Dr Joseph M Carver, PhD has answered the following questions at Ask the Psychologist: Online Clinical Psychologist.
This list is sorted chronologically, from newest back to earliest.
Q: My question concerns my husband’s practice of still putting his 10-year-old to bed. She is my step-daughter, and her dad and I are recently married. I understand based on asking him that when she is at home, she sleeps with her mother. She has a 14-year-old sister who does not have this problem. What [...]
Q: How do you help people to acquire motivation? Years ago I read your article on Emotional Memory and found it extremely helpful — the suggested techniques really work. When I’ve passed the article on to others with this sort of problem, however, I’ve found that they often lack the motivation to “try” the techniques. [...]
Q: After 20 years of marriage that produced two daughters, now aged 18 and 16, I am a recently divorced husband and father. The reasons my ex-wife divorced me are not that complex but were reasons that tested her patience. However, I didn’t want and still don’t want the divorce. Early on I became aware [...]
Q: Can you help me please? Growing up as a child from the age of 10 onwards, I was told on a regular basis that I was useless, worthless, fat, and disgusting. I was also told that I was breathing air that I didn’t deserve. No matter what I tried to do — whether it [...]
Q: I am currently in a divorce with a sociopath. Do you have any advice on how to handle a sociopath? He is making our life miserable. How can I handle this situation? A: A “sociopath” is a Personality Disorder (see my introduction to personality disorders), known in mental health terms as an “Antisocial Personality”. [...]
Q: Seven months ago my husband and I miscarried an unplanned pregnancy. It was a life-changing experience for me in that I really found out what it was I wanted to do with my life. I want to be a mom again. My husband doesn’t feel that way. I am 42, and I feel stuck. [...]
Q: Is it typical that an expert marksman/avid hunter would shoot themselves in the chest with a 20 gauge shotgun to commit suicide, much less is it physically possible? A: To determine if the situation is typical, I’ll need to assume the individual is a male. Under that assumption, men typically commit suicide using firearms [...]
