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Behavioural systems (attachment, care giving, exploration, sex & power): hyperactivated, hypoactivated or just about right?

Overall - along with 50 to 60% of the population - I qualify as "securely attached".  I was fortunate in being brought up by loving parents who left me with an internalised "secure attachment script" that runs something like "If I feel a bit insecure or threatened, there will be others who I can turn to for comfort & support.  I'll then feel better & successfully be able to tackle the challenges I face."  Our attachment style spreads out to affect many aspects of our lives - especially how we feel about ourselves and how we relate to others.  I've written quite a lot in the past about attachment.  See, for example, "Attachment, compassion & relationships" and "Assessing attachment in adults".  In the latter post, I said " ...

Embodied cognition: what to do

  This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!"
                                                                                attrib. Goethe/William Murray

Embodied cognition: muscle & willpower

This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file.

Introduction: 
Lying very comfortably in my warm bed early this morning, I knew I wanted to get up but it was hard to do.  I waited a little, then tightened my right hand into a blade shape, "cutting through", and got up simply and easily.  Fascinatingly tightening almost any muscle group would probably have helped in "boosting my willpower" to get over the obstacle of inertia and short term comfort in order to achieve a longer term gain.  Hung & Labroo have recently published on the results of a series of very interesting experiments exploring this muscle tension/willpower boosting effect: 

Recent research: two studies on relationships, two on body to mind effects, and two on mindfulness

Here are details of half a dozen recent research papers - two on relationships, two on body to mind effects, and two on mindfulness.  Fuller details, links and abstracts of all the studies mentioned are given further down this post.

Valentine's day: "language style matching predicts relationship initiation and stability"

Valentine's Day!  Well here's a topical research study.  Professor Jamie Pennebaker is probably best known for his research on expressive writing - see, for example, the series of four blog posts I wrote about his lecture at last year's British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies' conference.  However, as he states on his very informative website"His most recent research focuses on the nature of language and emotion in the real world. The words people use serve as powerful reflections of their personality and social worlds".  Last month Jamie and colleagues published this interesting paper: 

New NICE guidance on the treatment of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia)

In January, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published their new evidence-based clinical guideline on the care and treatment of adults with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) or panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia).  This guideline updates and replaces their 2004 one (which was itself amended in 2007).  The full 56 page guideline is available as a PDF and in Word format.  It also comes as a 24 page "Quick reference guide" for health professionals, and as a 16 page "Treating generalised anxiety disorder and pan