A Japanese professor on Wednesday launched what he said was the world`s first web-based psychotherapy sessions available via mobile phone, as the country grapples with a growing problem of depression.

A Japanese professor on Wednesday launched what he said was the world`s first web-based psychotherapy sessions available via mobile phone, as the country grapples with a growing problem of depression.

WASHINGTON, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - Women feel threatened when outnumbered by the opposite sex, such as in math, science and engineering classrooms, while men enjoy being in a roomful of women, a study published Tuesday showed.

'Walking into a situation in which you sense the possibility of being ostracized or isolated can be quite threatening,' said the study, which looked at the effect of so-called situational cues, such as being outnumbered, on women's performance in math, science and engineering courses.

WASHINGTON, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - US military families have become the unseen victims of the war in Iraq, with those left behind suffering when soldiers go off to fight and when they finally return home.

'I don't know one military family that is still together or anything like they were before the soldier in the family went to war,' 30-year-old Mylinda, whose husband was among the first US Marines to be deployed in Iraq, told AFP.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - The American Psychological Association on Sunday banned members from taking part in more than a dozen tactics such as mock executions and water-boarding during questioning of military prisoners.

APA leaders voted nearly unanimously to limit involvement by members in coercive interrogations but the resolution fell short of a complete moratorium called for by some US psychologists.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - The American Psychological Association will decide Sunday whether to condemn torture tactics and place a moratorium on members' involvement in interrogations at US military detention sites.

The decision, if taken, would move the world's largest professional organization of psychologists in line with similar resolutions by the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association and boost pressure on the US government's alleged torture of 'war on terror' detainees.

WASHINGTON, Aug 1, 2007 (AFP) - Drunk, ambitious, in love? Or maybe you're just looking for God. From the sensual to the downright scheming, respondents in a new US study owned up to scores of unusual motives for having sex.

In the study by the University of Texas at Austin, the people surveyed surprised psychologists by giving 237 separate reasons for sex -- suggesting there are far more stimulants at play than may previously have been known.

PARIS, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - The widest-yet investigation into cannabis and mental health says individuals who use marijuana increase their risk of developing a psychotic illness by more than 40 percent.

Reporting in Saturday's issue of The Lancet, the doctors call on health supremos to warn young people about the risk to their mind from a drug that many today may dismiss as harmless and recreational.

PARIS, July 26, 2007 (AFP) - Intense stress but ultimately a massive boost to self-esteem await the individual who joins an expedition to the North or South Pole, according to a psychological investigation released by The Lancet.

Intense cold, a physically tough life, and isolated existence within a small group breed a long list of mental negatives, say Lawrence Palinkas of the University of Southern California at Los Angeles and Peter Suedfeld of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.