Two businessmen are bankrupted: how come one of them continues to bubble with new ideas while the other just throws in the towel? Why does a misplaced remark gnaw away at someone for days when others can simply shrug it off?

Stress, burnout and depression are the afflictions of our time.

The yo-yo effect is something many have painfully experienced at first hand after a diet, but are you also familiar with the big-fish-little-pond effect, the Mona Lisa syndrome and the TINA syndrome? There are countless psychological principles and phenomena we know little about, and yet on a ...

Compassion is the inner barrier to the inhumane. In Liverpool, two eleven-year-old boys abducted a two-year-old and murder him. This crime could have been avoided if passers-by who heard the child scream had intervened. Arno Gruen asserts that these passers-by placed themselves on the side of the ...

Preface by Gaetano Benedetti

The concept of autonomy, which does not mean power and superiority but full conformity of a human being to his feelings and needs, is an important factor of modern psychology. If this autonomy is lacking - more often the rule than the exception - ...

Much reflection by many disparate thinkers has been devoted to the complex issue of evil in the world, and psychologists have devised different theories to explain the destructiveness of man. But rarely has anyone dissected the causes with such rigorousness as Arno Gruen. He demonstrates how ...

Many of our decisions have no major influence on our lives, while others are a matter of do or die. And some of them are so insane in retrospect that we can hardly believe we took them. A single good or bad decision can change the course of our lives forever. But what influences our decisions?

How to harness the power of inspirational leadership

Our actions are generally geared towards experiencing as many positive and as few negative emotions as possible. That goes for our work as well as our private lives. But what actually generates emotions? How do they come into being?

Contentment is a pretty reliable emotion. It may be less thrilling than the euphoria of happiness, but it has the advantage of being a great deal more stable and enduring. Rooted in in a basically positive mindset - a fundamentally life-affirming attitude - contentment is governed more by the mind ...

We tend to assume that charismatic people are blessed with a natural gift. But Steve Jobs, Madonna and Angela Merkel all started small. Much of what we do on a daily basis - the clothes we wear, the words we choose, our postures, facial expressions and gestures - is a form of self-presentation.

Omnipotence or impotence-and the space between…

There are nearly 2.5 billion people online by now. The virtual world has become a living, breathing environment with far-reaching effects on our attitudes, values and personalities. The Internet is in fact changing the very structure ...

Our memory of the past is often rose-tinted, but this joyful look back is entirely justified: Nostalgia gives our life a sense of meaning and security, as well as making us happy.

Daniel Rettig examines the power of nostalgia under four main headings-history, ...

Merle Leonhardt is 26 and has just graduated in psychology when suddenly and for no apparent reason she loses all pleasure in life. The massive decline in mood is compounded by physical weakness, extreme fatigue, utter despair and panic attacks culminating in suicidal thoughts. Therapy as an ...