Unlikely Heroes: Resilience with a Dragon Tattoo

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Hollywood's remake of the film from the bestseller "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"is scheduled for release just before Christmas.  It comes on the heels of the 2009 Swedish film versions of the Stieg Larsson's Millenium Triology*.  While not exactly family fare, I loved Larsson's books and I'm not the only one eager to see how Director David Fincher handles the material.  The marketing build-up to the December release, concern about the explicit sexual violence, the casting intrigues, and the inevitable comparison to the Swedish versions have, however, eclipsed the true power of the book -- the psychology, particularly of Larsson's complex anti-hero, the anti-social, computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander.   The Psychology of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo furthers this discussion. The soon to be released anthology published by BenBella  and edited by fellow PT blogger Robin Rosenberg and Shannon O'Neill, is collection of essays (including mine) examining the psychology of Lisbeth … [Read more...]

Reporting Our Way to a Happier World: The Pollyanna Effect

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"Transforming the News Media into Honest and Balanced News" is the tagline of the online Swedish newspaper www.Tillit.info that exists for the purpose of disseminating positive news. (I posted a an update about this on my Facebook page and someone asked "How do you know" since the site in in Swedish. I wish I could claim to have fabulous multi-lingual skills, but there is a link about three lines down in the center that says "Translate the website into your language.") I had a lovely email from Tillit's producer Jack Johansson and their CEO and publisher Mikael Engström describing their mission. I learned from them that Tillit means "trust" or "faith" in Swedish. Tillit has been working as a non-profit for for several years and has distributed more than 370 000 copies of positive news through volunteers. They have received an enormous positive response from their readers in Scandinavia. They are now working on a business plan in order to get investors,making Tillit an … [Read more...]