Family dinner is something that has affected my life for the better. But the sad thing is that most people don't get the opportunity to eat as a family any longer. If mom is not taking the children to soccer practice, then Dad is working late that night. It looks like an almost impossible task to get a family of 5 to be at the dinner table at the same time. I just want to share what my family has done to have shown victory.
While my husband and I speak about parenting and food, we are unavoidably struck by how immensely different our views are. He spends every day treating people whose life have been ruined, either temporarily or forever, by their relationship with food. These are people who struggle to turn food back into something that stays them alive, who have to unfasten from months of considering food and eating as something completely unusual from nourishment.
I, on the other hand, take sustenance not just from food itself, but from the process of procuring and providing it. Whether I'm recipe-hunting, scouring a farmer's market for ingredients, or experimenting with a new cooking technique, I take enormous pleasure in nourishing both my family and myself. From the satisfaction of a fully-stocked kitchen to the accomplishment of creating a meal to enjoy together at the end of the day, food fulfills me on a daily basis.
Yet the nagging truth is that often, these lovingly prepared meals are consumed in an atmosphere of strife and squabbling. And that's where my husband's and my vastly different experiences of food during the day begin to converge: into a single, stressed-out family dinner. Sometimes it's the food itself that's a problem: one child loves the meal while the other goes on immediate hunger strike at the mere suggestion of eating it. Or else it's the way it's being eaten: manners disregarded, children jumping up and down from the table, food morsels flying in all directions. And at other times, our family dinner simply falls victim to the ineffable mood of the moment: someone's tired and cranky, someone's feelings are hurt, someone just can't stop kicking her sister under the table. It's enough to make us wish, regularly, that we were somewhere anywhere else.
So here we are, a family with great resources and love, a father who organizes his work schedule around being home for dinner, a mother who actually looks forward to providing meals for her family, and even we can't enjoy those meals? Something is wrong with this picture, and we wonder what we can do to set it right again.
Every summer we spend a week at a family resort in Vermont, where we get to swim in Lake Champlain, try archery, kayaking and other activities we haven't indulged in since our own camp days, and enjoy time with other families. But the best thing of all the aspect of the week that some guests joke ought to be the resort's official motto is Twenty Meals Without Your Kids. Yes, it's true: the children eat lunch and dinner and, should you choose, breakfast too with their camp groups, freeing their parents to enjoy mealtimes again. No nagging, no complaining, no bribes, threats or rewards: paradise! It's amazing how revitalized we feel after a week's reprieve from family meals. Yet as much as we enjoy the kid-free meal plan, it also seems another depressing strike against our struggle to pursue the platonic ideal of Family Dinner.
So what can we do to bring the joy back into eating together? There's letting the children take part in meal preparation--when there's time for that, between after school activities and homework. There's picking our battles when it comes to enforcing manners: maybe a dropped napkin or a few unauthorized trips to the center of the room to demonstrate dance moves are ok. But how to get over that last and highest hurdle: making sure our kids eat enough to satisfy their hunger enough "healthy food," moreover without turning them into food neurotics? Do you remember Portnoy's mother standing over him during meals with a sharp knife in hand? I don't want to be her and I really don't want my children to grow up and remember me that way! Not to mention that all this cajoling, threatening and nagging is ruining my own enjoyment of meals.
So that's my goal, then. I know it appears humble and maybe stupid, when there are those whose struggles with food run much deeper and cut more keenly. And I also know enough about parenting by now to understand we are going to reach any goal just in fits and begins, that as soon as we think we might have it figured out, we are going to be impolitely returned to square one. But it seems like one worth striving for: making meals fun again, and shedding enough of the attendant stresses so that we can actually be free to eat and enjoy them. Most of all, harmonious family meals are a huge gift to children, helping them learn that meals, and food, are there both to nourish and to be loved: nothing more and nothing less.
Creating a ritual that is particular and unusual from all the other days of the week might be more appreciated by the kids. One could structure that time together for story telling or summarizing the month's activities. If the kids felt more at ease to be themselves throughout the week's meals they might be more compliant when asked to behave some way once a week.
