Psychology Tomorrow Blog

  • Bertrand Russell - The Analysis of Mind Excerpt from The Analysis of Mind (1921), Recent Criticisms of “Consciousness” There are certain occurrences which we are in the habit of calling “mental.” Among these we may take as typical BELIEVING and DESIRING. The exact definition of the word “mental” will, I hope, emerge as the lectures proceed; for the present, I shall mean by it whatever ...
  • Magdalena Bak-Maier, PhD - Meaningful Expression (Even When It’s Not Consciously Intended) On my way to the station in London I pass a young, homeless man. I don’t know his exact age though he looks like someone who is in his twenties. He sits up against the brick wall of the station tracks reading books. One time I got a glimpse of the cover. He was reading A ...
  • Saddaf Sohail - Colour My World: Workshop for Burn Victims in Pakistan For years and years art has been a unique form of expression and communication among people. From sign language to emoticons, art proves its worth everywhere. Art is a tool that can reveal the breakdown or make up of a mind. It is a process in which the artist can take the content of his/her ...
  • The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana – Kinds of Sexual Union KINDS OF SEXUAL UNION ACCORDING TO (a) DIMENSIONS. (b) FORCE OF DESIRE OR PASSION. (c) TIME. Kinds of Union. Man is divided into three classes, viz., the hare man, the bull man, and the horse man, according to the size ...
  • Stanley Siegel, LSCW - Alternatives to Monogamy Learning boundaries with an open relationship Part Two: Creating an Open Relationship The process of learning Intelligent Lust is not about immediate gratification. For those of us who follow the steps, sex matures as we discover the deeper subtleties of our own and our ...
  • Lorenzo Baccalà - Have the Manizers Arrived? We all have an idea of what’s a womanizer. Most would say that Casanova, Warren Beatty, Howard Hughes, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Tiger Woods, Simon Cowell and Hugh Hefner fit the bill. The list is very long. The core of the definition deals with a) the volume of women and b) the majority ...
  • The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Kinds of Women Resorted to by the Citizens Part Four: About the Kinds of Women Resorted to by the Citizens, and of Friends and Messengers When Kama is practised by men of the four castes according to the rules ...
  • George Barton Cutten, Ph.D. - Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing INTRODUCTION I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united; and when the one suffers, the other sympathizes.”—Chesterfield The fact that there is a reciprocal relation between mental states and bodily conditions, acting both for good and ill, ...
  • Stanley Siegel, LCSW - What We Can Do When Sex Leaves a Relationship What looks like the end can be the beginning PART ONE: Rediscovering Sexual Compatibility Sometimes when following the steps of Intelligent Lust, a couple discovers they are not sexually compatible. The differences in their true desires are far too wide to bridge. Even so, having a deeper understanding of the relationship may enable the couple to come ...
  • The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - The Life of a Citizen Part Three: The Life of a Citizen Having thus acquired learning, a man, with the wealth that he may have gained by gift, conquest, purchase, deposit, or inheritance from his ancestors, should become a householder, and pass ...
  • Mabel Odessey - Hidden Images Through a Pinhole I was instantly attracted to the simplicity and mystery of pinhole photography while attending my first photography classes in London in 1982. Since then boxes (big and small) have been my support for exploring both internal and external landscapes. I combine the inner tools of intuition, imagination and patience with a very low tech interface of ...
  • Stanley Siegel, LCSW - It’s More than Just Great Sex, It’s Smart Sex Whether it’s with a lover or a spouse, we connect – physically, emotionally, and spiritually – with the deepest part of our psyches, recovering what was suppressed or lost. Whether the scenario is as conventional as romantic seduction or as robust as sex with toys, whips or ropes, we restore ourselves to wholeness bringing ...
  • Snigdha Gharami - The Power of Words If you knew the power of words, you would not use language to curse people because we are governed by the center of the universe. We are never judged as individuals in relation to others, instead, individuals in relation to ourselves. Words have power and can make miracles. So why not say BLESSED-BE? When you look at ...
