Think About 117: LINDSAY C GIBSON

 

People experience a breakdown when the pain of living in role-selves and healing fantasies begins to outweigh any potential benefits. Most psychological growth exposes some distressing truths about what we've been doing with our lives. Psychotherapy and the like are aids to help us become aware of truths we already know in our bones. When you're going through a breakdown, a good question to ask is what is actually breaking down. We usually think it's our self. But what's typically happening is that our struggle to deny our emotional truth is breaking down. Emotional distress is a signal that it's getting harder to remain emotionally unconscious. It means we're about to discover our true selves underneath all that story business.

 

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (2015)

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to visit the website of North American psychologist and author LINDSAY C GIBSON:

 

 

https://www.lindsaycgibson.com/

 

 

 

 

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Think About It 114: ILENE S COHEN

 

 

Think About It 099: DAVID HANSCOM

 

 

Think About It 086: GWYNETH LEWIS

   

The Write Advice 224: CRAIG B BARKACS

 

Far more than a source of entertainment, fiction immerses readers in narratives that sharpen empathy, heighten self-awareness, and bolster adaptability. By stepping into the lives of richly drawn characters, readers not only enrich their minds but also develop the social, emotional, and cognitive skills essential for succeeding in today’s complex professional landscape…Engaging with a fictional narrative offers an unparalleled opportunity to inhabit the minds of others. Fiction provides a safe space to analyze interpersonal dynamics without personal risk, fostering emotional awareness in an unpressured environment. Through the lens of diverse characters, readers experience triumphs, failures, and complexities that enhance their capacity for empathy. The emotional resonance with characters, be it a hero’s victory or a villain’s descent, deepens the reader’s understanding of varied human experiences…Stories allow readers to confront their desires, fears, and aspirations through the experiences of fictional characters, often revealing truths about their own lives. For instance, a story featuring a character overcoming mental health challenges can inspire readers to acknowledge and address their own struggles. Fiction creates a transformative and non-threatening space for deeper self-understanding.

 

'Ignite the Transformative Power of Reading Fiction' [Psychology Today, 6 March 2025]

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to read the full article by North American psychologist CRAIG B BARKACS:

 

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/power-and-influence/202503/ignite-the-transformative-power-of-reading-fiction 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Write Advice 188: JUDY BLUME

 

 

The Write Advice 124: JENNIFER DUMMER

 

 

The Write Advice 024: JERZY KOSINSKI

 

Think About It 092: ERIC S JANNAZZO

 

If sensitivity is the capacity to feel deeply, fragility on the other hand is the phenomenon of needing to feel certain things and not others…  It’s an inability to recover from the experience of deep emotion, to regain a center, to maintain one’s capacity to function with maturity even in the presence of something very painful.  This can be an enormous problem; without the capacity to tolerate our more painful feelings, we might find ourselves terrified to go towards certain spaces of life, or worse, we might be unable to bear the feelings that we carry within us at all times.  This leads to a range of problems, from the anxious position that perpetually fights off life, to the depressive position that has formed a kind of dissociative crouch from it, to a host of difficult personality structures we all encounter with regularity in the world: the bragger, the complainer, the perpetual victim, the chronic abuser, etc.

      We need healthy connection with each other.  We need this desperately, perhaps more than at any time in our history.  Our society, our ecology, hangs in the balance.  The healthy connections we need requires us to do the work of cultivating our emotional maturity.  This maturity involves the work of allowing sensitivity to our environments, to each other, celebrating it, teaching it, while also cultivating the capacity to keep our shape as we experience what emerges when we allow ourselves to feel the truth of life.

 

The Promise and Peril of Emotional Sensitivity [Psychology Today, 22 May 2019]

 

 

 

Use the link below to read the full article by North American psychologist ERIC S JANNAZZO:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-full-spectrum/201905/the-promise-and-peril-emotional-sensitivity

 

 

 

 

 

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Think About It 080: DOROTHY ROWE

 

 

Think About It 073: BRAD BIGELOW

 

 

Think About It 053: LOREN SOEIRO

 

Think About It 070: WENDY L PATRICK

Social predators won't just focus on a person's needs but will often confide how much his or her emotions personally resonate with them, using what researchers Paul Babiak and Robert Hare refer to as a psychopathic fiction to cultivate false similarity.  Consummate chameleons, social predators will profess the exact same emotions as their prey, leaving victims feeling both grateful and relieved to have finally met someone who knows how they feel.  Never mind the details (which are often fuzzy due to flaws of fabrication), it is heartening for them to realize that someone can relate.

