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Growing From Depression
“Growing from depression” is a short, easy read on the subject of the depressive experience and how to make best use of and grow from that experience. The book is written by Dr. Neel Burton, who is a psychiatrist as well as a philosopher, and an exceptionally good writer. “If I had more time, I would have written a  shorter letter” so wrote Pascal/ Twain and in case of Neel he seems to have spent enough time on this book, making it succinct yet easy to understand and follow by a layman. Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images The book is organized in four sections; one dealing ...
Source: The Mouse Trap - March 21, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: depression Book reviews Source Type: podcasts

Psychotherapy, East and West
Reading philosophical texts can be daunting- sometimes the terminology and words are dense and sometimes you have to re-read multiple times to understand what the writer means. But reading original sources can be highly enriching too. Buddhist monk in Phu Soidao Nationalpark, Phu Soidao Nationalpark Waterfall, Thailand, Uttaradit Province Location: Phu Soidao Nationalpark Thailand. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) So when I came across an opportunity to read and review ‘Psychotherapy east and west,’ by Alan Watts, I proceeded ahead with some mixed enthusiasm- I like his quote ‘What if money was no object’ ...
Source: The Mouse Trap - March 1, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: therapy Alan Watts Buddhism Hinduism psychotherapy zen Source Type: podcasts

The ABCD of Personality Structure
Regular readers of The Mouse Trap would be aware of my ABCD model of psychology whereby all psychological phenomena are explained in terms of Affective, Behavioral, Cognitive and Dynamic/Desire dimensions. Personality Traits from SignalPatterns.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The affective dimensions is also related to sensory processes; the behavioral dimension to motor processes; the cognitive dimension to associative processes and the desire/dynamic/motives dimension to social processes. We are increasingly focusing on brain as a means to study psychological phenomena and thus four major divisions of neurosciences are aff...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 27, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: personality ABCD Agreeableness Conscientiousness HEXACO Neuroticism Openness to experience Trait theory Source Type: podcasts

The Evolution of Altruism And Its Relationship to Personality
Altruism, put simply, is helping others or cooperating with others, even if it is costly to self. Of course, something like that cannot evolve, unless there are benefits too, associated with such acts of apparent selflessness. Embed from Getty Images Evolutionary theory mandates that there be some genetic payoffs in terms of either inclusive fitness or future benefits to self (reciprocity) for any kind of altruism/ cooperation to evolve. I recommend reading Wikipedia articles on reciprocity, kin selection, and evolution of cooperation if they are not familiar to you or you need a refresher. Cooperation, to start with...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 27, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: altruism evolution personality Big Five personality traits game theory HEXACO reciprocity Source Type: podcasts

The Four Sub-Types of ADHD
Recently, I wrote a post about the four neural sub-types of depression. That classification was based on resting stage fMRI comparing depressive patients with controls; I hope someone does similar studies for other psychiatric conditions. English: Symptoms of ADHD described by the literature (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The current post is an attempt to delineate what may come out in such a study if done for ADHD. I will be focusing on ADHD as it manifests in children, adolescents as well as adults. I will be mostly relying on factor analytical studies of ADHD that have typically revealed 3 to 4 underlying factors. ADHD has t...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 26, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: ADHD creativity Source Type: podcasts

Do Cultures Have Personality?
When people talk about culture and personality, the normal top-of-the-mind concern is whether cultures affect personality and if so to what extent? English: An Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World: World Secular-Rational and Self Expression Values as a map of world cultures based on World Values Survey data. Svenska: En Världskulturkarta av Inglehart-Welzel typ. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Personality, or enduring individual differences in thinking, feeling, motivations and behavior among have been shown to be partly heritable and under genetic effect; they are partly shaped by the culture and early life experiences a...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 24, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: culture personality Source Type: podcasts

The Four Neural Sub-Types of Depression
Regular readers of The Mouse Trap will be familiar with my obsession with knowing how nature is carved at its joints or in other words what are the natural categories or basic kinds. Anhedonia (The Graduate album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) This translates into thinking a lot about what are the fundamental drives, basic emotions and personalty traits and what taxonomic system of mental illness is most reflective of underlying fundamental nosological differences. While synthesizing the work of others, has great value, and one derives many valuable theoretical insights based on such musings; there is nothing better than findi...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 23, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: depression anergia anhedonia anxiety Depression (mood) Major depressive disorder mania Source Type: podcasts

The Four Shades of Dark
People since time immemorial have been fascinated by the problem of evil; some consider it a philosophical (why does evil exist?) and religious problem (Why does god allow evil if he is omnipotent and benevolent?) while some others have taken a more scientific approach. Embed from Getty Images Prominent psychologists from Roy Baumeister to Simon Baron-Cohen have written about evil and I first got drawn into psychology when I read ‘The anatomy of human destructiveness‘ by Erich Fromm in 1992, while still in college. As a matter of fact Fromm first came up with the term ‘malignant narcissism’ wh...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 22, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: personality Erich Fromm evil Machiavellianism narcissism psychopathy sadism Source Type: podcasts

