4 Psychologist - Recommended Books on Relationships

Some people dismiss self-help books as drivel or a collection of common sense advice that they already know. But there are many books that offer valuable insight into improving one’s life. You just have to know which ones to pick up.

That’s where a psychologist can come in handy.

Below, several couples therapists share their top-rated books on relationships. Regardless of the state of your relationship, you just might find many kernels of wisdom in these resources.

1. Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Sue Johnson.

According to clinical psychologist Lisa Blum, “Hold Me Tight is one of the best books I can recommend for couples because it is a powerful antidote to the pain, distress and hopelessness that so many couples feel.”

The book is based on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which clinical psychologist and researcher Sue Johnson founded. Blum, who also specializes in EFT, explained that “The book outlines several stages of healing work that couples can do together, in the privacy of their own home and at their own pace—called the ‘seven conversations’—that are truly effective, if both partners allow themselves to fully engage in the process.”

Music and Pain Relief

The idea that music can heal the soul or "soothe the savage breast" is well-known. Music's healing power over the body has also attracted attention from scientists who aim to test this ancient wisdom. A growing body of research supports the claim that music can alleviate physical pain. Studies have shown music to be an effective pain reliever, both on its own and as an adjuvant in connection with other types of therapy. Long-term studies of music therapy in pain management have shown it to be associated with improved quality of life and reduced consumption of pain relievers.

Does Music Make You Deaf?

I was sitting on stage the other day, a piano pounding behind me, dulcimer on the left, fiddle and banjo on the right.

And it was LOUD.

My own instrument - the recorder - is high and often shrill in its upper range. After an hour or so, we took a break, and I had that same throbbing sound in my ears that I used to get going to rock concerts.  Great, a new worry.

How does music affect your hearing? I did some reading.  It turns out it's not as bad as I thought.

Loud sounds - including loud music - is bad for your hearing.  REALLY bad.  The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that 20% of teenagers have minor hearing loss and can't hear rustles, whispers, or raindrops (a NY Times piece summarizes the research).

The Physical Effects of Long-Term Stress

The Role of the Nervous System

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a vast network of nerves reaching out from the spinal cord, directly affecting every organ in the body. It has two branches, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, which have opposite effects.

The sympathetic ANS helps us deal with stressful situations by initiating a ‘fight or flight’ reaction. After the danger has passed, the parasympathetic ANS takes over, decreasing heartbeat and relaxing blood vessels.

In healthy people, the two branches of the ANS maintain a balance — action followed by relaxation. Unfortunately many people’s sympathetic ANS stays on guard, making them unable to relax and let the parasympathetic system take over. If this situation becomes chronic, a whole variety of stress-related symptoms and illnesses can follow.

How To Have Conversations, Not Confrontations

It’s been a while since they have agreed on anything. They still loved each other and wanted to figure it out. All they needed was a good conversation.

In search of a connecting dialogue, they’ve come to a marriage counselor. Unfortunately, their initial therapy session ended up as a triumph of assumptions and accusations. So much was said in that hour that the distance between them felt insurmountable. It was a tragedy of total misunderstanding and disconnect.

Sentences poured out and linked into paragraphs without intermissions. One could sense despair, frustration, and pain. However, with the air in the room boiled by fury, her spouse could not connect, feeling spooked and terrified. She was shouting, reminding him about every way she had been wronged and failed by him. As if living in such agonizing circumstances was not bad enough, she was adding to their mutual pain by reliving each moment of his perceived transgressions in high volume and with screeching pitch. Her narrative was filled with acute judgement and accusations. Her mood, dark and powerful as a tornado, spread its dangerous swirls around him. All he could do was freeze and silently pray for safety.

Finally, she was drained of her anger. There was a brief pause in her intense monologue. He shyly took it as a cue for a conversation entry. He began talking, trying to explain his point of view, and perhaps apologize. However, after only a few seconds of listening, her face gained a peculiar look, the way you may look at your domesticated feline who just missed his litter box and made a mess on the floor: “I know this is what you cats do once in a while, but hey, shouldn’t you know better?”

3 Ways To Help You Stop Worrying

Do you believe that worry is preparation? If yes, then welcome to the club! Worriers get a lot of unsolicited advice from non-worriers: just relax, it’s going to be fine, or my favorite: don’t worry.

Some advice is more clever than other. Dean Hawkes of Columbia University once famously said, “Half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision.” Or, as Charlie Brown put it more amusingly, “I’ve developed a new philosophy … I only dread one day at a time.”

But apart from cognitive tricks and internal pep talks, is there anything concrete you can try to diminish worry?

What some people don’t realize is that worry is more than a cognitive phenomenon. It’s physiological, too. One key to warding off unwanted anxiety is deep, diaphragmatic breathing. How you breathe has a direct impact on how you feel. There’s a lot you can do with diaphragmatic breathing, but here are three easy exercises to get you started.

A Psychologist Can Help When You Can't Do It On Your Own

Sometimes you may face overwhelming feelings or serious illness. A psychologist can help. Psychology has been shown to successfully treat depression, anxiety and other emotional health issues. And heart patients have been shown to live longer when their treatment included psychotherapy.
When you reach a point in your life when you want professional help, you want to talk to someone you trust and feel comfortable with. A good friend can listen, but a psychologist has the skills and professional training to help you learn to manage when you're overwhelmed.

