Life Changes
Healing Through Storytelling: Lessons from The Odyssey
The journey of Odysseus in Homer's 'The Odyssey' offers profound insights into healing...
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- Written by: Chido Ndadzungira, PhD Student, The Open University
This Valentine’s Day will once again see a celebration of love. Unfortunately for many people with learning disabilities, this is just a dream.
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- Written by: Eric Levy, University Lecturer in Marketing (Assistant Professor), University of Cambridge
Money might not buy you love, but according to some studies in psychology and consumer behaviour, how you spend it could reveal a thing or two about your romantic intentions. These studies demonstrate that just thinking about meeting a new partner can actually impact our shopping decisions in surprising ways – affecting men and women differently.
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- Written by: Jeremy Adam Smith
In Western cultures, we mark the beginning of romantic entanglement by touching lips. Few actions are as fraught with anxiety and symbolism as that first kiss—and it’s no exaggeration to say that some kisses feel like life or death.
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- Written by: Clare Collins, Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle
Throughout the ages, many cultures have searched for potent aphrodisiacs to increase sexual desire. The term derives from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation.
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- Written by: Sarah Gomillion, University of Aberdeen
At the beginning of a romantic relationship, passion is not in short supply. The thrills of learning all about your beloved, sharing new experiences, and having plenty of sex, create an exhilarating state of desire and romantic love. In fact, a number of scientific studies have shown that this kind of love
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- Written by: Alexis Blue-University of Arizona
Even though your marriage ends in a literal sense when you lose your spouse, the effects of who the person was still seems to matter even after they're gone
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- Written by: Clifton B. Parker-Stanford University
We have a harder time moving on after a breakup if rejection leaves us doubting who we really are, a new study finds.
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- Written by: Barry Vissell
These two core issues (or negative messages from childhood) often meet and interact with one another, sometimes in disastrous ways. Usually the carriers of these issues are more or less unaware of them.
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- Written by: Mario P. Cloutier and Diane Sawaya Cloutier
Our online survey responses suggest that people can find love at anytime. But, when we ask single people from all walks of life if they feel they can find true love, the answers we receive have been quite the opposite.
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- Written by: Rachel Griess-University of Texas
The difference in what “perfect” means to men and women searching for a mate is much larger than previously believed—no matter where you live.
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- Written by: Tonilyn Hornung
I started thinking, “Do all wives feel like they are raising their husbands? Wow. Someone should write a book about that.” Weeks later the title How to Raise a Husband popped into my head, and it occurred to me that, as a wife and a writer, I could write a book about wives and husbands.
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- Written by: Servet Hasan
Let’s face it breakups hurt. Why? Well, for the most part it’s painful because it represents a loss. And, I’m not just talking about the loss of a loved one, but of the dream that you thought you once shared. Often this sense of a letdown is followed by stress and grief.
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- Written by: Linda Carroll
As a counselor to couples for many years, I’ve learned to spot the distinctive stages we travel through over the course of an intimate relationship. Although these stages are predictable, even inevitable, we have the power to choose how to travel through them as self-aware actors who are in charge of our lives.
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- Written by: Patrick Ercolano, Johns Hopkins University
It’s often thought that we are hardwired by eons of natural selection to be attracted to particular physical traits; that preference is thought to guide a search for healthy mates to help us produce healthy offspring. But the study by Yang and Leonard Lee of the National University of Singapore challenges the notion that our inborn ideas of physical attractiveness are immutable.
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- Written by: Ryan Schacht, University of Utah
Relationships seem to be about partner matching. Therefore the apparent robustness of sex differences in preferences may largely be an artifact of the focus on sex at the expense of other more meaningful variables.
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- Written by: Michelle Rios Rice Hennelly & R. Kevin Hennelly
There is a reason why some people choose to dress or groom themselves in ways that are not provocative. Certain ways of dressing, as well as certain uses of things such as makeup, scents, and jewelry, often elicit exchanges of sexual energy. If we go through the day projecting our sexual energy onto others...
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- Written by: Linda Carroll
Two points emerge from our troubles during this stage. The first is the incorrect belief that our happiness and the success of the relationship are determined by what our partner says and does. As I’ve emphasized before and will again, all relationship change begins within you...
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- Written by: Elizabeth Englander, Bridgewater State University
Stories of teens taking and sending a naked picture of themselves with their phones have been all over the news media in recent years. The outcome? Shocking, according to reports which have suggested that humiliation and sometimes even suicide can follow.
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- Written by: Marcia Naomi Berger, MSW, LCSW
Couples can resolve virtually any problem by conducting marriage meetings. The meetings foster a spirit of goodwill and acceptance, a live-and-let-live, respectful attitude that allows partners to be themselves. The process results in the ability to minimize or manage conflicts that may not be resolvable.
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- Written by: Kelly Johnson, M.D.
Is relationship therapy really needed? Why can't most of us just wing it and hope that everything turns out okay? After all, many people find that perfect partner and enjoy a satisfying, healthy relationship. Incredibly, a lot of marriages are doomed to split up...
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- Written by: Osho
You exist as a sexual being. Once you accept it, the conflict that has been created down through the centuries dissolves. Once you accept it deeply, with no ideas in between, when sex is thought of as simply natural, you live it. Sex is transcended not by any effort on your part. If you make any effort, that will be repressive...
