Author: Overcoming Adversity | Buteau’s Odyssey

Much of contemporary discussion in mental health innovation centers on treatments—mechanisms of action, clinical endpoints, and regulatory milestones. Yet effective care depends not only on interventions, but on the relational and institutional structures that enable them. One of medicine’s most established constructs addressing this dimension is the therapeutic alliance. The Clinical Foundations of Alliance The therapeutic alliance originated in psychotherapy as a framework describing the collaborative bond between clinician and patient. Decades of empirical research have demonstrated that alliance quality correlates with treatment adherence, engagement, and outcomes across psychiatric conditions. The American Medical Association formalized this concept within its Code…

For the first time ever, an official Carl Kolchak action figure’s coming in 1/12 scale, and fans of The Night Stalker have a chance to back a Kickstarter and impel Kochak and his chief adversary into breathtaking existence.Indie toy company Wandering Planet Toys is partnering with publisher Monstrous to create the  licensed action figures of Kolchak, originally played by Darin McGavin, and his notorious nemesis the vampire Janos Skorzeny, portrayed in the first Night Stalker film by Barry Atwater.Since his 1972 debut in an ABC telefilm scripted by  the legendary Richard Matheson based on real-life Las Vegas reporter Jeff Rice’s novel,…

What comes to mind when you think of the top men’s FIFA World Cup moments? It could be Diego Maradona carving through England’s defense for the Goal of the Century. Or, a legend like Pele or Lionel Messi raising the trophy up high into the sky. It could be something more controversial, like Cristiano Ronaldo’s wink after getting Wayne Rooney sent off. When the World Cup comes to North America this summer, we’ll be in store for many more moments. It remains to be seen if they’ll make the pantheon of the best. Until then, we’re counting down the most iconic, most…

Do you want to know a secret? Most of us live lives that are remarkably similar to those of superstars. As a psychologist working in Newport Beach, California, I have had the privilege of working with some highly successful people who live their lives completely in the public eye. For these “superstars,” the public is intensely curious and constantly commenting on how their lives are going. I remember working with one public figure who had put on some excess weight while on a reality show. Social media viciously berated her for it, and the scrutiny was incredibly painful to endure.…

I recall the first full-time job I ever had. I was a young graduate joining Alcan, an aluminium company that made commercial aluminium windows and doors for the architectural building industry. I recall my mentor, a very nice elderly man who had amazing technical knowledge, but I found he was reluctant to share his accumulation of lifelong knowledge with me. This highlights a problem many organizations face today: How do you capture and retain the tacit knowledge that is unwritten, unspoken, and intuitive, which individuals acquire through personal experiences, interactions, and observations (Polanyi, 1966; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995)? Unlike explicit…

After teaming up with writer Chris Condon to bring the mid-1800s to terrifying life in The Goddamn Tragedy (think “The Shining meets True Grit”), artist Shawn Kuruneru returns to the world of the Western to illustrate and write Cave Grave: Wild West Tales. Featuring “stories of double-crossing desperation—and hopeless humanity—set against a backdrop of the lawless West,” Shawn Kuruneru’s bold comic book duology will be released by Oni Press on March 3rd, and we have an exclusive excerpt to share with Daily Dead readers! Below, you can witness how the aftermath of the “heist of a lifetime” takes a scary…

Dearest Psychology Today readers, do you find yourself enchanted by romance brought to life on the screen? Do you notice your heart beating just a little bit faster with excitement? Does your whole body cringe at the awkward near misses of connection? You are not alone. Watching two people fall in love, even if it is fictional, can take hold of our physiology. This is the power of good story telling combined with the innate desire to connect that drives many of us. There is a never-ending supply of shows focusing on romance. A popular recent addition is Bridgerton, Season…

Despite a limited schedule of men’s college basketball games on Sunday, they still led to FOX Sports bracket forecaster Mike DeCourcy’s latest NCAA Tournament projections changing in the last day.Most notably, Michigan State jumped up to a No. 2 seed with the Spartans’ Sunday win against Indiana, which dropped out of the field entirely with the loss. Also in the Big Ten, Purdue fell to the best No. 4 seed after a loss to Ohio State, while the Buckeyes jumped into the field among the First Four.Here is a complete look at DeCourcy’s NCAA Tournament seed list: (Photo by Jeffrey…

I have a list of medical conditions unusually long for someone my age. Not that I’m young—in February I officially became a senior citizen—but I still think if someone glanced at this list they’d think this person who owned all these diseases was at least 20 years older. Over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday, I added my first rare condition—the one that when I mention it to a doctor, they say, I haven’t heard of that since medical school. This diagnosis is called sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. According to the International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders, “The sphincter of Oddi…

“Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer (“Ghostface”), the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe. Marlon Wayans (“Shorty”), Shawn Wayans (“Ray”), Anna Faris (“Cindy”), and Regina Hall (“Brenda”) reunite in Scary Movie alongside returning favorites and fresh faces to slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every “final chapter” that absolutely isn’t final. Nothing is sacred. No trope survives. Every line gets crossed.  The Wayans are back to cancel the Cancel Culture.” EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY Jonathan Glickman, Thom…