Dina Elbarbary, MCoun

19/06/2025

16/06/2025

13/06/2025

This is a follow up to my previous post. It is important to be reflective & honest with ourselves. What are some positive traits or behaviors you have & what are some harmful traits? How do these traits show up in your relationships?

07/06/2025

Journaling has many benefits. Here are a few:

Helps us process thoughts and emotions

Provides ideas and solutions as it can be a form of brainstorming

Reduces stress and anxiety

Improves self-awareness since it helps us notice patterns in our thinking, emotions, and behaviors

Helps with healing and growth

Improves our mood

Helps with memory and cognitive processes

Journal prompts:

What is stopping you from living your dream life? What can you change to get closer to it?

What makes you feel powerful and what makes you feel powerless?

Name someone who inspires you. How are you similar and how are you different?

What do you like and what do you dislike about yourself and why?

How are you feeling?

What is one thing you did well today?

What are you grateful for?

What makes you happy?

Describe your favorite memory.

What negative beliefs do you hold about yourself, others or the world? Where did these beliefs come from and are they really accurate?

04/06/2025

01/06/2025

Being judged or mistreated because of a stereotype is psychologically harmful and leads to issues with self-esteem and success. A study found that stereotypes lead to lower confidence, less ambitious choices, and lower performance. This causes stereotypes to keep being reinforced, so it is a negative cycle. Have you ever experienced being stereotyped or discriminated against? How did it feel and how did it affect your behavior and thoughts?

References:

Jouini, E., Karehnke, P. and Napp, C. (2018) ‘Stereotypes, underconfidence and decision-making with an application to gender and math’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 148, pp. 34–45. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2018.02.002.

30/05/2025

This is a follow-up to my previous post. Stereotyping and in-group bias can cause conflict and violence. How can we put a stop to them? There are a few ways that can help. One way is to categorize other people as individuals not as parts of a group. Imagining some people as a homogenous group leads to stereotyping. Another way is to put ourselves in other people's shoes. Trying to see from other people's perspective can help us empathize and understand them. Try to think of exceptions you have encountered to the stereotype you have and keep those in mind. Getting to know other people from different groups also helps lessen biases and stereotypes. Learn about people from interacting with them or hearing from them, not from what others say about them. Finally, it ultimately comes down to respect, humility, and focusing on our similarities as humans.

29/05/2025

Some people tend to dehumanize other people. Dehumanizing refers to thinking of others and treating them as less than human and inferior. It often leads to the inhumane treatment of the dehumanized person. The people who dehumanize others may believe themselves to be more intelligent and superior in every way, which makes them feel like they are more human and more worthy. This allows them to emotionally detach and morally disengage, which leads to this inhumane treatment of others. Dehumanization is likely an extreme form of in-group out-group bias or “othering”. This psychological bias refers to the way humans favor members of the same groups that they are a part of. This could be the same nationality, culture, gender, political party, or even sports team. Some believe that people from other groups are all the same and that diversity only exists in their own group. All of this causes stereotyping and conflicts. Humans are also wired to categorize things into good and bad. People also like to feel good about themselves, so they mostly categorize themselves as good. This can extend to people in their group, but generally not to people in other groups. Human brains also try to identify threats quickly. This possibly leads to categorizing unfamiliar people as more threatening than familiar people. From an evolutionary perspective, this bias may have aided in protecting one's group from threatening groups as well as helping them survive by prioritizing their own group members’ wellbeing. An example could be tribes fighting over resources or shelter. People need others they trust to be able to survive, so perhaps this bias began as an adaptive mechanism.

28/05/2025

Many people start therapy with some goals in mind. However, oftentimes other goals come up. Someone may go to therapy to deal with conflict in their marriage, but past trauma comes up and needs to be addressed, so that goal is added to their initial goal. This leads to deep and difficult conversations in therapy. At first, this may seem like therapy is making things worse for the person. It brings up a lot of painful emotions and memories. Clients start to wonder if therapy is helping at all. On the other hand, some clients enjoy therapy, but also don't know if it is helping them or “working”. It is important to note that it takes a long time for therapy to start creating powerful changes in people's lives. Three or four sessions may not be enough. The first way to know if it is working is if you feel safe and understood by your therapist. Are you comfortable with them? The topics that come up may be uncomfortable, but you should feel at ease with your therapist. The second sign is if you start noticing positive changes in your thoughts and feelings. Good therapy could also increase your self-awareness. You can also notice improvement in your functioning, relationships and how you deal with challenges. You start using coping skills and are less triggered by certain things. Your mental health is getting better. Finally, you feel more in touch with your feelings and self overall. This is not an exhaustive list, but these are some major signs that therapy is working. It is important to note that therapy doesn't work for everyone. There are other ways to improve your life. It also depends on when in your life you decide to seek therapy and what you are going through at the time. It also depends on your personality and the therapist's approach.

27/05/2025

Is Maslow's hierarchy accurate? Abraham Maslow created a hierarchy of needs that outlines the different needs that humans have. He presented this using the shape of a pyramid. He claimed that each level needs to be fulfilled before moving up to the next level or having the desire to fulfill the next need. The lowest level represents physiological needs such as food. The next level is the need for safety. An example would be living in a safe area where there is no threat of physical harm. Job security is another form of safety as well. The third level is social. This is the need for human connection, love, and belonging. The fourth level is self-esteem. This is the need for status in the form of admiration and respect from others and ourselves. The final level at the top of the pyramid is self-actualization. This is all about reaching our full potential and living authentically in accordance with our values. There is also a sixth level that Maslow had theorized, but was ultimately left out of the hierarchy. That need is self-transcendence, which includes altruism in the form of helping a greater cause. It also refers to connection with humanity and the universe. “Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos” — Abraham Maslow, Farther Reaches of Human Nature, New York (1971, p. 26). Although this hierarchy of needs is largely relevant, it isn't very accurate. Current researchers have found that this theory doesn't account for cultural differences and individual differences. It is also classist as it claims that people who don't fulfill their basic needs such as safety or a home can't access needs such as social needs or self-actualization. Perhaps we can think of the needs not as a pyramid, but as a diagram of interconnected needs.

26/05/2025

Parasocial relationships are one-sided emotional attachments or bonds to people who don't know you exist such as public figures, influencers, or even fictional characters. People who experience parasocial relationships feel as if the person they are attached to is a friend or a loved one. They are aware that the public figure doesn't know them, but still feel this closeness. The person with the parasocial attachment feels joy and sadness for the public figure’s experiences. They are emotionally invested in the public figure's life. This is largely due to the accessibility to other people's lives that social media has provided. Celebrities are frequently seen and interviewed, which could give a fan the illusion that they know that celebrity. Influencers frequently share a lot about their lives, often with authenticity. This makes followers feel familiarity and closeness to the influencer. People who feel lonely start to have these Parasocial relationships, but not all people who have these parasocial relationships are lonely. Parasocial relationships can provide comfort and joy as well as be unhealthy and harmful. They can provide some company and comfort for people. On the other hand, they can replace meaningful real life connections for some, which is unhealthy and ultimately unfulfilling.They can also feed delusions that the person has about the celebrity. They can cause emotional distress to the person if said celebrity has a negative experience for example. It is okay to like a celebrity or an influencer, but it is also important for people to be aware that they don't really know that person and that the celebrity doesn't know them either. There needs to be emotional boundaries to protect the person from being overly attached and invested in that celebrity's life.