We were trained to believe that we are empty or broken, and if we can just get someone to give us what we are missing, we would be happy. Then we must control our supposed source of good so that person will keep doing the things that make us feel loved.

“Selfie” is not just word of the year, but also the mainstay of postings on social media sites such as Instagram. With the prevalence of camera-equipped smartphones the posting of selfies has reached epidemic levels – even the funerals of national leaders aren’t exempt. But is there a psychological fall-out?

While we "know" patience is important, it remains one of life's greatest lessons. In our modern society of instant gratification, it sometimes seems that patience is a forgotten commodity. It is somewhat like the joke that goes "God grant me patience, and give it to me right away.".

A friend once grumbled that, given the choice, she’d rather see her ex miserable than herself happy. Few things in life are as traumatic as the end of a long-term, romantic relationship. Nonetheless, many people are able to eventually recover and move on relatively unscathed.

Vast amounts of personal, behavioural and academic data about children are being collected, processed and used by schools, local authorities, and the government every year.

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

If you want your toddler to be a healthy weight you might control portion sizes or the frequency of their meals and snacks. Of course, you could use both of these strategies, but a study we recently published found that one strategy is likely to be much more effective than the other depending on the traits in appetites of individual children.

We have a harder time moving on after a breakup if rejection leaves us doubting who we really are, a new study finds.

As you experience being an earth angel, you will discover that the path of service is riddled with deep feelings. We are in service at all times, and we need to set an example to other earth angels. If you are living with dysfunction, and your life is not in balance, you need to seek out a teacher and heal within. We cannot serve others when we are ourselves are out of balance.

Children come in all shapes and sizes, but not with a manual. Childhood achievements such as walking and talking are often celebrated signs that things are going well in a child’s life. However, once these achievements start being compared between children (at the park, on Facebook) they can become the cause of anxiety.

Someone once gave Barry and I a small yellow button to wear that says, “You never need to defend or justify your feelings.” I love the message on this button and, though I don’t wear it, I keep it in my desk so it is the first thing I see when I open the drawer. This little message has helped me over and over again...

The “gaze” is a term that describes how viewers engage with visual media. Originating in film theory and criticism in the 1970s, the gaze refers to how we look at visual representations. These include advertisements, television programs and cinema.

Is he or she the one? You know… the one to introduce to my parents, the one to move in with, the one to start a family with, the one to marry? At some point in every dating relationship, you ask yourself some version of these questions.

If you’ve ever thought about quitting Facebook, you’re not alone. Maybe you’ve even shut down your account, swearing never to return, only to log back in a week later.

The current sexual and reproductive prevention methods have significantly improved the health and well-being of women and their families. But this is not enough. Worldwide each year there are still 85 million unplanned pregnancies, 21.6 million unsafe abortions, and nearly 300 000 maternal deaths from complications related to pregnancy and birth.

While most people agree that it is bad practice to lie to children, most parents will make an exception when it comes to Santa Claus, the roly-poly, white-bearded philanthropist who visits at this time of year with a sleighload of gifts.

From whomever or wherever we come, our present is, in good part, made up of the stories of our past. These stories can be thought of as the twigs and string and odd detritus that holds our families together, and in each of these stories, at least one of these “unpredictable personalities” wants to take wing and fly.

Love works when we envision anyone bathed in it and project it to them. It works even for those whom we rightfully expect should love us, we assume love us, and of whom we can list 5,328 reasons showing how they haven’t. Love is what forgiveness is about. These words apply, most of all, to our parents. Are you rebelling already, saying, “No way! Not in a million light-years!”?

Without the perennially interesting problem of the female orgasm, it sometimes seems that the oddly sex-segregated world of men’s and women’s magazines would run out of content.

Until the last decade, many young people with a life-limiting or life-threatening condition were not expected to live into adulthood. Now improvements in medicine and technology have changed all that for children with conditions such as duchenne muscular or spinal muscular atrophy which cause serious degeneration of muscles and nerves, or genetic disorders, such as cystic fibrosis.

There are many social norms that dictate gift-giving, including when, how and what to give as gifts. Interestingly, these norms don’t seem to be about making sure that recipients get the gifts they want. What makes for a good or bad gift often differs in the eyes of givers and recipients.

Most people spontaneously look for solutions that meet everyone’s needs. We want to please the people we love and want to please ourselves. It’s when we get stuck that we start to look for a compromise or think someone has to sacrifice.

The Collins English Dictionary unveiled a thoroughly modern concept as its word of the year for 2015: binge watching. It usually refers to consuming endless hours of movies or series on Netflix, one after the other. But binge watching is about the more fundamental issue of the world’s obsession with content consumption.