My interview with Lisa Damour, psychologist and bestselling author of Untangled and Under Pressure

 Q: How did you become interested in psychology? Why did you choose your particular area of study within psychology?

When I was six years old, one of our very close family friends was a psychologist, or was in training to be a psychologist. And we were all living in London at the time, she’s American, and we spent a lot of time with her. And I thought that what she did was so cool that when I was seven, I decided that I wanted to be a psychologist. And then, in terms of teenagers, I just really love teenagers and I’ve always liked working with them so that ended up being a specialty. And then in the last two years, as stress and anxiety have become so prevalent that became the focus of my work

Q: What’s the best advice you could give someone interested in studying and possibly pursuing a career in psychology?

A: When you get to college, if you know that’s what you want to do or what you might want to do, go talk to the psych department right away about that interest. Graduate school and psychology have very specific requirements and people in the psych department and in a university, will know what they are. It’s the kind of thing you’ll want to know about and be working on in college, if that’s what’s interesting to you.”

Q: What’s a book you’ve read recently that opened your mind to new concepts around psychology?

A: I really liked the book, Atomic Habits.  It’s interesting because it’s written by someone who’s not a psychologist but they did a really good job with talking about habit development. The author is James Clear and he did a really good job of suggesting very practical ways to develop new habits and behavior changes [can] be difficult. It’s very hard for people to change their behavior even when they want to and he did a very very excellent job of using what we know as “psychological triumph”… to things that are very reasonable and useful suggestions for how to change behavior.

Q: If you could offer one piece of advice to a high school student, what would it be and why?

A: My advice would be to know that you have time. That you don’t have to have it all figured out right now.  It takes a long time to get good at something.  

Q: In the last year or so, I have read many articles that say teenagers and young adults (especially young women) are reporting higher levels of anxiety and depression. How do you believe technology and social media have impacted mental health, especially with my generation?

A: One of the main effects of technology is sleep loss. When people don’t sleep enough, they’re more likely to be anxious or depressed.