Oshawa, 2022. We all have behaviors we'd like to change or adjust. These might include quitting smoking, losing weight, or finishing assigned tasks on time by working steadily. Say, for example, you started a diet. Everything's going fine, but then you went to a get-together with friends and happily ate a slice of cake among all the delicious treats. What do you say to yourself after eating that slice? 'All that effort was for nothing.', 'I won't be able to accomplish anything.' — if you take...

Oshawa, 2022 Today, I'll be talking about two fundamental psychological concepts that many of you have often heard of, but perhaps don't know the deeper meaning behind. These concepts are widely followed both by mental health professionals and by many people who are more or less interested in psychology, and they're associated with psychological well-being, that is, mental health. However, in this piece I'm declaring where I stand, and by pitting the two concepts against each other, I want to...

Canada, 2023. I'll give you two scenarios to show you how effective the thoughts in our minds can be, and the power they hold over our emotions and behavior. Imagine you've attended a get-to-know-you meeting for a school club. You're in the meeting hall, and there are many people you don't know. The interesting part is that the others don't know each other either. There's a lot of new material you could discover in that room, and many people you could get to know. But you feel a sense of...

Whitby, 2023. Substance addiction is an illness characterized by a person's continuous or periodic desire to take a substance, either to sustain the pleasurable effect of that substance or to avoid the distressing symptoms caused by its absence, because the substance affects the structure of the brain. Knowing that substance addiction is an illness will help family members of people who use substances manage negative reactions such as blaming the substance user or feeling anger toward them....

Oshawa, 2023 What Is Addiction? Addiction is defined as an irresistible urge toward a particular person, object, or substance, combined with the persistence of that urge despite the social, legal, or relational problems it causes in a person's life. Addiction can involve substances such as alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, hallucinogens, heroin, and cocaine. This booklet focuses on tobacco addiction, and specifically on smoking, the most common way tobacco is used. When assessing a person's...