Nature’s beauty can be easily missed — but not through Louie Schwartzberg’s lens. His stunning time-lapse photography, accompanied by powerful words from Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, serves as a meditation on being grateful for every day.

Source: TED

A Norwegian psychology professor-cum-entrepreneur has taken on the task of helping people to drink less, quit smoking and exercise more – over the Internet.

Pål Kraft and his company Changetech offer web-based services to help people to make those changes that require a little extra willpower.

Based on psychological research

Changetech has received funding under the Research Council of Norway’s Programme for User-driven Research-based Innovation (BIA) to develop self-help programmes focusing on tobacco and alcohol use, post-natal depression, physical training, and coping with chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, cancer, HIV, rheumatic disorders and diabetes.

“We base our programmes on the therapy conducted in the therapist’s office,” explains Dr Kraft, “where for over 50 years psychologists have been using and refining a set of tools whose efficacy has been documented in various types of research. When developing our programmes, we have dug into the research literature, systematised it and extracted the therapeutic elements we believe can be digitalised.” [continue reading…]

Stuart W. Twemlow, M.D., is a professor of psychiatry in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and the coauthor of Preventing Bullying and School Violence (American Psychiatric Publishing).

In his article Can We Eliminate Bullying From Schools and Communities? Twemlow describes bullying is a social process, not a personal one.
 

Shaping the child’s behavior with social-skills training won’t effect change in the system until group dynamics, often unconscious, are discussed and resolved,” he said. “All schools need to take steps to mold a set of ideas or an approach to prevent bullying, adapt it to their cultural context, and get very high buy-in from staff and parents. Then a school can truly become a creative social, emotional, and intellectual learning environment.” read more

Source: PsychiatryOnline American Psychiatric Association

Preventing Bullying and School Violence
Stuart W. Twemlow, M.D., and Frank C. Sacco, Ph.D.
2012
337 pages
ISBN 978-1-58562-384-6
Paperback