Fall semester topics

• Week 36. Benefits of volunteer work
• Week 37. Living with learning disabilities
• Week 38. Personality disorders
• Week 39. Setting up healthy boundaries
• Week 40. Learning to improve concentration
• Week 41. Suicide prevention – learning to help
• Week 42. Phobias – dealing with fears
• Week 43. Sleep disorders
• Week 44. Sexuality – the biochemistry
• Week 45. Addictive relationships
• Week 46. UNESCO day of tolerance
• Week 47. Improving self-confidence
• Week 48. Helping friends or others in distress
• Week 49. World AIDS day – living with illness
• Week 50. Value based decision making
• Week 51. Being assertive in a diverse world
• Week 52. Spirituality – spiritual growth

Spring semester topics

• Week 1. Dynamics of intro- & extraverts
• Week 2. Orientation – a career that fits!
• Week 3. Living in a foreign country
• Week 4. Overcoming test anxiety
• Week 5. Understanding dysfunction in a family
• Week 6. Smoking – giving up methods
• Week 7. Valentine’s day – commitment
• Week 8. Communication – focusing on skills
• Week 9. Domestic violence
• Week 10. Work-life balance – expectations
• Week 11. Loneliness and feeling alone
• Week 12. Understanding of joy and happiness
• Week 13. Racial discrimination
• Week 14. PTSD
• Week 15. World health day
• Week 16. Panic disorders
• Week 17. Academic honesty – authenticity
• Week 18. Death and dying
• Week 19. Job interviews – good impression
• Week 20. Characteristic of sound families
• Week 21. Celebrating cultural diversity
• Week 22. Growing up in a single parent home
• Week 23. Act of love (self and others)
• Week 24. Focusing on personality tests
• Week 25. Childhood traumas
• Week 26. Relating to the elderly
• Week 27. Grief – dealing with loss
• Week 28. Drug and substance abuse
• Week 29. Dealing with depression
• Week 30. Procrastination
• Week 31. Recovering from shame and guilt
• Week 32. Perfectionism
• Week 33. First generation university students
• Week 34. Compulsive obsessive behaviors
• Week 35. Body image – eating disorders
• Week 36. School bullying – mobbing concerns

Sound families – Healthy families

Growing up in a “healthy” or sound family in psychological term means you have received all you needed to embark on your life on your own.

The family unit is the cornerstone of healthy, vibrant communities. In addition to their impact on the community, families play a critical role in the emotional, physical, and social development of individual family members. Unlike any other social group, families are able to provide the close emotional support needed to produce self-confident and well-adjusted children and adults. Likewise, families that function in a healthy manner are well equipped to deal with the many normal changes and unexpected crises that confront them throughout their lifetime. Therefore, the family’s primary function is to create a healthy environment where family members can successfully grow and develop.

Strong, healthy families exhibit similar characteristics. Indicators of healthy families include:

– Effective problem solving
– Communication skills
– Clear Family Roles
– Affective involvement (showing interest in in the vales and activities of other family members)
– Affective Responsiveness (ability to respond emotionally to other family members in an appropriate manner)
– Behavior control

Families that do well in each of these areas have fewer problems and are able to deal more effectively with problems as they arise. On the other hand, families that have difficulty in these areas tend to have more problems that remain unresolved. Source info

Recommended books

Bruce Feiler: The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Tell Your Family History, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More, William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (2013)
Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Revised Edition, Basic Books; 3 Rev Upd edition (1996)
Jasmin Lee Cori: The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Getting the Love You Missed, The Experiment; 3rd Edition edition (2010)

Additional web resources