Freedom May Come With Challenges for Chilean Miners

Staff / Truthdig Oct 13, 2010 The 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for two months were pulled out of their predicament one by one Wednesday, and hopefully their ordeal is truly over, but Chilean officials are giving them the option of leaning on expert help if adjusting to life above ground proves difficult. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

‘Inception’s’ Suicidal Tendencies

Staff / Truthdig Jul 19, 2010 Christopher Nolan's epic and ambitious new blockbuster is a fascinating, skillfully made brain twister that gives Philip K. Dick a run for his existential money. But at the core of Nolan's film is a troubling idea that won't go away. (Spoilers!) Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Carol Tavris on Barbara Ehrenreich’s Crusade

BLANK Jun 4, 2010 In her recent book, Barbara Ehrenreich takes on the excesses, delusions and unsupported promises of the positive-thinking movement, tracking both its naive and its corrupt manifestations in the worlds of health, business, religion and psychology.In her recent book, Ehrenreich takes on the excesses, delusions and unsupported promises of the positive-thinking movement. Dig deeper ( 6 Min. Read )

Can Seeing an Illness Protect You From It?

Staff / Truthdig Apr 6, 2010 Researchers in Canada showed young adults photos of obviously diseased people and found that the subjects’ immune systems were significantly more aggressive when later exposed to a glop of bacteria. Test subjects got a negligible boost from similarly upsetting, but not disease-y, images. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Where Neuroscience Meets Literature

Staff / Truthdig Apr 1, 2010 How about a little cognitive psychology with your English literature? Professors who normally spend their time thinking about Virginia Woolf's characters and story structures are taking a page from scientific texts to add a new dimension to their exploration of fiction. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Is Sex Addiction Just a (Convenient) Myth?

Staff / Truthdig Jan 23, 2010 Here we go again: Just as the question was raised during the latter phase of the Bill Clinton era, Tiger Woods' recently revealed indiscretions have prompted questions of whether there is such a thing as "sex addiction," or whether it's just code for "boys will be boys" until those boys get busted, that is. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Are We Wired for Compassion?

Staff / Truthdig Jan 20, 2010 When the term human nature gets thrown around, it's sometimes used in a derisive fashion, as if to boil all the complex motivations, biological drives and psychological quirks that comprise our makeup down to some simplistic, base formula However, there are some who might cast the concept in a brighter light (continued). Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Top Psychologists Analyze Themselves

Staff / Truthdig Oct 6, 2009 Psychologists are people too, and they're prone to having quirks and neuroses despite their extensive training on the various facets of the human psyche. The British Psychological Society prodded 23 top psychologists to fess up to their own curiosities and inconsistencies on the organization's blog. Analyze away. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Psychology, Metaphors and You

Staff / Truthdig Sep 29, 2009 Can you tell your metaphors from your synecdoches? These terms may trigger bad freshman English flashbacks, but at least when it comes to metaphors, they're more important than you might think; in fact, they might just be intrinsic to how you think. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Hitler’s Delusions of Artistic Grandeur

Staff / Truthdig Aug 27, 2009 It's well known that Adolf Hitler dabbled in watercolor and that the Führer and his Nazi underlings amassed vast stashes of ill-begotten works of art, but according to art historian Birgit Schwarz, Hitler's artistic streak ran deeper into the dark zones of his psyche than most people realize. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Happiness Consultants Won’t Stop a Depression

Chris Hedges / Truthdig Jul 27, 2009 Positive psychology, which claims to be able to engineer happiness, is a quack science that justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism, shifting the blame from the power elite to those they oppress.Positive psychology is a quack science that justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

Not With a Bang but a Twitter

Staff / Truthdig Apr 15, 2009 Can plugging into online social networks via Twitter or Facebook lead to some kind of computer-aided moral decline en masse? A study out of the University of Southern California's Brain and Creativity Institute seems to suggest that this may be an imminent side effect of living in information-overloaded societies. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )