tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69401900081229619172024-03-13T12:49:13.713-04:00Wood's Rulesgeneral commentary on psychology and psychotherapy, and other stuff too from time to timeVirginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.comBlogger178125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-76669558103515730272017-12-07T12:09:00.002-05:002017-12-07T12:09:29.583-05:00Scientific Literacy <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
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I teach Introductory Psychology as a general education course on a campus populated mainly by engineers--which is to say that few, if any, of my students in a given section are psychology majors. It is therefore my goal to teach, above all else, the practical uses of psychology in everyday life. I want them to learn how their minds work, how others' minds work--how to make better decisions, how to understand attempts to influence them by advertisers and politicians. </div>
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To that end, after the Las Vegas shooting we had a big discussion on guns in America, using data from the American Psychological Association's report on gun violence. (It's available on their website, <a href="http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2014/01/gun-violence.aspx" target="_blank">here</a>, free for anyone to read.)</div>
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I originally made the decision not to carry my gun on campus based, in the end, on this one simple consideration (see previous post): To walk into the classroom with a gun on my person is a statement that I am willing to shoot a student under whatever circumstances I believe, in the heat of the moment, justify it. Which I most definitively am not. It also seemed weird to me to carry a gun to defend myself against my own students: What kind of a world. . . ? etc. And I've never thought arms races were a good idea. </div>
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<br />However, as I read studies and considered the material in the text while preparing my lectures, I found support for this stance from entirely other than a philosophical point of view. To wit:</div>
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<br />1. We make certain cognitive errors in locating the dangers in our world. For example, we are more likely to perceive a person of another race as a threat or to interpret their actions (especially if ambiguous) as a threat than we are a member of our own race--even if the latter is in fact more dangerous. This speaks directly to the point often insisted upon that the only answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun: We don’t have a clue who the bad guys are and aren’t, nor do we always act “good” ourselves. There are several separate but related research streams that have all come to the same conclusions: The data that Harvard University researchers have collected, for one, showing how common implicit bias is and how it drives behaviors like shooting unarmed people; a study showing that white people can't accurately gauge Black people's potential for violence, for another; and shoot/don’t shoot research.</div>
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<br />2. The media and advocacy groups like the NRA perpetuate the myth that it is The Other who is dangerous to us when in fact (especially in the case of women) it is most likely that if you are going to be assaulted, raped, or murdered, it’s going to be by a member of your own family or someone trusted like your boyfriend. This is easy to do as the media tends not to report routine everyday domestic violence, suicide, or accidental shootings: They do, however, report Stranger Danger type crimes and due to the representativeness heuristic we, the public, believe these are, well, representative. This speaks directly to the argument advanced when Campus Carry was in the legislature that students need to be able to protect themselves at school just as they are legally able to elsewhere. No, it seems, they do not. Here or elsewhere.</div>
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<br />3. The NRA (and gun manufacturers) perpetuate the myth that a gun is a good tool for self-protection, protection of your family, or to safeguard your property. One of the ways that they do this is by reporting individual cases where someone did use a gun in self defense: We seem to be hard-wired to use heuristics that leave us thinking these incidents are representative even though they are tiny in number compared to gun violence statistics overall. In fact, owning a gun actually <i>increases </i>the odds of someone in the household being shot and killed whether by suicide, accident, or domestic violence. <br /><br />So I decided that, like anyone else within one and a half standard deviations of the means, (1) I don’t need my gun at all, never mind on campus; (2) It is actually a <i>risk </i>to me or to anyone who might be visiting my household--or classroom, God forbid--especially to children and teens; (3) If trained police officers can’t exercise judgment untainted by unconscious racism in a shoot/don’t shoot scenario, I can hardly expect that I, a civilian, would. </div>
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Bottom line, I am less likely to use a gun against a Caucasian to save my own life, and more likely to use it against an African American or Hispanic or whatever when that person is innocent of any evil intent toward me. Statistically speaking, really, I’m more likely to accidentally shoot myself or someone else in the household or use it to kill myself than I am to use it in self defense.</div>
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And so I decided, based on science, that there is no mythical "Good guy with a gun." There are only idiots with guns. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8niop-0-0"><span data-text="true">"We discuss sensitive and highly charged topics in my classroom," <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/08/professor-makes-public-resignation-tenured-job-kansas-over-campus-carry?utm_content=buffer434c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=IHEbuffer" target="_blank">wrote a professor who's just resigned his tenured position</a>, "concerning anti-religious bias, racism, sexism, classism and many other indexes of oppression and discrimination. Students need to be able to express themselves respectfully and freely, and they cannot do so about heated topics if they know that fellow students are armed. . . ."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="1tc2i-0-0"><span data-text="true">Something I'm seriously pondering as I half-heartedly look for another job this summer. Because I do teach social justice--in fact, have joined a social justice learning community at KSU in order to hone my skills--and this is a consideration for me, too. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3p4pk-0-0"><span data-text="true">Is it going to be safe this fall for me to challenge students to think, to question their assumptions, to analyze their prejudices? Will it be safe for me to confront cheaters? To fail people who cannot or do not do the work? Is it going to be safe for students if I encourage them to challenge each other in classroom discussions and exercises as I have done in the past? Can they still speak up about their own experiences as racial and sexual minorities? And don't tell me that it's always been a small risk: I know that. I also know that if the single best statistical predictor of death by gun is presence of a gun, then campus carry laws can only elevate the risk. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5vnge-0-0"><span data-text="true">Should I spend $5-800 on a bullet-proof vest, if only to guard against accidental discharge? (That's a month's salary--or more--for one class.) I'm only half joking here: These are kids we are talking about, after all, people of an age at which rates of accidental injury and death are higher than for any other group. And this is Georgia we're talking about, where no training at all is required for permitting. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="56r5n-0-0"><span data-text="true">You can't take a loaded gun into a range or a gun store or show on your hip or in your purse or any way other than in its case. You have to show that it's unloaded, and at shows they even tag it to show it's been inspected and put a plastic thing through the trigger guard to prevent it firing. Why should I not take the same precautions in my classroom? Because unfortunately, under the law, I will not be allowed, that's why. And would I want to start every class by checking guns at the door, even if I could? No. It's ludicrous. I am not Wyatt Earp. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="lqoq-0-0"><span data-text="true">Should I carry a gun of my own? Could I, would I, shoot a student, even in self defense? (Probably not: It is a central tenet of Buddhism, according to my admittedly limited understanding, that my life is not inherently more valuable, for any reason, than that of any other sentient being. And as the effects of my late husband's NRA-induced paranoia wear off with the passage of time, I am progressively more and more inclined to just "peace out".) Would I, could I, shoot a student to protect a whole classroom full of innocent kids? Possibly. Probably, even. Do I want to place myself in such an ethical quandary? That would not seem wise. "If you don't want a slip, stay off the ice," advise AA old-timers. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="87od-0-0"><span data-text="true">And how would my kids feel about a professor with a gun on her hip? What would it be like for them to know that I, by even bringing one onto campus, have thus publicly stated my willingness to kill one of them or one of my colleagues under whatever I judge, in the heat of the moment, to be the "right" circumstances? What the hell kind of message is that sending? Especially to Black students, given what I teach about implicit biases! Would any of them, Black or white, feel free to challenge me? To question me? To argue with me? No. I can't imagine that they would: It's already enough of a challenge, given the power differential between professors and students, under normal circumstances. As it is, most of the challenges directed at me only come from white males. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="bp3tn-0-0"><span data-text="true">No, the idea of going into the classroom or even into office hours armed is ludicrous, appalling even. And ultimately unacceptable. Carrying one in the van for personal protection on campus is only slightly less objectionable. It's like Mutually Assured Destruction. I can ramp up my defenses, thereby increasing the danger to us all, or I can start the disarmament process. It's got to start somewhere; might as well be with me. </span></span></span></div>
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-4005793445322956282014-08-25T18:24:00.000-04:002014-08-25T18:24:27.885-04:00158 Days<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Things have been a little hectic in the Wood household lately, and I've gotten behind with posting -- again. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I'm back, but only because I stumbled across something someone else wrote that is so brilliant that I couldn't not share it. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">A Facebook friend of mine has just been through a hideous, traumatic breakup. A couple of days into it, she wrote this:</variable><br />
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<i><b>158 Days with the Love of Your Life</b> </i></div>
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<i>I found myself wondering
this morning how we could ever expect the people around us to keep their
promises to us when we don’t keep the ones we make to ourselves. I
wondered if we let people ruin us with lies about love because we’ve
never really taken the time to fall in love with ourselves.</i><br />
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<i>I think maybe we do. <br /><br /> I was in a serious relationship for
five months with a man who I believed (and my family and friends
believed) was the love of my life. I was becoming friends with his
ex-wife, spending time with his utterly adorable boys, and between the
two of us, we were at each other’s places at least four days a week.</i><br />
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<i>I have a long history of entangling myself with sociopaths; a
step-father who led a double life with a second family, a live-in
boyfriend who hid another girlfriend from me for a year and tried to
strangle me when I finally confronted him with her in tow, another who
conveniently never told me he went back to his wife… But it’s been 12
years since I’ve been tripped up by a pathological liar. I thought maybe
I had managed to learn to read the signs.</i><br />
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<i>Then I got a Facebook message from the love-of-my-life’s girlfriend
on Thursday night, the one he had been seeing the entire time we were in
a committed relationship. I honest to God had no clue. He was swapping
out her things and mine depending on who was spending the night at his
place. He was texting us essentially the same “I love you baby” texts.