2010年10月29日星期五
Bill O'Reilly and Critical Thinking
Hate breeds hate. If you are going to go and dislike against all Muslims, just because they're Muslim, you're just giving them more causes to dislike against Americans simply because we're American. To discuss Muslims and imply that all Muslims are radicals and terrorists is to subtly degrade them to an inferior condition than yourself, to make them less than human.
I don't have a specific political axe to grind. I've been a registered Republican. My motivation for writing what follows needs to do with the necessity for sound critical thinking in our world, especially on the subject of our conversation of social and political problems.
Last week on The View, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar left the set after Bill O'Reilly made the comment that building a mosque near Ground Zero is inappropriate because Muslims killed us there. His argument is that since it is common knowledge that Muslim terrorists were the perpetrators, he didn't need to be more specific. It seems that his point is that given the context of the discussion, he didn't need to add the descriptors "terrorists" or "extremists". But is he right?
With this in mind, O'Reilly seems to be claiming that he's not guilty of overgenerality, because given the context of 9/11, we all know that it was Muslim radicals who attacked the World Trade Center. However, he is mistaken. The context of the discussion in which this all took place was whether or not it is appropriate to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Unless the purposes behind building the mosque are radical, he is guilty of overgenerality because he's lumping together the 9/11 attackers and those who want to build a mosque at the controversial site. Moreover, there are unfortunately many people in our country who equate "Muslim" with "Muslim extremist", and given that context, what O'Reilly said was overgeneral and irresponsible.
This brings us to more recent events concerning now former NPR commentator and current Fox analyst Juan Williams for expressing his fear of being on a plane with persons dressed in Muslim garb. I'm not interested in entering the debate concerning whether or not NPR should have fired Williams, or whether it was right or wrong of him to express this fear. What I want to focus on is the claim I've heard repeated in several places that this is "censorship" and that his freedom of speech is being violated.
These claims are ridiculous. Williams is guest-hosting O'Reilly's show tonight, and now has an expanded role at Fox News. If censorship is defined as "the suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body," then the first amendment rights of Williams have not been violated, that is, NPR is not guilty of censorship. In the same book on critical thinking mentioned above, the importance of precise definitions is underscored.
NPR is a media outlet, and part of their reason for firing Williams is that his talking was objectionable, hurtful, and insensitive. On the other hand, NPR has not suppressed his speaking. Rather, they've made the determination that he desecrated their moral policies. I'm neither defending nor attacking their determination.
I believe that political accuracy is obviously a matter that is related to critical thinking. It is about the use of language, and in reality in the text I use there is a part dealing with pc language. In my opinion, NPR was really incorrect to fire him, because we'd all be better served by having an open and truthful talk of the emotions he expressed.
I don't have a specific political axe to grind. I've been a registered Republican. My motivation for writing what follows needs to do with the necessity for sound critical thinking in our world, especially on the subject of our conversation of social and political problems.
Last week on The View, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar left the set after Bill O'Reilly made the comment that building a mosque near Ground Zero is inappropriate because Muslims killed us there. His argument is that since it is common knowledge that Muslim terrorists were the perpetrators, he didn't need to be more specific. It seems that his point is that given the context of the discussion, he didn't need to add the descriptors "terrorists" or "extremists". But is he right?
With this in mind, O'Reilly seems to be claiming that he's not guilty of overgenerality, because given the context of 9/11, we all know that it was Muslim radicals who attacked the World Trade Center. However, he is mistaken. The context of the discussion in which this all took place was whether or not it is appropriate to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Unless the purposes behind building the mosque are radical, he is guilty of overgenerality because he's lumping together the 9/11 attackers and those who want to build a mosque at the controversial site. Moreover, there are unfortunately many people in our country who equate "Muslim" with "Muslim extremist", and given that context, what O'Reilly said was overgeneral and irresponsible.
This brings us to more recent events concerning now former NPR commentator and current Fox analyst Juan Williams for expressing his fear of being on a plane with persons dressed in Muslim garb. I'm not interested in entering the debate concerning whether or not NPR should have fired Williams, or whether it was right or wrong of him to express this fear. What I want to focus on is the claim I've heard repeated in several places that this is "censorship" and that his freedom of speech is being violated.
