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Whether you’re a clinical psychologist or a university psychology student, in the future there might be a time when you’re sitting in a therapy room and there are certain things you might need to know about. But for the client, these things might be awkward to talk about. So in the great clinical psychology episode, you’re going to hear what some of these topics are and maybe how to help your clients talk about them. This episode has been sponsored by Abnormal Psychology: The Causes and Treatments of Depression, Anxiety and More Third Edition. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstores and local library if you request it. 3 Awkward Things Clinical Psychologists Should Know About Before I tell you about these three topics, I should note that it’s always a good idea to encourage clients to talk to you about weird or uncomfortable topics as this can help you both to deepen the therapeutic relationship. Which enhances and helps the therapy in other ways too. Difficulties or Information They Haven’t Revealed Firstly, we have to think about this topic in terms of your clients because we might have the information that they’re depressed with a troublesome school life. But they may suffer from anxiety too. So the fact they’ve come to therapy in the first place is extremely stressful and courageous because of the stupid stigma around therapy and being ‘messed up’. (That’s such rubbish!) But then to have another difficulty on top of that and having to tell a stranger. That’s even more terrifying. This is made even worse if the client has been abused or suffered some sort of trauma that they’re never told anyone. But it’s a factor in their mental health difficulties. Therefore, it’s critical that we help our clients to trust us and stress the importance of them telling us things. Because if they don’t tell us then we won’t be able to help them deal with their difficulties beyond the surface level stuff we already know. Of course, we need to remember confidentiality because if they tell us something that means we’ll have to break confidentiality. For example, if there’s imminent danger to a person. Then we will have to break it but we need our clients to trust us and tell us things. Otherwise, the therapeutic process will be so much harder. We Said Something Upsetting This will happen to everyone at some point, I know from personal experience when I’ve said something as a joke and people have got horrifically offended in my personal life. However, in terms of therapy, a clinical psychologist can make offhand comments or say things that upset our clients. It might be something that minimises what they went through, how far they’ve come or they’re just annoyed by it. Normally and ideally, the client would tell you in the moment so a clinical psychologist knows not to say it again. But sometimes clients won’t and it will continue to annoy them. The reasons why it’s important to tell the client to inform you when you’ve crossed a line or said something upsetting is for a few reasons. For example, it can help a therapist to know what not to say in the future as well as it gives them a deeper insight into the client’s emotional make up. And it helps to create a deeper more empathetic relationship between the clinical psychologist and the client. Since honesty and open discussions can be considered what great therapy is made from. Yet most importantly, it can advance the therapy because if the client gets offended by something in particular. It could reveal something they haven’t told you (or knew about) and it could reveal another difficulty they have. For instance, if you said something about your mother and the client got annoyed by that. yet they kept insisting they were perfectly happy with the mother. Then the question is why were they offended by it? Just something like that. Clinical Psychologists Aren’t Understanding It As I always say, something I love about psychology and learning is that there is always more to learn about human behaviour and other cultures. Although, there are downsides to this too because everyone works in a different industry, a different job, has different names of different things and so on. All creates a problem in therapy because someone might be trying to explain a habit or difficulty of theirs and because we use different vocabulary and different words mean different things. We might not understand it. Such as let’s use a fictionalised example of me as an author working in the publishing industry (very niche I know!) and I was letting you about my anxiety of Audible and how it wasn’t paying authors properly because of #Audiblegate. I can guess some of you would be able to get the general idea but a lot of you won’t. That’s fine. But as a client without going into the ins and outs of it I wouldn’t be able to explain it properly and you might say you understand it, but not. It’s a terrible example I know. Anyway, the reason why this is important is because this can make our clients feel like they’re not going valued or understood. Which is why it’s important to remind our clients to tell us these things so we know we aren’t correct and we can focus on making sure we understand what they’re talking about. Conclusion Overall, there are a lot of topics our clients might want to talk to us about but they feel awkward and bad for telling us. This is okay but for the sake of the therapy and therapeutic success, we need to encourage our clients to talk to us. And tell us these things so we can help them to the best of our abilities. Because that’s what our clients deserve! I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to support the podcast, please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Abnormal Psychology: The Causes and Treatments of Depression, Anxiety and More Third Edition. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstores and local library if you request it. One-Off Support- https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley Clinical Psychology Reference: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/friendship-20/201503/6-awkward-things-you-should-always-tell-your-therapist I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley for a one-bit of support. Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal.

