Peace, Love, and Psychology

Send us Fan Mail Part One: Attachment Theory In honor of February and Valentine’s Day, we begin a two-part exploration into how our past affects the quality of our relationships. In Part One, we begin by discussing attachment theory . Since its introduction in the 1950s and its refinement over the years, attachment theory has become the dominant view of how our early childhood experiences come to...

Send us Fan Mail Self esteem is a way of describing how we think and feel about ourselves and our worthiness. While low self-esteem (or low self-confidence) is not a specific diagnosis or separate pathology, it is often a component of mental health diagnoses. In addition, low self-esteem is a common complaint that comes up in the course of psychotherapy. The Two-Factor theory of self-esteem says t...

Send us Fan Mail Have you made resolutions in the past, only to fall back into the same old patterns a little while later? Why do get trapped into patterns of failure? If we are to make changes for the better in our lives, we need to understand why we keep doing the same actions over and over again, even when we know they will result in failure. When we are trapped in patterns that don’t serve us,...

Send us Fan Mail During this season, it is natural to evaluate the past year and to think about our plans for the new year. In the process of self-assessment, we should avoid the tendency to focus only on the negatives. Where we put our attention tends to expand and become confirmed by the information we filter into our conscious attention. Cognitive distortion can occur, and this is a significant...

Send us Fan Mail The holiday season can be a time for happiness and creating good memories, but it can also be a time of stress. Unrealistic expectations, a lack of structure, and over-indulgence can put pressure on us and our ability to cope. If we travel to spend time with family we haven’t seen in a while, old family dynamics and dysfunction can throw even the most grounded person off-balance. ...

Send us Fan Mail Human beings learn by making mistakes and learning from them. Living in relationship with other people, we will inevitably end up hurting others and being hurt by other people. Therefore, it is crucial for our development and social survival that we understand and apply the technology of forgiveness. We must understand the process of asking for and extending forgiveness to other p...

Send us Fan Mail Communication is a shared process of conveying information between people. The goal of communication is to get our needs met. When communication breaks down, it often causes resistance, defensiveness, and anger between people. By learning an improved strategy, we can learn to identify and express our needs with others in a way that can bring us closer together, achieve resolution...

Send us Fan Mail Once we have learned how to get some relief from repetitive negative thoughts, it frees us up to use our minds to improve important areas of our life. People have intuitively known for a long time that the quality of our thoughts impacts the body—for better or worse. Advances in research into neuroimmunology and epigenetics have shown that harnessing the power of positive thinking...

Send us Fan Mail Negative thinking can affect our mood, impact our behavior, and compromise our ability to effectively use our mind. When our mind is working for us, it helps us to solve problems, to generate creative ideas, and to organize and manage information and our time. When it is repeating distressing pictures or statements, our mind can become our own worst enemy. In this episode, we lear...

Send us Fan Mail In this brief introduction to the Peace, Love, & Psychology podcast, I answer 3 general questions:  Who am I?  Why did I start this podcast?  What do I hope you will get out of listening to it?  Enjoy! Support the show Thank you for listening! For more information, visit: www.drdanraker.com Please subscribe and share with your friends. Just Published! Dr. Raker's new book...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we explore the meaning of emotions and discuss 4 common "negative" emotions that people often seek therapy about: sadness, fear, anger, and guilt. We discuss what these emotions are trying to tell us about our reality, and we cover some basic strategies for understanding these emotions. We also spend some time talking about the process of ignoring, or co...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we delve more deeply into the mechanisms behind compartmentalization: Resistance and Stress Intolerance. We explore what is happening when we push emotions away and discuss practical Mind and Body approaches to help us learn to tolerate emotions in order to hear what they are trying to tell us about our reality. Support the show Thank you for listening! For more i...