These claims are ridiculous. Williams is guest-hosting O'Reilly's show tonight, and now has an expanded role at Fox News. If censorship is defined as "the suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body," then the first amendment rights of Williams have not been violated, that is, NPR is not guilty of censorship. In the same book on critical thinking mentioned above, the importance of precise definitions is underscored.
NPR is a media outlet, and part of their reason for firing Williams is that his talking was objectionable, hurtful, and insensitive. On the other hand, NPR has not suppressed his speaking. Rather, they've made the determination that he desecrated their moral policies. I'm neither defending nor attacking their determination.
I believe that political accuracy is obviously a matter that is related to critical thinking. It is about the use of language, and in reality in the text I use there is a part dealing with pc language. In my opinion, NPR was really incorrect to fire him, because we'd all be better served by having an open and truthful talk of the emotions he expressed.
Blowing Up a Fairy Tale
As being a analyst who has read a doctor's book "The Heart of Addiction" and used it in my very own job with sufferers, I can confirm to the truth that the method he starts to describe here and fleshes out in much greater detail in the book can change addicts' life in a profound and lasting way.
Addiction has been poorly understood for a very long time, and lately the case has become worse with the popularization of the thought that addiction is a "brain disease." Supporters of this fallacy point to the truth that pleasure centers of the mind "light up" while people use certain drugs. They conclude this must be important to understanding addiction.
It isn't. Everyone who takes certain drugs will have his or her brain activated ("lit up") in the same way. The puzzle of addiction is not which section of the brain is stimulated, but why some people who take alcohol and other drugs feel compelled to use them repeatedly, while others do not. Alas, no imaging technology can explain this central mystery.
That something else is going on in addiction becomes self-evident when we examine the facts. For one thing, not all addictive behaviors involve drugs. It is well-known that people with addictions can shift their behavior back and forth from drug use to non-drug compulsive activities such as shopping, gambling, even cleaning house. Such astonishing variety clearly cannot be attributed to narcotic effect or a "brain disease."
For another, even where physical addiction is present, there are no simple rules. After the Vietnam War, thousands of soldiers who had become physically dependent on heroin stopped using it once they returned home, despite the famously "addictive" nature of this drug. Once they weren't subject to the stress of war, over 90 percent of these veterans readily gave up using a result that cannot be explained on a neurobiological basis.
Indeed, a more modern understanding of addiction reveals an interesting fact most addicts feel better not when they use the drug, but when they decide to use the drug. That means there is an emotional and psychological element at play here. In fact, the critical moment of decision to perform an addictive act can occur hours or even days before the act itself. It is the emotional content of this moment that is key to understanding addiction from the inside out, and what is important in that moment is a need to remedy a sense of helplessness as I've described in a number of academic papers and my book, The Heart of Addiction.
We live in a time of neurobiological reductionism in which we are repeatedly told that the mind can be reduced to the brain. Yet this will never be true. Just as chemicals that make up living things are not alive themselves, cells that make up the brain have none of the psychology that make us human. Our emotional lives come into existence only when billions of cells work together, and what they produce can not be predicted by looking at a single cell and extrapolating. As Nobel laureate Philip Anderson pointed out in a seminal paper on complex systems, "Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry." Those who study brain biochemistry are doing useful work in understanding biologically-based major mental illness such as schizophrenia. But they make a mistake when they believe they are discovering something about the vast area of conflicts and emotional issues that make up the lives of the rest of us.
If we could have a more exact picture of addiction in the human brain, it would include much of the history and lots of the events that make us who we are. The unendurable helplessness that drives addiction is diverse for every person, but this much is known, it is much more private and complicated than a bright spot on a screen. Until we create a machine that could read our souls, a sympathetic understanding of ourselves and talk treatment remain the most effective tools we have.
Drinking is societal to me, I can stop at one glass of wine and that is it for me, but I take prescription meds day by day for lasting sleeplessness, disquiet, and unhappiness. When anxious I eat, so I am 19 lbs over wt. If it were simple to get heroin, i would do it. Emotional hurt is the toughest and I just want it to stop. I work and support myself, what I do at nighttime is nobody's business, so long as i work and am a productive member of society.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with cheap coach purses and fashion things.
