Inside Out: Deep Down
This blog builds on my previous post (“Inside Out”) about “emotion(s)”; specifically the difference between “categorical emotion” and “primary emotion.” My previous post lauds Disney/Pixar’s delightfully animated movie, Inside Out, which depicts how our brains process emotion. Briefly (to repeat an excerpt from the previous blog), the movie depicts: ‘Riley – a happy-go-lucky girl from Minnesota who is followed throughout the movie by five, basic animations of her emotions: Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear. Each color-coded manifestation—Joy: Yellow; Sadness:...
Read MoreInside Out
And the Oscar for Best Picture goes to…’Inside Out!’” Pixar/Disney’s delightfully animated movie release, depicting how our brains process emotion. Don’t laugh. Chicago Sun-Times movie critic, Richard Roeper, says, “’Inside Out’ is a bold, gorgeous, sweet, funny, sometimes heartbreakingly sad, candy-colored adventure that deserves an Academy Award nomination for best picture. Not just in the animated category (but) in the big-kid section, right there with the top-tier live-action films. It’s one of the best movies of the year, period.” “Rotten Tomatoes,” the online...
Read MoreAdverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)
Several weeks ago, I attended a two-day workshop in the beautiful university town of Boulder, Colorado. I always like visiting Boulder for its “uniqueness”. Readers who’ve been there will understand what I mean by that. The workshop leader was Carol Forgash, LCSW; a specialist in trauma therapy. Among the more helpful features of the workshop was learning about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study conducted as a collaborative research effort between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, and Kaiser Permanente in San...
Read MorePerhaps the Best Parenting Advice – Ever!
It was several years ago while browsing through a used book store, that I happened upon the book. Hardback. Green cover. Red ribbon book marker, like those found in Bibles. Were it not for the tattered “green” cover, I might have mistaken it for a Bible. Upon closer inspection, the title read: Children: The Challenge. Copyright: 1964. Retail price: $9.95. Sale price: $4.95. A “good deal” by most standards. Even now as I craft this blog post, the book continues to lose bits and pieces of its aging green cover. The author? Rudolph Dreikurs, MD, the Viennese-born...
Read MoreMental Associations – Matter!
In their book Buddha’s Brain; The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, & Wisdom (2009), authors Rick Hanson, PhD and Richard Mendius, MD observe: “When two things are held in mind at the same time, they start to connect with each other.” Think of this in terms of good news/bad news. First, the good news. Hanson and Mendius write: “Positive experiences can…be used to soothe, balance, and even replace negative ones. When two things are held in mind at the same time, they start to connect with each other. That’s one reason why talking...
Read MoreLifelong Skinned Knees
Psychologist Jim Knipe (Forgash & Copeley, Eds.,2008) will often tell clients the following story: “Imagine a little girl who falls down and skins her knee, and it hurts. Her knee is bleeding and she runs into the house. A loving parent sees her and says, ‘Oh, it hurts, doesn’t it? Come over here. Let me wash it off. Yes, it hurts! I’ll put a bandage on it. Come sit in my lap for a little while.’ It is easy to see that after a few minutes, for this little girl, this lap will become pretty boring, and she will want to go back out and play again. If the parent...
Read More