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All of us 'get stuck' repeatedly doing things we really wish we could stop doing. But for reasons unknown, we seem unable to stop eating too much (or little), staying with the exercise program we keep starting and quitting, making unkind remarks about others even though we want to be more sociable... How do we break free from our own recurring patterns of behavior? Why We Get StuckEven when we want to change, we're often terribly stuck in behavior patterns that don't serve us, and alienate us from those who love us. Why is that? Dr. Allan Zuckoff, a clinical psychologist and faculty member in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, describes the underlying causes -- in our own minds -- that keeps so many of us stuck in patterns we don't want. Invisible forces keep many of us from moving toward making the changes we want:• Ambivalent feelings about losing something of value when we make a change in our life.• A lack of confidence in ourself that we will succeed in making the change. • Pressure we put on our selves to change.• The "Terrible Triad" --> Anxiety, avoidance, and self-blame.• A lack of clarity concerning our own values. A Method for Effectively Getting UnstuckFortunately, there is a method to help you get past all the internal resistance. An academically sound self-help method you can deploy to get unstuck. Dr. Zuckoff adapted a therapeutic method originally developed by Dr. William R. Miller at the University of New Mexico (in the late 1980s) to help persons struggling with alcohol and other substances. This clinically tested method (its effectiveness substantiated in well over 200 academic studies throughout the world) is called Motivational Interviewing, or MI. The MI method is designed to help someone to make personal change by empowering them to choice-fully move past their own ambivalence about that change. More at: http://GrowandDevelop.com/notes/2015/getting-unstuck-a-method-zuckoff  

A hint of what's to come in Grow and Develop: The Psychology of Positive Personal Change. It's an audio magazine that explores the wonder, complexity, and richness of human experience. Grow and Develop integrates perspectives (modern and classic) from psychology, anthropology, biology, sociology, philosophy, and many other disciplines. The intent: To discover how persons change, by intent or not, throughout life, and to provide you with knowledge and methods to help you with your own personal development.