Reassurance can actually exacerbate anxiety: when you reassure your friend that the worst-case scenario he fears probably won't occur, you inadvertently reinforce his belief that it would be catastrophic if it did. You are tightening the coil of his anxiety... #OliverBurkeman

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Harlow argued that contact comfort is a basic need that young mammals have for physical contact with their mother. In the absence of a real mother, young mammals will seek out whatever feels most like a mother. #JonathanHaidt

If magic exploits our capacity to... unconsciously modify events in the ongoing world to form a story, even at the expense of everything we know to be possible... then we are indeed master editors, tirelessly working to communicate to others and ourselves a meaningful tale.

This constant connection--and the difficulty of maintaining any kind of silence or interiority--is already a problem, but after the 2016 election it seemed to take on new dimensions [assaulting ourselves with information and misinformation, at a frankly inhumane rate] #JennyOdell