Whilst this psychology podcast is always aimed at university psychology students and psychology professions, it’s always to learn how our client sees us. Whether you’re interested in clinical psychology or you’re a clinical psychologist, this will be a great enlightening episode for you! This psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Formulation In Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can get the paperback, large print and hardback versions from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Like Working With Certain People Personally I really understand why some clinical psychologists feel guilt or shame over preferring to work with a certain population or certain people. Since in clinical psychology, we tend to work with children and adolescents, working aged adults, learning disabilities and retired people. If I had to choose I would probably guess I would prefer to work with working-aged adults for various reasons. And as I write this, I do felt a bit guilty but it’s a guess. Mainly because I’m only a clinical psychology student. Equally, I know some therapists love working with certain people because they’re fun, easy to work with, they’re interested in the therapeutic success amongst others reasons. However, this is perfectly normal to feel like this, so if you’re a clinical psychologist then please don’t feel bad because of these feelings. Traits That Make Clients More Likeable To Therapist It turns out there are certain traits that can come clients more likeable to therapists as suggested by Schofeild (1964) because he suggested youthfulness, attractiveness, verbal, intelligent and successfulness are traits that can make clients more appealing to therapists. These traits are collectively referred to as YAVIS. I know some of these traits seem odd and outrageous because youthful and being attractive is subjective. And it’s the job of clinical psychologists to help everyone in need so the idea of their being traits that more a person more appealing is outrageous. This is made even worse by the finding of Hodgkinson, Godoy, Beers, & Lewin (2017) that found people who are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds experience poor mental health treatment than those from richer areas. Again, not very good. However, as I’ll talk about below some of these traits aren’t what you think. Clinical Psychology and The YAVIS Traits: Before I explain what these traits are in more depth, we need to look at why are they important? After all this research and suggestion was made in 1964. We need to look at this because there’s some that suggest these biases are still present and haven’t gone away. (Teasdale and Hill, 2006; Tyron, 1986) As well as whilst it’s hard to prove we can all guess that therapists might not want to admit they’re aware of these biases. Although, there is an argument from Steve Alexander. Jr. M.A, Ed. M, ARM, LMHC. That these biases can be used to help therapists enhance their interpersonal skills and everyone can improve in one way or another. The YAVIS Traits: · Youthful- interestingly enough this isn’t about how young you are. In fact, this is about how you relate to others and being open minded to new ideas and experiences. Think of this as a young mindset if we look at stereotypes. With some older people having a young mindset but some young people don’t. · Attractive- you only need to read my Psychology of Relationships book to know how attractive people are treated better than unattractive ones. With there being a lot of different effects resulting from being attractive. In terms of therapy, it’s important to note physical attractiveness isn’t the whole story because real, honest, authentic people are also rated as more attracted. Therefore, practising the expression of your feelings and thoughts in an honest way could be useful. · Verbal- whilst the 1964 term is a bit outdated because we now value people with learning disabilities and other conditions that render speech impossible or difficult. The entire idea of this trait is expressive due to we tend to like people who express themselves openly and aren’t closed off. Returning to therapy, I can fully understand why a clinical psychologist or therapist wouldn’t like a person who’s hard work and you need to do a lot of hard work to get them to express themselves. Compared to an expressive and easy to work with person. It may safe unfair but everyone needs to think of each other. · Intelligent- back in 1964 Schofield was referring to education level here but a better way of looking at this trait would be the ability of a client to critically think about themselves and have self-awareness. Since self-awareness is important in developing as well as maintaining relationships. Which as we know in clinical psychology is extremely important with the therapeutic alliance. And as a special note to clinical psychologists, students and therapists here, it’s helpful to learn about the experience of other people. As this can help you relate to them through their experiences. It’s about having an awareness of other people that didn’t grow up in the same culture, background and experience as you. · Successful- this point isn’t necessarily about money, power and the traditional measurements of success. But motivation is another key factor because in all honesty if you see a client that’s motivated to do well in therapy and wants it to be successful. Then you’re going to want to work with them personally because their motivation and passion will probably infect you. And that could make the process even more fun. Conclusion: In all honesty, whilst I don’t agree with everything Schofield said or implied. I still think it’s always important to be aware of the possible biases we can face as clinical psychologists (be it now or in the future) and it shows the importance of reflecting and challenging ourselves. Also at the end of the day, it isn’t the job of a therapist to appeal to all clients, and vice versa. As clinical psychologists, it’s our job to try and help alleviate psychological distress and improve lives as much as we can by trying as hard as we can. Sometimes this process is easier than other times. But that’s part of the fun of clinical psychology! I really hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Formulation In Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can get the paperback, large print and hardback versions from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Have a great day! Clinical Psychology References Dossinger, K., Wanberg, C. R., Choi, Y., & Leslie, L. M. (2019). The beauty premium: The role of organizational sponsorship in the relationship between physical attractiveness and early career salaries. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 112, 109-121. Hodgkinson, S., Godoy, L., Beers, L. S., & Lewin, A. (2017). Improving mental health access for low-income children and families in the primary care setting. Pediatrics, 139(1). Teasdale, A. C., & Hill, C. E. (2006). Preferences of therapists-in-training for client characteristics. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 43(1), 111. Tryon, G. S. (1986). Client and counselor characteristics and engagement in counseling. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 33(4), 471. I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal.

After having a lot of different conversations recently about psychological resilience and other clinical psychology topics, I wanted to revisit resilience by offering some more tips about how to build it. With resilience being the ability or measure of how well a person can deal with psychological distress and the situations that create it. Some people are more resilient and can bounce back faster than others. This mental health episode has been sponsored by Social Psychology: A Guide to Social and Cultural Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can get the paperback, large print and hardback versions from Amazon, your local bookstore or local library if you request it. 3 New Tips to Help Build Psychological Resilience: Compassion Just as a quick definition compassion is our sympathetic concern for others when they’re in distress and it’s when we want to eliminate it. This is an interesting new take on resilience because in clinical psychology we know the importance of compassion in mental health. But in terms of resilience, compassion is also very important because research shows people higher in self-compassion tend to report less distress when faced with distressing situation. Therefore, this supports what I’ve said before on the podcast about self-compassion and how important it is to our mental health. As well as if you don’t know too much about self-compassion then I’m fairly sure I’ve spoken about it before on the podcast. Overall, compassion is a great resilience because when we have the ability to show compassion towards others and ourselves. This can help us to be more resilient when faced with situations that cause us psychological distress. Growth Mindset Personally, I think this is one of my favourite types of mindsets. Not only as a psychology student because I always want to keep learning and improving, but as an author too. As a result, the point of the growth mindset is to help a person unlearn their fixed mindset. Because the growth mindset helps a person to foster their passion and curiosity for learning as well as it helps us to embrace risk and choose how to act when situations change. This is all needed for effective resilience as without embracing risk and learning, we won’t be able to enjoy life as much as we could. And both these things help us to explore the world, have fun and take new opportunities. However, without a growth mindset, a person might not learn how to choose and respond effectively when they encounter new situations. Leading to possible further psychological distress. So I encourage you to keep learning, keep exploring and keep wondering so you can develop your growth mindset. Allowing you to become more resilient over time. Grit Whilst this is never taught in clinical psychology and rarely in wider society but grit is a great skill or ability to have when it comes to resilience. Due to grit encompasses the persistence times when a person has showed lots of perseverance, determination as well as dedication. With grit being a much stronger predictor of a person’s success compared to natural talent and school grades. The best way to think about grit is it gives a person the power to preserve and carry on in the face of a rough situation that causes them psychological distress. For example, a university student wants to study clinical psychology but failed a recent essay. Some students would be devastated by that but people with grit would dust themselves off and carry on. Probably engaging their growth mindset so they could learn and not fail on the next one. Conclusion: Overall, I do enjoy talking about resilience from time to time because it is important for mental health and everyday life. Therefore, I really hope you got something out of today’s episode. If you wanted to learn more, please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Social Psychology: A Guide to Social and Cultural Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can get the paperback, large print and hardback versions from Amazon, your local bookstore or local library if you request it. 4 Most resilience Personality Types During the Pandemic 3 Tips to Help Build Psychological Resilience Have a great day! Clinical Psychology References: Merriam Webster Dictionary Luo, Xi & Qiao, Lei & Che, Xianwei. (2018). Self-compassion Modulates Heart Rate Variability and Negative Affect to Experimentally Induced Stress. Mindfulness. Laura King, (2001). The Health Benefits of Writing about Life Goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 27(7):798-807 Angela Duckworth Carol Dwek I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal.

