The Jungians talk about complexes, other people talk about ego states, some psychotherapists decompose our psychology into parts. I prefer to use the term dramaturgic elements. But no matter what you call them, this is what is really going on in our brains all the while we think that "I am in control!"

This "edutainment" video helps clear up some popular misconceptions about the hemispheric lateralisation of brain function and explains how our 'divided brain' may have profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society.

Listening to sad music can make you feel better, if you're already sad!

Millgram, Y., J. Joormann, J. D. Huppert and M. Tamir (2015). "Sad as a Matter of Choice? Emotion-Regulation Goals in Depression." Psychological Science 26(8): 1216-1228.

 Abstract: Research on deficits in emotion regulation has devoted considerable attention to emotion-regulation strategies. We propose that deficits in emotion regulation may also be related to emotion-regulation goals. We tested this possibility by assessing the direction in which depressed people chose to regulate their emotions (i.e., toward happiness, toward sadness). In three studies, clinically depressed participants were more likely than nondepressed participants to use emotion-regulation strategies in a direction that was likely to maintain or increase their level of sadness. This pattern was found when using the regulation strategies of situation selection (Studies 1 and 2) and cognitive reappraisal (Study 3). The findings demonstrate that maladaptive emotion regulation may be linked not only to the means people use to regulate their emotions, but also to the ends toward which those means are directed.

Yoon, S., E. Verona, R. Schlauch, S. Schneider and J. Rottenberg (2019). "Why do depressed people prefer sad music?" Emotion: No Pagination Specified-No Pagination Specified.

Abstract: One of the cardinal symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) is persistent sadness. Do people with MDD actually prefer sad stimuli, potentially perpetuating their depression? Millgram, Joormann, Huppert, and Tamir (2015) observed such preferences and interpreted them as reflecting a maladaptive emotion regulatory goal to upregulate sad feelings. We assessed emotional music choice among both those with MDD and healthy controls (HC), and assessed the reasons for music preferences in these two groups. Seventy-six female participants (38 per group) completed two tasks: (1) Millgram et al.’s (2015) music task wherein participants listened to happy, neutral, and sad music excerpts and chose the one they wanted to listen to most, and (2) a novel Emotional Music Selection Task (EMST) wherein participants chose preferred music clips, varying in emotion and energy level, in paired-choice trials. In the replication music task, MDD people were more likely to choose sad music. However, inconsistent with any motivation to upregulate sadness, people with MDD reported that they chose sad music because it was low in energy levels (e.g., relaxing). EMST results revealed that MDD people had a stronger preference for both low energy and sad music, relative to HC. The strong appeal of sad music to people with MDD may be related to its calming effects rather than any desire to increase or maintain sad feelings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Did you know that people are thinking about what is not happening almost as often as they are thinking about what is and that doing so typically makes them unhappy (Killingsworth MA Gilbert DT (2010) A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science 330(6006):932)?

Even thinking about pleasant topics, people are not happier than when they simply focus on the task at hand (absorption, flow, mindfulness, presence). Accordingly, spending about 3 minutes a day writing a list of all the things that you have to be grateful for can be an effective antidepressant.

In the 1960s, the psychologist Walter Mischel and colleagues developed this simple 'marshmallow test' to measure preschoolers' ability to delay gratification. The idea was to discover the strategies kids use to resist the temptation to eat the first marshmallow: Covering one's face with one's hands or singing childrens' songs proved successful; smelling or touching the marshmallow generally led to the child's giving in.

In numerous follow-up studies over 40 years, this 'test' proved to have surprisingly significant predictive validity for consequential social, cognitive and mental health outcomes over the life course. For example, it turned out that the children who had practiced more patience during their preschool years displayed more language skills, better social integration with fewer unwanted pregnancies, higher frustration tolerance and had more success in school as teenagers. And over the next few decades, the adults who had been more patient as children more likely ended up with a higher level of education, more income, fewer financial problems and better health.

• Mischel W, Ayduk O, Berman MG, Casey BJ, Gotlib IH, Jonides J, Kross E, Teslovich T, Wilson NL, Zayas V Shoda Y (2011) 'Willpower' over the life span: decomposing self-regulation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 6(2):252-256

Continued research indicates that people with substance-abuse problems (alcoholics, drug addicts, binge eaters ...) have difficulty resisting instant gratification of their desires. This seems to mean that children who haven't learned to resist instant gratification while growing up might have a higher probability of later becoming addicted to something in one way or another.

It's not a problem of "spoiling" the kid while growing up: Whether he or she gets a marshmallow or a pony as a reward for waiting is irrelevant; important here is simply that the child learns to "contain the pain" of patiently waiting.

What do you think?

The motion of something as massive as a locomotive can be stopped by such a small thing as this brake shoe! No matter how much momentum is at work, no matter how important or pressing a project may be to you, its progress can be held up by the smallest diversion. But procrastination, like a brake shoe, can also prevent an unwanted collision.

So, if you're procrastinating, what conflict are you trying to prevent from happening?

The USAmerican short-story writer Lydia Davis wrote a cute two-liner called "Household Management Control" in a book "Can't and Won't: Stories" and it goes like this:

"Under all this dirt / the floor is really very clean."

(In German, the story is called "Haushaltsführungskontrolle" and it goes like this: "Unter all diesem Schmutz / ist der Boden wirklich sehr sauber.")

