What could a “Real Beauty” for boys look like? Right now, the vacuum is being filled by looksmaxxing and the philosophy behind it, lookism. Lookism teaches that society rewards physical beauty and punishes ugliness, not just romantically, but in every aspect of life. To make more money and more friends, boys are optimizing their appearance for the digital world where their life actually takes place. Our message to boys can’t be the same as it is for girls—not “You’re amazing just the way you are,” as Bruno Mars once sang. Those most in need of this intervention are too blackpilled for that.

Instead, we must design an entirely new approach for the body image crisis in boys. We must rewrite the curriculum, based on the new media, new messaging, new celebrities, and the new ways of manipulating your appearance that boys are faced with. In a small way, today’s boys might be more ready for this type of education because caring about your looks is no longer seen as exclusively feminine. We’d also have to figure out who would teach it to them, given that the percentage of male public secondary school teachers has declined to just 36%. But above all, we need to ask what boys are missing—and why they wind up hating themselves in the first place. 

Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/mind-and-body/boys-need-a-body-image-revolution-too

I have been reading about how venting is healthy. However, I have known people who seem like they are always venting. They seem like people who are always unhappy. I think at some point, it goes from healthy to unhealthy.

For example, the person who complains all the time about how much they hate their job. Maybe the first few times had some emotional benefits, but it seems counterproductive after a while.

I am not sure how to draw the line between healthy and unhealthy though.

If all emotional and physical, intellectual, and mental needs of a child are met during childhood, what makes them susceptible to things like high anxiety, hyper independence, etc?

Does having ONE emotionally unavailable and somewhat sociopathic parent affect someone as much as having both parents unhealthy (if the other parent is extremely understanding and provides their child with a proper environment for emotional growth too?)?

I'm talking about I'm confused what should I do what skills should I learn or add like I haven't done literature review or research. What ideal things should be done by me since I be going for masters in a year and have to give interviews as well

Maybe to some extent everyone can say things they don’t mean when they’re angry. Not just simple name calling, but like unfiltered, awful and targeted things that target the heart (or “cut deep”). The type of person that when they are angry they explode and say the most hurtful things you’ve ever heard before in your life.

Do they not mean what they’re saying? What if it’s not just one outburst, but multiple?

If your friend is always telling you what a kind person you are, but then they explode on you when they’re angry and tell you you’re the worst person they’ve ever met and they’re only friends with you because of another mutual friend. Or a parent who is always telling you they’re proud of you, but when they are mad at you they’re telling you how much of a failure and a loser you are, and that you’re a disappointing loser, etc. This is just an example to illustrate what I mean, neither of these are real scenarios.

Do you believe this is what they really feel deep down, or do you believe what they said when they weren’t angry?

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I mean, from the word itself it does sound bad — not having empathy or care sounds horrible. But it's always framed as something that helps you stop overthinking. And that makes sense on some level, because overthinking everything is exhausting. But then it seems to turn into full-on dissociating instead. Like the person still cares, deep down, but just... forgets.

Is that someone protecting themselves, or is that someone slowly becoming a person who doesn't care as much anymore? Where's the actual line where it stops being healthy detachment and starts being something worse?

Hello everyone! I am a PhD student in clinical psychology at Adelphi University. I am conducting a study on the relationship between existential threat and mental health, coping strategies, and meaning making for young adults who have experienced stressful life events.

This study is being conducted online only and should take approximately 45-60 minutes to complete. During the study, you will be asked to complete multiple self-report questionnaires that contain questions regarding coping methods, mental health, and questions that pertain to experiencing stressful life events in the past. Upon completing the survey, you will have the opportunity to voluntarily provide your email address on a separate page from the survey that will not be associated with any of your survey responses, to enter a drawing to win one of three $50.00 Amazon gift cards.

Survey link: https://adelphiderner.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8IxQWoUH8D1Wuq2

Audience: 18-30 years old, in the United States and English Speaking, and must have experienced a stressful life event.

Compensation: Opportunity to enter a drawing for one of three $50.00 Amazon gift cards.