In clinical psychology, we often talk about the therapeutic alliance and the importance of a client and a therapist ‘clicking’ or matching. This is critical to therapeutic success and without this matching, the therapy can fail. In this great clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll see three signs that your therapist is a great match! This episode is mainly for clinical psychologist and university psychology students but everyone could find this useful. This psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Abnormal Psychology: The Causes and Treatments For Depression, Anxiety and More Third Edition. Available from all major eBook retailers, and you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore or local library, if you request it. 3 Signs Your Therapist Is A Match After briefly talking about the importance of the therapeutic alliance and the relationship between the client and the therapist. I’ve also spoken about this in past podcast episodes and in my Clinical Psychology book. We need to talk about how do you know if your therapist is a keeper for you and your therapy. But very quickly, I wanted to add that this relationship is an extremely powerful predictor of therapeutic success regardless of the therapist’s style, treatment duration and some other factors. You both Agree On Goals As this podcast is mainly for a clinical psychology audience, we all know in clinical psychology that we need to be collaborative with our clients. We need to work with them but as I always say we have the years of experience in psychology and the theory. Yet our clients have the expertise in themselves. Therefore, it’s really important we set goals with them and we allow them to call us out when we do something they don’t agree with. The main reason here is because if we set goals the client doesn’t agree with then they won’t care about these goals. Meaning they won’t work towards them and the therapy could fail with them not putting in the work. The Work Feels Valuable and Effective As I’ve mentioned before on the podcast, there are lots of different types of therapy which makes clinical psychology great fun. But we need to make sure our clients know what’s happening and they need to feel like they’re spending their time effectively. Because too many therapists leave their clients in the dark about the therapy and where they’re going. Making the clients question the effectiveness and how valuable the therapy is. Overall, making it important to explain what’s happening from the start and making the client reflect on each session could be a good idea too. Of course, not every session will be mind-blowing but our clients need to feel like they’re making the process to some extent each time. As a result, some questions to help our client might be: · Does my therapist and I have a shared understanding of what actions are most important for me? · Am I gaining new perspectives on my difficulties? · Do I think we are working towards my goals in an effective way? Feeling Respected and Accepted If you haven’t heard of Carl Rogers I really encourage you to check him out but he has a principle of Unconditional Positive Regard towards clients. And this can be applied here because he also came up with the idea of the Curious paradox. Saying change is easier when we accept ourselves and then we can change. In other words, he proposed that if we make our client know we accept them and we respect them. Then it makes it easier for them to change because they don’t come to us to be changed at the core. They come to us so we can help them find better strategies to help cope with their mental health difficulties, alleviate their psychological distress and improve their life. As well as once our clients know this and we work respectfully with them, the whole process of therapy gets easier for everyone. Conclusion We all know clinical psychology is an amazing area to work in. be it now or in the future but I really hope you got something out of this clinical psychology episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Abnormal Psychology: The Causes and Treatments For Depression, Anxiety and More Third Edition. Available from all major eBook retailers, and you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore or local library, if you request it. Have a great day! I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal. Clinical Psychology References Hatcher, R.L., & Gillaspy, J.A. (2006) Development and validation of a revised short version of the working alliance inventory, Psychotherapy Research, 16:1, 12-25, DOI: 10.1080/10503300500352500 Horvath, A. O., & Symonds, B. D. (1991). Relation between working alliance and outcome in psychotherapy: A meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 38, 139-149. Martin, D. J., Gerske, J. P., & Davis, M. K. (2000). Relation of the Therapeutic Alliance With Outcome and Other Variables: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68(3), 438-450. doi:IO.I037//0022-006X.68.3.438

Our personality can affect our behaviour in a lot of different ways. In this great personality psychology episode, we’ll see how success can change a person’s personality and behaviour! This is a great episode! Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Personality Psychology and Individual Differences. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. The Five-Factor Model Of Personality Proposed by Robert McCrae and Paul Costa, the Five-Factor Model of Personality, in essence, proposes that humans have five basic personality dimensions and the individuals differences between people are down to the varying levels of these different dimensions. As well as personality traits a part of different personality dimensions. See Personality Psychology and Individual Differences for more information. In addition, these personality dimensions are: Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and agreeableness. I’ll talk about what each of these are in a moment and how they relate to success. How Success Can Change Personality? Each of these Five Factors of Personality are related to success and success can change these dimensions in different ways. Neuroticism This personality dimension is related to how people deal with worry and stress. As well as people high in this personality trait tend to have maladaptive strategies to deal with stress. Sounds familiar with clinical psychology, doesn’t it? Linking this to success, people high in neuroticism don’t tend to achieve very much in their career because neuroticism hinders their abilities. Although, some people with higher neuroticism can manage to achieve success because they learn to suppress their tendencies to worry less and learn better management strategies so they can deal with stress and worry better. Openness to Experience Our next personality trait is all about how much people are willing to accept new ideas and experience new things. This makes it great for success because people high in this personality trait are more likely to be successful and think outside the box to come up with innovative new solutions to problems in their career. Extroversion Interestingly, it appears that whilst extroversion may lead to increased success at first. Over success can lead to decreased levels of extroversion. Researchers have suggested this is because the successful people may depend less on the support of others meaning they have less sociable demands. In other words, extroverts become successful because of their ability to bond with people and radiate so-called positive vibes. But when they get successful and let’s say becomes a manager there’s a power shift so the extrovert can’t rely on other people anymore. Potentially starving the extrovert of the energy they crave since extroverts tend to get their energy from other people. Conscientiousness Related to carefulness and diligence, people high in this personality trait actually tend to earn lower incomes because these people tend to seek out conventional jobs. As well as they tend to be less likely to ascend the career ladder. Equally, the people are high in this personality trait and end up in high career positions, interestingly enough they aren’t too interested in the little details. Resulting in success leading to a decrease in conscientiousness. Agreeableness You can guess what this personality dimension is about because of the name but this is where research gets very muddy. Some research says it’s best to be nice to others and prosocial to get ahead. Other research says it’s best to be ruthless to ascend the career ladder. However, the general idea is people high in agreeableness tend to have low starting salaries but then they can ascend the career ladder. With their prosocial side kicking in when they’re raised to a position of power because they no longer have to climb over people. Conclusion: Overall, personality psychology is a great and very interesting area to study. And as today’s episode has shown our personality can affect our success and our success can affect our personality. It’s a great interaction! I really hoped you enjoyed today’s episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Personality Psychology and Individual Differences. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Have a great day! Personality Psychology References Lodi-Smith, J., & Roberts, B. W. (2007). Social investment and personality: a meta-analysis of the relationship of personality traits to investment in work, family, religion, and volunteerism. Personality and Social Psychology Reviews, 11(1), 68-86. doi:10.1177/1088868306294590 Hirschi, A. (2012). Callings and work engagement: Moderated mediation model of work meaningfulness, occupational identity, and occupational self-efficacy. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 59(3), 479-485. doi:10.1037/a0028949 I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal.

