01 Nov, 2017

Many people struggle with anxiety.  The National Institute of Mental Health reports that approximately 1 out of every 5 people are afflicted with this condition.  Many anxiety-ridden people have particular worries and fears related to the social world, and thus this makes dating especially difficult for them.  However, human beings are essentially "social creatures".  All sorts of research reveal that to some degree, we depend on relationships for our survival.  Do you know that there is

24 Oct, 2017

As a highly experienced addiction psychologist, I can say that people with an addiction are rarely ever crazy!  Irrational? Yes!  And the behavior may look crazy...however...it does not occur for no reason.  Some addictions do become physical and take on this as a major function; however, many are deeply rooted in a perceived psychological benefit.  I use the word "perceived" because it is your view of it being beneficial, regardless of its actual perks, that is most important.  Most addictive

Dr. Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy, outlined in his theory how "absolute" styles of thinking lead to unhealthy emotions (i.e., depression, anxiety, etc.) and behaviors (i.e., binge substance use).  He stated that "absolute" styles of thinking often include the words "always" and "never", or any offshoots of this type of extreme language, and that these rigid self-views are too demanding and thus set oneself up for major

I want you to adhere to a request.  This is a very important request, and thus I want you to try as hard as you can to successfully comply with it.  OK - for the next ten seconds, no matter what you think, say, or do, please do not under any circumstances think about a pink elephant!   I will count now...1....2....3....   I am going to stop counting because I am very confident that you already failed to comply with my request!  Don't fret, I expected you to fail.  Why?  Because you are human,

10 Feb, 2017

As you may have seen in my video, I explicitly declare that I am not opposed to Anonymous groups as a possible option for people struggling with behavioral dependencies.  However, there are some premises of these groups that I am vehemently opposed to and make no apologies about it.   One such premise is the "Day One" philosophy.  If you join an Anonymous group (i.e., AA, NA, OA, GA, etc.), at some point, you will hear about this "rule".  Although they do not call it a rule, there does not seem