Compulsive Exercise Can Result in Exercise Dependence I have always called myself an extreme health nut. I thought it was a positive, a good thing… eating really really overly healthy and cutting out pretty much all fat and carbohydrates. … It’s quite weird, you’d go out for a run or a really long power walk and you[…]
Tag Archives: addiction
07
Jan
Jan
Our Body Makes a Chemical Choice About How to Best Protect Itself I’m sure it’s happened to you… You’re in a tense team meeting trying to defend your position on a big project and start to feel yourself losing ground. Your voice gets louder. You talk over one of your colleagues and correct his point of view.[…]
07
Jan
Jan
When We Escape Reality We Are Left in a Virtual Abyss The Internet can be one enormous escape hatch. When life becomes too hard and stressful, when relationships become too unfulfilling or unsatisfactory, it’s compelling to jump down into the rabbit hole of the Internet into a world of virtual reality. Do you understand it[…]
03
Jan
Jan
Does New Work on Willpower Reinscribe Old Moral Beliefs About Addicts Willpower is a popular subject these days. Channel your willpower in all the right ways and you can transform your life. Or so it seems. In an interesting and provocative book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney argue that willpower[…]
03
Jan
Jan
You Want to Be Together All The Time. Is That Wonderful or Obsessive “Too much of a good thing is wonderful” —Mae West Romantic love has often been considered a type of addiction or even sickness. There is no doubt that love involves constant thinking about, and activities with, one’s beloved. But is such persistent preoccupation with one[…]
31
Dec
Dec
A Response to a Recent “debunking” of The 12-Step Program By John F. Kelly and Gene Beresin In a recent National Public Radio show on WBUR Radio Boston, Dr. Lance Dodes discussed his new book which attempts to debunk the science related to the effectiveness of 12-step mutual-help programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), as[…]
27
Dec
Dec
Eight Basic Emotions That Underlie Eight Psychological Disorder Clusters I have written in past about the basic structure of emotions and identified eight basic emotions- four of them paired together viz. Fear-Disgust; Sadness-Anger; Joy- Love/Attentiveness and Interest-surprise. I have also tried to carve psychopathology at its joints, and come up with a psychological disorders taxonomy that places all major psychological disorders[…]
27
Dec
Dec
You Have an Opportunity to Parent Such That Your Children Do Not Become Addicts I am the father of two small children, an infant, and a preschooler. And although I am a relatively new parent, I’ve learned a great deal about parenting over the years. Some of what I learned was gleaned from what my parents did[…]
23
Dec
Dec
Addiction, Recovery & a Path to Prevention The practice of prevention—keeping young people safe and alive—often relies heavily on outcome-based evidence of educational approaches and initiatives, not to mention the psychosocial research that guides them. But there’s a companion approach to be found in the experience of addiction and recovery, both subjects of an expo sponsored by[…]
23
Dec
Dec
Drug, Alcohol, & Behavioral Addictions Have One Thing in Common: Compulsion I said I’d use the next few posts to share what I learned at a recent conference on behavioral addictions. I should emphasize that the conference, held in Budapest, was billed as the First International Conference on Behavioral Addictions. The idea that gambling, hypersexualized behavior, eating[…]