Addiction has been poorly understood for a very long time, and lately the case has become worse with the popularization of the thought that addiction is a "brain disease." Supporters of this fallacy point to the truth that pleasure centers of the mind "light up" while people use certain drugs. They conclude this must be important to understanding addiction.
It isn't. Everyone who takes certain drugs will have his or her brain activated ("lit up") in the same way. The puzzle of addiction is not which section of the brain is stimulated, but why some people who take alcohol and other drugs feel compelled to use them repeatedly, while others do not. Alas, no imaging technology can explain this central mystery.
That something else is going on in addiction becomes self-evident when we examine the facts. For one thing, not all addictive behaviors involve drugs. It is well-known that people with addictions can shift their behavior back and forth from drug use to non-drug compulsive activities such as shopping, gambling, even cleaning house. Such astonishing variety clearly cannot be attributed to narcotic effect or a "brain disease."
For another, even where physical addiction is present, there are no simple rules. After the Vietnam War, thousands of soldiers who had become physically dependent on heroin stopped using it once they returned home, despite the famously "addictive" nature of this drug. Once they weren't subject to the stress of war, over 90 percent of these veterans readily gave up using a result that cannot be explained on a neurobiological basis.
Indeed, a more modern understanding of addiction reveals an interesting fact most addicts feel better not when they use the drug, but when they decide to use the drug. That means there is an emotional and psychological element at play here. In fact, the critical moment of decision to perform an addictive act can occur hours or even days before the act itself. It is the emotional content of this moment that is key to understanding addiction from the inside out, and what is important in that moment is a need to remedy a sense of helplessness as I've described in a number of academic papers and my book, The Heart of Addiction.
We live in a time of neurobiological reductionism in which we are repeatedly told that the mind can be reduced to the brain. Yet this will never be true. Just as chemicals that make up living things are not alive themselves, cells that make up the brain have none of the psychology that make us human. Our emotional lives come into existence only when billions of cells work together, and what they produce can not be predicted by looking at a single cell and extrapolating. As Nobel laureate Philip Anderson pointed out in a seminal paper on complex systems, "Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry." Those who study brain biochemistry are doing useful work in understanding biologically-based major mental illness such as schizophrenia. But they make a mistake when they believe they are discovering something about the vast area of conflicts and emotional issues that make up the lives of the rest of us.
If we could have a more exact picture of addiction in the human brain, it would include much of the history and lots of the events that make us who we are. The unendurable helplessness that drives addiction is diverse for every person, but this much is known, it is much more private and complicated than a bright spot on a screen. Until we create a machine that could read our souls, a sympathetic understanding of ourselves and talk treatment remain the most effective tools we have.
Drinking is societal to me, I can stop at one glass of wine and that is it for me, but I take prescription meds day by day for lasting sleeplessness, disquiet, and unhappiness. When anxious I eat, so I am 19 lbs over wt. If it were simple to get heroin, i would do it. Emotional hurt is the toughest and I just want it to stop. I work and support myself, what I do at nighttime is nobody's business, so long as i work and am a productive member of society.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with cheap coach purses and fashion things.
2010年10月27日星期三
Have Lessons in Eating Disorder Support eaten you?
I've only been bingeing and purging for three years, regardless of my exact wish to stop, I can't. I don't know, you can find parts of it that don't look like true. They want to show big transformations, but the fact is that seven weeks just isn't going to do that, most of the time, anyhow. And there are also a few parts which are overly dramatic.
The topic is a different documentary on eating problems on E. The third episode aired on Tuesday night. We are continuing to explore the problem are TV shows on psychological problems like Interference, What’s Eating You, and so on. Educational or do they run the danger of giving a partial image of the problem and cure?
The two individuals in this show, Kristy and Marc, had a long and painful history of bingeing and purging that was triggered very early in their teens by several factors trauma, genetics, emotional abuse, OCD, mentally ill parent etc. The beginning of the show focused heavily on the actual behaviors many of them extreme close ups of cottage cheese with hot sauce and bathroom scenes.