My favorite metaphor to explain procrastination is to imagine a huge pail of water in front of you. All you have to do is pour one single drop into a glass on the floor, but you'll hesitate at the thought of having to lift that big, heavy pail to do it. This picture in your head is enough to make any normal human being put off the chore for as long as possible. But if you get the simple idea of taking a pipette or a medicine dropper to do the job with, Bingo!, no problem!

So, what in the world could a game like Tetris have to do with procrastination? If you watch the film, you'll finally come to the point where Dr. Tom Stafford talks about the "Zeigarnik Effect". The Zeigarnik Effect is memory enhancement for uncompleted tasks. (Usually, we give more emotional importance to unfinished than to finished tasks and memory is better for things which have more emotional relevance.) So far, so good, because that's exactly what disturbs the procrastinator: uncompleted tasks. But Tetris immerses the player within a world of perpetual uncompleted tasks and, according to Dr. Tom Stafford, that's exactly what it is that makes us want to play the game all day long!

Huh? Ok, let's quote him on this: "Every line you complete, more blocks fall from the sky. Every block you put in place creates another train within which to slot the next block. The game is endlessly generating tasks, lines, for you to complete and it is endlessly supplying you with a train on which to execise your visual insight."

What? This sounds horrible! Just like all those unsorted books, magazine & newspaper articles, bills and other papers which perpetually accumulate in my study in spite of every single thing that I somehow do manage to put into place! So why don't I automatically fall into some kind of "Tetris trance" and simply want to clean up my room all day long, in flow, so to say?

The answer comes in the very next sentence of the video: "You immediately see where the next block needs to go ..." even though, as Tom continues to say: "... but as soon as you put that block down, you have more tidying up to do."

So, what can we learn from all this? Minds are organised around goals and simple solutions must be in clear sight for us to get into flow while (perpetually) striving to reach these goals. If I have enough shelves, drawers, files and folders labelled, ready and waiting for me to put things away, I can most likely make a game out of tidying up.

Imagine, for example, how it would be if, all the while the Tetris pieces are falling one-by-one from the sky, the player also had a huge pile of still unsorted pieces already lying helter-skelter all over the bottom of the playing field waiting to be put into place with those new ones keep on perpetually raining in. For me, well I'd probably quickly stop playing and think about continuing the game again tomorrow ... maybe!

This is often how my brain works for the first few hours after I get up in the morning!

(And is also sometimes how I feel trying to get rid of some stupid neurotic thoughts or behaviour I might have... How about you?)

This funny cartoon (in German) uses paradoxical thinking in an exemplary way. Enjoy!

Jonathon Davis was on his way to work when he came upon the bizarre scene. A flock of more than 15 turkeys were filmed circling around a dead cat in the middle of a busy road Thursday outside Boston. Animal Planet's David Mizejewski spoke to Inside Edition about the awkward video. Davis posted the video on Twitter with the caption: "These turkeys trying to give this cat its tenth life" and it went viral in a flash. Some are calling it a "death dance."

The Dutchman Mirin Dajo let his body be pierced in public countless times in the back, sides and front around 1947/1948 in Switzerland. And all without any pain and no blood flowing. Expensive medical investigations presumably revealed that this was no trick. In collaboration with Swiss Television, the German-language magazine MYSTERIES has now (2009?) made Dajo's entire original footage available on the internet for free. According to publisher Luc Bürgin: "By a happy coincidence, we received the original 35-millimeter film reels for no cost from one of the last surviving acquaintances of the Dutchman. For this reason, we would also like to offer these sensational recordings to the world for free and in his spirit to all those who might be interested in them. "

Warning: These recordings show lethal experiments that may shock some people. Do not try to imitate them!

(My loose and commented translation of the German YouTube commentary to this film.)

What do you think about this? Is it for real?

This film well illustrates how many patients feel upon receiving a serious diagnosis from their doctor after a routine check-up. It is a fitting metaphor dramatically and convincingly showing that such information, if not communicated gracefully, can be devastatingly traumatizing, virtually as deadly as the illness itself!

So, how would you react to this experiment if it were to happen to you?

What would you do in this situation?

This horrifying film from https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=33d_1411537803 brings us back to our phylogenetic roots. What would you do in this guy's situation (to say nothing about how he got in it in the first place)?

Some days everything goes wrong!

I have a saying: "Accident! Coincident! Evident!"

It means:

The first time something goes wrong, write it off as an accident and don't make a deal out of it in the sense that "Shit happens!"

The second time a similar thing goes wrong within about the same reasonably short period of time, set a flag, but don't worry and don't come to any conclusions in the sense that it's probably just a coincidence. After all, you can always draw a line connecting any two random, unrelated points.

The third time a similar thing goes wrong, again within about the same reasonably short period of time, try to figure out the evident trajectory!

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Buy credit song at iTunes: http://bit.ly/PKBkbe

Jack and Jill are always hurting each other’s feelings. But like Mum said, “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.”

directed by Nash Edgerton
written by Nash Edgerton & David Michôd
produced by Nicole O'Donohue
cinematography by Greig Fraser
edited by Luke Doolan & Nash Edgerton

cast
Jack.....Nash Edgerton
Jill.....Mirrah Foulkes

© 2007 Blue-Tongue Films

By the way, I have two daughters! (No sons!)

See also the clip

"HERREN DES FEUERS"

on my website under Links & Flicks "Bizarre / Curious / Humor".