A new review pinpoints which aspects of mindfulness buffer the impact of trauma, with analysis and practical implications — Not everyone who experiences profound distress will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-and most responses to trauma resolve naturally over time with conservative management. However, as reported by the National Center for PTSD, 8 percent of women and 4 percent of men develop PTSD after trauma-about 12 million people per year…

Research on BPD identifies core day-to-day factors associated with either high or low function and well-being. — As the veil of stigma lifts, with each new revelation of the impact of mental illness on life and death, public interest and sophistication around personality and relationships are rising exponentially. Media portrayals, celebrity behavior, depictions of troubled superheroes and villains, and journalistic analysis are increasingly psychologized, with an exponentially-increasing…

Analysis of national survey research identifies core reasons young adults avoid or can’t access treatment for one of the most common mental illnesses. — Key points Children, adolescents, and young adults face increasing rates of depression and anxiety. Research shows that cost, not knowing where to go, and fear of being committed are among the top reasons for not seeking mental health care. Measures focused on addressing young people’s concerns and barriers to care are urgently…

People with high self-control enjoy success but may inadvertently alienate others. — The benefits of self-control are legion, easily laudable: high credibility and trustworthiness, strong relationships and broad satisfaction, and enhanced productivity and success. Self-control is part of the brain’s executive function (e.g., important in ADHD and meditation response), the cornerstone of effectiveness, because self-control allows optimized allocation of mental resources, the…

In medicine, diagnosis and evaluation are of critical importance for treatment planning and outcomes. Biological understanding of general medical conditions is further along than for psychiatric diagnosis, at least in part because of the complexity of the brain and the need for more sophisticated tools to understand how neuropsychiatric processes…

Research identifies specific factors that shape how we experience loss during the pandemic. — The pandemic has been a time of terrible loss, with ongoing death, illness, and feelings of vulnerability as variants mutate and spread. The grief- individual, family, collective-has yet to be reckoned. As of this writing, an estimated 6.25 million people have died globally (CDC), nearly 1 million in the U.S…

Why do some teens and parents connect well, while others hide things, or even lie? More importantly, what can we do about it? — Being a teenager today seems more complicated than ever. Teenagers have always faced the struggle between autonomy and dependence, privacy and access, while they seek to forge an independent identity and set a course for the future. Growing up ain’t easy… as parents may recall.

Imagination paves the way for disinformation. — The psychology of disinformation is more important now than ever. Our fates literally depend on how we navigate the information landscape. Because of social media and information technology, and how tightly glued we are to our screens and scrolls, the innate capacity of the human mind to fool itself is…

New research comparing the brains of therapists and non-therapists reveals findings that are important for therapy and beyond. — There are so many different psychotherapeutic approaches, it’s becoming harder every day to track all the acronyms [1], let alone figure out how to start therapy. We often hear more about CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy), a straightforward-seeming approach in which unhelpful cognitions and their impact on feeling and behavior are examined…