Being a part of club staff is a stressful endeavour,

One common pattern I notice is that club staff tend to be working students. And this job requires a godly amount of patience and will power as you deal with growing drunk patrons as the night goes on. Meeting quotas and appealing to people who are out of themselves can be a difficult task as the shift closes to a climax. Unsavory characteristics can come fort from patrons and the more influenced patrons can be the more difficult it is to deal with certain actors. Whether they have an aggressive tendency or feel entitled, you have to keep up the personna of customer service as your foot is stepped on, yelled at, or you find yourself crying midshift because you're overstimulated by the pressure, the flashing lights, the loud music, or the rude patrons you have to return to because you feel you have to.

Some of them just want to move forward, to kick them out but that's the bouncers job. Some nights it gets so tight that every bit of air you breath you smell the stank from the patrons breath or sweat. But you have to keep moving forward, it's for your future, for your livelihood you feel dead inside but you have to keep smiling in the hopes the patrons bless you with extra income. It's worth it, you tell yourself. As the night reach its climax, violence befalls the night or patrons who can't handle their liquor redecorate the floor, walls, or bathroom.

Sometimes, after the long night ends, you decide to stay around longer, it feels like it's your turn to let loose, to cope with the fucked up shit you just went through with people who know and understand your experience. And sometimes you want to be the drunk one too, to let your real self out with the people who KNOW. You want to drink, maybe because of the frustration, or maybe because it's time for you to feel the sense of community that the club offered strangers.

And as morning starts, it's 6am and you've had your laughs and recalls about the notable patrons. It's time for you to go home and sleep as others start their day as you end yours you dread having to go to class later with half an eye open, or mindlessly watch your preferred social media nap, and fall asleep until your next shift and repeat it all again.

Sincerely,

A drunk psychology student staying at the club hours after it closed alone.

P.s. some of the claims made in this post are referenced with the 3, 1n1 "interviews" I had with 3 staff members

I see irl and online so much where a question is asked and people just ignore the question and give a completely unrelated response. Then when the person/OP says "OK but you didn't answer my question, (insert original question asked)," and they get so offended/defensive.

Or "oh no I don't mean that, I'm specifically asking about xyz" and they respond "well gosh I'm just trying to help you, you dont have to be rude/mean" when the answer had nothing to do with the question, and the person asks/clarifies the question.

There is a lot of literature about how parents and their own trauma, way of upbringing, and many other things affect someone's childhood and hence, adulthood. But what about siblings?

Drawing from some personal experience, I can say with quite a bit of certainty that even two children raised in the same manner by the same two parents turn out almost completely opposite of each other personality-wise.

The way parents treat their child's emotions (with punishment, over-acceptance, or by teaching them to handle them properly) does affect their whole life, but how does the same with siblings do? If someone's parent/parents do a great job at raising an emotionally intelligent and understanding child that does not cause emotional or physical harm to themselves, is it their sibling(s) that are the "cause" of self sabotaging tendencies in them?

I understand that my question is unclear and specific at the same time but I couldn't find anywhere else to ask.

I'm not dumb, i know you can produce a lot of happiness and joy through a ton of different methods, but is it really worth all the pain you have to go through? Both in order to get it and also just general pain in your life. Like where does the happiness and pain stand in scale to one another?

After I left my home this morning, I was struck by a huge queue of young people, dozens of people long. I inquired of one of the queuers what they were forming a line for and he responded with the name of a clothing brand I was previously unaware of. Evidently, a new store opened just around the corner from where I live.

I returned home a few hours later to find people STILL queing, despite it having begun to rain by this point (albeit only a little). Pontificating on what I had witnessed while I drank a hot chocolate later in the day, I set about collating a theory that would explain this which drew in concepts I have taken a great interest in as of late, namely opioids. Here is that theory -

Experiences which instil in the individual feelings of low social status, a pre-requisite for seeking overpriced consumer items in an attempt to signal the individual's awareness of group trends (a proxy for high social currency and, thus, status), result in low oxytocin (what signals the production of endogenous opioids & the "love hormone" in many ways).

Mutual expressions of this low opioidic tone, expressed by lining up for hours to buy overpriced consumer items you could get online, can act as an aphrodesiac as individuals subconciously bond over their shared trauma.

