2020 · 03. December 2020
People often make the mistake of thinking that good mental health is all about positive thinking. As a result, many people turn to books like Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking or Rhonda Byrne's The Secret. That's not a good idea: an excessive emphasis on positive thinking can be very dangerous, as America discovered under the leadership of Donald Trump.
2020 · 09. July 2020
Since the global coronavirus outbreak, the sight of medical experts like Dr Tony Holohan and Dr Anthony Fauci on our TV screens has become a familiar one. Both men appear serious and concerned but calm; informed, but quick to emphasise what they don't know (unlike, for instance, Donald Trump). My latest Southern Star column argues we can all benefit by developing these thinking habits – essentially, learning to think like a scientist.
2019 · 14. November 2019
There are no shades of grey with black-and-white thinking, I argued in last week's Southern Star; everything is great or awful, hot or cold, feast or famine.
2018 · 19. April 2018
In last week's Southern Star, I talked about the healing power of laughter. The column is reproduced below. There’s a certain truth to the old cliché about laughter being the best medicine. The late cognitive psychologist Dr Albert Ellis certainly believed in the power of laughter. Like most cognitive therapists, Ellis believed anxiety and depression were underpinned by distorted and unhelpful thinking patterns. Unlike his fellow cognitive therapists, however, Ellis used some pretty...