Later in the show, there was a much deeper connection with these two individuals. Rather than focusing on the surface behaviors, there was a shift onto the underlying mechanisms of the disorder-shame, difficult regulating emotion, feelings of worthlessness, guilt etc.
Two important issues were brought to light in this episode. The first was choosing the most appropriate kind of treatment. The show provided treatment for a certain number of weeks. After it was over, Marc decided to continue and do a five month intensive outpatient program (according to the show). Viewers may not know what that means or why it is important.
There are different levels and intensity of eating disorder treatment that depend on various factors such as how long you’ve been struggling with the disorder and how medically compromised you are. An individual may want to change, but not be able to do so. In this case, a more structured program is helpful. This was likely the issue with Marc. He had been struggling for many years, there were medical complications from bingeing/purging and laxative use and he also had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. He would likely benefit from a very structured and intensive program. They did not mention medication on the show, which could possibly be important for someone with OCD.
Kristy invited her husband to treatment. There was a dramatic transformation in his understanding and ability to give support. He always stated his love for his wife and fear of her disorder. He thought he was being supportive. When he learned new ways of being there for her, Kristy reached out to her husband in a vulnerable moment. Her husband talked her through it and said helpful and encouraging statements. She walked away from her binge trigger food. Kristy’s case shows how an eating disorder can drive a wedge between you and important relationships. They became much closer as her eating disorder faded into the background.
Inviting Marc’s father to treatment helped his father gain perspective and understanding of this disease and it is a disease not a choice. The father learned that when an eating disorder starts, emotional development stops. So, if the ED starts at age 15, cognitive and emotional development is arrested at that age. It’s difficult to expect Marc to respond at age appropriate levels. This understanding made a significant difference in their relationship and Marc’s movement toward recovery. Marc is ultimately responsible for doing the hard work to recover. However, it is wonderful to have someone with you on the journey.
Once more, thanks to them for courageously helping us find out more about eating problems and permitting us to be a part of your recuperation. Best wishes on your lasting recovery. Be happy to share your ideas. But are these shows useful or not?
As I think, they had to cut a lot out of the entire thing to suit it into a 21 minute time framework. But except for that, and the most important thing of all is that I was really ready to give myself over to recuperation and treatment. I want to give all the credit to God, who orchestrated I think this whole thing and put me with such an amazing psychoanalyst who knew how to get inside me and together pull out and deal with that hurting kid inside of me. That was what led to real healing. When the kid is healed, the behavior will stop. I never thought that but it is real.
2010年10月26日星期二
The Problem with Haunted Asylums Places
The majority of movies don’t have advisors. Instead, they depend on their assumptions, which are typically based on stereotypes and cliches. At times moviemakers do investigation, but so many of the facts out there are outdated or distorted that it’s difficult for them to find out without the psych background what to believe. They think their assumptions are precise for the reason that they have no experience with the modern psychological health field.
"Haunted" places are trendy Halloween attractions, but cyclic haunted asylums in particular draw fire from psychological fitness advocacy groups like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). NAMI argues that such attractions "contribute to the stigma by heartening false stereotypes and barricading the trail toward an educated society" and asks the web sites to remove the displays.
One spot on NAMI’s 2010 list is the Sandusky, Ohio, amusement park Cedar Point, which advertises "Dr. D. Mented’s Asylum for the Criminally Insane" this way: "Torture. The twisted and evil Dr. D. Mented has practiced inhumane experiments for many years."
Upon receiving a letter from NAMI, Cedar Point officials stated that haunted houses "are not designed to depict reality" and therefore do not promote false stereotypes, e.g. "that people with mental illness are dangerous and deranged and that the general public should be frightened of such people." Many online commenters believe that NAMI is taking itself too seriously, and should spend its time and money doing more concrete things to help the people who need it.
Let’s look at both sides.
On the one hand, asking a highly popular, entertainment-oriented, money-making attraction that’s already in full swing to tear it all down in hopes that people will realize that the depictions were unrealistic may be overly optimistic, at least for this year.
