, psychopathy. History offers sobering examples of ordinary psychological structures reorienting around charismatic authority to enable atrocities. Although the Milgram obedience studies and the Stanford prison experiment are debated, they remain useful illustrations of how situations can amplify egoism and blunt empathy. There are contemporary examples that are similarly alarming in scope, and there are more benign versions that look unremarkable on the surface yet feel seismic to those near the person whose ego suddenly outpaces its original, presumably non-narcissistic baseline.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a new policy statement, Digital Ecosystems, Children, and Adolescents, that represents a significant shift in how the medical community views screen time. Instead of fixating on minutes and hours, they’re finally acknowledging what those of us in the digital and media literacy community have been shouting from the rooftops for years: It’s not just about how much time kids spend on screens, but about preparing them for the entire media ecosystem they’re navigating.

In the modern world YSK about resilience targetting and how it might contribute to feeling overwhelmed.

finding out the incongruence is what makes porn “addictive” and harmful to (the person) is such an eyeopener! it was always about morals, not whether sexuality objectively was good or bad and hey that makes sense

This is a very succinct explanation of the psychological warfare. It is nearly impossible to identify it, but being aware it can be used against you can help temper responses. This is a very, very important article for people to thoroughly read and understand.

TIL: Key differences between Borderline PD and Complex-PTSD

What’s in a Name?

Unlike in the old Soviet Union…