(I know because I’ve seen the screenshots as well as the sexting videos)
He told me his mother was relentless and called him worried every night
if she hadn’t heard from him. Of course, now I know he wasn’t talking
to his mother. What a brilliant way to be able to tell another woman you
love her while your girlfriend sits there smiling fondly at you… (Oh,
and he and his ex-wife didn’t have an open marriage like he explained –
at least not her side of it. So all those other girlfriends I heard
about were just years of him doing what he does, what he was doing to
me.)</i><br />
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<i>Anyway, this isn’t about revenge. I wrote this all down for me to
heal, not for me to hate. I’m just explaining what happened because it
was quite possibly one of the most destructive things that could have
happened to me emotionally. (To anyone perhaps, but my scars here run
very very deep and they were gashed open again and now deeper.) The
worst of it is the voice in my head that keeps screaming, “WHAT IS WRONG
WITH YOU? Why do these people find you? Why do you let this happen? How
can you be SO FUCKING BLIND. You know why everyone always betrays and
abandons you? YOU ARE TOO BROKEN TO EVER BE WORTHY OF LOVE.</i><br />
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<i>BUT I’M NOT. I’M NOT. FUCK YOU. I’M NOT.</i><br />
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<i>And I’m not the only woman (or man) to be here in this dark place. I
know we all get better. Time heals. Yadda yadda. But that’s not enough
this go round. I want to meet that voice head on. I want it to shut the
fuck up.</i><br />
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<i>So I’m taking back every day I gave him. Over the next 158 days, I’m
going to date myself and do everything for myself that I did for him…
and little bit more. And yes, because I know there’s a joke in there, I
do mean sex as well. Girls, feel free to PM me with your sex
toy/technique advice. And to anyone who thinks that’s crass or is
pondering juvenile jokes, so be it. Love is a full package deal that
includes physical touch… even if the only one doing the touching is
yourself.</i><br />
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<i>So I’m going to see if I can fall in love with myself. I’m going to see if I can be my own best friend.</i><br />
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<i>I’m not the only one. We are all so many of us broken-hearted. So I
challenge you too, my comrades of the torn and bloodied heart— for the
next 158 days, let’s love ourselves. Maybe my list will help you make
your own.</i><br />
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<i>THE ROMANCING STARTS NOW…</i><br />
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<ol>
<li>Make promises to yourself that you mean. Then keep them.</li>
<li>Run. Run until there’s no more hurt. Run until you’re healthy. Run so that you can be completely there for yourself.</li>
<li>Praise yourself for your successes.</li>
<li>Hold yourself when things are bad. Promise yourself you will do everything in your power to make it better.</li>
<li>Remind yourself repeatedly that you are a good person, but no one is perfect. And that you love the imperfect parts too.</li>
<li>Be thoughtful. Put gas in the car before you almost run out. Make
coffee the night before a busy morning. Do kind things that make life
easier.</li>
<li>Send cards. Leave yourself adoring and funny notes.</li>
<li>Make yourself laugh.</li>
<li>Take yourself out with friends so they can see what an amazing person you’re dating.</li>
<li>Binge watch new television and commentate out loud.</li>
<li>Cook yourself something delicious and sinful for date night every week.</li>
<li>Read stories and poetry to yourself out loud.</li>
<li>Sing to yourself. Loudly.</li>
<li>When you wake say “good morning.” Ask yourself how you’re feeling. Listen. Say, “I love you.”</li>
<li>Say “I love you” every night before you drift off to sleep.</li>
<li>Smile at yourself with love every time you meet your own eyes in the mirror.</li>
<li>Take snapshots, save mementos of good times with yourself.</li>
<li>Do things that make you feel beautiful, because beauty is an
attitude and attitude is damn sexy, even when it’s your own reflection.</li>
<li>Paint your nails, do your hair, put on makeup, wear sexy underwear
(hell — corsets, garters, stockings, do it all up) and enjoy the
results.</li>
<li>When things get rocky, have a talk with yourself. Forgive yourself. Give yourself another chance to be the partner you deserve.</li>
<li>On day 158 write yourself a long love letter. – the one you wrote
him the morning before you found out about the betrayal,—the one where
you will be there through the rough patches, the one that lists all the
things you love about yourself including the quirks and faults. Write
this letter and know that you can be certain that every word you write
about you is true. That the five months of romance were real.</li>
</ol>
<strong>Then recommit. </strong>And then maybe I can let someone else into the relationship too.<br />
Sadly, I suspect that loving myself is going to be one of the hardest
things I’ve ever tried to do. But the list starts with a promise and I
promise that I am going to commit myself to this relationship. I’m going
to start by sending myself postcards. Here I need your help, friends…
If you are willing to help me, please drop me a line. I’ll give you
something to write on a postcard and ask that you mail it to me on
random day over the next five months. Or… if you are someone who has
read my writing, you can pull a few lines from one of my books or posts
and send them. This I’m sure, will help me stay on track.</i></blockquote>
I told her, and I meant it, that this was brilliant, that I had never, ever said anything even close to a client after a terrible breakup. And I asked her permission to repost this. <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"> </variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-43440930866271432752014-08-01T15:30:00.000-04:002014-08-01T15:58:00.045-04:00Crass CommercialismI'll have to apologize in advance, but I'm still gonna do it.<br />
<br />
Hard as it is, I've made the decision to monetize the blog. I've put the ads only at the bottom, so most of you should never be bothered by them. I've blocked those annoying animated ads. I've blocked weight loss products. And anything to do with any of the various F0x "News" commercial enterprises is, of course, fox-blocked.<br />
<br />
As other as-yet unforeseen obnoxious items pop up, I'll block them on an as-we-go basis.<br />
<br />
But a girl's gotta make a living somehow. <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
</variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-91689160163698345932014-07-31T13:08:00.000-04:002014-07-31T15:48:37.820-04:00I Don't Want To Be a Responsible Adult Any More<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hd6RxVSREoI/U9Z62BcTzMI/AAAAAAAAAZc/ljvXYiBmfZ4/s1600/Io%27s-feeding-instructions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hd6RxVSREoI/U9Z62BcTzMI/AAAAAAAAAZc/ljvXYiBmfZ4/s1600/Io's-feeding-instructions.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Digital Photography School put up an article the other day on using <a href="http://digital-photography-school.com/10-tips-on-how-to-use-photography-as-a-tool-for-personal-transformation/" target="_blank">photography for personal growth</a>. The woman who wrote it, Catherine Just, was struggling with being a new mom, and
found herself taking a photo every day of the part of the process that
was the most frustrating to her. In her case, it was not being able to
get the little sprat to take his naps. She wound up with some emotionally stunning iPhone pics of herself and
the bébé sleeping together. She said the photos -- and her attitude --
changed in about a month of doing this.<br />
<br />
I had been
wanting to document Mr. Wood's last year? journey? something, and struggling
for a way to do it that captured our emotions but was respectful of his
desire for privacy. For example, I wanted to go with him to the barber
shop when he got his head shaved the other day (his hair and beard are falling out from the chemo), but he would have none of it. The
notion of a daily photo of something that frustrated <i>me</i> really
clicked, because that wouldn't necessarily be about him at all, but I
still spent two or three days trying to figure out what the theme needed
to be. <br />
<br />
And finally, a light dawned. I'd been noticing a lot of nights, when it's time to
go to bed and I discover I haven't cleaned up the kitchen yet and I'm
already tired and my legs are already giving out, that I've been
surveying the wreckage and saying to myself, "I'm tired of being a
responsible adult." I want to go to bed, let my mother do it. And so it
dawned on me that the most frustrating part right now is not about him or even necessarily the cancer itself
at all, but about my physical inability to rise to meet the occasion,
the limitations that post-polio sequelae put on my ability to care for him. Which does indeed frustrate the $#!% out of me. <br />
<br />
And too that phrase encapsulates so much more about what's happening to us and our reactions to it. I find myself wistfully recalling times when we didn't know what we know now -- some times as recently as this spring, other times from the beginning of our relationship -- and wanting that innocence back. Not our youth or our health, even, just that sense that not only is today not threatened, but that there's always a tomorrow. I have even cracked to a high-school friend who asked if there was anything she could do, "Take me back to my childhood and leave me there." I don't want to be a responsible adult any more. <br />
<br />
But I digress. <br />
<br />
This morning what hit me first was the instructions on top of our dog's food storage container. I
left them there for the pet sitter, in case of another medical emergency like the one we had two weeks ago, but they
seemed this morning, at 6 a.m., to be a demand on <i>me </i>-- "Feed
TWICE daily," the stickers shouted. And it's on me to do it because Mr. Wood's fatigue is so bad that he can't reliably be counted upon to be out of bed before noon, and the animals can't wait. (Sometimes he doesn't get up all day. When he got out of the hospital, he slept 28 hours straight!) So I have been, for quite some time now, getting up 20 minutes early every day to take care of the animals before I leave for work. <br />
<br />
I took a photo of it this morning, my first for this project.<br />
<br />
Something bugging you? Give it a try! <br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-12140195026704367812014-07-30T16:31:00.000-04:002014-07-30T16:31:00.802-04:00Actually now I'm remembering why I quit reading the paper in the first place<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">In Sunday's paper there was also a response by "Dear Abby" to a potential sexual assault victim that nearly made me blow my obstreperal lobe. The writer explained that she walks her dog in a park close to her house where a park employee is creeping her out with his staring. She would hate to have to stop walking there. Abby advises her that she's probably worried about nothing, and should ask other women if he creeps them out, too. Gee, she (Abby) sure would hate to see the poor guy lose his job if the writer were to make a complaint. Which, by the way, the writer never even mentioned. She had responded to the staring by being more deferential (smiling, saying "hi") and was looking for a more aggressive response -- how, perhaps, to confront the guy. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Seriously, woman? </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">In the first place, this park is close to Dog Walker's home. Perpetrators are known to place themselves in jobs, hobbies, and volunteer positions that give them access to victims. There was a guy around here some years back who worked for a car wash, enabling him to copy the keys of women in the neighborhood, you know, for easy entry into their handily nearby homes at a later date. Where he had followed them after detailing their cars. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">In the second place, living in a rape culture as we do, women are taught practically from the cradle not to make a scene. </variable>When I first started out doing rape crisis, I was
amazed to learn that self-defense instructors had to make their students
practice screaming. The women didn't want to do it. Couldn't do it. Our instructor told us that, among other things, women would not cross the street
to avoid someone whose demeanor concerned them, would not go into a
public place to avoid someone they believed was following them, would
not even confront someone who touched them inappropriately -- all for
fear of making a scene. Mind you, it doesn't make it a woman's fault when she gets raped: My point is that we are forbidden in this culture to act to protect ourselves, and Abby's perpetuating this with her response to Dog Walker. We are taught not to listen to our gut, not to make a stink when something's rotten in Denmark. <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable>The last thing we as women should be doing is blowing off each other's instincts that there's something just wrong about a guy.<br />
<br />
In the third place, I purely do hate to see that the "Poor, Pitiful Rapist" syndrome (he's lonely, he's frustrated, he can't control himself, he's sick, he's crazy, blah, blah) is still alive and well. Of course this guy's not a proven rapist, but all the same, what's with all this concern about <i>him??</i> This is not <i>about </i>him. This is about Dog Walker feeling threatened. He might be mute, Abby writes, or not speak English (although what this has to do with staring is beyond me*). Children stare because they don't know any better. But when someone or something higher up the food chain (be it a man or a leopard) stares at someone or something lower down (be it woman or mountain goat), it's a threat that's recognized across all species and so it has been for millennia. Yet just in case she might hurt his feelings or threaten his job or some such, Dog Walker's not supposed to say anything? <br />
<br />
<div class="post-message " data-role="message" dir="auto">
No, no, no, no, no -- a thousand times no, Abby. This man's right to creep women out -- for
any reason, harmless or otherwise -- does not trump Dog Walker's right
to feel safe in public spaces. You should have told her absolutely to quit walking her dog there, or at the very least to give
this dude a very wide berth and never be out when or where there's not
large crowds around. And even then. What's to stop him from following her to find out where she lives?<br />
<br />
And further, Abby, you should have given her permission to tell anybody she damn well pleases about this guy, although I stress that she is not obligated to do so. She can tell park personnel office, security, other women, whoever she wants. It's her story: She can put up a billboard if she wants to.
