For better and for worse, society today is driven by sophisticated and powerful information technology that allows us to know details about everything virtually immediately. The latest example: the Colorado shooting rampage.
As everyone from politicians to parents of slain children search for answers in the Colorado shooting, many observers say the high-profile event is just the latest example of both the progress and problems in dealing with violent, media-driven events.
We live in a society driven by increasingly sophisticated and powerful information technology that allows us to know details about everything virtually immediately, says UCLA assistant professor and psychiatrist Dr. Reef Karim, adding, “and this has a good and a bad side.”
Cell phone video clips from the Aurora movie theater provided a nearly instantaneous realtime window into events as they unfolded. Television coverage has blanketed everything from Monday’s court appearance by shooting suspect James Holmes to the personal stories of the victims and sur… Read More

Adrian Miller, founder of sales consultancy Adrian Miller Sales Training in Port Washington, NY, says she’s always been a networkerbutnot always for her own good. In 2008 when the economy took a turn for the worse, Miller became nervous about the future of her business and went into extreme networking mode. “I started going to events morning, noon and night for five days a week hoping I would meet new clients,” she recalls. “I did it for months and was getting overwhelmed and just exhausted.”
On a vacation to Istanbul, Miller started thinking seriously about all the time she had committed to networking. She calculated how much revenue she’d gotten out of months of running around exchanging business cards and realized it was next to nothing. “When I saw I wasn’t getting a return on my time, I knew I had to get the compulsive behavior in check,” she says. “I had turned what was a pleasant activity into a nightmare.”
While career coaches and success gurus expound on the virtues of networking-es… Read More

If you Google “wealthy people psychology” you’ll find a lot of articles declaring that the “wealthy lack empathy,” the “wealthy are different,” and “rich people are mean.” In fact, a well-researched article in New York magazine this week dove deep into the relationship between economic status and negative psychological characteristics such as a dearth of empathy, insensitivity to and unregard for other people, the tendency to cheat and even to be a jerk while driving.
If you Google “wealthy people psychology” you’ll find a lot of articles declaring that the “wealthy lack empathy,” the “wealthy are different,” and “rich people are mean.” In fact, a well-researched article in New York magazine this week dove deep into the relationship between economic status and negative psychological characteristics such as a dearth of empathy, insensitivity to and unregard for other people, the tendency to cheat and even to be a jerk while driving.
The evidence is fairly convincing that people of higher socioeconomic status ca… Read More

In 2002, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman announced they were divorcing after 10 years of marriage.
On Friday, Katie Holmes announced she was seeking a divorce from Cruise after five.
What’s with the multiples of five, many wondered, as the “marriage contract” rumors that have plagued Cruise for many years heated back up.
In the all-important Twitterverse, “Katie Holmes Tom Cruise Divorce” instantly became a trending topic, with fans weighing in with such tongue-in-cheek tweets as “her contract must have only been five years,” “the contract didn’t get renewed” and “I wish them the best upon completion of their successful completion of their five-year contract.”
Prior to their November 2006 nuptials, reports ran rampant that the then-rising actress would receive $3 million a year for each year she was married to the mega movie star. However, no outlet has seen any contract, and its existence has previously been shot down vehemently by the Cruise camp.
“I’ve heard from different sources that there was a contract, but I never g… Read More

Dating while coping with a mental illness can be difficult though it can be rewarding at times. But even dating without a serious mental illness diagnosis can also impact your mental health.
Reef Karim, a board-certified psychiatrist and author of “Why Does He Do That? Why Does She Do That?” said in an email that dating and mental health are deeply intertwined.
“When you date and you have feelings for another person and have to deal with each person’s needs and resolving conflict, you are forced to deal with your own ‘stuff’ – how you handle stress, how you deal with anger, how you deal with love, etc.,” Karim said.
“How we handle emotions is a very big piece of mental health and it’s often front and center when we are in dating or in a relationship.”
Dating can actually be part of a self-discovery process, and encourages people to look at themselves in a deeper way. People have to start asking questions about how they function and what their weaknesses or faults are, since that could affect relationships with other people.
“Your chances of… Read More

An arm around your shoulders, a warm hug, a hand intertwined in yours, and a kiss on the lips. These are all types of affectionate touching that can feel wonderful, especially with a significant other.
Luckily, you have an even better excuse to be affectionate not just while you’re alone together, but in public. June 20 is National PDA Day.
Kory Floyd, a professor and associate director at Arizona State University’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, conducted research for the skin care company Nivea.
He specializes in the communication of affection, and he has been working with the company on research as part of their “Million Moments of Touch” campaign.
This campaign’s goal is to “get people to touch more,” Floyd said. National PDA Day was created as part of the campaign. He suggested it fall on June 20, since that is the first day of summer.
According to a press release from Nivea that includes Floyd’s research, summertime is when people are more affectionate with one another anyway. This could be due to more skin showing when it’s hott… Read More

If you haven’t read the novel yet, you might be 50 shades of curious about why Fifty Shades of Grey is the most-talked-about tale in print currently.
A quick search will reveal that the romance between the main characters, Mr. Grey and Miss Steele, revolves around bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism (BDSM). In fact, Christian Grey appears to really only get satisfaction from sex when it involves inflicting pain or dominance over his partner, which, following criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV-TR) used by mental health professionals to make diagnoses, could be considered a mental disorder called sexual sadism.
The DSM IV-TR states that “sexual sadism involves acts (real, not simulated) in which the individual derives sexual excitement from the psychological or physical suffering (including humiliation) of the victim.” In order to officially be diagnosed with sexual sadism, individuals must meet the following criteria:
1) “Over a period of at least 6 months, recurre… Read More

The brain really is the most mysterious place in the universe.
All kinds of mental disorders are covered on Discovery Fit & Health’s “Broken Minds,” a new series that shines a big light on obscure disorders.
The series, which begins tonight, Wednesday, with two episodes, covers a wide array of illness: Imagine you have an obsession to cut off a perfectly good left leg. Or that you are someone else after awaking from sleep? “Broken Minds” is hosted by Dr. Reef Karim, of The Control Center
(http://www.thecontrolcenter.org/) in Beverly Hills.
Dr. Reef Karim is a board certified psychiatrist, board certified addiction medicine specialist, and a certified relationship therapist. He is a senior attending physician and an Assistant Clinical Professor at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience as well a published research scientist in the field of behavioral & chemical addictions with articles in the International Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Addiction Medicine, and other prestigious journals.
Dr. Reef Karim re… Read More

One of People’s sexiest bachelors, Dr. Reef Karim (Dr. Reef), is known to the media as “the love doctor” and “the Sex, drugs and relationships” doctor.
Dr. Reef can act, dance in a Bollywood film and even wrangle a hot comedy club stage, and he’s also a top medical physician, psychiatrist, addiction specialist and relationship therapist to boot.
Wickedly funny, street smart and gender/sex savvy, Dr. Reef’s latest co-authored book “Why Does He Do That? Why Does She Do That?: ‘Two Relationship Experts Reveal the Naked Truth About Dating in the 21st Century” will be featured during the coming Book Expo America in New York City. Amazon
Make sure to meet Dr. Reef Karim at the Book Expo book signing on Wednesday, June 6th and is scheduled for 9:30am to 11:30am on June 6th, 2012 at the Boom Expo Sellers’ Book Booth inside the Javits Center, located at 655 West 34th Street, New York, N.Y.
He will also be the host of a new Discovery Fit & Health series featured during Psych Week (June 3-8). The fascinat… Read More