I recently came across this very interesting clinical psychology article on where depression lives and how to stop it growing. In this episode of The Psychology World Podcast, we’ll explore this great idea in more depth. This episode has been sponsored by Abnormal Psychology: The Causes and Treatments of Depression, Anxiety and More Third Edition. Available on all major eBook retailers, you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. The Headspace Where Depression Lives Previously on this psychology podcast, we’ve spoken about how depression affects how we behave, feel and think. This is mainly explained in Abnormal Psychology and Beck’s Theory of Depression with the Cognitive Triad. Which to summary up means depression affects how we perceive information about the world, self and future around us. In addition, I’ve spoken on the podcast before about the damaging impact depression and other mental health conditions can have on people. For example, depressed people not feeling like getting out of bed in the morning amongst other behaviours. However, if we focus on the idea of headspace in depression. Then we can see that depression lives in between us (as in the self) and others. Also, Doctor Jeffery S. Nevid notes from his years of experience, there are three places or headspaces where depression lives. Meaning depression finds this headspace and takes root. Personally, I think this is an interesting idea because if it’s true then this can help us to maintain our mental health so we can deny depression this headspace to grow. As well as we can infer from my books and the literature that mental health conditions are sort of like plants. Since they grow and develop over time until someone has a diagnosable mental health condition. 3 Headspaces Where Depression Lives Now, we’re going to look at the 3 headspaces where depression is thought to live. Between Our Ears: This is a great place to start because this is the more obvious headspace because this is what Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is based on. Due to depression changes our automatic thoughts to become more negative so this makes sense for depression to live there, in our minds. Therefore, it’s the job of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help the client change their automatic thoughts to become more positive and behavioural activation. Between Ourselves and Others Despite this sounding weird at first, this is a critical headspace to bear in mind for depression and clinical psychology. Because depression can fill the gap between us and our family and friends since depression can make people feel like they don’t want to go out and socialise. Leading depressed people to make excuses and other behaviours to prevent them from seeing other people. However, then this leads the depressed person to get into a difficult situation because the depression led to the person to start isolating themselves. Then this social isolation can lead to the person to feel even worse about themselves. Hence, this feeds the depression and leads to a vicious cycle of depression. As a result, it’s important for depressed people to know, it’s okay to go out and not feel 100%. Even if you just sit in the corner or edge of the table with your friends that’s better than nothing. You’ll still be with other people and you can socialise, and starve off this social isolation. Also, another tip is people love talking about themselves so even if the depressed person asks some simple questions to their friends. For example: what’s your favourite film, seen anything good lately? That’s going to be great for the friendship and the depressed person doesn’t have to do anything else. Within Ourselves I always tend to avoid modern philosophy, but I’ll admit there are times when it’s useful and it’s supported by psychology. In this case, both fields emphasise the importance of having meaning and purpose in your life because depression fills these holes in a person’s life. Therefore, it’s important for people to have a job that gives them a sense of purpose, enjoyment and accomplishment. This can also apply to friends and family- having strong social bonds can help too. Then the last example is perhaps purse a wider community goal than doing things for charity and help change lives for the better that way. Overall, in this headspace, having a purpose and having a meaningful life can kill to fight off depression. I really hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Abnormal Psychology: The Causes and Treatments of Depression, Anxiety and More Third Edition. Available on all major eBook retailers, you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Support Us On Patreon for rewards and Bonuses Clinical Psychology Reference https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-minute-therapist/202107/where-depression-lives I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal.