 

The Stealthiest Predator [Psychology Today, 1 May 2018]

 

Use the link below to read the full 2018 article by WENDY L PATRICK:

 

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201805/the-stealthiest-predator?collection=1116783 

 

 

 

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Think About It 056: OLIVIA LAING

 

Think About It 041: MICHIKO KAKUTANI

 

Think About It 026: GORDON LIVINGSTON

Think About It 053: LOREN SOEIRO

…People who manipulate are expressing their internal hurt and confusion in the context of their relationships by attacking instead of reaching out or insulting instead of apologizing, blaming instead of accepting responsibility.  They aren’t able to deal with the unhappiness inside themselves, so they project it onto others.  This is often true in the case of borderline personality disorder, where the sufferer experiences profound disruptions to his or her sense of self, while his or her close relationships are hit with the collateral damage.  Persons with borderline personality organization may feel deep-rooted and extreme needs for love and acceptance, but find that these needs are perpetually stymied by the typical challenges that relationships present.  The result is a kind of emotional hypersensitivity and over-reactivity, as well as a reversion to primitive defense mechanisms, like denial.  In response to the frustration and anger they feel when they cannot satisfy their powerful internal needs, persons with borderline personality disorder resort to the manipulative behaviors described above.

'15 Ways Manipulative People Control You, and Why They Do It' [Psychology Today, 26 June 2018]


 

Use the link below to read the full article by North American psychologist LOREN SOEIRO:

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/i-hear-you/201806/15-ways-manipulative-people-control-you-and-why-they-do-it

 

 

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Think About It 043: KAREN HORNEY

 
Think About It 033: ANONYMOUS

 
Think About It 026: GORDON LIVINGSTON

Think About It 043: KAREN HORNEY

The individual is told by society that he is free, independent, can decide his life according to his own free will; 'the great game of life' is open to him, and he can get what he wants if he is efficient and energetic.  In actual fact, for the majority of people all these possibilities are limited… The result for the individual is a wavering between a feeling of boundless power in determining his own fate and a feeling of entire helplessness.

The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937)


 

Use the link below to read a brief biography of German-born North American psychologist KAREN HORNEY (pronounced 'Hor-ney' to rhyme with 'door-way'):

 

https://www.verywellmind.com/karen-horney-biography-2795539

 
 

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Think About It 040: ROLLO MAY

 
Think About It 036: MARTIN SELIGMAN

 
Think About It 014: DOROTHY ROWE  

Think About It 036: MARTIN SELIGMAN

The fear of an organism faced with trauma is reduced if it learns that responding controls trauma; fear persists if the organism remains uncertain about whether the trauma is controllable; if the organism learns that trauma is uncontrollable, fear gives way to depression.

Helplessness: On Depression, Development and Death (1967, revised 1991)


 

Use the link below to read more about the work done by North American psychologist MARTIN SELIGMAN in the field of positive psychology:

 

https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-seligmans-learned-helplessness-theory-applies-to-human-depression-and-stress.html

 

 

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Think About It 030: ROLLO MAY

  
Think About It 028: FRANK ZAPPA

  
Think About It 026: GORDON LIVINGSTON

Think About It 024: OTTO RANK

The struggle of the artist against the art-ideology, against the creative impulse and even against his own work also shows itself in his attitude towards success and fame; these two phenomena are but an extension, socially, of the process which began subjectively with the vocation and creation of the personal ego to be an artist.  In this entire creative process, which begins with self-nomination as artist and ends in the fame of posterity, two fundamental tendencies –– one might almost say, two personalities of the individual –– are in continual conflict throughout:  one wants to externalize itself in artistic creation, the other in ordinary life –– in brief, mortal man versus the immortal soul of man.

Art and Artist (1932)


 

Use the link below to read more about the life and work Austrian/North American psychologist, philosopher, art critic, social anthropologist and educator OTTO RANK (1884–1939):

 

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Otto_Rank

 

 

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Think About It 021: ROLLO MAY

 
Think About It 014: DOROTHY ROWE

 
Think About It 042: CG JUNG