Valentine’s Day is almost here, love is in the air. Or is it oxytocin? Oxytocin is touted as the “love -drug ” all year round. This so-called “love hormone” is involved in social bonding, and it always seems to get a major publicity boost around Feb. 14. But research suggests that oxytocin isn’t all roses and heart-shaped chocolates. Curious? Continue reading

Source: Live Science

Talking through trauma after it’s happened will help, won’t it? It makes sense and sounds right for professionals to get in early and help us bear witness to our own trauma, doesn’t it?
Not necessarily…….

Floods, fires, cyclones and the anniversary of Black Saturday. Psychological debriefing is a technique aimed at helping us process traumatic events, so the emotional scars can heal not harm. To some the approach is discredited, ineffective and may even do damage – to others it can still have important role. Beyond the controversy, where does the field stand today?

Finding a strong evidence base for what to do in the hours and days after a traumatic event – a flood, a cyclone, a fire, a bombing, a rape, a car accident – presents significant challenges. Chaos doesn’t lend itself to systematic investigation and randomised controlled trials, for obvious reasons.

The issue of All in the Mind is a discussion about the potential benefits and drawbacks of ‘trauma debriefing’ and immediate psychological treatment link to podcast and also check out the blog To debrief or not to debrief after disasters? Updating an old debate

In this new RSAnimate Steven Pinker shows us how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings. Taken from the RSA’s free public events programme www.thersa.org/events