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Myths About Abortion and Women’s Mental Health Are Widespread, Experts Say
It's an unfounded message experts say is repeated again and again: Having an abortion may damage a woman's mental health, perhaps for years. "There's so much misinformation, so many myths about abortion.
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How to Forgive Ourselves for What We Can’t Change
When we regret our past, it can feel like we’re incapable of changing our future. But it may be our past “mistakes” that help us realize there is room to evolve. In the finale episode of How to Start Over, we explore how regret can be a catalyst of change, what holds us back from self-forgiveness, and how to reconcile our past mistakes—and move forward for good. Conversations with Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at the Columbia Business School, and forgiveness expert Everett Worthington help us identify whether regret hinders our growth or serves as a catalyst of change. ...
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The Happiness Data That Wrecks a Freudian Theory
Does success make us miserable? Sigmund Freud was one of the first to propose this peculiar form of distress in an essay he published more than a century ago. It was a theory built around a few case studies: a patient who fell into depression after earning a promotion at work, another patient who fell apart when she married her longtime partner—and Lady Macbeth, who was not his patient. They were, as Freud famously put it, “wrecked by success.” There are so many examples of this paradox these days that it’s easy for anyone to delude themselves into believing the most successful are the least happy. ...
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on social pain, adolescents’ political attitudes and values, disagreement and accuracy, effects of stress on voice features, learning, grief, and anxiety.
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Shared Suffering
Ukrainians are trying to confront the war’s psychological wounds even as the battles wear on. ... Kate Pokrovskaya, a 39-year-old psychotherapist, was asleep at her home in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 24 when she and her husband were awakened by the sound of explosions. Russia had launched its invasion. “At that moment, our life stopped,” she said. Pokrovskaya tried to help her patients cope with the stress and trauma of war. But she was living through it herself. “We began to sleep badly; my body was tense,” she said. “The sirens became more and more frequent, especially at night. All this was very oppressive, and mentally and physically exhausting.” ...
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Don’t Surround Yourself With Admirers
When you’re admired and well known, “people are always nice to you,” the actor Robert De Niro once confessed to Esquire magazine. “You’re in a conversation, and everybody’s agreeing with what you’re saying.” Sounds great! Agreement makes life smooth, and the praise and esteem of others gives us pleasure, even stimulating a reward center in our brain. Wanting to surround ourselves with admirers, if we can, is only natural. ...
