1. What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? OCD is a debilitating anxiety disorder comprising of mental obsessions of recurrent, persistent ideas, thoughts, images or impulses (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) followed by repetitive behavioral rituals, called compulsions, which can severely impair a person’s social and occupational functioning. In rare cases OCD can lead to suicide (Alonso et al. 2010). Suffers from OCD are plagued with continuously arising irrational beliefs and are occupied to reduce anxieties produced by these imaginations by performing likewise…
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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): What it is, how it can be treated and how treatment outcomes can be measured
The public is rarely confronted with sufferers from PTSD. The stories of Iraq war veterans returning back home as broken men unable to find their way back into ordinary life are among the best-known examples publicized in the media. PTSD however extends far beyond the effects of traumatizing war experiences – time to shed some light on the phenomenon. PTSD is a recognized mental disorder and develops after a terrifying event that has involved physical…
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Children of a Broken World – The Long Road to a Democratic Safe Haven
Democracy and wealth are the secret hopes on the wish-list of the neglected global child. All over the world people expect that with the advent of industrialization and the abandonment of dictatorships better and happier times will eventually unravel, but in reality this is hardly ever the case. Instead, corruption, social and political inequality, majoritism as the favoritism of self-declared elites and, most depressingly, the consolidation of these phenomena into a self-perpetuating dysfunctional global system…
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Thriving
Thriving expresses the experience of profound oneness of one’s identity and supportive environmental context. Thriving describes the immersion into a state of true being in which one finds his or her most inner calling fulfilled, when every day is a bonus and life feels superbly and intrinsically right. More than just a singular episodic experience, thriving entails development; to evolve towards the next higher level of engagement between the Self and developmental context (Benson & Scales,…
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Teratogenic Dangers: What Pregnant Women in Thailand should Know
Overview Teratogens are agents or factors that damage the prenatal cellular development of a fetus. Common teratogenes such as alcohol and nicotine (Arnett, 2012, p.70-71) are well-established. What is lesser known in the context of Thailand (and similarly developing nations) are teratogenic agents in seafood such as mercury or teratogenic factors such as iodine deficiency. Both pose significant educational problems in later life. Thai version (PDF): สิ่งที่หญิงไทยมีครรภ์ควรรู้-อันตรายจากสารที่มีผลต่อการเจริญเติบโตของตัวอ่อนหรือทารกในครรภ์ Teratogenic agent Mercury Many fish in some of Thailand’s favorite seafood…
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Psychological Investigation of Cultural Conflicts
Why Inter-cultural Identity Conflicts require further Investigation As globalization progresses, inter-cultural conflicts are bound to increase, not decrease, in many forms affecting the life-trajectories of entire populations. Between-cultures factors range from violent conflict to crime and terrorism (Freilich et al., 2006), socio-economic competition, immigrant and minority struggles to issues of cultural homelessness (Hersting & Jenkins, 2011), loss of cultural identity and subsequent erosion of individual identity, poverty and social exclusion. Cultures discontinue existing in isolation which is the…
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Notes on Intelligence
Some notes on current approaches to intelligence and contributions to the nature versus nurture debate – plus an insight into the twisted world of IQ-tests. Please click on the link to open the PDF: Notes on Intelligence, Joana S. Kompa
Social Media, Internet & Socio-emotional Development in Middle Adulthood
‘All the lonely people, where do they all come from?’ (Lennon & McCartney, 1966) Current social development is profoundly influenced by processes of urbanization, globalization, fragmentation of society and societal immersion in technology-mediated environments. The Internet, most notably, is often quoted with negative effects across nations such as contributing to the decline of face-to-face social interaction, social isolation and corresponding increase in loneliness and depression (Amichai-Hamburger et al., 2011, p.584). Online communication in virtual communities does not translate…
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Attachment Styles and Peer Relations
Attachment styles, parenting styles and early peer relations have been identified as the most significant factors forming our identity and personality in later life. The following is a brief overview on classical attachment theory but also its critique regarding inter-cultural validity. To open the PDF simply click on the link below. Attachment and Family – Joana Stella Kompa 2013
Language and Cognitive Development
In his Tractus Logico Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein, 1998) coined the famous phrase ‘The limits of my language are the limits of my world’. It is because of language that we are consciousness of our inner and the outer world and that we are capable of symbolic interaction. Our ability to explain, predict and understand others’ mental states, feelings, wishes, intentions and behavior is known as the Theory of Mind (ToM). Language development and ToM…
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Joana Stella Kompa 
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