  • Magdalena Bak-Maier, PhD – Travels into the Subconscious: Using Art to Create Clarity and Restore Well-being One of my standard practices with clients is to help them make meaning from what’s happening in their lives using visual form. I may take a client to Tate Modern in London or another gallery where we explore their jumbled thoughts through the prism of creative expression other people generated because they had something to say ...
  • Dr. Joseph Valks - Do Schizophrenics Live in Parallel Universes? Schizophrenia comes from the two Greek words that mean ‘to split’ and ‘mind’ because there is a split between what’s going on in their minds and what’s happening in reality. Usually sufferers only have a single personality, but could they, in fact, be living in parallel universes? As we are not physically aware of other universes ...
  • The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - On the Arts and Sciences to be Studied Part Two: On the Arts and Sciences to be Studied Man should study the Kama Sutra and the arts and sciences subordinate thereto, in addition to the study of the arts and sciences contained in Dharma and Artha. Even young maids should ...
  • Marc Wong - Movie and Listening Magic I love movies. When I was in college (before we could stream movies from the internet), me and my buddies would rent all our favorite movies and watch them all night. Hours later, we would emerge from our marathon, bleary-eyed and in mild shock from drama overload. People love movies for several reasons. They make us ...
  • Snigdha Gharami - Negative Thoughts Come from Negative Beliefs We all grow within belief systems that our ancestors set in place for us. Naturally we might call them “superstitious.” Or they are false beliefs that do not help us grow. Our elders have a tendency to not accept what their little ones try to convince them of. Children are not always wrong. They have ...
  • Alyssa Siegel, MS, LPC - My Aging Self, In 7 Year Multiples For the most part, I feel largely disconnected from my past. I’ve heard it said before that each person is essentially ”reborn” ever 7 years, meaning I think, that we are essentially new, or at least different, then our 7 year junior person-selves. That memories shift into the chasm of the longtermblurrybrownish cliff dwellers who only come out when called. ...
  • Velleda C. Ceccoli, PhD - The Company of Men – And Why It Is Important Having written about women, and how important it is for us to have other women in our lives, it is with great pleasure that I once again step outside my world to dive into the other dark continent- the world of men, and how important men are to each other. Men need other men- they need each others ...
  • The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Salutation to Darma, Artha and Kama Part One: Salutation to Darma, Artha and Kama In the beginning, the Lord of Beings created men and women, and in the form of commandments in one hundred thousand chapters laid down rules for regulating their existence with regard to Dharma, Artha, and Kama. Some of these commandments, namely those which treated ...
  • The Evolution of Psychology - Infographic Infographic by Nora McAdams: “By the late 1960’s there were over 60 types of psychotherapies, ranging from psychodrama to guided imagery…”
  • Dr. Joseph Valks - The Sneaky World of Thought Viruses Thought viruses can have a strange power. Have you ever had a catchy jingle, phrase or song that seems to go round and round in your head, and you are unable to clear your head of it? This according to some experts is a thought virus, or meme. They usually start from a single source, ...
  • “We Serve Selected Texts”: Alexis Dahan’s NYC Installation ALEXIS DAHAN “We Serve Selected Texts” November 1st-23rd, 2013 Located on 22nd and 21st Street (between 10th and 11th Avenue) New York, NY 10011 Hours: Wednesday–Saturday from 1–5pm We Serve Selected Texts is a temporary public installation by Alexis Dahan that will appear in Chelsea’s gallery district November 1–23, 2013 on 21st and 22nd Street. Appropriating the iconography and rituals of the American hot ...
  • Dr. Joseph Valks - Recreating Genesis When Dr Craig Venter’s team announced they had succeeded in transplanting synthetic DNA for a bacterium into a host cell they opened a ‘Pandora’s box’ about the morality of playing God. The simple fact is you can modify and manipulate already existing biological material, but nobody can create life from scratch. However, what if using ...
  • Jennifer Bullock, LPC - Content and Unconventional: The Self and Society Reconciliation Movement Our nation is mentally ill… we need a new conversation on mental health, folks! Mass shootings, daily unnoticed violence everywhere, un-neighborly neighborhoods, poor health delivered by the most expensive health care system in the world, the divide between the haves and have nots expanding, and so on… We are in dire need of new conversations and new solutions. I ...