She doesn't have to check with other women in the park first. If it turns out that it's only that he's mentally ill or intellectually handicapped, fine. Administration can put him in a
position or on a shift where so many demands aren't placed upon his
limited interpersonal skills. If he's some creep who was never backgrounded before he was hired, then better they know about it and deal with it now than later.<br />
<br />
*in fact, it strikes me now that that's even a bit ableist or racist</div>
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-59944280722448493602014-07-29T10:25:00.001-04:002014-07-29T10:25:04.169-04:00Renouncing Psychology<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phrenology1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: clear:left;"><img alt="Deutsch: Phrenologie" border="0" class="zemanta-img-inserted" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Phrenology1.jpg/300px-Phrenology1.jpg" height="353" style="border: none; font-size: 0.8em;" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 300px;">Deutsch: Phrenologie (Photo credit: <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phrenology1.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</td></tr>
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
Well, maybe not quite yet. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">It did get your attention, though, didn't it? </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">And it's true, I do have a beef with psychology. My introduction to psychology was accidental, a story many of you have heard. I wandered into a psych prof's office when I was getting signed up for a business degree, and the rest, as they say, was history. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">But these were academics. I got introduced to clinical psychology through Ann McAllister and Stuart Strenger, Ph.D.s who practiced together in Buckhead back in the '70s. They were wonderful clinicians and even better human beings, and I wanted to be like them when I grew up. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Twenty years later, I was surrounded by so many psychologists whom I could not even like, never mind respect, that I began to wish I'd never let my counseling license go. I no longer wished to identify with the arrogance, callousness, unscientific thinking, unprofessional behavior, and outright greed that I was encountering on a daily basis. The profession, however, I still loved. I was proud of the <i>science</i> of psychology. </variable><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Psychology was already changing, however, and I can't say I like the direction it has taken. So while I am not quite ready to disavow it, I do have a beef. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Once upon a time, the scientists in psychology were all rat-runners. The psychotherapists were all theorists. And their theories generally took into account the whole human being. Psychotherapy was an emotional, intellectual, psychological -- dare I say it? -- even <i>spiritual</i> journey that the therapist and patient/client took together. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">And then, along came Skinner. That was the start of our slippery slope. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Don't get me wrong: Behaviorism is a damn good theory, and behavioral therapies have some great applications. But what happened next was that, coincidentally with our long-standing desire to be taken seriously as <i>doctors</i> came the push to be included in insurance reimbursement, to be classed as healthcare providers. And that, my dears, was the beginning of the end as far as I'm concerned. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"> The number of mental illnesses we can diagnosis (and of course this is psychiatry's fault, not psychology's, but it stems from the same sources and we've been on board with it from the git-go) has multiplied astronomically from what it was 50 years ago. Everything's abnormal now, treatable, and most importantly from the point of view of many practitioners, reimbursable. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">The twin drives to be taken seriously and be paid as doctors has spawned </variable>the evidence-based practice movement, a child of the devil if ever there was one. Ironically, perhaps, it is also the part of the science of psychology with which I most identified in the early days. Why would we waste people's time and money, and offer false hope, for silly woo-woo therapies that don't work? Let's study what does! Sounds great, right? But somehow, in the process, we have reduced diagnosis and treatment if not to the level of the petri dish then to something scarily close to it. <br />
<br />
Therapies are manualized. Follow this cookbook recipe with every client you have with this diagnosis, and they'll get better. It's pigeonholing clients, and reducing professionals to technicians. Everything, even assessment, is by the numbers. The person's humanity is out the window, all their experiences and dreams and <i>complexity</i> reduced to three symptoms from group A, two from group B, for a duration of not less than two years, and not due to some other specified disorder or circumstance listed in Appendix C.<br />
<br />
Worse, the therapies don't work. Or they only work in the lab. One I got all excited about last year after a workshop turned out to be this sort of dud. Thirty percent of the potential participants in the big study its proponents were trumpeting were weeded out before the study ever started. They had more than one problem, or they were on medication, or whatever variation in their circumstances that normal human beings coming into clinician's offices every day exhibit. So at best, I'm thinking as I'm reading this, the new treatment works with 70% of people with this diagnosis, right?<br />
<br />
Not so fast, Virginia. No fewer than 50% of the folk enrolled in the study dropped out! So now, if the new treatment helped every single one of the completers (which, of course, it didn't), we're talking about a therapy that is effective for 35% of the folk for whom a clinician might consider it. Thirty-five percent.<br />
<br />
And yet this has now become the <i>only</i> approved therapy for this disorder.<br />
<br />
I kid thee not. It works for <i>maybe</i> 35% of the population with this disorder, but if I don't deploy it with every one of them who walks through my front door, I will not be treating my people according to the standard of care, once this gets written into the standards, which it will. Mark my words.<br />
<br />
<br />
Ironically, chasing the money has led us to fly directly in the face of the best and latest science, offering "treatments" that are absolutely proven not to work for "disorders" that are pretty much proven by now not to exist because they are <i>lucrative</i>. Jumping on the weight-loss bandwagon, as psychology has over the past year or two, is perhaps the best example.<br />
<br />
I'm done.<br />
<br />
I want to go back to <i>sitting</i> with my clients. And no, they're not patients. They're not sick! I want to go back to <i>being</i> with my clients, not sitting there trying to look attentive while running algorithms in my head or jumping ahead to what I'm supposed to say next according to the treatment protocol. I want to go back to the day when the therapeutic relationship was the primary healing factor, when my own best tool was my <i>self</i>, not a checklist with lines and boxes and graphs to complete to tell me what's the matter with the person. I want to go back to the day when my care was <i>caring</i>, not steps I followed in a manual, to a time when good therapeutic technique mattered, yes, but when there was an <i>art </i>to it.<br />
<br />
Is that too much to ask?<br />
<br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com1Marietta, GA, USA33.952602000000013 -84.549932733.847226000000013 -84.7112942 34.057978000000013 -84.3885712tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-51347991533622851612014-07-27T12:06:00.001-04:002014-07-27T12:06:45.701-04:00Oh, no. That is SO wrong!<br />
<br />
I'm reading the Sunday paper this morning and I'm all like, wha-a-at??<br />
<br />
It seems that transcripts of some of Carson McCullers' sessions with her
therapist are being released to researchers, and everybody's all excited about how this will give them more insight into her life and art. Well, not everybody. I'm certainly not. <br />
<br />
I'll give the therapist a pass on terminating the therapy relationship so they could have a personal relationship. This was the '50s, after all, and things were different then. In fact, they were so different that she might actually have been a bit ahead of her time in that regard. Most people back then didn't bother terminating one relationship before beginning another. I remember when I was just a young sprat of a therapist reading about one famous, leading psychologist who was therapist to a young woman, then her professor (presumably he mentored her into grad school), then her clinical supervisor -- and then her <i>husband</i>! Not sure when, exactly, they became lovers, but good grief. That's like a perfect trifecta of "dual" relationships.<br />
<br />
But McCullers' therapist/partner lived until 2013. By which time it should have been glaringly obvious to her that those transcripts should have been destroyed -- back in the 60s, not to put too fine a point on it. <br />
<br />
And the university that inherited and is releasing them bears some responsibility here, too, even though the actual custodians are likely academics in literature, not psychiatrists. They should have quietly destroyed them as soon as they realized what they had. <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
</variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-2048441930065051362014-07-24T15:16:00.001-04:002014-07-24T15:16:11.922-04:00Opinionated Much?<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Just when I get worried that I've been <i>too </i>opinionated, an angel gives me a quote like this:</variable><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all." --Georg Christoph Lichtenberg</variable></blockquote>
I have no idea who Georg is (will Google him later) but I do thank him. <br />
<br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-60263054894622324942014-07-23T18:11:00.002-04:002014-07-23T18:11:39.756-04:00Draw, Podna!Or not.<br />
<br />
Some of you may know we have a new gun law here in Georgia. Basically, it says you can carry a gun anywhere, with or without a permit, concealed or 'open carry'. And of course, as you have read in the news, some folk have been exercising that right -- resulting in at least one arrest, but I digress.<br />
<br />
The topic came up among colleagues recently, who are all bestirred about exactly what the law says about our ability to prohibit guns in our offices, and several have expressed the felt need for legal consultation before doing anything. There was also some discussion about what to do if a client doesn't like it. <br />
<br />
Here's my take on it. <br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I have always expressly forbidden weapons of any kind, legal or otherwise, permitted or not. No pepper spray, no nunchucks, no knives, no throwing stars, no guns, no clubs. This is a clearly stated, up-front policy: New clients sign a form stating that they have read and understood this. So new clients who do not wish to abide by this policy can go find another therapist. Easy peasy. But I've never had a problem with it. Everybody's reaction, from day one some thirty-three years ago, has always been, "Ok, cool, no problem." Even my gang-banger, whose posse used to stand guard downstairs during his sessions. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I don't anticipate that any of my existing clients will have a problem with it either, if only because (a) they've already agreed to my policy, and (b) because there's no political struggle for them to win here, no point for them to make. After all, I'm a good ol' girl myself, with a gun and a carry permit of my own, and I don't bring <i>my </i>gun to the office! Also, it's not a policy in isolation of other operating procedures I have in place -- all of which I follow as well. I expect 24 hours' notice of cancellations, for example, and in return I let you know the minute I know I'm not going to be able to be there for your appointment. If you no-show, I charge you; if I double-book, the next one is on the house. You can't show up drunk and expect to get a session, but then again, I don't show up drunk to work with you, either. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">There was also a flurry of worry about how to terminate appropriately with a client who violated the policy. Again, I am not concerned about that, because if a client brings a gun into my office or repeatedly shows up drunk, doesn't pay their bill, whatever -- they have already clearly stated by their behaviors that they do not respect me or the terms of our contract. They are in breach of contract and I'm no longer obligated, not to find them another therapist, and not to see them three more times to wind up their treatment. And that is not abandonment, because they knew in advance of the fact that such behavior would terminate our work together. Therefore, by doing so, they are in effect leaving the therapy, same as if they'd walked in the door and said, "I quit." I'm not going to schedule my usual three termination sessions in such a case, knowing they're going to bring in a gun and endanger me, my coworkers, and our other clients in that manner. Now <i>that</i> would be unethical.</variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I would, because it is a therapeutic issue, a profound statement about how they feel about me/their mother and about their therapy, attempt to analyze it at the time that it occurs. But if we couldn't resolve the issue, then we would be at an impasse which would make any future therapeutic progress impossible anyway. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Again, this is not about the gun, but about the process. If a client could not come to treatment sober, I would not refer them to another therapist because it would undermine the basic message I wish to send, which is that you can't do outpatient therapy while you are using. You need inpatient first, then come to therapy. Nor would I schedule three termination sessions in such a case, without some assurance that the person would be able to show up clean and sober for same. To do so would send the message that I don't really mean what I say -- that it's ok to show up drunk when I say it's ok. Same points could be made in the case of nonpayment. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">So I will continue to forbid weapons -- all weapons, but especially guns because of the irrevocable lethality. The only exception is <i>on-duty</i> cops, who are required by the Job to carry, as has always been the case in my practice. By my reading of the law, it is legal for me to do so as a private person on private property which I have control of by means of my lease of the space. You think I can't? You can take it up with my attorney.</variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">But it's my rule, and it stands. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"> </variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-73737616292693377972014-07-20T17:30:00.000-04:002014-07-20T17:30:00.310-04:00Girls Find Science Boring Says Scottish ExpertSay what?<br />
<br />
Gijsbert
Stoet, a psychologist at the University of Glasgow, told his audience at the British Education Studies Association conference recently that 'effort is wasted trying to bridge gender divides in education when innate
differences meant that boys and girls would always be drawn to different
subjects and careers', according to <a href="http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6437094" target="_blank">an article on the <i>tes connect</i> website</a>.
