Which comes first? Are you smiling because you’re feeling happy, or do you feel happy because you’re smiling? Do you frown because you’re feeling cross, or do you feel cross because you’re frowning? We like simple cause and effect. Crossness causes frowns. Happiness causes smiles. But facial expressions are not always and invariably a consequence [...]

There’s a old Chinese curse: ‘May you live in interesting times!’ Why a curse? Because ‘un-interesting times’ would mean stability, predictability, security, safety – things which are in mighty short supply right now. The present times are really rather excessively ‘interesting’. 
I don’t know about you, but I am starting to hear about job losses through [...]

The researchers cited in this OCD research refreshingly talk about the possibility that imagination can cause or maintain obsessive compulsions. Imagining bad results if certain rituals are not carried out. Cognitive psychology talks about thoughts but our lives are much more led by what we imagine which is more hypnotic than cognitive. Depression, anticipatory anxiety [...]

The archetypal man (or woman) who chases, seduces and even captivates their romantic ‘prey’ then rapidly loses interest may mirror the entrepreneur for whom chasing wealth is more satisfying than actually acquiring it. In a recent article about brain cells, Joshua Freedman a U.C.L.A. neuroscientist, noted that a monkey feels maximal reward not when he [...]