Yesterday I appeared on the Insight programme on TRT World discussing online safety, with particular reference to young people, as part of Safer Internet Day 2017. Click on the link below to see the discussion. When discussing the impact of the massive social change that has been underway for the past 25 years with the advent […]
Today I had fun chatting to the Doha team of Aljazeera TV (Arabic) about internet addiction and specifically problem behaviour with social media. I was on a live feed in the London studio (based in the Shard) and my views were sought through a translator about the universal problem of overusing smartphones and social media apps.
This blog post expands on the points raised in my article about effective treatment for alcoholism. An addiction disorder can be very distressing for an individual as well as their partner and family. Active addiction involves loss of ability to choose freely whether to stop or continue the behaviour (loss of control) and leads to
Often dubbed the ‘crack cocaine of gambling’, Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) are electromechanical devices most commonly found in UK betting shops and allow players to bet on the outcome of various games, of which the most common are roulette and blackjack, and events with fixed odds.They have been in betting shops since 2002. The Government recently
The sixth annual Deloitte report There’s No Place like Phone, which analyses the mobile usage habits of more than 4,000 UK consumers, was released today. The report was covered widely across the national media. Channel 5 News covered the story on their main news and spoke to consumers, journalists and myself about the issue. See below for the embedded
Whilst researching for my recent articles Why sexual fantasies can be healthy in a strong relationship and Are you he, she or non-binary in gender identity?, I came across some interesting data on human sexuality as a result of a recent publication on the search habits of men and women. Numerous authors over the years such as Nancy
The Men’s Health Forum men’s health week takes place this week and when one considers the mental health risks for men the statistics are alarming.Take, for example, the male suicide rate. The latest official figures for male suicide in the UK show 16.8 deaths per 100,000 of the population in 2014 (social researchers compare populations per 100,000
I recall a lecturer from my psychotherapy training saying during a lecture that experiencing anxiety when about to give a presentation was due to incompetence and a failure to prepare. I remember thinking at the time that this view seemed a bit harsh. What about people suffering the symptoms of GAD, I thought, when physical
Our ability to engage with imagination is what distinguishes us from all other species. But it is something we have rarely been taught how to work with. Our ability to compute and to analyse (the typical left side of the brain functions) have been well developed in our education systems, but not our capacity for imagination. If
Are you in a relationship with someone who has an active addiction? Addiction can be chemical, alcohol and drugs, as well as behavioural, such as gambling and sex/porn. It can be difficult to know what to do and what to say when someone so close to you is losing themselves in a web of destruction.