72 - Why do we cry?

We’re back after an unexpected break with a classic Two Shrinks question, why do we cry?

Why is it that something painful, emotional or even joyful makes us tear up? How does it help us communicate, share with others, process how we feel? We’ll talk through why music makes us cry, what babies expect to happen when they cry, who cries in therapy and when it helps. To wrap up, we finish with the all important play behaviours of octopuses/octopi/octopodes and some research into whether little Albert actually became scared of white rabbits.

Join us next time for an episode on laughter.

If you need to take the time for a good cryve (cry while driving), let us set the mood we have a Cryving playlist up on Spotify.

Songs to Cryve to (Spotify playlist) :https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2qBqylXVS9QddK5gDR1wwF?si=75bdb78ec9c74dcc

Crying Research:

• Feeling Like Crying When Listening to Music: Exploring Musical and Contextual Features

• Young Infants Expect an Unfamiliar Adult to Comfort a Crying Baby: Evidence from a Standard Violation-of-Expectation Task and a Novel Infant-Triggered-Video Task

• Patient Crying in Psychotherapy: Who Cries and Why?

• Patients’ Crying Experiences in Psychotherapy and Relationship with Working Alliance, Therapeutic Change and Attachment Styles

• When and for Whom does Crying Improve Mood? A Daily Diary Study of 1004 Crying Episodes

TWCA:

• When Do Octopuses Play? Effects of Repeated Testing, Object Type, Age, and Food Deprivation on Object Play in Octopus Vulgaris

• Did Little Albert Actually Acquire a Conditioned Fear of Furry Animals? What the Film Evidence Tells us

Music featured in the episode:

Ave Maria - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_5bYNqpEFU
Beethoven’s 9th symphony - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdWyYn0E4Ys
Skinny love - Bon Iver
On my own - Samantha Banks
O children - Nick Cave
It’s quiet uptown from Hamilton
Someone great - LCD Soundsystem
Somewhere over the rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

Thanks to listeners for contributing their songs - the playlist above includes all of our favourites.