In today’s episode, we’re merging the line between biological psychology and clinical psychology as we look at the relationship between our gut health and our behaviour. This should be interesting! The reason why I want to look at the relationship between human behaviour and our gut health is because you hear it mentioned in different places. But no one in mainstream psychology talks about it in any depth so I wanted to look at it for myself. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Biological Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can get the paperback, hardback and large print copies from Amazon, your local bookstore or local library. 3 Surprising Facts About Your Gut Health and Behaviour Gut health Influences Anxiety and Depression When I read this fact, I was extremely impressed because it’s great to be able to link clinical psychology to gut health. And come on, it’s pretty amazing that some bacteria in our gut can influence something as complex as depression and other mental health conditions. Therefore, this works by particular strains of bacteria have been linked to reducing anxiety and depression. With there being two classic examples of our gut bacteria that research has shown can reduce anxiety. These are called Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Bifidobacterium longum NCC30001. A very complex name! We found this out in animal studies that used a probiotic (a substance that encourages the growth of bacteria) mixture of Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Lactobacillus helveticus. Then the researchers found that this increase in bacteria reduced people’s symptoms of depression and anxiety. Which I think is very interesting if you start to consider could a new under-researched cause of depression and anxiety be a lack of bacteria in our gut? This only reminds me why I love psychology because there is so much to learn and enjoy! Your Gut Microbiome and Sleep are Interconnected Interestingly enough your sleep (behaviour) is connected to the bacteria in your gut and getting a good night’s sleep helps to keep your gut microbiome healthy. Hence, showing how a behaviour can affect your physical body. Then your physical body can affect your behaviour because when the bacteria overgrows, this can lead to interrupted sleep and disrupted circadian rhythms. As well as I talk about in Biological Psychology, your circadian rhythm is vital to sleep and it’s basically how your body knows when to sleep. Furthermore, if people have fragmented and/or disrupted as well as don’t get enough sleep then this has been associated with gut dysbiosis. This is the overgrowth of a specific gut bacteria that can lead to metabolites that disrupt sleep and a person’s circadian rhythm. Thankfully, probiotic supplements have been found to improve sleep quality. Personally, I think this is a perfect example of how the body and mind can interact and how the body as well as behaviour influence each other. Drinking Too Much Hurts Your Gut Health The last surprising fact we’ll look at is if someone drinks excess alcohol then this can negatively impact their gut microbiome. Sometimes leading to a "leaky" gut. Because research has shown that drinking alcohol can change the bacteria living in the gut. Since drinking alcohol can lead to increased inflammation in the gut and it can make the lining of the gut more permeable and “leaky”. Then returning to the idea of bacteria overgrowth, drinking too much alcohol over time can lead to the overgrowth of certain bacteria as well as gut dysbiosis. Again though, I think this is surprising because whenever alcohol is spoken about you never hear someone discuss gut health. You hear about liver, heart and other health related topics but never health. Overall, I think this was a nice deviation from the ‘normal’ clinical psychology topics because it’s always refreshing to learn something completely new and surprising. I really hope you enjoyed today’s psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Biological Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library if you request it. Have a great day! I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal. Biological Psychology and Clinical Psychology References Engen, P. A., Green, S. J., Voigt, R. M., Forsyth, C. B., & Keshavarzian, A. (2015). The Gastrointestinal Microbiome: Alcohol Effects on the Composition of Intestinal Microbiota. Alcohol research : current reviews, 37(2), 223–236. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-018-0099-1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2020.101340 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202106/8-surprising-facts-about-your-gut-microbiome

This great episode marks the 100th episode of The Psychology World Podcast. So I want to take a look back at the podcast and tell you about some lessons I’ve learnt across the way. Then I apply the lessons to you as well. This should be fun! Our 100th Psychology Podcast Episode has been sponsored by Forensic Psychology Collection. Available on all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local Bookstore and local library if you request it. Lessons Learnt From 100 Episode of A Psychology Podcast If Something isn’t Working, Change It So this is a great first lesson that I originally learnt at around the Episode 30 mark because originally this podcast was designed to be direct marketing for my psychology books. But it got to around episode 30 and I was growing bored of the podcast. And to be honest, I was honestly considering quitting. However, then I realised that I have this amazing psychology podcast for was starting to grow and get a community. Leading me to realise that I shouldn’y just read and talk about extracts from my own book. I should instead do a psychology article each week and talk about it. Meaning that this podcast became a great way for me to develop my understanding of psychology and it made sure that I kept learning about psychology. And I’m so glad I made the change because I honestly love the podcast and I look forward each week to the podcast and learning more amazing stuff about human behaviour. As a result, the takeaway here for you is if you’re doing something. Whether it’s a psychology module, a job or anything else. Try and change it so you’re enjoying it and loving your life. Podcasting is Community Building Moving onto a lesson, I learnt about the Episode 50 mark, I started to realise that podcasting is an amazing way to talk to people. Since it was around this time that you wonderful podcast listens started to reach out more often to talk to me. Personally, I love when this happens. I love talking to other people interested in psychology and I’ve gotten to know some of you very well. Thank you! So not only is podcasting a great way to build a psychology community but it’s a great way to get people to talk to you. Because if you say to someone Can I talk to you about your work for half an hour? Let’s be honest, they’re going to say no. However, if you say can I have you on my podcast of X people and talk about your work? Then they would say yes most probably. Note: I do get some bad podcast pitches for me to go on other podcasts and I’m sorry but the main reason I don’t respond to them is because they don’t include the audience size. Therefore, it was this realisation that was further reinforced when I got the amazing author J. F Penn on the Podcast in Episode 61. In the future, I do want to have more guests on but there’s a slight lack of self-confidence. If we apply this lesson to you then podcasting is a great way to build a reputation and make yourself known. Of course, I’m not saying start a psychology because it’s a lot of work but pitch psychology podcasts and become guests. If you want to pitch me to come on the podcast, try it. I’ll probably say yes if your pitch is good. Just use the Contact form on the website. Do What You Love, Even if It’s Unpopular As we know, there are so many great topics within all the different subfields of psychology from clinical psychology, cognitive psychology to everything else. Making it perfectly normal for there to be a topic or subarea that one person loves but a lot of people don’t. For me that’s Artificial Intelligence and Clinical Psychology. Whenever I see an article on it, I love to do podcast episodes on AI in Clinical Psychology. For the sole reason that I love it, I find it interesting and it's the future. So far I’ve done two episodes on it. Episode 49 and Episode 80. Nonetheless, it turns out lots of people in psychology don’t like this topic because there are dramatic differences between my AI episodes and my normal episodes. Yet I know if I’m going to be podcasting for the long term, I have to episodes that I love and passionate for. Meaning I need to find a balance between episodes my wonderful podcast audience (you) will find interesting. And psychology articles that are mainly for my benefit. In terms of you, you might have a subfield of psychology that you absolutely love and are obsessed with. But it’s a small area of psychology that not too many people are interested. The overall lesson for you is if you love that little subfield, research it, love it, work in that subfield as a job. Just because it’s unpopular or at the outskirts of mainstream psychology. Doesn’t make it less worthy or not worth your time. If You Love A Psychology Topic And Others Do, Drill Down On It Then on the other end of the spectrum if there’s a psychology topic that both my audience and I love. Then I’m going to drill down and focus on it because there’s where the focus is and it means I can keep learning about the topic. This is why I mainly focus on clinical psychology on the podcast because I love it but so do my listeners. As well as this drilling down can actually have great benefits because if my wonderful podcast audience didn’t enjoy Cult Psychology episode so much. I never would have thought about doing a Cult Psychology book. Which I need to start researching. I’ll apply this lesson to you in the next section. Lessons Learnt From 100 Episode of A Psychology Podcast: Conclusion Overall, as we reach the end of the 100th episode of The Psychology World Podcast, I need to say a massive thank you to all of my wonderful listeners and readers of the blog and podcast. Without you I wouldn’t have got so far with this podcast. Thank you so much for spending time with me each week and I really hope you’re learnt a lot through the podcast. And I will keep doing the podcast for as long as I can. Personally, I can’t not see myself getting to episode 200th so I really look forward to seeing you then! However, the overall lesson or lessons from today’s episode has been. We need to love what we do. We all need to do what we love. Whether there’s exploring an area of psychology, reading about a strange subfield or going to work in an area we love. If you don’t love what you do, then you can’t do it for the long term and you will hate your life over time. I don’t want anyone to hate their life. (Talking from past personal experience here) So please, have fun, enjoy life and keep learning. Have a great day everyone! FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOKS BOXSET Forensic Psychology Collection. Available on all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local Bookstore and local library if you request it. I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal.

