E8. Hallows, Haunts, & Scary Places: The Psychology of Halloween (p. 2)
TherapyBites
10/27/22
•34m
About
Comments
Featured In
FRESH from the Therapy Couch: Hallows, Haunts, & Scary Places: The Psychology of Halloween (p.2)
Psychotherapy Adventurers: Gamer Girl Heather, Super Bookwork Sarah, & Squirrel Girl Debbie
Go to https://TherapyBites.myshopify.com & grab some A.R.T. LAB MERCH, specially designed to help keep this episode’s message “top of mind” in your life! Don’t forget friends & family members who could use a mental boost too.
Show Summary: In this episode . . .
TherapyBites Podcast is the home of the A.R.T. LAB which investigates, explores, & educates all about the neuroscience of Accurate, Realistic Thoughts & Life Affirming Beliefs.
Today we tackle how the human brain “Geo-Tags” places as safe or unsafe.
Have you experienced FEAR in response to a PLACE? Perhaps you’ve been to a real-life HAUNTED house, HAUNTED forest, HAUNTED street, highway, byway?
But, is it really the SPACE “out there” that’s HAUNTED or the SPACE between our ears? The dark recesses of the mind.
On today’s episode we discuss the neuropsychology of place-based fear and TERROR. Join our curious band of psychotherapy adventurers on a journey into the darkness of Hallows, Haunts, & Scary Places as we autopsy what’s really going on in the depths of the human brain at Halloween.
Think of the brain as having many rooms, each with velcro walls. Experiences are then stored in different ways in those rooms based upon how we decide to label them. Labeling them as a risk or danger to us causes the brain to be more on the lookout for a repeat of those dangerous experiences. If it LOOKS, SOUNDS, SMELLS similar to a former dangerous experience, then it must also - though different - be just as dangerous as the remembered former experience.
The best strategy is COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING; deciding, based on EVIDENCE, what spaces & places are ACTUALLY threats to life & limb Each of us get to decide what to velcro on the interior walls of our brains. Velcro with care this Halloween!!!
Visit the TBAL Team at: https://therapybites.ac-page.com/team
CLICK BELOW FOR DAILY LIFE-AFFIRMING, PSYCHOLOGICALLY NUTRITIOUS INFO:
(We love YOUR questions & comments on our social pages)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Y8hab2i3m3YTqO9I7Rcjg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doc.heath/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@therapy_bites
Twitter: https://twitter.com/therapy_bites
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/therapy-bites
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Therapy_Bites/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TherapyBitesPodcast/
For the full show notes, visit https://therapybites.podbean.com/e/haunts
USEFUL REFERENCES:
Camina E, Güell F. The Neuroanatomical, Neurophysiological and Psychological Basis of Memory: Current Models and Their Origins. Front Pharmacol. 2017 Jun 30;8:438. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2017.00438. PMID: 28713278; PMCID: PMC5491610.
Dagnall N, Drinkwater KG, O'Keeffe C, Ventola A, Laythe B, Jawer MA, Massullo B, Caputo GB, Houran J. Things That Go Bump in the Literature: An Environmental Appraisal of "Haunted Houses". Front Psychol. 2020 Jun 12;11:1328. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01328. PMID: 32595577; PMCID: PMC7304295.
Eichenbaum H, Yonelinas AP, Ranganath C. The medial temporal lobe and recognition memory. Annu Rev Neurosci. 2007;30:123-52. doi: 10.1146/annurev.neuro.30.051606.094328. PMID: 17417939; PMCID: PMC2064941.
FOR OUR READERS . . . GOBBLE UP THE WHOLE THING!!! (Transcript): https://docs.google.com/document/d/17HQiqSdFkix7SDEgrKdRpw7mK-HGXzz-b4erMNWUOpA/edit?usp=sharing
Previous Episode
E7. Ghosts, Ghouls, & Scary Faces: The Psychology of Halloween (p. 1)
October 21, 2022
•36m
FRESH from the Therapy Couch: The Psychology of Halloween (p.1): Ghouls, Ghosts, & Scary Faces
Psychotherapy Adventurers: Gamer Girl Heather, Super Bookwork Sarah, & Squirrel Girl Debbie
Go to https://TherapyBites.myshopify.com & grab some A.R.T. LAB MERCH, specially designed to help keep this episode’s message “top of mind” in your life! Don’t forget friends & family members who could use a mental boost too.
Show Summary: In this episode . . .
TherapyBites Podcast is the home of the A.R.T. LAB which investigates, explores, & educates all about the neuroscience of Accurate, Realistic Thoughts & Life Affirming Beliefs.
Today we delve into the dark psychology of spooky season; the Psychology of Halloween.
Human brains are tasty treats for Zombies but they are also fertile fields for faces. There is even a specialized file Cabinent to catalog faces: The fusiform gyrus AKA fusiform facial gyrus (FFA). The problem with this area is it tends fall prey to false positives (e.g., “I KNOW THAT FACE” when you really don’t) rather than a false negative (e.g., “I DON’T KNOW YOU” when you really do). This leads us to often make premature judgments about faces, in terms of identify recognition, but also with interpreting facial configurations.
