Codependency? No more.

A cogent analysis of "codependency". The Myth of Codependency. February 24 2024. The Atlantic. By Elissa Strauss.

**** rarely is there any acknowledgment of the fact that when we give to others, we receive from them too. "Things have been twisted in a way in which all care is bad,"****

**** Balancing one’s own needs with the needs of others is, in fact, a universal challenge. To scapegoat codependency is no help in this task. ****

0 comment posted: Monday, February 26th, 2024

Detecting deception

There is no such thing as "Pinocchio's Nose".

The evidence is clear. Polygraphy is based on pseudoscientific hokum (although polygraphs may be used to trick gullible people into exposing themselves).

The polygraph is predicated on the false beliefs that (1) when a person lies, she feels guilty and therefore nervous and (2) when she feels guilty and nervous, she has specific involuntary physiological responses (change in heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, skin conductivity, dilated pupil, etc).

Mark Harris (Wired, 10-01-2018) does a good job of describing the persistence of this nonsense.

https://www.wired.com/story/inside-polygraph-job-screening-black-mirror/

Considerable research has been conducted to clarify more reliable methods of detecting deception.

1 comment posted: Tuesday, October 9th, 2018

Esther Perel

"Why Happy People Cheat" is an article on The Atlantic website (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/why-happy-people-cheat/537882/) that attempts to answer the age old question "why do people have affairs".

The author is a Belgian therapist who lives and works in New York City. She has given two TED talks about relationships that have received millions of views. Her book "Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence" (2006) was a best seller.

Perel claims that affairs remain poorly understood partly because too much emphasis has been placed on the devastation caused by affairs. Not enough emphasis has been placed on understanding why they happen with such monotonous regularity.

Perel emphasizes that people don't necessarily cheat simply because their marriages are unsatisfactory (i.e., the "marital deficits" theory of infidelity). People often are unfaithful because they are "in search of their lost selves". She says that "secluded from the responsibilities of everyday life, the parallel universe of the affair is often idealized, infused with the promise of transcendence." Perel sees in an affair a "crisis of identity" or perhaps an existential crisis. Why else do people often risk so much for (apparently) so little?

The article is adapted from her book "The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity", which will be published in October 2017.

8 comments posted: Monday, September 25th, 2017