Psychology in the Emergency Room: psychotherapy reduces return visits
The "medical cost offset effect" is well known and has long been documented. In brief: when emotionally distressed medical patients receive therapy, they tend to reduce their utilization of all...
View ArticleClues to personality found in Austin plane crash pilot's diatribe
Before crashing his airplane into an IRS building in Austin Texas, 53 year old software engineer Joseph Andrew Stack posted a lengthy note online. It begins: "If you're reading this" - thereby...
View ArticleWhen Leadership Fails
About twenty years ago at Sacramento State (California State University, Sacramento: CSUS), the campus administration learned that an engineering professor had been harassing a recent graduate in a...
View ArticleThe thin line between sanity and the safety net
Driving to the post office today, I noticed that one of our neighborhood schizophrenics was out on the sidewalk, but not in her usual spot. A very slight and petite woman, her clothing is usually...
View ArticleThe campus safety threat they don't tell you about
Colleges and Universities are required by law (the Clery Act) to disclose campus security policies and crime statistics. This information may provide parents with some measure of comfort when sending...
View ArticleWhy are we so fascinated with murder?
The public is endlessly fascinated with murder. When it’s on the news, we may recoil in shock and horror, but often and in other media, homicide is a source of entertainment. We wonder why people...
View ArticleThe DSM: more like the Boy Scout Handbook than the Bible
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is being revised. Often described as the psychiatric bible, there are plans for the DSM to be released in a 5th Edition. It is a work in progress.Naturally,...
View ArticleWhen it comes to psychological health, management just doesn't get it.
When it comes to the psychological and mental health of workers, managers tend to think they are doing everything right. Employees would typically beg to differ. That is the implication of a new...
View ArticleWhen Leadership Fails: What seems to be the problem at Sacramento State?
In the past few years, Sac State has spent and wasted well over one million dollars on lawsuits that could easily have been avoided. These are text book examples of what it costs when management...
View Article"A Yale Psychologist Calls for the End of Individual Psychotherapy?" Did I...
Here's the back story: a famous, well-respected psychologist writes a hugely complex journal article and then gives an interview to TIME Healthland online. The interview is as confusing as the...
View ArticleWhat is workplace retaliation? It's about making people afraid.
What is workplace retaliation?It is not what most people think it is. Retaliation is not the same as harassment or “hostilte workplace,” and it is not about people getting revenge or “getting back" at...
View ArticleAaron Antonovsky's insight on observing Holocaust survivors.
An interview I gave to the Sacramento Bee was published this morning. I was asked about the escape of Amanda Berry with her child, and the rescue of two other women after years being caged in a house...
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McDonalds Mocked for Remarkable Stress Hormone Discovery?
New York City minimum wage workers have organized at FastFoodForward.org, thinking that McDonalds is going to give them a raise. They are just poor people complaining about poverty, so to get...
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Zero Tolerance Policies Gone Wild!
A teenager in Montgomery County Tennessee has become the new poster-boy for a continuing news drama that should perhaps be called: Zero Tolerance Policies Gone Wild!Apparently, the aspiring college...
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Rock star professor or memory magician? Perhaps you recall.
This is a slightly longer version of an article originally published at the Huffington Post ... the last four paragraphs were cut by the editor. I think this version has a better ending. The submission...
View ArticlePouring Salt on the Wound: Psychologists Identify the Effects of...
This article was originally published at the Huffington Post on 10/03/2014.Women exposed to sexual assault in the military suffer more trauma-related symptoms than female veterans sexually assaulted in...
View ArticleMeaning and Purpose in Life: Commonplace or Hard to Come By?
This article was originally published at the Huffington Post on 12/31/2014.In all cultures and at all times, humans have sought to make sense of their existence. Man's search for meaning is a quest as...
View Article4 Fs of Stress: Beyond Fight or Flight
Originally published at The Huffington PostThe "fight or flight response" is routinely invoked as a shorthand way of explaining that psychological stress involves activation of the sympathetic division...
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The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) Movie Trailer: An Allegory for the APA...
The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) Movie Trailer: An Allegory ...Originally published at The Huffington Post-Jul 30, 2015On July 10, 2015, the American Psychological Association (APA) released The...
View ArticlePsychopath or Sociopath? It Makes no Difference What you Call Them
Originally published at The Huffington Post.From the earliest days in my career as a criminal forensic psychologist, I have encountered treatises and learned discussions about the difference between...
View ArticleDo Psychopaths Genuinely Lack Empathy, Or Are They Feeling You?
Originally published at the Huffington Post.The most common observation made about psychopaths is that they feel no empathy. I have said it myself in Courtroom testimony, repeating a truism I picked up...
View ArticleThe "Too Good Be True Test" is a Worthless Aphorism
When it comes to avoiding scams, schemes and other rip-offs, there is no more universal piece of advice than: "if it's too good to be true it probably isn't." This is usually said after someone has...
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Expert opinion: Donald Trump does not have a personality disorder
One expert's opinion: Trump does not have a personality disorder ...Sacramento Bee-Aug 25, 2016BY PAUL G. MATTIUZZISpecial to The BeePaul G. MattiuzziPersonality and character are always at issue in a...
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27 psychiatrists fail to answer the baseline question: is Donald Trump a moron?
Book review (originally published at Amazon):It turns out that the 27 psychiatrists and other experts represented in this collection of essays did not produce any consensus opinion or “assessment” of...
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Stormy Daniels and the Spanking of the President: How Donald Trump Was Owned
To my mind, as a forensic psychologist, the most singular element in the Stephanie Clifford (AKA Stormy Daniels) 60 Minutes interview, was the vignette about the spanking of the future-President. What...
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