  • Tracy Shawn, MA - Novel: “The Grace of Crows” Set in the fictional California communities of Breakers Point and Dune Beach, Saylor fights her debilitating anxiety while trying to contend with her mother’s blind narcissism, growing concerns for her teenage children, and her husband’s need to pretend that everything is okay. After she reconnects with her childhood friend, Billy, homeless and alone since his ...
  • Natalie Mills, MFT - I Feel Stuck I hear the words “I feel stuck,” multiple times a day. This phrase is uttered by clients, friends, family, and by people I don’t know who are simply passing by. Sometimes these words are accompanied by fear and anxiety, other times by hopelessness and desperation, and sometimes, mild frustration. It’s clear that people are experiencing ...
  • Adam Neal - The Psychic Diet Part I: Weighing Our Spirit In this three-part feature, we will discuss methods of Self-Therapy from the 3 planes of human existence: Spirit, Mind, & Body. At many points in life, we are bound to face conflicts which test our strength as individuals. Quite literally, we are bound to these challenges, as they represent a stepping stone on our evolution, a ...
  • Deborah L. Cox, PhD - Smothered Art & Sexuality I think my dad is sexually disabled. In his late twenties, Dad gave up a world class oboe career to pursue the violin. His parents wanted a lawyer or a doctor but my father ate, slept, and breathed the violin. Their church disallowed musical instruments in worship: no organs, no pianos, and no violins. No statues, ...
  • Ethel D. Puffer - The Psychology of Beauty: The Aesthetic Repose THE popular interest in scientific truth has always had its hidden spring in a desire for the marvelous. The search for the philosopher’s stone has done as much for chemistry as the legend of the elixir of ...
  • Matthew Ortiz - A Frenchman in Bucktown: Gaultier at Brooklyn Museum As a quick preface, I’m happy to write this article for Psychology Tomorrow Magazine (PTM) after its one-year anniversary this past September. PTM is a medium in which writers and journalists can cover the everyday and/or the taboo by unconventional means; e.g., by writing in the all-telling first person which, in my opinion, is ironically ...
  • Velleda C. Ceccoli, PhD - On Men: Shaken and Stirred Ah, men. That other dark continent that somehow is supposed to be clearer, simpler, more known. To whom? I wonder. Other men? As a woman writing about men, I find myself besieged with stereotyped notions of masculinity and what it means to be a man. Culturally and societally embedded ideas within the folds of my psyche play ...
  • Dr. Joseph Valks - The Real Storm Chasers: The Evolution of Rain Magic Water is essential to all forms of life, including plants. Thus, agriculture is dependent on water. Settlements began on the banks of lakes and rivers where water was readily available so crops could flourish. There is a fine balance between the amount of water needed in a particular place at a particular time and having ...
  • Ethel D. Puffer – The Psychology of Beauty: The Nature of Beauty EVERY introduction to the problems of aesthetics begins by acknowledging the existence and claims of two methods of attack,—the general, philosophical, deductive, which starts from a complete metaphysics and installs beauty in its place among the other great concepts; and the ...
  • Alyssa Siegel, MS, LPC – Public Private Selves Two of my clients released their secrets to me recently. Secrets that they had never told anyone prior. Secrets that they had been carrying like a overloaded backpack, stuffed with heavy supplies such as rusty metal stakes, all weather boots, for years. Secret holding is part of my job. Creating space to let secrets peek ...
  • Kimberly Lieu - “Southern California”, “she’s going to bed a little bit hungry again,”: Two Poems on Poverty she’s going to bed a little bit hungry again, and even though she makes decent money it doesn’t stretch enough for the fresh fruits and vegetables the tv says are good for her and her children. she’s almost done paying off the carcreditcardsstudentloansmortgage almost but almost never comes soon enough cause tonight they will eat pasta again and she will add water to stretch the ...
