The Talking Cure

Psychoanalysis in its purest form, America in the 1940's and 1950's. Don't be cruel, things have moved on since then, and drugs to treat serious mental disorders had not been discovered (by accident) at this point. There are lots of different types of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy but all start with Freud and end with Freud. One thing that Freud understood, we are all a bit Neurotic. One of his most important books was called the Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Thats you and me that is.

 

On the Origin of Species, revisited.

The new scientist has just published a clear summary and update of Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' by the geneticist Steve Jones.

Read: On the Origin of Species, revisited. 

Depression

In this lecture Robert Sapolsky talks about depression. Better known for his work on stress, Sapolsky has also investigated the biological basis of depression. He argues that depression is the most damaging disease you can get.

Weird.

This blog from Mindhacks reports a study by anthropologists that attacks the findings of studies by evolutionary psychologists that suggest that there are universal signals of health in human beings and that these signals form the basis of human mate selection:

"Sear and Marlowe criticize evolutionary psychologists who have argued that physical size influences mating decisions in all societies. That argument rests largely on self-reports of Western college students and analyses of personal advertisements in U.S. newspapers for dating partners, they say."

There is an important general point about the validity of a lot of psychological research in this paper and the Mindhacks blog is well worth reading. Once again it raises the point that lots of research uses students as participants:

"In fact, the authors state that "The findings suggest that members of WEIRD [Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic] societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans".

Read: The illusion of a universe in our own back yard.

Are you the weirdest people in the world?

Day Care

An interesting article on the long-term effects of daycare from Cognitive Daily focussing on the National Institute of Child Health and Development longitudinal study of the effects of daycare on social development.

Read: The long-term effects of day care.