I am proud to welcome Sara Firman, BSc. MPhil. LMT, to The Psychology of Wellbeing. She is an independent spa therapist, consultant and writer who shares a her wonderful perspective on spa culture on her Vision Spa Retreat blog. Her unique perspective comes from working in clinical, spa and private settings as both a therapist and a manager in […]
Good news for the spa industry: The science of touch is exploding. Through my own work in the spa world, I’ve always been an advocate of getting more science to support the work of healing through touch. Previously on this blog, I’ve had articles about the effects of massage on health (see “Get Thee to […]
Any good financial advisor will tell of the importance of diversifying your portfolio. Putting all of our money into one investment leaves us vulnerable to risk. To protect ourselves, we diversify, investing some of our holdings in riskier investments and some in more stable investments. This is the safest way to see our assets grow […]
This special Friday edition of The Psychology of Wellbeing features an essay by Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at the University of California Berkeley, that originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center– Dacher Keltner is its executive editor. In this article (and the accompanying video,) Keltner elaborates on […]
My colleagues in the spa industry sometimes ask me why I focus so much on the science of psychology. In fact, people often assume that if I am studying psychology I must be preparing myself to leave the world of spas. The connection between spas and psychology does not seem to be clear at first […]
I recently spoke at the New York Spa Alliance (NYSPA) annual symposium (see the SpaTrade blog here, and my blog on another session from the conference here). The theme of the symposium was “Pampering versus Wellness,” a debate which has been raging in the spa industry for the past few years. Actually, it hasn’t been […]
For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in the application of psychology to human well-being and performance. Even prior to working in the spa industry, where I have worked for the last twenty years, I was a personal trainer and fitness instructor and was interested in how the mental states of […]