Halloween is a GREAT time to experiment with the strange facial recognition phenomena because of all the scary faces we can try out from our local Halloween Store. There are faces of princes & princesses but also faces of ghouls and trolls and things that suck your blood and eat your brain. Acquainting ourselves with some scary faces in a way that we KNOW we are safe can help us be more RESILIENT with real life scary faces. This can help us learn a boss is not going to eat our brain because their face is scrunched up like a paper wad. It can help us DE-catastrophize a spouse’s face when the spouse is not getting their way. We can learn that the driver next to us behaving poorly and ranting & raving is best let go their way without engaging. You can train your brain that scary faces don’t mean someone is toxic, controlling, manipulating, or gas-lighting. Only YOU have the power to control your own thoughts and reactions.
Spooky season is in full swing at the A.R.T. LAB with a host of hot air-filled zombies (two actually), a “Which Way Witch”, Frankenstein, Jr., spiders webs galore, & a host of ghosts. You can practice exposing yourself to scary faces too. Go ahead and attend a local Halloween Festival, church hayride, or trick-or-treating a safe street. Just stay away from Elm Street!!!
Visit the TBAL Team at: https://therapybites.ac-page.com/team
CLICK BELOW FOR DAILY LIFE-AFFIRMING, PSYCHOLOGICALLY NUTRITIOUS INFO:
(We love YOUR questions & comments on our social pages)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Y8hab2i3m3YTqO9I7Rcjg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doc.heath/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@therapy_bites
Twitter: https://twitter.com/therapy_bites
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/therapy-bites
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Therapy_Bites/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TherapyBitesPodcast/
USEFUL LINKS ON TODAY’S TOPIC:
Where does fear originate in the brain? A coordinate-based meta-analysis of explicit and implicit fear processing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117686
Unraveling the distributed neural code of facial identity through spatiotemporal pattern analysis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3116398/
Early (N170/M170) Face-Sensitivity Despite Right Lateral Occipital Brain Damage in Acquired Prosopagnosia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257870/
For the full show notes, visit https://therapybites.podbean.com/e/ghosts
FOR OUR READERS . . . GOBBLE UP THE WHOLE THING!!! (Transcript): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ogreCGIJOxq3goFFxxu6Fx42jHbMb0HzQZ3utMCcf2c/edit?usp=sharing
Next Episode
E9. The MAGIC of MAKING MATTERS WORSE: The Psychology of Catastrophizing!
November 3, 2022
•43m
THE MAGIC of MAKING MATTERS WORSE: The Psychology of Catastrophizing!
Audience: Anyone struggling with Anger, Anxiety, Panic, & those who love them.
Psychotherapy Adventurers: Gamer Girl Heather, Super Bookworm Sarah, Squirrel Girl Debbie, & Doc Heath
Go to https://TherapyBites.myshopify.com & grab some A.R.T. LAB MERCH, specially designed to help keep this episode’s message “top of mind” in your life! Don’t forget friends & family members who could use a mental boost too.
Show Summary: In this episode . . .
TherapyBites Podcast is the home of the A.R.T. LAB which investigates, explores, & educates all about the neuroscience of Accurate, Realistic Thoughts & Life Affirming Beliefs by challenging worn out, unsubstantiated, ivory tower psychological theories as well as kool-aid drinking, pseudo-psychological social media clap-trap.
Today we venture into the deeper, darker recesses BENEATH the therapy couch to explore a concept often misunderstood by patients and clinicians alike.
Are you trying to rid your life of ANGER? Is your clinician fooling you and THEMSELVES; thinking life may be lived WITHOUT anxiety? Are you one of the many who THINK that stress and panic are DEADLY? This episode is calling your name.
The brain is an assembly line for REALITY. It is INSIDE the confines of the vault of your skull that YOU get to DECIDE the progression of OUTER reality AND the emotions MANUFACTURED in response to those thoughts.
On today’s episode we put some real-life shoe leather on the neuropsychology of an often-practiced COGNITIVE DISTORTION known by clinics experienced in “cognitive psychology” as CATASTROPHIZING. Join our curious band of psychotherapy adventurers on a journey into the valleys, nooks, & crannies of catastrophic thinking and learn how it can SHRINKIFY your life, while EMBIGGENING your anger, anxiety, & panic and needlessly siphon attention, energy, and relationships.
Visit the TBAL Team at: https://therapybites.ac-page.com/team
CLICK BELOW FOR DAILY LIFE-AFFIRMING, PSYCHOLOGICALLY NUTRITIOUS INFO:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Y8hab2i3m3YTqO9I7Rcjg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doc.heath/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@therapy_bites
Twitter: https://twitter.com/therapy_bites
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/therapy-bites
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Therapy_Bites/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TherapyBitesPodcast/
(We love YOUR questions & comments on our social pages)
For the full show notes, visit https://therapybites.podbean.com/e/magic
USEFUL REFERENCES:
Askari, I. The Role of the Belief System for Anger Management of Couples with Anger and Aggression: A Cognitive-Behavioral Perspective. J Rat-Emo Cognitive-Behav Ther 37, 223–240 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10942-018-0307-5
Neufang, S., Geiger, M.J., Homola, G.A. et al. Cognitive-behavioral therapy effects on alerting network activity and effective connectivity in panic disorder. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 269, 587–598 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-018-0945-8
Yang, Y., Kircher, T., & Straube, B. (2014). The neural correlates of cognitive behavioral therapy: Recent progress in the investigation of patients with panic disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 62, 88-96.
FOR OUR READERS . . . GOBBLE UP THE WHOLE THING!!! (Transcript): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a1ZEnX9EtFDr7LvtKuou7K7Cv9SPXC_yB3Ky4R3G3eY/edit?usp=sharing
If you like this episode you’ll love
Promoted