“Do we
really care that only 5 per cent of the programmers are women? Well,
actually, I don’t care who programs my computers," he is quoted as saying.<br />
<br />
Stoet works for the University of
Glasgow’s Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change. Anyone else besides me find that ironic? <br />
<br />
What about the menz, he wants to know: Apparently to him this is a zero-sum game -- any help given to girls to get them into STEM takes away from help supposedly needed by boys. And of course, if you have a choice between helping boys and helping girls, well. Helping boys is obviously more important, right?<br />
<br />
For any of you ladies who think you are living in a post-feminist world, here's evidence that a stone-age mentality is still alive and well among people who have the power to influence your future. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable></blockquote>
<br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-47716334685697731712014-07-19T16:10:00.000-04:002014-07-19T16:10:00.207-04:00What a Wonderful World!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muir_and_Roosevelt_restored.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: clear:left;"><img alt="U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (left) and n..." border="0" class="zemanta-img-inserted" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Muir_and_Roosevelt_restored.jpg/300px-Muir_and_Roosevelt_restored.jpg" height="360" style="border: none; font-size: 0.8em;" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 300px;">U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (left) and nature preservationist John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. In the background: Upper and lower Yosemite Falls. (Photo credit: <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muir_and_Roosevelt_restored.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</td></tr>
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
It's kind of a depressing world we live in. Every day the news is full of bad news--oil spills, murdered children, plane crashes, political chicanery, terrorism, disappearing species. Or we have direct exposure: You see a stray dog hit and killed in the road, or </variable>you are haunted by childhood memories of domestic violence or alcoholism. Someone you know is killed in Afghanistan. Or maybe <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">the thrushes that have nested in your woods every summer since you bought the place back when your kids were little didn't come back this spring. And it is easy to despair. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">"I'm just one person!</variable> What can I do?<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">" </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">This is the question a client asked me the other day. And my answer was, "A lot! You can do a lot!"</variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Theodore Roosevelt said it best: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." People with great resources (money, some sort of public platform from which to reach millions) can do a lot. The rest of us, not so much. But we can always do something, and in relative terms, it counts for much. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable>The point as I see it is to be a good steward of your little corner of
the world, to leave it just a little bit better than you found it. <br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Vote. Write a letter to your congressional representative, or your senator. Attend a school-board or city-council meeting. Write a letter to the editor. Demonstrate. Boycott. Raise money for a good cause. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Spay your cat and keep her up. It seems like a small thing, but it does wonders for her health and happiness: Cats allowed to run free are subject to all kinds of bad outcomes, ranging from injuries in fights to infectious diseases to being hit and killed by cars. In her lifetime, you could save as many as 300 birds' lives. That is no small thing! And by not allowing her to reproduce, think how many homeless kitties you've prevented in succeeding generations. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">If you can't afford a dog yourself, volunteer at your local shelter. </variable>Your efforts will make the animals' lives healthier and happier while they're there, and every hour you donate increases their odds of survival. Adopt (don't buy) one yourself, if you can. You may not be single-handedly solving the homeless dog
population problem yourself, but your action means everything to that one dog. Everything.<br />
<br />
Adopt a child. If you can't afford that, get qualified as a foster parent by your local Department of Family and Children Services. Or <a href="http://www.casaforchildren.org/site/c.mtJSJ7MPIsE/b.5301295/k.BE9A/Home.htm" target="_blank">become a CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer</a>. Informally, offer a hand to that overwhelmed parent in the supermarket or in your neighborhood. Or pick up the phone and report a child at risk. You could be saving a life. <br />
<br />
I used to carry a hot pink key-chain fob that said, "Woman On a Mission." Quite naturally, people would periodically ask me what the mission was. When I was a child protective services caseworker, I told everybody I was out to change the world, one child at a time. When my practice was predominantly women survivors of domestic abuse, it was "changing the world, one woman at a time." I knew I couldn't change the world, but I believed that my work could be world-changing for the one woman or child in my office, at least for the one hour. You're no different: You, too, can change the world for another living being.<br />
<br />
Start a blog. They're free here at Blogger.com and via WordPress. Both will walk you through the set-up process, so you don't even have to be very computer-savvy. Perhaps you know more than you give yourself credit for, and you can share your experience, strength and hope with others. All it will take is a little of your time. <br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Recycle. Pull your weeds the old-fashioned way instead of poisoning them. Don't use pesticides. You'll help save birds, butterflies, and bees, and our soil and streams will be just that tiny bit much cleaner for your effort. If you have property, plant some milkweed. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Speaking of water, use less. If you can afford it, buy shade-grown organic coffee. </variable>If you can't, cut your consumption. <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Don't eat chocolate produced by companies that exploit children, use slave labor, or rape the environment. If you can't afford <a href="http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/" target="_blank">Rain Forest Alliance</a>-certified chocolate, give it up. Or eat less. Buy locally-produced food-stuffs when you can.</variable><br />
<br />
Say something nice to somebody today. Do somebody a favor. Or just smile at them. It may not seem like a big thing to you, but it could be the highlight of their day.<br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">My first ethics text, <i><a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.amazon.com/If-Everybody-Did-Ann-Stover/dp/0890844879%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0890844879" rel="amazon" target="_blank" title="If Everybody Did">If Everybody Did</a></i>, by Jo Ann Stover, asks children to consider their actions in the light of this question: What if everybody did that? When you are taking one tiny step toward improving your world even one tiny little bit, ask yourself that. What if everybody did? </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">What a wonderful world it would be! </variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-81124948774574449532014-07-17T20:45:00.000-04:002014-07-17T20:45:59.725-04:00The Circle of Life, or<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/19953384@N00/3255586555" imageanchor="1" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: clear:left;"><img alt="Red-Shouldered hawk portrait" border="0" class="zemanta-img-inserted" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3098/3255586555_d186bf998d_m.jpg" height="160" style="border: none; font-size: 0.8em;" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 240px;">Red-Shouldered hawk portrait (Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/19953384@N00/3255586555" target="_blank">San Diego Shooter</a>)</td></tr>
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<h3>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
Hawks Gotta Eat, Too.</variable></h3>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"> I was out on the deck one day last Spring, brushing the dog and catching some rays, and watching the nuthatches take possession of the owl box from a squirrel. It was a quiet day, so when I heard the doves suddenly fly up in alarm one yard over, I looked to see what was up. A hawk had apparently caught one of them. He flew up into a tree, paused for a moment to get a better grip and took off, presumably for his own family's nest with dinner for his mate & nestlings. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">It seemed significant to me, somehow. There it was, new life beginning for the nuthatches, a life ending for the dove, and maybe for its babies if it already had any at this point, and life, presumably, continuing for the hawk and his family. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">When one of us dies, it doesn't (usually) contribute to the continuing life of another being--these days, we tend to do that while we're living, with dying for another being the exception rather than the rule. But the other part, the suddenness and the unpredictability, that fits with our experience. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">We are here, until we are not. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">That particular afternoon it could just have easily been the other dove that the hawk caught, or one of the nuthatches. Or the nuthatches could have lost their standoff with the squirrel whose box that has been all winter. Or the dog or I could have been hit by a falling limb. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">We are here. Until we are not. </variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-11064060166472202752014-07-16T18:46:00.000-04:002014-07-16T18:46:23.951-04:00R-E-S-P-E-C-T!<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I read an <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/in-a-culture-of-disrespect-patients-lose-out/" target="_blank">article</a> a while back about physicians' arrogance and how it results in poor patient care. And as I read, I thought that much of it translated well to the field of psychology. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Psychologists, as a rule, are an arrogant bunch. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I was lucky to be therapized, supervised, taught, and mentored into the profession </variable>primarily <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">by psychologists who understood respect. But I had some bad experiences, too, with arrogant supervisors that left me so scarred it took years to recover. And I'm not the only one -- I once had a prospective supervisee burst into tears when I told her I never yelled at students. Apparently she'd been yelled at through most of her grad-school career and was expecting more of the same from her practica. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">We as a profession have a tendency to believe that we know it all now that we have that 'terminal' degree, and to fail to take seriously those coming up behind us. We stop being teachable. In our arrogance, we can fail to take our duties to our clients seriously, as well, resulting in everything from poor service to egregious ethical lapses. In that vein, I have seen:</variable><br />
<ul>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">A psychologist disrupting a psychometrist's testing sessions to ask questions, obtain items from the testing room, and even to introduce another patient -- because it would have been an inconvenience to wait</variable></li>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">A psychologist deleting critical safety recommendation from an intern's report </variable></li>
<li>A psychologist stating he didn't need to read the new manual for a radically revised test, then disagreeing with the intern about conclusions based on new norms</li>
<li>A psychologist using cheap photocopies of test materials and cutting corners in administration because s/he wasn't getting paid what s/he thought s/he was worth to do the work right</li>
</ul>
In these cases confidentiality was violated, tests were invalidated, a staff member was assaulted, a client failed a placement, and countless inaccurate conclusions went out in reports. The seriousness of these consequences would be hard to overestimate. <br />
<br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Arrogance can produce abuse or neglect of student interns and staff as well as of patients. I have either experienced myself or witnessed:</variable><br />
<ul>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Staff psychologists and professors sexually harassing students, interns, and nursing staff</variable></li>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Staff psychologists attempting to influence interns' communications with site visitors from certifying bodies</variable></li>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable>Senior psychologist telling junior psychologist, who was asking for help
with staff management problems on her unit, "Buck up, Bucko!" </li>
<li>Psychologist telling intern, "[Expletive deleted] rolls downhill. And you're downhill."</li>
<li>The psychologist leading a supervision group being dismissive of supervisees'
input, actively discouraging such participation as "taking over my group"</li>
<li>Clinical faculty blowing off supervision appointments and seminar meetings required to meet state licensing standards and then threatening interns who complain</li>
</ul>
Needless to say, not a lot of learning can occur in such an atmosphere, and that translates into obvious gaps in the care of those students' patients down through the decades over the course of their careers. Over and above the gaps in the learning of facts and skills, such an atmosphere sets an example for students that says that patient appointments are not important to respect, patient and staff input is not valuable, rules and regulations can be bent as long as nobody knows about it, and nobody should ever report anything untoward. <br />
<br />
Inadequate supervision of students and staff (when the arrogant psychologist just can't be bothered) translates into patient abuse going unchecked, and in patient neglect. Patients in turn are inadequately supervised or under- or mis-treated, resulting in self-injuries, untreated medical issues, assaults, suicide attempts, elopements, and deaths. I am not just speaking theoretically here, either: These things have actually taken place.<br />
<br />
Then there's the arrogant dismissal of patients' needs and lived experiences. We have <br />
<ul>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">A psychologist commenting in reference to a severely mentally ill patient s/he deems hopeless, "I can heal the sick but I can't raise the dead!"</variable> </li>
<li>A center director considering it taken as read that a person with
schizophrenia (most of the center's caseload) is incapable of participating in
hir own treatment planning </li>