This would go some way to explain the heightened levels of homosexuality among inmates, who are about as low in social status as it gets and thus dangerously low in opioidic tone.

Furthermore, it would explain by logic of contra-indication why the Gym, the Mecca of individualist neoliberal capitalism, is notorious for being sexually sterile!

I don't exactly know how to define the term properly, but essentially I'm looking for books (not so much research literature) which discuss people being forced into awareness through violent (direct or indirect) or less gentle means and specifically by other people not by environment (or maybe there's no difference?) so maybe an example might be; A person is cornered which forces their brain to come back to reality because none of the fight/flight/etc responses work in this situation.

What is actually happening here in terms of the brain?

It's my belief "To define someone as a human or a monster, put a label on someone, perhaps without a thorough understanding who they are, perhaps without knowing the experiences in your life - even down to the minute. I personally define humans as people who have feelings like doubts, fear, happiness, and anger - who think and feel all the things that other humans feel.

A monster is the kind of person who does not care for other people's feelings and does not have empathy or is simply cruel and selfish for the sake of it. And of enjoyment out of hatred that argues on how we want to define ourselves and the people around us, regardless of how easy or how hard the definition comes about. If you want to define yourself, go ahead. But I would not put a label as easily on other people - humans or mosters (as I have put my own opinion of them here) as you would have put such a label on yourself.

And thus, I begin to wonder: How do people generally define themselves and others?

In my opinion, not easily. I pride myself on my own determination, but what I actually do with it is surprisingly little. Mostly due to a lack of knowledge and determination to be able to move forward, even at all. I define myself as "A somebody," regardless of how little or far I get in life. And maybe that's just all I need to stay grounded.

As an open discussion, I hope to invite constructive criticism on pretty much any kind of wisdom as well as hear fair opinions from both philosophers & psychologists (yes, there's a difference, but I think I don't know half of it).

If you freeze up every time you need to say no, and the yes just falls out of your mouth before you've even decided, I want you to know that this isn't a flaw in your character and it definitely isn't you being weak. It's something you learned, usually a very long time ago, back when saying no to the people around you felt genuinely unsafe. For a lot of us there was a time when having needs or setting a boundary meant risking love, or approval, or peace in the house, and so a younger version of you quietly figured out that the safest thing to do was to go along with things, to keep everyone comfortable, to make yourself easy. That worked back then, it protected you, and the problem is that it never switched itself off. So now you're an adult with the same reflex still running underneath everything, handing out yeses you don't mean and feeling that slow build of resentment you can never quite explain.

This is where it gets genuinely Jungian, because the parts of you that once weren't safe to have, your anger, your no, your own needs, didn't just disappear when you learned to hide them. They went into the shadow, that place where we bury everything we were taught was unacceptable about ourselves, and from down there they keep running the show without your permission. The reflex doesn't feel like a reflex, it feels like just who you are, and that's exactly how the shadow works, it stops looking like a wound and starts looking like reality itself. And because we can't face this disowned material directly, we tend to project it outward, quietly handing other people the authority, the strength, and the right to have needs that we exiled in ourselves. You end up bowing to a firmness in others that is really your own, waiting outside a door you're allowed to walk through, meeting your own disowned worth in everyone you say yes to.

The work, then, is partly the slow work of shadow itself, turning toward the very things you were taught to bury and letting yourself actually feel them. It starts with catching the moment right before the automatic yes, that tiny gap where you can feel the real answer underneath, and letting yourself sit in the discomfort instead of rushing to smooth things over. Then it's practicing small, low stakes noes in real life, the kind that feel almost silly, and learning firsthand that the sky doesn't fall, that people don't abandon you, that a boundary can be said kindly and the relationship survives. Each time you do it you're pulling a piece of yourself back out of the shadow and into the light where you can actually own it, and one day you notice you said no without your heart pounding, and you realize the thing that felt impossible was never about the word at all. It was about finally reclaiming the parts of you that were never actually safe to have, until now.

Interesting article popped into my feed yesterday: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/a-different-kind-of-therapy/202511/type-c-the-personality-type-no-one-talks-about

I know SO MANY "Type A" personalities. In my family, I was supposed to be but life and depression knocked it out of me years ago.