Marty Nemko's Blog, page 230

The Three Principles of Good Parenting

Good parenting includes only three core principles. I describe them with examples in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Outsmarting Your Clients and Patients

Sure, some clients are always rational and statesmanlike, disclosing all relevant information, responding honestly, dispensing due praise to you, etc. But such purity isn’t always the case.
It can’t hurt to have some under-discussed but crucial tools in your helping kit. I describe them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Remedying Underachievement

A subset of people who did well in school and on standardized tests fail to live up to their potential.

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers common causes and possible remedies.

A Shortcut to Personal Growth: A quick and empowering approach to self-improvement

This is the time of year when New Year’s resolutions have faded and we’re back to business as usual.

The approach I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today may be more helpful because it embeds these principles:
It’s quick. The longer I’ve been a career and personal advisor, the more I've found that the people who seek such counsel are more likely to follow through on something quick and simple.It’s structured.Ideas that you yourself generate incorporate many factors that your brain, consciously or not, determines are worth trying.Your generating you own ideas is potentially empowering. If your ideas succeed even moderately, you legitimately boost your sense of self-efficacy.

Homework for Personal Growth: An approach for self-improvement and for helping professionals

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers an approach to homework for personal growth. Much of this should be of value not just to therapists, counselors, and coaches, but to any of us in self-improvement efforts.

Should You Be in Private Practice? A debate

Being in private practice is appealing because you retain control and profits and you needn’t convince someone to hire you. But you need to market until your practice is full, something that many counselor-types are averse to. 
How might you decide? 

Perhaps the  debate I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today will help.

In-Person vs. Remote Counseling

With traffic ever worsening, people ever busier, and free videoconferencing (Skype, Zoom, Facetime), the idea of remote counseling grows in appeal. Yet many practitioners mainly or exclusively do sessions in-person, believing it brings major advantages.

Whether you’re a client or a counselor, perhaps the debate in my PsychologyToday.com article today will help you clarify your position:

Externalities An under-considered factor in how we turn out?

Today, ever more of us is attributed to genes, from intelligence to behavioral flexibility, from self-control to political leaning.


But might our mindset’s pendulum have swung too far? Might we be underestimating the influences of environment or, to use the current argot, externalities?

To make that case, and hopefully to enhance your sense of gratitude and contentment, my PsychologyToday.com article today asks you to imagine if you were affected by any of 23 externalities.

The Case for Anger: Why calmness may not always be as wise as some gurus claim

 My PsychologyToday.com article yesterday made the case for being sad. My article today makes the case for anger.

The Case for Sadness: Why happiness may not be all it's cracked up to be

Of course, no reasonable case can be made for debilitating sadness, let alone for depression. But our perkiness-valuing society deems even mild sadness to be a character defect or at least needing of repair: “What’s wrong, Pat?”

Yet, a defensible case can be made for a mild state of sadness. Perhaps it will promote self-acceptance among people who, because of biology and/or environment, walk the earth a little less chipper than average. I tackle that in my PsychologyToday.com article today.