<li>Psychologists failing to advocate appropriately for minor clients or to support self-advocacy in adults </li>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Psychologist making fun of a client's parenting style </variable></li>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Psychologist
blaming dead victim of domestic violence (parent of a child client) for getting into/not leaving
the relationship </variable></li>
</ul>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">This sort of attit</variable><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">ude trickles down to other staff, students, and even clerical employees, with the bizarre end result that one clinic I worked at was actually cited in an audit for -- wait for it! -- <i>not providing mental health care</i>. I am not making this up.</variable><br />
<br />
<br />
The experience of stigma is, by the way, a known health risk. By copping an attitude that we are better than our clients (because we are thinner or healthier or more fit, better-educated or more financially well-off -- any measure seems to be fair game these days), not only are we not being helpful, we're actively making our clients' mental and physical health worse. We're putting tremendous pressure on our students and staff, who are, after all, exposed to our prejudices many more hours each week than are our clients, and we're setting terrible examples for them. <br />
<ul></ul>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Obviously parents from different cultures, with differing parenting styles and victims of domestic violence and their children are not getting good therapy from such therapists. But there's a ripple effect. A respectful therapist working with members of such groups is going to be reluctant to be forthcoming in a team treatment setting or in clinical supervision, where the sharing of information is normally considered necessary to good treatment, lest their patient become a target. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">And then there's </variable><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable><br />
<ul>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable>Psychologists using patients to house-sit</li>
<li>Psychologist using client to help pack up office at retirement </li>
<li>Psychologist having intern come in to clean the office on the intern's off days</li>
<li>Psychologists using students and patients to buttle parties in their homes, and</li>
<li>Faculty using students to babysit.</li>
</ul>
A patient is not a servant. Neither is a grad student. And it is the height of arrogance to presume so.<br />
<br />
I think part of the problem is that we live in a cultural climate of general disrespect. We are always attuned to matters of class and rank, to where we stand in the pecking order -- and woe betide anyone on the rungs below. And then of course there are some people who just seem, as individuals, to be particularly arrogant/disrespectful. We've all known at least a few: No one, it seems, is safe from their disdain or their verbal abuse.<br />
<br />
Plus, with some psychologists, there's a tendency to overvalue the doctorate, to demand respect for themselves while believing it somehow frees them from the obligation to show respect for others who might be just as smart, just as knowledgeable, but who for one reason or another, lack the diploma. They seem blissfully unaware that there is often no difference in intelligence or drive between them and the therapist with a masters--or, for that matter, the parapro with the high school diploma. To a degree (if you'll pardon the pun) the difference is often only a matter of privilege: The "I'm-a-doctor-and-don't-you-ever-forget-it" crowd as often as not are people who were born on third base but think they hit a triple.<br />
<br />
And speaking of triples, sometimes you get the triple-whammy -- a psychologist who is (1) not only a product of hir culture but who also is (2) particularly self-important and who (3) takes too much credit for the achievement of a degree which is in itself overvalued*. . . and you have someone who is especially bad for morale, disruptive to the work of the unit/practice/facility/team, and who is potentially downright dangerous to patients.<br />
<br />
Get people like that at the top of the office heap, and they tend to run off the folks who aren't like them and hire more who are, until the whole culture of the institution, be it a huge psychiatric hospital or tiny private practice, will be disrespectful. And when that happens, patients beware!<br />
<br />
I don't know what we can do about it, other than shout out,<br />
<dl><dd>R-E-S-P-E-C-T!</dd><dd>Find out what it means to me!</dd><dd>R-E-S-P-E-C-T!</dd></dl>
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*Trust me, it's not all that special -- there are thousands of us in the state of Georgia alone.
Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-6264715388814469002013-07-15T07:30:00.000-04:002013-07-15T09:59:03.237-04:00Poor Trayvon<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
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Well, the George Zimmerman verdict is out, and I suppose every Blogger worth her salt will have to have something to say about it today.<br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I'm not a lawyer, so I don't have an opinion about the evidence or the jury, or the conduct of either the prosecution or the defense, or even about the Stand Your Ground law. Well, yeah, I do have something to say about <i>that</i>, but it's not a legal opinion, strictly speaking.</variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">These kinds of laws spring from a state of mind peculiar to regions that historically were made up of scattered, rural, generally agricultural or herding societies who did have to protect their own land/livestock/homes/families because there was no law close enough around to do it. Pro-actively, the successful men in these societies projected an über-male, physically over-bearing persona in order to cause potential criminals to steer off for other parts where presumably they might find easier pickings. It was a matter of honor to be able to protect your boundaries, to be able to project that sort of image, and by extension if somebody messed with you or your stuff, well, then, your honor was at stake until you could even up the score. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I can't say anything psychological specifically about George Zimmerman because I have not evaluated him, and I don't have access to anybody else's evaluation of him. Heck, I haven't even watched the non-stop coverage of the trial. But I can say, as a disinterested citizen observer, that George appears to the naked eye to be a bit like the fence-rider of old, ever on the lookout for rustlers who, if you will remember your US history, along with horse thieves back in the day could be hung on sight by whoever caught them in the act. This is, I suspect, partly why it looked so much like it was<i> </i>Trayvon rather than George who was on trial this past week. Indeed, I could not help but notice, some commentators persisted in referring to it as "the Trayvon Martin trial". The mentality is still that pervasive. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">We don't need those kinds of laws any more, but they and the personalities they serve persevere. As does the gun violence that goes with them. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">If you see yourself as a victim, which, weirdly, an increasing number of white males in this country do, or if you merely fantasize yourself engaging in various make-my-day type heroics, you may find like-minded folk in the gun and prepper communities (there's a lot of overlap between the two). Stand-your-ground laws were written for you. And so you may end up going about your daily business locked and loaded, spoiling for a fight. You don't even have to be part of a neighborhood watch or other, similar, organization. You can self-appoint. Your real-world perceptions are filtered through the </variable>movies running through your head, which in turn are heavily influenced by the paranoid <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">poppycock you read on prepper and gun websites and in their magazines and newsletters, to the detriment of your grip on reality. You would be what the American Rifle Association calls an Armed Citizen. They even have a monthly column called "The Armed Citizen" in which they congratulate each other for shooting alleged criminals. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">But I digress. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Anyway, one day you find yourself in a situation which seems to you to call for a violent response. Instead of the dozen other things you could do, or not do, in this situation, you draw your weapon. You're not reluctant. You're not saddened by it. You are justified. This is, after all, the fulfillment of a long-cherished fantasy. You genuinely don't 'get' why anybody else would be horrified at what you've done. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">This would happen even if there were no stand-your-ground laws, but at least then there might be some justice for your victim afterwards. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">But I am not a lawyer, so no, my only real opinion is from my point of view as a mother, and that is that justice was not done here. It seems to me that part of the whole point of the USA is that a person -- most especially a child -- should be able to walk the streets of his or her community in peace and safety. And anyone who violates that is in violation of <i>some </i>law. Be it written or ethical or moral, he is in violation. He has violated the peace of the community, and the safety of all of its citizens. He has violated the faith and trust that we have in our neighbors. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I don't see how Trayvon's parents can have any peace at all until we as a nation stand up and say this. </variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0Woodstock, GA, USA34.1014873 -84.519375433.9963098 -84.6807369 34.206664800000006 -84.3580139tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-63233449249885631692013-06-23T17:50:00.002-04:002014-07-17T20:05:05.518-04:00On Humility, and the Limits of Formal Education, or More on Arrogance<div style="text-align: left;">
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<a href="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130117211758/gameofthrones/images/7/72/Complete_Guide_to_Westeros_Higher_Mysteries.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130117211758/gameofthrones/images/7/72/Complete_Guide_to_Westeros_Higher_Mysteries.png" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I know everybody's watched it, but have any of you read the series <i>A Song of Ice and Fire</i>? I'm on Book Four, <i><a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Crows-Song-Ice-Fire/dp/0002247437%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzem-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0002247437" rel="amazon" target="_blank" title="A Feast for Crows (Song of Ice and Fire)">A Feast for Crows</a></i>. When I'm not working, I think, I live more in Westeros than I do in America. It's that intriguing, enchanting, absorbing. And the other night, I came across this passage, in the Prologue: </variable><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">"The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper . . . only a candle of obsidian. He must spend the night in darkness, unless he can light that candle. Some will try. The foolish and the stubborn, those who have made a study of these so-called higher mysteries. Often they cut their fingers, for the ridges on the candles are said to be as sharp as razors. Then, with bloody hands, they must wait upon the dawn, brooding on their failure. Wiser men simply go to sleep, or spend their night in prayer, but every year there are always a few who must try."</variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"> </variable></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">". . . what's the use of a candle that casts no light?"</variable></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">"It is a lesson," Armen said, "the last lesson we must learn before we don our<br />maestcr's chains. The glass candle is meant to represent truth and learning,<br />rare and beautiful and fragile things. It is made in the shape of a candle to<br />remind us that a maester must cast light wherever he serves, and it is sharp to<br />remind us that knowledge can be dangerous. Wise men may grow arrogant in their wisdom, but a maester must alwavs remain humble. The glass candle reminds us of that as well. Even after he has said his vow and donned his chain and gone forth to serve, a maester will think back on the darkness of his vigil and remember how nothing that he did could make the candle burn. . . for even with knowledge, some things are not possible."</variable></blockquote>
That stopped me in my tracks. I read it again. And then once more. And I wished that (or something like it, since we have neither dragons nor dragon glass in 21st-century America) had been our last lesson, perhaps the night before our hooding ceremony, since we don't don chains like the maesters of Westeros.<br />
<br />
How I wish they'd taught us how to simply sit with the dark. <br />
<br />
I have been a therapist for 33 years, and in that time I have seen many who have grown arrogant--in their knowledge, if not their wisdom. I have seen a few use their knowledge in dangerous ways. And I have seen not a few who think that because they have the terminal degree, they must know everything. I have known psychologists trained in the scientist/practitioner tradition who abandoned all pretense at critical thinking the evening of the day they defended their dissertations. I have known psychologists who thought they had nothing else to learn and shut their minds to new ideas and new data. And I've met very few who didn't hold themselves above the less-educated. The whole profession has come to think of itself as wholly superior to masters-level practitioners, and spends a lot of time dissing them and expending energy defending turf from them that might be put to better use elsewhere. But that is another rant for another day.<br />
<br />
Worse, and there is another rant coming on this one in a future post, psychology has come to believe that they have the power to change people. Therapy has become and "intervention" to be "delivered" as if to a retail consumer and its success is to be measured in "behavioral outcomes".<br />
<br />
Our clients believe this, too, and will say to us, "What do we do about it?" or, "I am ready to be fixed, now." And when we can't, they ask us, "What is the use of a candle that casts no light?" So we are seduced into trying, only to bloody our fingers once more. <br />
<br />
As the next passage in the Prologue to <i>A Feast for Crows</i> makes plain, the obsidian candle can give off light -- but that's not under our control. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I know what I saw. The light was queer and bright, much brighter than any<br />
beeswax or tallow- candle. It cast strange shadows and the flame never<br />
flickered, not even when a draft blew through the open door behind me."</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Armen crossed his arms. "Obsidian does not burn."</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Dragonglass.'' Pate said. "The smallfolk call it dragonglass." Somehow that seemed important.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"They do," mused Alleras, the Sphinx, "and if there are dragons in the world<br />
