Are modern traffic flow devices a good application of science and technology to tame what ultimately comes down to human behavior — or are they just getting our blood pressure up?

The endings of counselling relationships, like those of all relationships, can be difficult and painful. But they also have the potential to offer great therapeutic benefit to clients whose prior experience of endings has been traumatic. Counsellors too can benefit from a well-handled end to therapeutic work.

Despite its potency in evoking long-forgotten memories of past events, and its importance in ensuring the survival of the species, our sense of smell is often disregarded in comparison to its more illustrious cousins, like the sense of sight. Thinking about our lives in terms of the aromas that define them can offer a very different perspective.

There’s some pressure in the more ‘psychologised’ cultures to be open, to share, to tell your story, and it’s easy to find yourself swept along and unthinkingly revealing more than, in retrospect, you want to. There can be a great deal of centredness, self-respect and power in silence.

The recent blockbuster film Inception asks “how can we tell the difference between dreams and reality?” But how often are we “dreaming” with our eyes open each day? Without effort, we can not only lose touch with what’s going on around us, but sink deeper and deeper into troubling worlds of our own construction.

In a psychological experiment, jam-tasting experts and students more or less agreed on the best tasting jam — until the students were asked to analyse their preferences. Then they promptly forgot how they actually percieved the jam and started thinking too much.

We’ve all heard the adage “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Sounds like good advice, but not everybody takes it. Some people quietly resign themselves to a life of lemons. Why is this? One reason may be “learned helplessness”.