Sadly death is a part of life and so is grief. But some people make terrible mistakes when trying to comfort a person experiencing grief. In this social psychology podcast episode, we’ll look at what you should and shouldn’t say to someone. A great psychology podcast episode! This episode has been sponsored by Social Psychology: A Guide to Social and Cultural Psychology. Available on all major eBook retailers and you can get the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore or local library. What to Say to Someone When Someone’s Died? Whilst of course nothing on the podcast is ever any sort of official advice, I hope the things mentioned in today’s episode will help you later in life. Also you probably want to listen to the podcast episode as I’ll add some more personal stories there. “They’ll be missed,” Even though this is such a simple little phrase to say to someone who’s grieving. It’s still very powerful because it shows that the grieving person isn’t alone. And there are other people who are grieving as well. Linking this to social psychology, this all comes back to feeling apart of a social group. And as we know social groups provide us with support. Which in turn helps maintain our mental health. Therefore, by saying this little phrase, you’re making the grieving person feel a part of a group and they aren’t alone in their grief. As well as you’re helping them to maintain their mental health as well. Which is always good! Personally, I remember this one a lot when my Great Uncle died because there were a lot people grieving and upset. Which in a way it did help because all of us knew we were not alone in our suffering and emotional pain. As well as we knew (and did) talk to each other about our grief. So it did help. “I remember When…” I do rather like this point because friends and family members telling each other stories and memories of the deceased is a great way to cope. Because you can remember them and honour their memory. Also if the family member had a little quirk then you can remember that and share stories about it. For example, my late Grandma she always tapped people on the arm when she spoke. Well if you were family. So, it’s a long running joke between my parents and I about occasionally tapping my mum on the tap. Since it was my mum who noticed it first. The point being- all these shared memories, stories and jokes can help to person alive and it can make grieving people feel better. “Let me Bring Dinner…” At first, I wasn’t too sure on this point but this section is all about offering practical help to the grieving person. Since the problem with asking the grieving person how to help, what can you do amongst other things is this can place an undue burden on them. which of course we don’t want to do. we don’t know to burden them anymore than they already are. Therefore, if you offer to a few possibilities then the grieving person can decide quickly and easily. Also this does depend on your relationship. For instance, if your best friend offers to look after your children then you’ll probably say yes. If you’re estranged uncle offered you would probably say no. I know I would. Overall, the point is if you want to be helpful to the grieving person. Take the initiative. What Not to Say to Someone Grieving: Personally, I love this next psychology section because we need to talk about what not to say to someone is a grieving. “At least…” This is such a silly thing to say. For example, “At least they’re in a better place,” Really? The problem with saying this is yes you are trying to be nice and empathise with the grieving person. But the problem is, is that this downplays the loss. Due to “at least,” makes it sound or imply that the deceased person is better off and there’s no reason to grieve for them. So, I really wouldn’t recommend saying this. Granted, I hear this a lot when my Great Uncle died but it was never the most welcoming or best things to say. I always enjoyed the “I remember when…” points. “It’s God’s Plan,” I absolutely hate this. Of course, if you’re part of religious community then this is fine and it might be a good idea to offer spiritual guidance. But if you are not part of such a community, this is typically a very bad idea. I am not anti-religion but that argument or that point is so insensitive and it basically says to the grieving person. “You need to stop grieving. This is a part of the Plan so please let God continue and you need to pull yourself together and fulfil your part,” And in a more general sense, saying this undermines the effects this has on the family and friends who are grieving. “I know how you feel,” We have all definitely said this at one point or another and whilst at first this seems like a great thing to say to someone. In reality, this is not the best thing to say. Simply because whilst it may seem like you’re trying to help them and empathise with the grieving person. You’re actually shifting the centre of their grief to you and not the person you’re trying to help. Also on a personal note, whenever I hear this or when someone says it to me. I know they’re trying to be nice but I tend to think: No you don’t. I’m sorry but you aren’t me. You were as close as I was to my (insert name here) so please don’t pretend you know how I feel. Hell, I don’t know how I feel! You get the idea. What to Say to Someone When Someone’s Died? Conclusion In conclusion, there is no one way to grieve because everyone is different and we all very different coping mechanisms. But I really hope you got something out of today’s psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Social Psychology: A Guide to Social and Cultural Psychology. Available on all major eBook retailers and you can get the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore or local library. Support us on Patreon for more Content and Rewards Have a great day everyone. Social Psychology Reference https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/in-the-end/202105/what-say-when-someone-dies-meaningful-words-and-phrases I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page.

