PsychNews Headlines

Massage Eases Anxiety, But No Better Than Simple Relaxation Does - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
A new randomized trial shows that on average, three months after receiving a series of 10 massage sessions, patients had half the symptoms of anxiety. This improvement resembles that previously reported with psychotherapy, medications, or both…

Brain Predicts Partner’s Emotional Resiliency - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
Laboratory tests have long suggested a connection between a specific area in our brains and how we regulate our emotions. But a new study conducted at Harvard University now finds evidence in a real-world setting to support this connection. The new study suggests that brain activity — specifically…

Stress Relieved Through Massage, Simple Relaxation - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
Simple relaxation appears to be just as effective as more intensive forms of therapy — such as massage — meant to help provide a person with stress relief. In a randomized research study, participants who received massage, simple relaxation, or something call ‘thermotherapy’ all reported a…

The Role Of Baby-Sign In Child Development - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
How important is it for mothers to use hand gestures to communicate with their infants? This is the key question investigated by new research being showcased at the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Festival of Social Science on 18 March. The event ‘Communicating with Your Baby’ has…

When Personality Makes Drugs Ineffective In Depression - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
A study published in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics addresses the role of personality factors in moderating treatment response in depression…

Anthropologist/Neuroscientist Team Propose That Religion Is Ubiquitous And Persistent Because The Human Brain Needs It - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
In the fractious debate on the existence of God and the nature of religion, two distinguished scientists radically alter the discussion…

APA Modifies DSM Naming Convention To Reflect Publication Changes - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
Beginning with the upcoming fifth edition, new versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) will be identified with Arabic rather than Roman numerals, marking a change in how future updates will be created, according to the American Psychiatric Association…

Veterans Mental Health Service Extended Across Wales - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
A pilot project to support armed services personnel experiencing mental health problems as a result of their service will be extended across Wales, Health Minister Edwina Hart announced. The service, which has been trialled in the Cardiff and Vale and Cwm Taf Health Board areas, offered access to…

In the Exploratorium’s distorted room - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
The San Francisco Exploratorium is the Mind Hacks of science museums - every exhibit is hands on, giving you the chance to experiment with and experience for yourself scientific principles. Obviously, one of my favourite exhibits was a psychology demonstration, one based on a classic visual…

The remote rural community that thinks letting someone die is as bad as killing them - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
In recent years, cognitive scientist Marc Hauser has gathered evidence that suggests we’re born with a moral instinct. This moral intuition has been likened to the universal grammar that Chomsky famously suggested underlies our linguistic abilities - certain principles are set in stone, whilst the…

Behavioral problems in childhood doubles the risk of chronic widespread pain in adult life - Mon, 08 Mar 2010
Bad behavior in childhood is associated with long-term, chronic widespread pain in adult life, according to the findings of a study following nearly 20,000 people from birth in 1958 to the present day. The research found that children with severe behavior disturbances had approximately double the…

Reparative Therapy For Homosexuality: Is It Ethical? Should It Be Provided? - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
Over the last few days a wife and husband have been leaving comments on an older advice column that Dr. Schwartz responded to some years ago titled, I Think I am Gay and I Need Help to Convert to Heterosexual?. It occurred to me that the whole topic is worthy of an essay in of itself, rather than…

How cannabis makes thoughts tumble - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
Cannabis smokers often report that when stoned, their thoughts have a free-wheeling quality and concepts seem connected in unusual and playful ways. A study just published online in Psychiatry Research suggests that this effect may be due to the drug causing ‘fast and loose’ patterns of spreading…

Disarming the Jealousy Complex - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
The recent post Mad about You distinguished two different kinds of jealousy. The simple variety occurs in all relationships. Absent chronic resentment, this minor form of jealousy motivates the partners to reconnect. The current post describes how to regulate complex jealousy, before it destroys…

Tracking the unborn brain into childhood - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
A brain scanning technology called MEG is being used to track the function of unborn babies’ brains as they grow inside the womb until after they’ve been born. The full name for MEG is magnetoencephalography and it works by reading the magnetic fields created by the electrical signalling in the…

Neuroplasticity: The Good, Bad and How it Affects You - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
I just came from a wonderful conference in UCLA where psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science discussed the nature of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is simply the new-ish finding that…

Why Women Make Better Leaders Than Men - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
The vast majority of political leaders and nearly all Fortune 500 CEOs are men. Moreover, in the industries that make our economy run, such as finance, manufacturing, technology, and agriculture, men are in the super majority of leadership positions. So, if most of our leaders are male, and if…

Some Antidepressants Related to Cataract Risk - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
Two commonly prescribed antidepressants — fluvoxamine (Luvox) and venlafaxine (Effexor) — are correlated with a significantly higher risk for developing cataracts. Cataracts, a clouding of the eye’s lens that usually occurs in older people, are routinely treated through surgery. Researchers…

Living with ADHD - Tue, 09 Mar 2010
With the addition of our two new ADHD blogs in recent weeks, now’s a good time to revisit some of the basics about attention deficit disorder, because a lot of misconceptions prevail. At one time, it was thought that attention deficit disorder (with or without hyperactivity, it’s often nowadays…

Massage eases anxiety, but no better than simple relaxation does - Mon, 08 Mar 2010
A randomized trial shows three months after 10 massages, patients’ anxiety symptoms were halved — an improvement like that previously reported with psychotherapy, medications, or both. But the trial also found massage no more effective than simple relaxation.