I would squirm in my chair as my new teacher worked their way through the class register, and my stomach would drop as they attempted to say my full name: Priti Ubhayakar.
In the practice of psychiatry, we like to think we have better radar than most doctors for identifying incoherent thinking in our fellow humans. Incoherence is one of the crucial signs for potential disasters in the central nervous system-delirium, psychosis, mania, intoxication, stroke, encephalitis. And yet, now in the waning years of my career, I confess that I've practiced this skill of identifying incoherent thinking with only the vaguest definition of coherence, and no measure.
Social foraging strategies illustrate the balance between competition and cooperation, where individuals either produce resources or exploit the efforts of others, navigating ecological and social constraints.
People say it takes a village to do difficult things: raise a child, sustain a community, build a barn. But we don't often talk a lot about what it takes to be a villager. What does it mean to not just be in a community, but to help create one? Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, says the key is to put yourself out there, even if it's scary.
You know that feeling when your phone buzzes with party invites, your LinkedIn connections hit four digits, and your calendar stays packed with coffee dates and networking events? Yet when life throws you a curveball at 2 am-maybe you're stranded with a dead car battery, or anxiety has you wide awake-you scroll through your contacts and realize there's no one you can actually call. If this hits close to home, you're not alone.
If there's one finding in the psychological literature that warrants your most urgent attention, I'd argue that this is it: Social relationships are our most powerful psychological currency; they are the key to our psychological health. There is no "I" in "Self." The "I" is always in "Society." Human beings are social before they are anything else. Human interaction shapes our psychological landscape more than any other factor.