• Psychologists have doctoral degrees and are licensed by the state in which they practice.
• They receive one of the highest levels of education of all health care professionals - in fact, psychologists spend an average of seven years in education and training after they receive their undergraduate degree.
• Psychologists study human experience and behavior.
• Psychologists are trained to help people cope more effectively with life problems, using techniques based on best available research and their clinical skills and experience, and taking into account the person's unique values, goals and circumstances.

A psychologist can help you to identify your problems and then figure out ways to best cope with them; to change contributing behaviors or habits; or to find constructive ways to deal with a situation that is beyond your control. In other words, a psychologist can improve both your physical and mental well-being.
It's time to talk to a psychologist when...

• you want to prevent life's stressors from threatening your physical health.
• you want to build your confidence and resilience to meet challenges head-on.
• you want to gain a mental edge to be your best at your job and with your family.
• you or someone in your family has been diagnosed with a chronic illness.
• you're overwhelmed and can't handle the problem yourself.

Development of Modern Psychology

The De anima of Aristotle is considered the first monument of psychology as such, centered around the belief that the heart was the basis for mental activity. The foundations of modern psychology were laid by 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who argued that scientific causes could be established for every sort of phenomenon through deductive reasoning. The mind-body theories of Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and G. W. Leibniz were equally crucial in the development of modern psychology, where the human mind's relation to the body and its actions have been significant topics of debate.

Your Mind and Your Body Work Together

 Psychological studies show that your mind and your body are strongly linked. As your mental health declines, your physical health can wear down, and if your physical health declines, it can make you feel mentally "down." A positive outlook can help keep you healthy.
You can improve the quality of your everyday life by building the skills of resilience, which will help you adapt to stress and bounce back from life's most difficult times. Resilience isn't something you're born with - it's something you can learn over time. Resilient people are people with strong emotional well-being who have healthy relationships with people and an optimistic outlook. Optimism and good relationships both have been shown to improve health and longevity.
You can also pay attention to what your body is telling you about the state of your mind. If you're getting tension headaches, for example, your body may be telling you that you need help dealing with whatever's on your mind.
A psychologist can help with everyday life
A psychologist can help you meet the challenges and stress you face every day by working with you to create strategies that build resilience. Talking to a psychologist can help you deal with emotions that can make you sick.
Psychological well-being and learning resilience go hand in hand and provide:

• The capacity to make realistic plans to deal with stressors in your life and carry them out
• A positive view of yourself and confidence in your strength and ability to confront life's challenges
• Skills in communication and problem solving
• The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses associated with stress
• Ways to avoid illness brought on by stress, anxiety and other mental stressors.

Health Psychologist

Scientists who research the area Health promotion – intervene at the social (e.g., government policy, community) or individual level to promote health and prevent illness and disease. Clinical health psychologist – intervene at the individual level to treat illness, slow or prevent disease progression, and reduce disability.

Important Contributions of Psychology to Health

Has provided techniques useful in changing behaviors that affect health and illness. Is committed to keeping people healthy rather than waiting to only treat them when they become ill. Long history of developing reliable and valid measures for assessing health-related factors. Has contributed a solid foundation of scientific methods for studying such behaviors.

Applications of Health Psychology

 Improving doctor–patient communication

Health psychologists attempt to aid the process of communication between physicians and patients during medical consultations. There are many problems in this process, with patients showing a considerable lack of understanding of many medical terms, particularly anatomical terms (e.g., intestines). One main area of research on this topic involves "doctor-centered" or "patient-centered" consultations.

Improving adherence to medical advice

Getting people to follow medical advice and adhere to their treatment regimens is a difficult task for health psychologists. People often forget to take their pills or consciously opt not to take their prescribed medications because of side effects. Failing to take prescribed medication is costly and wastes millions of usable medicines that could otherwise help other people. Estimated adherence rates are difficult to measure (see below); there is, however, evidence that adherence could be improved by tailoring treatment programs to individuals' daily lives.

Objectives of Health Psychology

 Understanding behavioral and contextual factors

Health psychologists conduct research to identify behaviors and experiences that promote health, give rise to illness, and influence the effectiveness of health care. They also recommend ways to improve health care and health-care policy. Health psychologists have worked on developing ways to reduce smoking and improve daily nutrition in order to promote health and prevent illness. They have also studied the association between illness and individual characteristics. For example, health psychology has found a relation between the personality characteristics of thrill seeking, impulsiveness, hostility/anger, emotional instability, and depression, on one hand, and high-risk driving, on the other.

Health Psychology

       Health psychology is concerned with understanding how biological, psychological, environmental, and cultural factors are involved in physical health and illness. Health psychologists work alongside other medical professionals in clinical settings, work on behavior change in public health promotion, teach at universities, and conduct research. Although its early beginnings can be traced to the kindred field of clinical psychology, four different divisions within health psychology and one allied field have developed over time. The four divisions include clinical health psychology, public health psychology, community health psychology, and critical health psychology. The allied field is occupational health psychology. Organizations closely associated with the field of health psychology include Division 38 of the American Psychological Association and the Division of Health Psychology of the British Psychological Society.