again . . ."</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Dragons and darker things,'' said Leo.</blockquote>
The dragonglass candle is in this sense a metaphor for healing, and gives another bit to the lesson Armen describes. Illness, unhappiness, neurosis--whatever you may wish to call it--is contained within us, and so is healing. There are things we may say or do, or not say or do in a session, things that grew out of our learning (not all of which is formal, by the way) that enter into a person in the same way that a maester's antidote enters the body to combat a poison, and we may contribute to a person's healing in that way. But in the same way that the antidote and the poison do battle inside the victim's body, with the body itself as one of the combatants, so, too, is psychological healing an inside job. We have very little power compared to what resides in you.<br />
<br />
And powers far greater than either of us may determine whether that candle burns. <br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-60510261211975838132013-06-17T07:00:00.000-04:002013-06-17T07:00:14.553-04:00From the In Box<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
The most recent edition of<i> Professional Psychology: Research and Practice</i> landed in my In Box this week, and in it was an interesting study on a multifamily group program for vets with PTSD at the Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC). </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">It has long been known that while good family support helps people recover from PTSD, the PTSD itself can alienate the sufferer from family members, depriving them of support. Bad family relationships actually interfere with treatment. With this in mind, the Oklahoma City VAMC set out to adapt a multi-family group approach to the specific needs of veterans. They call it REACH, for <u><i><b>R</b></i></u>eaching out to <u><i><b>E</b></i></u>ducate and <u><i><b>A</b></i></u>ssist <u><i><b>C</b></i></u>aring, <u><i><b>H</b></i></u>ealthy families. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">They've collected data from about 95% of their participants, over a period of a little over four years, and they believe that it works. But it's the first such study specifically with veterans diagnosed with PTSD, and it's a small study so these results are very preliminary. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">This was a longitudinal study with no control group, meaning there were no vets wait-listed for it or in some other form of treatment (comparison groups of both types would have been ideal). And the data on improvement was reported by the study participants themselves, to the therapists who both provided the treatment and conducted the research. As with any study of this nature, it may appear to work better than it apparently does, for a couple of reasons:</variable><br />
<ol>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">People can get better over time, either because 'time heals all wounds,' or due to other things occurring in their lives during the course of the study. The authors performed a statistical test for this, but still, a control group would have helped to tease out how much improvement is due to the program itself, and how much due just to life going on. And since some study participants were receiving other treatments at the same time, there's no telling exactly what improvements are due exclusively to REACH.</variable></li>
<li><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">It is well known that when people invest a lot of time and energy in something, there's a psychological bias towards finding it worthwhile. This is true for researchers and participants, and is bound, in this kind of study, to influence the reporting and interpreting of results. </variable></li>
</ol>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">One thing that makes the results stronger in this case than in some studies to come out of the VA system in recent years is that the researchers didn't "cherry-pick" their participants, which is to say that nearly everybody who wanted in, got in. Cherry-picking is frequently a problem with treatment efficacy studies, as anyone with co-existing conditions, or who is taking medications, is ruled out, and definitions of the diagnoses that get you into the study are very narrowly defined. This results in the study population not looking much like a typical clinical population. For the purposes of this study, persons with active addictions or who were suicidal or homicidal were screened out, but these are criteria that are almost universally applied in clinical practice as well, so does not much affect the applicability of the results. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Even better, their definition of "family" was open and welcoming: A veteran could bring her or his adult significant other of nearly any description -- a lover, a spouse, a parent, a sibling, an adult child, or even a friend. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Veterans ranged in age from 22 to 85, which would include the Korean War if not World War II, and that both adds to and detracts from the strength of the study. Different "cohorts" (age groups) serving in different wars could have widely varying backgrounds and combat experiences and therefore respond very differently to a treatment. Also, older vets, by definition, have a more chronic form of PTSD. An average age, as in this study, of 55.8 years means that this is something that may not work as well for very young folk just back from Afghanistan or Iraq with their differing upbringings, combat experiences, and acute onset of PTSD as it does for VietNam-era or Persian Gulf veterans. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Unfortunately, the study population wound up being almost all white (non-Hispanic) straight males, so we don't know, pending further study, whether this program would be equally helpful to people of color, women, LGBTQQI folk -- never mind veterans or family members who fall into all three categories at once! </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable><br />
Of course, there's no reason to believe that it <i>wouldn't</i> work for a wider range of folk, since groups
in general have been studied for over half a century now and the results are
consistent. It works for nearly everybody, for nearly every problem.
It's just that with this study, the authors could not claim with any certainty that this particular protocol would work for other than adult, straight, white
males of a certain age.<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">From the description, REACH appears to be a nicely-structured program, with a generous time allowance for assessment and engagement with the program, and a nice consolidation/follow-up phase to help families maintain and elaborate on their gains. At the same time, it does not appear to be so structured as to be a cook-book-y, overly technical approach. And folks liked it! Some of them reported that the meetings were the high point of their weeks. Participants knew more about PTSD when it ended than they had when it began, and some of their symptoms improved. They learned coping skills, and their relationships improved. </variable><br />
<br />
The authors note that in a study of this sort, while you can say you're
pretty sure the program helps, it's hard to say exactly what components
of the program are most -- or least -- effective. That makes it a bit of
a crapshoot whether you can replicate the results elsewhere. What if,
for example, one of the only four psychologists running the study is just
especially talented, and no matter what she did, her people would get
better? On the other hand, if the standard curative factors of all
effective groups were in operation here, you could do REACH or any other
variation of multifamily group and get the same results anywhere. This
is why we like to see multi-center studies, or studies replicated
elsewhere producing similar results. However, when you are running only
4-6 vets and their families through at a time, and the whole process
takes nine months, as this one does, we'd be waiting a minimum of four
more years for the next study -- and that's not counting the time to
organize and fund a study, write it up, and get it into print! So I
think you will see a lot of psychologists running with this one, and
soon. <br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Although VA is mandated to provide some form of family education, the REACH program specifically does not appear to be available at our local (Atlanta) VAMC yet. However, the study's authors will make the materials needed to conduct the group available to any psychologist who wishes to lead one. If a half-a-dozen or so of you are interested, I think we could have one up and running by the end of summer. Just let me know!</variable><br />
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Fischer, E. P., Sherman, M. D., Han, X., & Owen, R. R. (2013). Outcomes of<br />
participation in the REACH multifamily group program for veterans with PTSD and<br />
their families. <i>Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (44)</i>, 127-134.
<br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-68520142937619796322013-06-10T05:00:00.000-04:002013-08-17T19:04:21.186-04:00Think With Your Whole Body<div style="text-align: left;">
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
We like, in Western society at least, to think of our mental or spiritual selves as "me" and our embodied selves as separate, an "it". One effect of that is that we get out of touch with what's going on with and in our bodies, and wander off in our minds--into the future, the past, or some parallel universe that is neither past nor future, but which is certainly not here or now either. And the primary effect of <i>that</i>, I have found, is bodily neglect and abuse along with a good deal of unnecessary tension and stress. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">But what if we treated our minds and bodies as the unified experience that they are? What if we thought of our minds as one with our bodies, and rested and fed it like the organism it is? What if we treated our bodies like part of our minds and attended to what it was telling us about our selves and the world all of the time?<i> </i>Our bodies are powerful sources of constant streams of information and wisdom, and when we only think with the frontal lobes, we're only using a fraction of the potential available to us. </variable><br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Next time you are, say, eating breakfast, and notice that your mind is wandering, try bringing it back. Take a nice, normal breath in and attend to it -- really <i>attend</i> to it. Notice what it feels like coming in -- how the air feels passing over your upper lip, into your nostrils, down your throat. Notice the rise of your chest. Can you scent your breakfast? Taste it? Bet you hadn't even noticed your breakfast while you were doing all that wool-gathering!</variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">When you breathe out gently, slowly, naturally, also notice what that's like. Then, what do you see? If you are like me, you might have been completely blind for some time to the look of the morning sun slanting through the trees in your yard, or to activity of animals or people around you. What have you not been hearing that you can become aware of now? The refrigerator humming? The dog's toenails on the kitchen linoleum? Or perhaps you were numb to the warmth of the mug in your hands, the feel of the chair under your butt or your elbows on the table.</variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">And as you do all this, notice how your body relaxes. I'll bet where your mind was before wasn't fun. You were missing someone or something from the past, regretting something you had done or failed to do, planning your workday, or worrying about something in the future that might not even come to pass. And your body was responding by becoming tense. (All that tension, over time, besides not being much fun is rough on your health.) You may find that 99 times out of 100 when you check in using this technique, your mind was yelling that the sky is falling but when you listen to your body it will tell you that right this two seconds it's actually all quite good. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">And while you were in that place that is neither here nor now, you may have neglected to notice that your body was stiffening in its current position and needed to adjust, or that you were tired, or cold, or needed to pee. That kind of neglect leads to abuse. We don't rest our bodies, or feed us, or clothe us warmly enough, or move ourselves around to keep limber and strong. Or if we do feed ourselves, we eat stuff we don't even enjoy because we're not paying attention to what we have a taste for or when we're full. We put ourselves and leave ourselves in situations we don't like, with people who are not good for us, in the meantime bypassing or at least not fully attending to good relationships and pleasurable activities because we are trying to think our way through life with our frontal lobes and ignoring what our bodies are telling us. We're where we <i>think</i> we should be, doing what we think we should, and we've doped that out with a fraction of the data we need to make genuinely good decisions. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">It's a really powerful skill, thinking with your whole body. And although the daily practice of sitting meditation or yoga helps you get better at it, neither is absolutely necessary. You can do it any time you notice that you are all in your head and someplace else: Just take a nice, normal, gentle breath in, following it, and then let it out, again simply being <i>aware </i>of it. And then become mindful of the rest of your body as well. <i>Mindful</i> -- as in, fill your mind with this and kind of let all the thinking activity go for a minute. What's your belly doing, saying? Your feet? Your hands? Your skin? and so forth until you have developed an awareness of all of your senses and parts and systems. Hold all of that in your mind at the same time for a bit. If you do it often during the day, you'll find it becoming more natural to do more of the time. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Try it. You'll like it. </variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com3Woodstock, GA, USA34.1014873 -84.519375433.9963098 -84.6807369 34.206664800000006 -84.3580139tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-28695664643843843872013-05-06T12:17:00.000-04:002013-08-17T19:13:23.522-04:00International No Diet Day<div style="text-align: left;">
