One of the blogs I link to on my Fear, Fun and Filoz page is the British Psychological Society report, usually written by Christian Jarrett. Today's post by the BPS has some notable items. One reports on letters of gratitude having more effect raising people's spirits than most people expect them, too. The post describes a mental process that too many people go through
Thinking of writing a note of gratitude
Then thinking it would not be all that important to the recipient
Deciding to forget about writing or messaging
Thus, gratitude does not get expressed, even though it is important and valuable.
A 2nd item in the BPS blog reports five reasons that alcohol remains popular in social occasions. The idea has been that it relaxes people but that does not seem to be the case. It does make it easier to put worries aside and to be present in the current moment. It also makes it easier to bond with others and easier for positive emotions to spread from person to person.
A 3rd item of interest relates to my current reading "The Other Side of Normal" by Prof. Jordan Smoller of the Harvard Medical School. His book emphasizes the history of psychology and psychiatry and their traditional focus on what is abnormal. The British Psychological Society blog states that there are now 10 times as many recognized psychiatric diagnoses as there were just 50 years ago. Smoller and others are attending to the fact that recognizing some debilitating condition or thought pattern and slapping a Greek-ish name on it leads to unreliable, contradictory and superficial understanding. Getting a better description, and measurements if possible, of what is normal and what underlies various difficulties might lead to better and more helpful treatment.
