Weekly Psych Rounds 03-08-12

It’s magic and misbehaviour week on Shrink Things!

First let’s start with a bit of scandal.. it appears UCL are advertising for full time staff with no intention of paying them. Mr Goldacre managed to grab the advert before it was retracted behind a lot of blushing and hand flapping and pretending That Never Happened. As I pointed out on Twitter it’s only one step away from the Dickensian trend of having to buy your way into apprenticeships. Still, check out who your supervisor would be.. I wouldn’t say no. Which of course is what they’re relying on.

Well, academics. They’re no better than they should be. And a darned sight better than the politicians. Many of whom are psychopaths apparently. Well it will certainly help us to spot all those on Twitter at least. However some politicians don’t need any help in that area and when confronted with the opportunity to make prats of themselves loudly and publicly on social networks.. just can’t resist.

Ah well, latest research suggests we shouldn’t be spending too much time online anyway as it’s all rather bad for your mental health.

Doesn’t matter anyway..  as far as mental health is concerned, and in the words of Eddie Izzard.. the infrastructure’s f*cked and we’re all destined to have out hearts broken repeatedly. It’s good for us. Honest.

So switch off, stop reading and .. erm.. plug in instead. Should you want something for your earholes this week, I can recommend the Radio 4 show Beyond Belief which talks about religion and depression. For me this could be an entirely new post where I rant about how handing over all responsibility for independent thought would make me ecstatic…

Or if you’d like a bit more science with your happy clappy then I’d (less cynically) suggest the Guardian Science Weekly podcast which discusses optimism, pessimism and personality types with a cast entitled Do Optimism and Pessimism Shape Our Destiny?

Talking of all things mystical and magical, there’s an interesting article this week on the Psychology of Playing Card Magic though apparently these days humanity wants to invest more time and effort in its willing suspension of magical disbelief.

What we all need. Is comics therapy. I’m thinking of starting up a practice. What do you think More about comics, book reviews and all things Freudian over on Liana Giorgi’s excellent blog.

Moving on to things therapeutic and there are two really interesting blog posts to flag up – firstly, this one which questions whether extensive multicultural awareness is really good for therapists or clients, and this one (from one of my favourite baby shrink blogs) which discusses and reflects on the goals of psychoanalysis. Brilliant stuff.

That’s it. Until next week, do try to behave.

~ WG