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In honor of International No Diet Day, I thought I'd share my own diet history. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">My mother was a dieter, which is kind of ironic considering that she was so skinny when she was little (the story was, she'd been sick with something) that the family doctor told my grandmother to give her a beer every day to plump her up a little. Even in her teens and early adulthood, the photographs show a slender, athletic build. But that's how the diet industry works -- according to that old sales adage, create a need then fill it. By the 1960s, she was convinced she was fat, and for decades went on every crazy diet that came out, including, once, The Drinking Man's Diet. So dieting, self-hate, and alienation from my own internal signals of hunger and satiety were modeled for me from an early age. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">The sixties also, not coincidentally, was the decade in which I hit puberty and Twiggy became an international sensation. I turned 15 the year she began her career. My friends and I were all soon on diets, as our bodies began to fill out in the way nature intended and we wanted them to look like Twiggy's. I remember at 13 skipping lunch to lose weight, when I had very little to lose (I think back then I hovered around 105 lbs) and at some point in there learning to count calories: I had my intake down to 800 calories a day some days. God only knows what kind of damage I did to my growing body during those years, all supported by the messages we were all getting from <i>Seventeen Magazine</i>, television ads, and just about everywhere else in the media, and my own mother. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">That began the weight cycling. I was never fat, hovering around 125 pounds by the time I got out of college, but I was convinced I was. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">By the time I'd got married and started into my first round of graduate school, I'd discovered feminism, along with their take on the objectification of women and diets. For a time, I was free of dieting, learning to eat intuitively, and loving it. But the diet industry is seductive, and by the eighties they'd learned to associate health with weight loss to not only scare us into dieting but convince us that we were actually doing something good for ourselves. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">It was in the eighties that I quit drinking. Of course, I lost a little weight right off, and somehow that triggered another round of dieting. I became a little (okay, maybe more than a little) obsessive about it -- there's page after page after page of wasted journal space taken up with little more than calorie counts and daily records of my weight. I lost 30 pounds, which was probably 25 pounds more than I "needed" to. I started passing out and falling, and my friends began to express concern. I was a size 10, struggling to get into an 8, because I had some vague memory of wearing an 8 in middle school and thought that was where I "should" be. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I started graduate school again, and my weight began to creep up as I didn't lift anything heavier than a textbook, I wasn't in charge of the cooking at home any more, and I was under massive stress. By the time I graduated I was, for me, positively <i>huge, </i>weighing in at nearly 185 pounds. And somewhere in there, I got, for the second time, the message that dieting was not the solution, but the problem. When it was relevant to the topic in my psychology classes, I would spin around in front of the class and tell my students, "This is the body you get with dieting." </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">But the diet industry is seductive. Somehow, between the fifties and the year 2000, when I was diagnosed "pre-diabetic" ("pre" anything is a whole 'nother problem, more to do with the pharmaceutical industry, and we'll save that rant for another day), the diet mentality had thoroughly infiltrated the medical profession. Doctors were convinced that it was weight gain that led to diabetes, for example, and not the other way 'round, as recent research suggests, and I was placed on a medical diet. Off came the pounds. Back came the obsessive behavior. Until Mr. Wood got sick and had to go out of state for treatment. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Because here's one of the things about diets. They can call them 'lifestyle changes' all they want, but they're not. Because if they were, they'd be pleasurable and sustainable. But they're not. Instead, they're onerous and unnatural, and when you get busy having a life, there's not time for all that obsessive behavior, and the diet -- because that is what it is -- goes by the wayside. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Feminists, by the way, would say that is part of the point. <i>The Incredible Shrinking Woman</i> has been used as a metaphor (I wish I could remember by whom, so I could cite her appropriately, but unfortunately I cannot) for what all patriarchal societies, ours not excepted, would like to do to all women -- make us smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and less visible, less powerful, until we disappear entirely. And occupy us with silly things like our hair and our makeup and our pants size so that we don't have time or energy (or money) left over to be intentional actors in the world outside our own skins. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Anyway, back came some of the weight. Interestingly, however, the diabetes did not come back. Why? Because I actually had, in and around the diet crap, made some actual lifestyle changes. More complex carbs, more fiber, for example. Less stress. Which is what research over the last decade has been showing more and more -- that if you make a lifestyle change <i>having nothing to do with cutting calories or losing weight</i>, a real lifestyle change like more exercise, or more fiber, or less salt, well then. Your health improves. Imagine that! And those are achievable goals, whereas anything more than temporary weight loss is a chimera. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Fortunately, before I could go on my next diet, I discovered <a href="http://www.haescommunity.org/" target="_blank">Health At Every Size (HAES)</a> and re-discovered intuitive eating. I have not dieted a day in my life for the past two years, and -- surprise! -- my weight is absolutely stable. My labs are fine, too. My blood pressure is fine. My total cholesterol ain't so hot, but that's mainly because my good cholesterol is too low (and my heart attack risk remains rock-bottom for a woman my age, according to the Framingham tables). My blood glucose is fine. As for my mental health, I have finally divorced food choices from morality, from character. I have no guilt about my eating any more. I don't criticize or dislike my own body but am coming to appreciate what an intricate marvel it is, and to appreciate it for what it can do. No obsessive-compulsive behavior: What I eat or don't eat doesn't rent the best spaces in my head any more. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">The third time, as they say, is the charm. I am experimenting with new foods, eating intuitively and meditatively and <i>enjoying</i> my meals as the sensual experience they are intended to be. And the funny thing is, this business of learning to think with my whole body instead of just my head is expanding into other areas of my life and I'm learning to take care of myself in other ways as well as feeding myself better, learning to enjoy other experiences more. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">This is International No Diet Day. Try it. Just say "no" to food rules today. Say "no" to moral judgments on your eating. Say "no" to character assassination based on your appearance. Just for one day, don't police other women's bodies, either, or tell them what to eat or not eat. Just for today, listen to your body. Eat what you are hungry for. Stop when you're not. </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"><br /></variable>
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Try it. You'll like it. </variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-29584268879788254382013-04-01T17:23:00.000-04:002013-04-01T17:23:24.353-04:00Fat and your health<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
This is an odd little piece that doesn't have anything to do with anything other than that these two stories have been on my mind a lot lately.</variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Some time ago I read an article on ethics that took a dying man to task for not making arrangements for his practice, not telling his colleagues and clients he was sick, continuing to work after he was probably no longer competent to, etc. The writer never addressed what to me was the most poignant part of the whole story, that as he lost more and more weight, becoming thinner and thinner as he dwindled away to nothing, his colleagues <i>congratulated </i>him and told him how wonderful he looked. Only in our culture would drastic weight loss not be an alarm signal that something was drastically wrong. But nobody in his practice, apparently, ever thought to ask him if he were ill. My heart aches when I imagine how each of those well-meaning compliments must have only increased his isolation, and what a lonely death his must have been in the end.</variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">The other story I have for you today is of a woman who had a tumor growing in her belly. It went undiagnosed for a long time because everybody--including her weight loss doctor--assumed it was because she was fat. She'd even complained at the weight loss clinic that no matter how much she dieted, no matter how much weight she lost, her belly wasn't shrinking. It was uncomfortable. It finally got so big that it was about to burst, as I understand it, but it wasn't until she started throwing up green bile that she went to the local Emergency Department. Surgery to remove it nearly cost her her colon, and complications from surgery to repair that almost cost her her life. It did all together cost her 15 months off work, so sick she was unable to walk around her own house. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Only in our culture could we be so out of touch with our own bodies. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">As I wrote this, Zemanta threw up article after article, photo after photo for me to select from to illustrate my stories or to link to. Every one of them was about diets--most for useless junk like green coffee. Not one article, not one graphic raised concerns about weight loss being a sign of illness. Not one. And yet among wild animals and human cultures of the past, that's universally what it was. A nice, healthy layer of fat has always been a sign of plenty, and of well-being. Bears put on fat before they hibernate. Hummingbirds put on weight before they migrate. Old horsemen used to talk about 'good keepers', that is, horses that could maintain their weight. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">But beyond that, I suspect that prior to the last 50 years or so, we've been in better touch with our own bodies. Surely people are born knowing how to eat--half a million years of evolution would have seen to that--but over the last half-century we've let the "experts" and the diet industry tell us what, how, and when we should eat. Signals that should come from within now get ignored in favor of arbitrary directions from without. It's no surprise that few of us know when we're hungry any more, never mind what for, or when we're satisfied. And it would not surprise me if that, in turn, led us to be out of touch with other internal signals, from signals that we are getting tired and need to rest to signals that we might be getting sick. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">If that is so, then might not mindful eating be the start of a path back to a lot more mindfulness, toward getting to know many aspects of our internal experience, and perhaps even a step toward approaching others' experiences free of erroneous assumptions about weight and diet?</variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-45925150517275617062013-03-25T08:00:00.000-04:002013-03-25T08:00:06.162-04:00On Best-Laid Plans<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mus_Musculus-huismuis2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: clear:left;"><img alt="English: Wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) – wr..." border="0" class="zemanta-img-inserted" height="245" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Mus_Musculus-huismuis2.jpg/300px-Mus_Musculus-huismuis2.jpg" style="border: none; font-size: 0.8em;" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 300px;">English: Wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) – (Photo credit: <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mus_Musculus-huismuis2.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</td></tr>
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">And how they really do "gang aft agley". </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I had planned to post to the blog today. And before that, I'd planned to do my taxes this weekend. And before <i>that</i>, I'd simply planned to go to work on Friday, like millions of other ordinary working folk around the country. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">But events conspired to disrupt all that. One thing led to another and more piled on top of that until by Friday I was going to have to be the one to deal with a household crisis. It couldn't be delegated, and it couldn't be put off. More dealing ensued, and continued throughout the weekend, so that here we are, on Monday morning, without a post. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"> </variable>When we are used to making and executing plans with ease and regularity,
it can be astonishing to learn how little our intentions matter to an
indifferent universe. Still, I consider myself blessed that my
particular circumstances could be resolved with the application of a
little cash and elbow grease, and that we were able to just roll with
it. Others, like Mr. Burns's little mousie, are not always so lucky. <br />
<br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Clients and friends had their plans disrupted, too, with family members going into hospitals around the country with problems of varying seriousness. And every day we turn on the news or pick up the paper and see how sadly things have gone south on others, promised joy turning to ashes in their mouths. My thoughts are with all of those people this week, as I pick up my plans where I left off, and resume my normal routines--which should include a real post next Monday.</variable><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<dl>
<dt>The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, <br /> Gang aft agley, <br /> An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, <br /> For promis'd joy! </dt>
<dd class="author"><b><a href="http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Robert_Burns/">Robert Burns</a></b>, <i>To a Mouse (Poem, November, 1785)</i><br />
<i>Scottish national poet (1759 - 1796)</i> </dd></dl>
</blockquote>
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com1240 Creekstone Ridge, Woodstock, GA 30188, USA34.0900139 -84.5252540000000188.5679794000000022 -125.83384800000002 59.612048400000006 -43.216660000000019tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-59594440563156950032013-03-18T07:30:00.000-04:002013-03-18T07:30:06.996-04:00Jimmy was right<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jimmy_Carter_Crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: clear:left;"><img alt="Jimmy Carter, former President of the United S..." border="0" class="zemanta-img-inserted" height="346" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Jimmy_Carter_Crop.jpg/300px-Jimmy_Carter_Crop.jpg" style="border: none; font-size: 0.8em;" width="300" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 300px;">Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States. (Photo credit: <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jimmy_Carter_Crop.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</td></tr>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">
"</variable><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">There are many things in life that are not fair." </variable><br />
<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">-Jimmy Carter
</variable></blockquote>
When he said that, I was young enough and naïve enough to expect that life <i>should </i>be fair, and so to be appalled at his comment. I loved Mr. Jimmy, but he broke my heart with that line.<br />
