‘Emotions’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life, Page 2

We assume that other’s experience is the same as ours — but what if it isn’t?

Disordered characters, especially predators, don’t really want us to know who they really are. They tell us what they think we want to hear so that we will think them more like us.

One of the ways that folks become embroiled in abusive or exploitive relationships is by falling prey to concerns about the way their character-disordered partner is feeling. They almost never consider that the brandishing of anger might be a tactic that character-disturbed individuals use to manipulate and control others, as opposed to a genuine feeling.

While depression and anxiety are often considered to be “diseases” of the affluent, new studies find them to be just as common in poorer countries. Can a Western model of interpreting and treating mental distress be applied to other cultures?

The issue of self-harm is gaining a higher profile, in the UK at least, but it still remains to some extent a hidden and misunderstood problem, as evidenced by the stereotype of a teenage girl cutting her arms in a dark bedroom.