There are lots of terrible relationship myths and beliefs that can harm or even destroy relationships. So welcome to this cognitive and social psychology podcast episode where we tackle three of these myths. This episode has been sponsored by Psychology of Relationships: The Social Psychology of Friendships, Romantic Relationships, Prosocial Behaviour and More. Available on all major eBook retailer, and you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore local library if you request it from them. Also a shout out to my Forensic Psychology Collection that launched today as well. Available in all the usual places. 3 Beliefs that Can Harm Relationships Distance Destroys Relationships This is a great first belief to look at because we’ve all heard this at one point of another that long distance relationships do not work. They will always fail and people will always get hurt. However, this isn’t necessarily true because physical distance away from your partner can actually make you closer. Since you have to communicate more often and you have to improve your communication styles. As well as when you’re together you need to maximise your time together and make every second count. By doing fun things and activities. (Jiang & Hancock, 2013). In fact the interesting finding is that when a US survey was done using a sample of 1000 people in long distance relationships. The researcher found these relationships experienced more dedication, less hostility, more love, more fun amongst other positive findings. Overall, possibly showing that people shouldn’t be afraid of long distance relationship because it could make them closer. Mismatched Sex Drives: The common thinking is, is that if a frisky person ends up dating a less sexual person, then this will end in disaster, and it would never work. At first, I completely agree, because just how would it work? However, research from 2020 found that mismatched sex drives didn’t matter and it didn’t spell disaster for the relationship. Or these mismatched sex drives weren’t as problematic as people first believed. What did matter was the overall couples’ desire because people who had higher levels of sexual desire between them had higher levels of sexual satisfaction. Regardless of whether or not they were on the same page. That was probably my most PG rated section on the podcast so far! Positivity Always Saves Relationships This is another great logical point because we would have thought that if people in relationship stay positive then the relationship will improve. Of course that sounds logical and perfect. However, positive thinking only goes so far in the real world. As well as terms of relationship, positive thinking only helps with the occasional small problems. When it comes to big problems in the relationship, this positive thinking and setting positive expectations can lead to a decrease in relationship satisfaction. Also focusing on the positive can deter the people in the relationship from dealing with the underlying issues so these problems never get better. Most probably leading to relationship breakdown in the future. Overall, I really hope you’ve enjoyed this psychology podcast episode. If you want to support the podcast, please check out the links below: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Psychology of Relationships: The Social Psychology of Friendships, Romantic Relationships, Prosocial Behaviour and More. Available on all major eBook retailer, and you can order the paperback, large print and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore local library if you request it from them. Support us on Patreon and get great rewards Have a great day! I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal. Social Psychology and Cognitive Psychology References: Jiang, L.C., & Hancock, J. T. (2013). Absence makes the communication grow fonder: geographic separation, interpersonal media, and intimacy in dating relationships. Journal of Communication, 63, 556–577. Kelmer, G., Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S., & Markman, H. J. (2013). Relationship quality, commitment, and stability in long‐distance relationships. Family Process, 52(2), 257-270. Kim, J. J., Muise, A., Barranti, M., Mark, K. P., Rosen, N. O., Harasymchuk, C., & Impett, E. (2020). Are couples more satisfied when they match in sexual desire?: New insights from response surface analyses. Social Psychological and Personality Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620926770

In this forensic psychology podcast episode, we'll be looking at the amazing topic of Criminal Profiling, and hopefully dispel some of the myths surrounding FBI profiling. This psychology episode has been sponsored by Criminal Profiling: A Forensic and Criminal Psychology Guide to FBI and Statistical Profiling. Available from all major eBook and audiobook retailers and you can get the paperback and hardbacks copies from Amazon, your local library or bookstores. Introduction to FBI Profiling By Connor Whiteley. COPYRIGHT 2021 Connor Whiteley. Welcome to the first type of profiling, we’ll be looking at in the book. This is the style of profiling that has been adorned and made famous by Hollywood, TV and movies all over the world. However, like most things in TV and movies they get it wrong. So, let’s look at what real FBI profiling is like. Overall, profiling as practised by the FBI has failed to convince many psychologists of its effectiveness and this is the focus of the book, or at least this first part. Generally, profiling is about predicting the characteristics of offenders. I think this sounds great because it would be useful to know what characteristics the police need to look for. Since this would save the police time, money, and resources. Yet the truth is far from that simple. Profiling as A Broad Term: If I asked you ‘What is Profiling?’ what would you say? Chances are you would say it’s what they do on TV. And you would be right and wrong. Due to a lot of profilers don’t understand the board term of ‘profiling’. This is only reinforced by Horant and Kennedy (1998) who defined the following 3 types of profiles and these should be carefully separated. Firstly, you have what’s known as crime scene profiling. This is where profilers use information from the crime scene to create a full picture of the unknown offender. Like, physical evidence. Secondly, you have offender profiling. This is probably the type of profiling you see on TV and in movies. Where the profilers use a collection of empirical data to collate a picture of the characteristics of the offenders in a particular type of crime. The final type of profiling is what’s known as psychological profiling. I know a lot of people think this is the only think psychology does, but it isn’t. Since this is a type of profiling where profilers use standard personality questionnaires and interviews to determine if the person matches the known personality of a certain type of offender. Therefore, there is absolutely no surprise that there’s confusion about ‘profiling’. Especially, when we consider how board profiling can be. Viewpoints in Profiling: As I write this book and I’m only on the third page, I had no idea I was going to be this passionate about the topic. But I might as well continue. So, in profiling, there are two opposing viewpoints about what profiling should be. The first viewpoint is profiling is akin to clinical judgement which is informed by research but ultimately subjective. Due to the psychologist uses their expert opinion and the data to create the profile. This is what the FBI style of profiling uses. Although, I need to say because my main background is in clinical psychology. There is a massive difference between clinical judgement and profiling. In clinical judgement, a psychotherapist uses a strong research base to inform their decisions. And as we’ll see later in the book, FBI profiling could be considered lacking in its research base. In addition, in an area in clinical psychology called: Formulation. A psychotherapist would work with a client to create the clinical judgement. That’s the simplified version because the client (mental health sufferer) brings the expertise in themselves. Whereas in FBI profiling you cannot work with an offender to create their profile because you often don’t know who the offender is. The other viewpoint is profiling must be informed by research and must be objective. This is a very important viewpoint for later in the book. In the book, we’ll look at both of these approaches to get a full picture of profiling. Misconceptions and Profiling in Courts: I know I’ve mentioned it already but there are so many misconceptions about profiling in TV, books, media and films. As a result, some of these portray profilers as amazing people who