<br />
In the intervening years, though, I have learned that life is, indeed, manifestly not fair and that when we persist in demanding that it <i>should </i>be (there's that word again), we set ourselves up for all sorts of misery.<br />
<br />
I am not saying that we should not be willing to step up to address inequities when it is in our power to do so, only that in expecting the universe to operate along some sort of moral lines we add to the unhappiness that is already there. And sometimes we create the unhappiness. <br />
<br />
I have come to believe that the sooner and more fully we can embrace the notion that we need to be able to accept life on life's terms in order to live happily, the better off we'll be. Harsh as it may sound, then, the real question becomes not "Why is this happening?" but "What do I intend to do about it?"<br />
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I suspect that when bad things happen, this is nobody's instant response. We all need a little time to wrap our heads around the new state of affairs, to take stock of things and begin to see where we stand now. But then we need to dust our butts off and get back up on that horse and ride it. Wise old horsemen would tell you that if you don't, the horse understands that he just got the better of you, and he'll remember that next time. In life, the message is the same except that you're the one getting it. Be sure the message you send your self is that you <i>can </i>cope, you <i>can </i>deal. <br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com1240 Creekstone Ridge, Woodstock, GA 30188, USA34.0900139 -84.5252540000000188.5679794000000022 -125.83384800000002 59.612048400000006 -43.216660000000019tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-59335450988794182542013-03-10T19:48:00.000-04:002013-03-11T09:33:31.090-04:00Words to Live By<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 240px;">The Writing Life (Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/51061888@N05/5098427492" target="_blank">Simply Bike</a>)</td></tr>
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I've never </variable>before <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">worked in a place that had graffiti on the bathroom walls</variable><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">, but this one does. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">"How we spend our days," I read as I sit, "is, of course, how we spend our lives." Annie Dillard said it, possibly in <i>The Writing Life</i>. It's a beautiful wall. The woman who did it spends her days making </variable>walls <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">beautiful, and those days add up to a life creating beautiful spaces for people to live and work in. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">We don't all have lots of choices in how we spend our days, but all of us have some choice. Choose wisely, when you can. </variable><br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0240 Creekstone Ridge, Woodstock, GA 30188, USA34.0900139 -84.52525400000001833.9848359 -84.686615500000016 34.195191900000005 -84.36389250000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-58716955134839156522013-03-03T11:18:00.000-05:002013-03-04T19:29:45.551-05:00On Gratitude<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 240px;">joy! (Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26147864@N00/26237960" target="_blank">atomicity</a>)</td></tr>
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I always feel funny talking </variable>to clients <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">about gratitude, although I do it often. I worry that it sounds Pollyanna-ish, that flying in the face of their very real (and often truly insurmountable) difficulties, I am, in effect, advising them to whistle past the graveyard. I suspect that the only reason I'm able to do it is that I try to practice "an attitude of gratitude" myself and I know that it works. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">There are all sorts of How-To instructions out there. One of my favorites is Kathleen Adams's <a href="http://www.soulfulliving.com/pockets_of_joy.htm" target="_blank">Pockets of Joy</a>. The expression comes from her childhood, when her mother would be emptying the pockets of her jeans before throwing them in the wash. There were always in them the cool things that kids collect during an adventurous day outside--pretty rocks, dead bugs and the like. And her mother would remark that she must have had another wonderful day, because she had her "pockets of joy" again. Adams advises journaling three things every day that you have in your Pockets of Joy. Sometimes when we think we've had a tough day, we can surprise ourselves, discovering that we actually had a pretty amazing one, too. And if we can hold those two views in our minds at once, we can feel better about ourselves and our days. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">I've learned that there are dozens of things, often tiny ones, that we can be grateful for in any moment of a given day--or night. I may be lying awake anxious and frustrated because I'm not sleeping, worrying about the day gone by or the day to come, but I can be grateful that I have my nice warm waterbed with my nice soft sheets to lie and worry in. I can be grateful for a roof over my head, and central heating and air, and the dog at the foot of the bed and the partner by my side. And if I focus on those, then lying awake at 2 a.m. can actually become a pleasant experience. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">In a <a href="http://tinybuddha.com/blog/find-happiness-through-gratitude-even-when-times-are-tough/" target="_blank">recent post</a>
on Tiny Buddha, guest blogger Alexandra Hope Flood advised listing
things in your head that you are grateful for from your day as you lie
in bed waiting to fall asleep every night. And in the morning, she says,
while you're brushing your teeth, list ten things that you are grateful
for to start your day. If you're having trouble thinking of anything, begin with having teeth
to brush, and being able to stand there and brush them. From there, I might go on to being grateful for meaningful work to do, and a place to
go and do it in.</variable><br />
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I like that one, and I'm going to start prescribing it. <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"> </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">The practice applies to far more serious problem states, too, than a little insomnia. Are you sick? injured? possibly even dying? Still. As Jon Kabat Zinn says in <i><a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Jon-Kabat-Zinn/dp/0385298978%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0385298978" rel="amazon" target="_blank" title="Full Catastrophe Living">Full Catastrophe Living</a></i>, "</variable><variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">as long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, even if you are
sick or troubled or in pain and things in your life feel dark and out of control." So start your gratitude list with the fact that you are breathing, if you can't think of anything else. And while you're at it you can send a smile, as Thich Nhat Hanh advises, to every body part that's working. This is something you can practice at any time throughout your day. Right now, for example, you can smile to your eyes that they see these letters, and to that part of your brain that comprehends the words. Smile to your eyelids that blink, to your tear ducts that moisturize, and to your lashes that keep junk out of your eyes. And then direct your attention back to your breathing. Put a half-smile on your face as you do, on the principle that "neurons that fire together wire together," to paraphrase Hebb. In this way, over time, you develop a habit of being happy. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">Gratitude is one way I deploy <a href="http://woodsrules.blogspot.com/p/about-woods-rules.html" target="_blank">Wood's Rule #4, and its corollary, #5</a>. Focusing on what you can be grateful for in the moment is a mindfulness practice that is the perfect antidote to worry about what is not happening now, may never happen, in fact, and which, in any case, you can do nothing about right now. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable>Now mind you, I'm not saying not to worry, period. That <i>would </i>be Pollyanna-ish.
And it wouldn't do any good to try, because we're hard-wired for worry. I mean, think about it: The Pollyannas of the savannahs would
have been eaten by sabre-toothed tigers before they ever got old enough
to reproduce. What I am saying is that we are all so good at
worrying that it tends to crowd other things out. We
lose sight of the big picture. Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is just remembering to add our assets to our bottom line before we
hit "Print" on the balance sheet of life. No matter what else is going
on in my day, right now it's spitting snow, the birds are mobbing the feeders outside my window, my dog is lying
beside my chair, and I am writing. There are problems, yes, <i>and </i>I am happy. No reason both can't be true for you, too. As one client said recently, "That's the power of 'and'." <br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">When you are in a </variable>seriously <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">foul mood, I think it's best to make a written list. I advise people to use their journals for this, because you can look back over your lists when you are making the cognitive error of thinking, "Oh, this has been such a bad week!" or some such. Read your lists and it will give you a more balanced perspective. Don't limit your list to a prescribed number, but keep writing until you run out of steam. It's ok to repeat things from previous lists: The dog and the sky and my mate go on nearly every list. And you can list the same thing multiple times from various points in time or points of view on the same list: Mine might, for example, include the way my dog's silky coat feels under my hand, the warmth of her body curled up next to mine during our afternoon nap, and something cute she did this morning, all on one day's list. I guarantee your mood will be improved when you're done, if only by a few percentage points. </variable>And that's good. At least while you are writing this list, you definitely feel better. So if nothing else, you've given yourself a break for five, or ten, or fifteen minutes from your unhappiness, and those breaks are essential for all of us. One thing we are often guilty of as humans is 100% thinking, as in "This is a bad day." Stopping and making a list proves to us that no day is 100% bad, including this one.<br />
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So hop to it. Unhappy? Get out your pen and paper!<br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940190008122961917.post-56594455659916547122013-02-24T18:17:00.000-05:002013-02-25T09:00:12.451-05:00Bullying<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 300px;">Physical bullying at school, as depicted in the film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. (Photo credit: <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rebecca1917version.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</td></tr>
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Bullied as a kid? Does it still bug you?
Then you will be not the least surprised at the results of <a href="http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1654916" target="_blank">a study published in JAMA</a> last week. This study is being touted in the media as demonstrating that the effects persist into adulthood</variable> (<a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/victims-of-school-bullies-scarred-for-life-8504302.html" target="_blank">"Scarred for life"</a>, says the <i>Standard</i>, a UK paper)<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">, which I suppose any adult bullied as a kid could have told you. After following over 1400 kids from 11 North Carolina counties for nearly 20 years, researchers found that </variable><span class="Abstract 0" id="scm6MainContent_rptSections_lblSection_0">victims had a higher prevalence of agoraphobia, generalized anxiety, and panic disorder in young adulthood than kids who were not bullied. </span><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">A search of the American Psychological Association's database turned up only one--one!--other study of long-term effects, a retrospective study asking gay and lesbian adults about their experiences in school and checking for any correlations with mental health concerns in adulthood. Their results suggested that as many as 17% of gays and lesbians bullied in school might have at least some symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in adulthood. </variable><br />
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<variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b"></variable> <variable default="#29303b" description="Text Color" name="textColor" type="color" value="#29303b">An author of the first study has been quoted as being surprised by the results. I am not. Therapists are exquisitely attuned to the verbal messages our clients received from their parents about who they were, their place in the family and in the world, their value as human beings. And we all know, and have known for nearly 100 years that clients who were told, just as one example, that they were stupid will continue to believe that right into their dotage. Anything smart they do will be seen either as a fluke, as dumb luck, or as not smart at all--something anyone could do. Our peers have less influence on us, but not by much. And they have nearly as much access to us, seeing us five days of every week, nine months out of every year, throughout some of the most formative years of our lives. They have plenty of opportunity to beat us down. </variable><br />
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One very damaging aspect is the response of the people in charge. Bullying victims get doubly traumatized when teachers, administrators, and parents do nothing: This is experienced as a betrayal, an abandonment, or as further abuse--and sometimes, as all three. For example, a boy who was physically assaulted in front of a raft of teachers who did nothing reported it both the assault and the faculty's inaction to the principal. That worthy's response was that this would not have happened had the student not chosen to come out. In actual point of fact the boy had been outed by one of the bullies some months previously in a separate incident, and he had reported it at the time. So the victim gets the message that nobody cares, nobody's going to do anything, and it's his fault anyway. I suspect that, as studies of childhood sexual abuse have demonstrated, this kind of response on the part of adults is a risk factor for some of the more negative outcomes for the child. <br />
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Nor, as far as I can tell, are long-term effects limited to childhood experiences: I know one fellow, retired
about four years now, who still has regular nightmares about workplace
bullying he suffered. And I have worked with several veterans who count abuse by their superiors as among the worst experiences of their careers.<br />
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So am I surprised by the results of this study? Not hardly.<br />
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Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D., Instructorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04482719649602902058noreply@blogger.com0