  • Ethel D. Puffer - The Psychology of Beauty: Criticism and Aesthetics Excerpt from The Psychology of Beauty: Part I - Criticism and Aesthetics It is not so long ago that the field of literary criticism was divided into two opposing camps. France being the only country in the world where criticism is a serious matter, the battle waged most fiercely there, and doubtless greatly served to bring about ...
  • Stanley Siegel, LCSW - Marrying For Sex HOW TO FIND SEXUAL COMPATIBILITY. Step 5 of Intelligent Lust: Discerning Sexual Compatibility Just ...
  • Velleda C. Ceccoli PhD - On Masculinity: And What It Means To Be A Man I have been keen to write about masculinity and men for some time now, and am aware that in doing so I am traversing the great divide of difference between us. As a woman, I cannot avoid these differences, nor would I want to, rather I intend to speak from a position of difference. This ...
  • Rachael Uris, MA, LPC - Nostrand Station Brooklyn—Nostrand station, broad daylight. Above ground, overgrown beards or red lipstick holds shaggy hipsters together like central connective tissue. Pinterest-worthy succulents sit in renovated windows, watching abandoned couches decay in the empty lot below. Black and white elbows rub and clank through charming coffee shops or dingy corner stores. Trash bags line the street, their ...
  • Allegra E. Borghese - The Mirror and Portal of Art I have been studying art therapy formally for a little over a year. Really though, it has been much longer. While my initial creative interest was fashion design, it lost its luster when a series of events cast me into a dark night of the soul. My reaction to the perceived loss was rejecting art ...
  • Dr. Joseph Valks - The Psychology of Saving Species Tigers are revered, loved and feared. Millions of people from all corners of the world adore them. They enthrall us with their majesty, power and grace, yet they are still endangered. Their very survival hangs in the balance as they are trapped and killed for body parts, which can fetch a fortune on the illegal ...
  • the human bible by Bill Hayward An Open Exhibit by Psychology Tomorrow’s Artist-in-Residence “To say Hayward is enthusiastic about the creative process is an understatement. Neither does he settle for skimming the surface to shoot another predictable portrait. With a simple question to his subjects— “Given enough paint, paper and permission, what would you do?”—he mines the depths of their passions and ...
  • Kimberly Lieu - In the Absence of Comfort: How Art Can Be Revealing “Expressing yourself is uncomfortable and I kind of like to project that onto people,” artist Philippe Previl admits as he takes apart a display of paintings from his last show at the Freeport Memorial Library in Long Island last month. I look around his space at still-lifes of sneakers, junk food, and portraits of his ...
  • Alyssa K. Siegel, MS, LPC - Love and Haters: Negative Energy and Me I stopped watching the news years ago. It took me a little while to catch on to the fact that every time I watched it the result was one (or all) of the following three emotions; fear, anger, or disgust. Now I consider myself to be reasonably socially aware and responsible so this created a ...
  • Velleda C. Ceccoli, PhD - The Shadow of the Thing: Remembering the Unthinkable (9/11) Today marks an anniversary which I do not like, yet feel compelled to post on, since it is the “thing” that changed everything I knew up until the day that it happened. It is the one event in my privileged lifetime that reminded me of how fragile our sense of wellbeing, how frail our very ...
  • Adam Neal - Daydream Believer Just like the Monkees, many of us Sleepy Jeans experience our strongest wishes and deepest beliefs through our waking dreams. And as impressionable children, we all were scolded at some point by a teacher or relative telling us to “Pay attention!” or “Stop drifting!” or “Get your head outta the clouds!” Even as adults, when ...
  • Stanley Siegel, LCSW – What Our Sexual Fantasies Say About Our Past Step 3: The Meaning and Purpose of Desire Not all sexual desires grow out of conflict, but for the vast ...
  • Zoe Greenberg - “Be Like This Baby” and “Argument”: Two Poems Be Like This Baby Dignity is won By countless forays into shame That lead you to the place Where you are not yourself And then you are forgiven. Released into the emptiness That hollows out your soul And you reflect a nothingness That reminds you of your grandparents Brothers sisters mother father The family portrait Hangs on a dim wall artist unknown To remember is to accept The limits of ...