can get great insights from small amounts of data. In reality, they can’t. Whilst other media portrays profilers as flawed individuals. However, something else these types of media teaches us is the importance of profiles to the criminal justice system all over the world. Yet in many countries, including the USA, profiling isn’t particularly allowed in court unless you can prove it’s based on data and not subjective opinions. Even then courts aren’t too enthusiastic about profiles. Bringing us back to the question of profiling’s effectiveness in the real world. Origins of profiling: Like most things, there is an interesting backstory to profiling because Canter (2004) suggested profiling probably started in 1888 when doctor Thomas Bond created something akin to a profile of Jack the Ripper. Also, for our non-British readers, Jack The Ripper was a major serial killer in the 1800s who was known for killing women. As well as he was never caught so there was a range of theories about who the killer was. Going back to the story, when Thomas Bond said Jack the Ripper was probably a man of physical strength, great coolness and daring but without regular work. Although, the origins of modern profiling can be traced back to 1956 and the work of the psychiatrist James A. Brussel on the New York bomber crimes. When Brussel used psychoanalysis to study the crime scene. Then based on his assessment he said the offender was probably a middle-aged single male who lived with their sibling. Interestingly, this turned out to be a somewhat accurate depiction of the offender George Metesky who committed the crimes. Whilst Brussels had shown the power of the psychological approach to detective work. The profile wasn’t the reason for the arrest. Yet it still shows how psychology can be useful. Subsequently, one of Brussels’s students, Howard Teten, became the first chief of the FBI Training Division at Quantico and housed in a nuclear bunker was the behavioural science unit. Then in the 1970s, they started to research the personalities, motivations and crimes of serial killers. Showing the sexual aspects in their crimes. (I do understand if you’re slightly confused since not all serial killer crimes are sexual in nature.) This formed the research base for the FBI style of profiling. (Douglas, Brugess, Burgess and Ressler, 1992) The Term ‘Serial Killer’ Additionally, this FBI team created the term serial killer. However, the idea of serial killers only committing crime sexual in nature is doubtful since there may be serial killers who don’t show sexual elements in their crimes. This doubt could be increased by the disagreement over the definition of a serial killer. Since the FBI says is a serial killer is a person who commits at least three murders over more than a month with an emotional cooling-off period in between. Yet some people disagree. The disagreement is understandable because you could argue a hitman or women isn’t a serial killer. Because they kill on the orders of other people. Also, Ferguson, White, Stacey, Locen and Bhianai (2003) argued the lack of agreement in the definition of a serial killer makes it difficult for the field to progress. As well as they reject Douglas et al (1992)’s idea that serial killers seek to express a need for power. Since it could be argued all criminals seek to express power. Instead, they say sexual serial killers find killing pleasurable, kill 3 or more times and murders aren’t under the direction of anyone else. How would you define a serial killer? Overall, I hope hope you've enjoyed today's episode. If you want to learn more, please check out the links below: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Criminal Profiling: A Forensic and Criminal Psychology Guide to FBI and Statistical Profiling. Available from all major eBook and audiobook retailers and you can get the paperback and hardbacks copies from Amazon, your local library or bookstores. I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal.

In this Forensic Psychology episode of the podcast, we’ll be looking at the great topic of Shoplifting. This is a great psychology episode, please enjoy. This episode has been sponsored by Forensic Psychology of Theft, Burglary and Property Crime. Available on all major eBook retailers, direct from me and you can get the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore or library. The Forensic Psychology of Shoplifting; COPYRIGHT 2021 CONNOR WHITELEY. Shoplifting: Moving onto a more focused area of theft, shoplifting is when a person takes something from a shop without paying for it. That’s a simple definition. Also, I remember back when I was about 8 years olds and a police officer came into our school. To tell us that shoplifting was bad, and it was so common, it didn’t even get reported on the news. Referring to a more official source, according to Hopkins (2002) 80% of retailers and 63% of manufacturers experienced a crime compared to only 30% of people. As well as alcoholic drinking shops and DIY stores are more likely to be burglarized. Overall, shoplifting is surprisingly common. Situational Action Theory There have been a lot of theories that try to explain why theft and shoplifting occurs. Therefore, we need to look at Situational Action Theory (SAT) because it combines environmental explanations with psychological explanations to explain why this type of offending occurs. To see how the theory works Hirtenlehnera and Hardie (2016) used it to explain adolescent shoplifting. With the theory bringing together a person’s mortality, environmental factor, self-control, and social control (deterrents) to predict whether a person will shoplift. The theory proposes that when our mortality and the social controls are criminogenic (right for crime), we commit crime. For example, if a person didn’t see shoplifting as bad and there were no members of staff or cameras about. This would make the situation right for committing a crime. Thus, the person probably would commit the shoplifting offence. Shoplifter Tactics to Avoid Getting Caught: Shoplifters use a lot of tactics to avoid getting caught and arrested. As I was reading the research in this area, I was rather entertained by how crafty and clever some of the offenders were. And please don’t try these at home! (or in shops!) The main tactic we’ll look at in the book is from Laskey, Jacques and Fisher (2005) when they found the most common tactic for shoplifting is blending in with other shoppers. At first, this might sound simple and boring, but this isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Since the shoplifter needs to employ a mental schema, deeply rooted mental representations or frameworks that affect how we encode, store and retrieve information, about how normal shoppers speak, act and communication based on their own normal experience. Additionally, the researchers interviewed shoplifters and the offenders said shoplifting happens in three stages. Firstly, they enter the shop to find an item to steal, and they show signs of being a normal shopper by getting another trolley and they examine other items. Next, the shoplifter takes the item. A clever way of doing this was to use a phone and hold it close to the object. Before taking both the phone and the object away at the same time. Then stage 3 is leaving the shop in a normal manner to avoid drawing suspicion. On a more practical note, these tactics make it difficult for security to catch the shoplifters. Especially, when the shoplifters merge into large groups of people. One way to deal with this problem is to look out for a particular type of person but if arrests are systemically biased. Then looking for a particular type of person will reproduce the bias, and could be considered oppressive. I certainly agree with the previous point because whenever I would go into certain shops between the ages of 17 to 19. I would always be stopped on the way out even if I was out with my dad shopping. Since because I was of the age where I was likely to shoplift. Personally, I never would shoplift! This was disgraceful I think, and this is another reason why I support the Black Lives Matter movement. When people were saying that black people getting pulled over more isn’t biased. It clearly is. especially, when I keep getting stopped in shops because I’m the age where I’m likely to shoplift. I really hope you enjoyed this forensic psychology episode. If you want to learn more please check out: FREE AND EXCLUSIVE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Forensic Psychology of Theft, Burglary and Property Crime. Available on all major eBook retailers, direct from me and you can get the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore or library. Have a great day! 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