Just as many a father quotes Preacher or Isaiah, my father quoted literary critic Kees Fens. "Fens says" was almost impossible for him to say… (…). "Fens says that Thea Beckman is no good!" That was a heavy blow, one that perhaps hit me even harder than the others. In The Wheel of Fortune, a book that […]
Knowledge transfer trust
Knowledge-transfer trust, or "epistemic trust," is a social skill learned in childhood. Developing this trust is a process in which parents teach their children to assess with whom they can lower their natural guard against knowledge transfer, and with whom they should not. […]
Deep within ourselves
By Václav Havel Deep within ourselves, we carry hope. If it isn't there, it's nowhere. Hope is a consciousness, and it doesn't depend on what happens in the world. Hope is neither predicting nor foreseeing. Hope resides in our souls, etched in our hearts, anchored beyond the horizon. Hope, in this deep […]
Fragile people
Fragile PeopleFragile PeopleLooking for a Little HappinessFragile PeopleI know, I know themSensitive and easily upsetFragile PeoplePamper them, spoil themOh, don't put them under pressure They try to live like someone elseBut that often isn't easy for themThey keep giving alms to the homelessThey keep walking […]
Cognitive dissonance
Leon Festinger (1919-1989) studied cognitive dissonance. It involves two or more ideas or beliefs that someone holds about a particular topic. These ideas conflict with each other. When someone becomes aware of the conflict, they experience an uncomfortable state of cognitive dissonance and are motivated to address that feeling.
Development of friendships
Psychologists Altman and Taylor developed an important theory in the early 1970s about…
Depression and social competition theory
In social competition theory, mood plays an important role. A negative mood occurs in people who cannot win a social conflict and refuse to accept defeat. Besides the identifiable loss, the social relationship, the hierarchy, also changes. We have difficulty surrendering to the new social relationship. […]
A road to Rome.
The proverb says: Just as a Roman army retreated after defeat, so a retreat is possible after every loss. Accept it. Don't accept the loss, but the retreat that follows, until, in your own entrenchment, your armor follows where you were before the loss.
Client-centered psychotherapy and change
Client-Centered Psychotherapy and Change In their book "Psychotherapy and Personality Change," Rogers et al. describe changes in clients during and after client-centered psychotherapy. Changes were measured in the convergence of the (current) self-image to the self-ideal. Research has shown that at the beginning of therapy, the difference between the self-image and the ideal is significant. […]
Radio fragment about self-harm by elderly people.
This message refers to a radio clip you can listen to. It's an audio clip about the background of self-harm in older adults. An interview reveals how hidden this can be. Putting a nail on a mosquito bite to relieve itching is a form of self-harm. Even socially successful thirty-somethings experience feelings for which […]