Marc Dubreuil Counselling Epsom, Surrey

CLIENT DOWNLOADS

Hello, all
This page is about YOU. It contains downloadable PDF on self help I found interesting, different and useful and that I hope you will too.
From time to time I will give a link or attach a PDF, sometimes it will be about Counselling other times about Psychology. My Aim is to expand on topics currently in the news or affecting society now. I am sure you will find those papers interesting, challenging and constructive. So keep a look out...

In the hope of seeing you often, have a good read.

Regards,

Marc Dubreuil, MBACP, MBPsS Psy.


Mindfulness for Busy PeopleRelaxing TipsStress Self Help



Opinion on YouTube, the Great Radicalizer By Zeynep Tufekci for the New York Times.

Hello, to all, it has been a long time since I shared an article. I chose an opinion by Zeynep Tufekci from the New York times, this article was published in March 2018. With more and more of us relying on You Tube to entertain us and to inform us, I felt it was needed to look deeper on how You Tube system tailors its services to us.

I found that article compelling on two aspects.
As someone who has never worked with computer algorithm’s I found that article simple to understand. Adapting the computer jargon to every day life, or maybe just my generation who used to have too many VHS laying around in chaos, I am able to reorganise the algorithms concept into something more physically tangible and decide to use the box of tape as an example we sometimes desperately try to organise.

If you imagine trying to group videos into a set of boxes then you can see how you would probably be tempted to place vegetarian videos in the same box as vegan videos. Similarly far-right videos and other less extreme, but still right wing, videos would be placed in similar boxes.

What I strongly suspect is that if you want to try and organise the box, you would find that it ends up being defined by the most extreme content, because that content is the most different from the other boxes. If you start watching videos that belong to one box, the algorithm will then naturally tend to lead you towards other videos that best fit it's idea of the archetype of that box, i.e. the most extreme ones.

What is a more appalling possibility to me is that YouTube has designed its algorithms to lead users toward more extreme content, or that the AI underlying the recommendations has arrived at this strategy autonomously?

The second aspect of Zeynep Tufekci's article which I find persuasive is the choice of the author to consider YouTube in the same category as the financially most successful junk-fast food restaurant chain in the world.
So the author comes to the conclusion that it is our responsibilities to pressure YouTube to change its (algorithm's) recipe to a healthier direction.
I believe that it is only half of the issue and that like fast food, being against one brand in particular will only open the gate for other outlet to try and feed human habits and needs.
Shouldn't we leave You Tube's business to YouTube and instead encourage, expect and support more competitors of YouTube with healthier algorithms to emerge.
But where are they? Until then it seems we are all at the mercy of You Tube's coders.

Client Downloads and news articles. opinionUtube


Spook me please: what Psychology tells us about the appeal of Halloween by Mathias Clasen

As the day shortens and the nights lengthen October is the month when summer really ends and Autumn begins.
At the end of October when the nights draw in, monsters and ghouls start to appear for Halloween.
But behind all those consumerism of American culture what are the reasons for Halloween in the 21st Century?
Dr Mathis Clasen on the Psychologist wrote this short paper a few years ago on the reasons why our modern very sanitized society, spiders and snakes still relate to us and what they demonstrate of the human psyche.

I found this article thrilling and hope it will please and spook you in equal measure. Reading it gave me the idea to modernise my Halloween costume, so instead of using the millennial old fear of the scary eight legged creatures I will become the mutated transgenic monster.

Client Downloads and news articles. Halloween


Changing the game for Teenage Footballers by Dr Perry Walters

Hello, all

I has been over four weeks since the world cup ended and now the Premier league has just restarted, as you can guess today I will [present an article on football!!

Well not on Football exactly, but on teenagers and their developing mind and self using football as a concrete example to explain what is happening in our brain during those important years of development and maturity.

The article form the the Psychologist is by Dr Perry Walters from Bristol University.
The author looks at the changes happening during the teenage years between Emotional Response and Emotional Control. By using Football Coaching as an example, Dr Walters presents ideas to explain some of teenagers extreme behaviours and more importantly techniques and skills to create a scaffolding to help support, manage and stimulate the adolescent growing and maturing brain.
I hope you will enjoy reading this as much as I did.

Regards

Marc

Client Downloads and news articles. Teen Football


the Triple Whammy by Jane Wardle

Hello,
Continuing from the last article, obesity is genuinely an issue that touches everyone's life. Most of the UK population is overweight and a quarter are getting obese. This week article by Jane Wardle from the Psychologist looks at how environment, genes and behaviour correlate to cause obesity.
I choose this article because it easily connects with the BBC program "the truth about Obesity" by Chris Bavin shown on the 27th of April.
Like Jane Wardle article, Chris programmed links genetics recent research with environmental issue like the changing takeaway landscape of our high street, and societal concerns and awareness.
I think a shift is happening between the last twenty years and now, focusing from only an individual responsibility to a more societal level of treatment for obesity, like the sugar tax.
I found this article to be a very good resume of all the current factors that lead to obesity, and I am sure you will too.

Client Downloads and news articles. food month week 2


Serving up trouble? Advertising food to Children by Jason, C, G. Halford

Hello, this week has seen many TV programs on obesity, the subject is one that comes up often in the therapeutic room. For the next few weeks I will present research and papers on the subject of diet. For many clients diet is an issue in their life with multiple reasons, some emotional, biological or environmental.
The article I chose for the first week is on Advertising food and Children, it is a paper from April 2005 but still very relevant today. The article was published in the Psychologist. I find it fascinating that the relationship we have as adults with food is built on our childhood meals and how important those meals were for us, I hope you will enjoy this article. I'm sure it will provide you with food for thought.

Client Downloads and news articles. Food month week 1


The Coddling Campus by Craig A. Harper

Hello, for my first lecture I have chosen an article from the Psychologist published in December 2017. I found it relevant to my student past and the evolution I noticed in the number of lecturers being barred in case they could offend students. There is slowly a feeling of censorship spreading in Universities and I found it sad that instead of confronting challenges we prefer to run away from them. If I close my mind to a different way of thinking, it does not mean that other that way of thinking does not exist.

Client Downloads and news articles. week1


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