Basic Needs, Basic Beliefs, Basic Pathologies
Kahneman in his book ‘Thinking fast and slow‘ elucidates the two type of thinking processes involved- a system I consisting of fast, intuitive processing, and a system II consisting of slower, more deliberate processing. Lesser known is the fact that a similar dual process theory of personality that precedes his work is by Seymour Epstien. The Pleasure Principle (song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Epstien is know for his Cognitive-Experiential Self theory of Personalty (CEST), according to which he reintroduced the concept of unconscious in psychology, in the form of the Experiential system, but his unconscious wa...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 19, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: cognition personality Affect (psychology) beliefs needs unconscious Source Type: podcasts

Different Frames, Different Outcomes, Different Emotions
Most readers I presume are familiar with the work of Kahneman and Tversky on how statements framed in either loss or gain lead to different outcomes; however this is not a post about prospect theory. Instead this is about a different type of framing: whether the goals you set for yourself are in terms of approach or avoidance, and is loosely based around the work of AJ Elliot as also that of Higgins around prevention and promotion focus. English: Emotions Q-sort (Photo credit: Wikipedia) One can set an approach goal or a goal with promotion focus (I’m using these interchangeably in this post though there are importan...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 12, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: emotion motivation approach avoidance emotions motivations Source Type: podcasts

Self-reflective Consciousness and Existential Concerns
I am currently reading ‘A life worth living‘ and found the introductory chapter by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi quite stimulating and inspiring. Cover via Amazon In that chapter, Mihaly claims that human brains are unique in lieu of their ability to give rise to self-reflective consciousness (I believe that many primates and some other animals may also have self-reflective consciousness, but that is tangential to our discussion here).  This self-reflective consciousness in turn leads to some interesting psychological effects. To begin with, the self-reflective consciousness gives rise to a sense of individuality...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 12, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: positive psychology consciousness existentialism Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Source Type: podcasts

Depression and its Antecedents
Today I will approach the problem of depression, but from a particular vantage point – that steeped in cognitive theory and informed by the work of Martin Seligman. English: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Latviešu: Abrahams Linkolns, sešpadsmitais ASV prezidents. ?????? / Srpski: ??????? ???????, ????????? ?????????? ?????????? ????????? ??????. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) There have been other views about depression- a psychoanalytical one whereby depression was deemed as rage turning upon inwards and directed towards the self; and a biomedical one whereby depression is considered a d...
Source: The Mouse Trap - January 17, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: depression Depression (mood) Major depressive disorder Mental health Source Type: podcasts

Stress causes negative emotions – are you NUTS?
Stress has been defined in many ways – one conceptualization that I find powerful and useful is the NUTS framework developed by Dr. Sonia Lupien. As per it, stress results when one or more of the following four ingredients are present in a situation. NOVELTY Something new you have not experienced before UNPREDICTABILITY Something you had no way of knowing it would occur THREAT TO THE EGO Your competence as a person is called into question SENSE OF CONTROL You feel you have little or no control over the situation English: Emotions Q-sort (Photo credit: Wikipedia) These conditions need not be aversive for t...
Source: The Mouse Trap - January 5, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: emotion Agreeableness appraisal emotions Extraversion and introversion Openness to experience Stress Source Type: podcasts

The different shades of Hope
Hope is one of the 24 character strengths as identified by VIA.  Its also known as optimism, future-mindedness and future orientation. It is defined by VIA as ‘expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it; believing that a good future is something that can be brought about.’ There are three variants of this strength, as found in the psychological literature: Optimism Optimistic explanatory style Hope Is the glass half empty or half full? The pessimist would pick half empty, while the optimist would choose half full. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (dispositional) Optimism is a general feeling that go...
Source: The Mouse Trap - January 4, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: strengths hope Optimism Positive psychology VIA Source Type: podcasts

The Strengths Workout: Hope for the new year
I have always wanted to write a book; however I am very irregular with even my blog posts and think that I lack the self-discipline to write regularly or write for a longer project. I want to test both these assumptions. Embed from Getty Images Moreover, I have been consciously moving away from theoretical stuff to more hands-on and applied issues. Writing a book typically appeared an intellectual pastime to me- where I could demonstrate my ostensibly expert/superior knowledge of a subject; lately however, I have started to veer more towards writing more of a book that is grounded in personal experience and uses theo...
Source: The Mouse Trap - January 1, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: strengths book VIA Source Type: podcasts