The Fraud of Modern Psychiatry

Psychiatrists will argue and say they use "mental" criteria routinely to diagnose mental illness. They do. But we need to take a closer look at what they do. They never observe the mind with an intention to empower or strengthen its capabilities. This is covered in detail elsewhere (DSM-IV Introduction).
Man and his societies cannot achieve happiness or success when the most basic and true aspect of Man has been denied and oppressed through institutionalized flawed belief systems parading as "science". Modern psychological theories, in the form of psychiatry, genetics, behavioral science, social science, (and used by humanists and atheists to justify their positions):
1) are completely false omitting the key part of the subject (the mind),
2 pretend to be authoritative when they are factually not this at all, and
3) having been accepted and adopted by most major social and government institutions, directly allow the possibility and existence of the oppressive treatment of humanity. Man is viewed as nothing more than a fancy animal, and is treated as an animal.

The Definition of Psychology

The word "psychology" is the combination of two terms - study (ology) and soul (psyche), or mind. The derivation of the word from Latin gives it this clear and obvious meaning:

Let's see what a few dictionaries have to say and how a word could alter and lose its true and actual meaning.

"Psyche" is defined as:

1. The spirit or soul.

2. The human mind.

3. In psychoanalysis, the mind functioning as the center of thought, emotion, and behavior.

And defining "soul", we have:

1. the spiritual or immortal elements in a person.

2. a person's mental or moral or emotional nature.

Most of us would agree we have a "psyche" per the above definitions in the sense of mind, thought, and emotions. Most would also agree they have a "soul" per the second definition above relating to man's mental, moral or emotional nature. We might all have different notions about what these ultimately are, but few could sanely disagree they exist.

Life Can Take A Toll on Your Mind and Body

Death, divorce, job loss, chronic illness - these situations can bring both tremendous stress and distress into your life.
But even daily stressors - the kind you think you can handle - can eventually overwhelm you, throwing your life out of balance and affecting both your psychological and your physical health.
Your Job
Fewer people doing the same amount of work. Late hours, demanding bosses. Disharmony among co-workers.
Your Family
Trying to make a marriage work. Making ends meet. Troubled teenagers. Caring for young children and aging parents. Challenges of dual careers.
Your Physical Health
Headaches. Getting sick from being stressed out. Recovering from a life-threatening illness. Learning how to live with a chronic disease.

The History of Psychology

For thousands of years psychology existed under the name of philosophy. The Hindu Vedas contain the oldest record of man's examination of mind and spirit. In India all forms of Yoga, which are essentially psychology, are described as one of the six systems of philosophy.

Sufi teachings, which again are chiefly psychological, are regarded as partly religious and partly metaphysical. In more modern times some version of these systems, still largely following in this same vein, can be found the subjects of Rosicrucianism, New Thought, Science of Mind, visualization techniques, practical magick, and Scientology.

If you found yourself flinching or reacting negatively to the mention of any of these subjects, such as Yoga, Rosicrucianism, Scientology, or any of the the many other alternative approaches to the mind and reality, realize this is not necessarily because there is anything actually strange or weird about these subjects. It is often largely because modern psychology, psychiatry and affiliated proponents of modern materialistic "science" have successfully applied black PR to them to such a large degree.

What is Psychological Assessment?

Psychological assessment should never be performed in a vacuum. A part of a thorough assessment of an individual is that they also undergo a full medical examination, to rule out the possibilities of a medical, disease or organic cause for the individual’s symptoms. It’s often helpful to have this done first, before psychological testing (as it may make psychological testing moot).

4 Components of Psychological Assessment

Norm-Referenced Tests

A standardized psychological test is a task or set of tasks given under standard, set conditions. It is designed to asses some aspect of a person’s knowledge, skill or personality. A psychological test provides a scale of measurement for consistent individual differences regarding some psychological concept and serves to line up people according to that concept.

10 Tips for Healthy Living

Health psychologists have a dual mission: to help prevent mental and physical illness and disease and to promote healthy living. From cancer to diabetes, health psychologists deal with a wide variety of issues underlying physical illness and chronic disease.

Interestingly, much of what health psychologists teach (deep breathing, mindfulness, stress reduction, etc.) works for everyone. Our fast-paced life and increased dependency on technology often results in disconnection, stress and lack of sleep, which all wreak havoc on our health. Fortunately, there are simple steps you can take today to begin living a healthier life.

Here, two health psychologists offer tips for living more happily, peacefully and mindfully.

What is Health Psychology?

Health psychologists have found that not only behavior has an impact on disease, but also attitudes and social factors. These factors combined to form the biopsychosocial model which guides the work of many health psychologists today.

There are five major aspects to health psychology, in which each contribute to the overall existence of health psychology. Health psychology contributes to our understanding of health and illness through patients' adjustment to serious illnesses, their health beliefs, which influences their behavior, their mind and body connection, and finally the psychosocial factors that can reinforce healthy behaviors and prevent negative ones.