On the other hand, haunted asylums do play up scary stereotypes: that the clinical staff uses patients for ugly experiments; and that people who need to be hospitalized are radically different from everyone else, completely out of control, and savagely dangerous.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad if the stigma against mental illness weren’t already so high. I haven’t met anyone who’d hesitate to say they needed to go to the hospital for a broken leg, for example, but if a student remarks in an Abnormal Psychology class that she’s been hospitalized for psychological reasons, the entire room tends to recoil.
How does this affect you, the writer?
Well, you may think it would be a great idea to grab a flamboyant stereotype like "Dr. D. Mented." But if you just say "my character, Dr. D. Mented, tormented his patients with electroshock therapy," you’re probably going to end up with a boring story, because we’ve all seen many variations of it before. (Just off the top of my head: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the movie The House on Haunted Hill, and the television show Supernatural’s episode "Asylum.")
You may think I’m being ironic when I tell you besides helping to reduce stigma, the biggest argument against clichés is that they’re boring (especially the ones that are more than 50 years outdated, like the average "electroshock" portrayal). After all, Cedar Point is making plenty of money with their version of the cliché. But is it really the asylum that draws you in, or what supposedly happened in the asylum? It’s what supposedly happened, of course.
That’s what makes a good story detailing what happened to your characters, how they reacted, what they did in response, how it changed them. Maybe the line that intrigues you most from the St. Lucifer’s description is people chewing their tongues off (What would compel someone to do such a thing?! Figure it out and you have a story), or how people lost their facial features (Are their faces completely smooth? How would such a thing happen? Figure it out and you have a story), but what really draws me in is the "5 miles of underground tunnels."
Perform a little delving into what most machinations you about any given stereotype, put it together with six miles of underground tunnels commanded by a well-drawn villain (or whatever setting grabs your fancy), and you may just have something a lot better than a worn and ragged stereotype that’s only appealing for some pop scares at Halloween.
I believe that cliches wouldn’t work well in writing, but the sad fact is that they’re cliches for a reason: when the average person thinks about a psychological institution, those terrifying images are the first thing that come to mind. Perhaps NAMI thinks it’s going to close any of those haunted asylums which are already open, but bringing increased consciousness to the issue makes people take into consideration and questions their cliched beliefs.
Copyright by Lucy who likes shopping online, going fishing, often searches nike air max ltd and michael jordan sneakers on the Internet.
"Haunted" places are trendy Halloween attractions, but cyclic haunted asylums in particular draw fire from psychological fitness advocacy groups like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). NAMI argues that such attractions "contribute to the stigma by heartening false stereotypes and barricading the trail toward an educated society" and asks the web sites to remove the displays.
One spot on NAMI’s 2010 list is the Sandusky, Ohio, amusement park Cedar Point, which advertises "Dr. D. Mented’s Asylum for the Criminally Insane" this way: "Torture. The twisted and evil Dr. D. Mented has practiced inhumane experiments for many years."
Upon receiving a letter from NAMI, Cedar Point officials stated that haunted houses "are not designed to depict reality" and therefore do not promote false stereotypes, e.g. "that people with mental illness are dangerous and deranged and that the general public should be frightened of such people." Many online commenters believe that NAMI is taking itself too seriously, and should spend its time and money doing more concrete things to help the people who need it.
Let’s look at both sides.
On the one hand, asking a highly popular, entertainment-oriented, money-making attraction that’s already in full swing to tear it all down in hopes that people will realize that the depictions were unrealistic may be overly optimistic, at least for this year.
On the other hand, haunted asylums do play up scary stereotypes: that the clinical staff uses patients for ugly experiments; and that people who need to be hospitalized are radically different from everyone else, completely out of control, and savagely dangerous.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad if the stigma against mental illness weren’t already so high. I haven’t met anyone who’d hesitate to say they needed to go to the hospital for a broken leg, for example, but if a student remarks in an Abnormal Psychology class that she’s been hospitalized for psychological reasons, the entire room tends to recoil.
How does this affect you, the writer?
Well, you may think it would be a great idea to grab a flamboyant stereotype like "Dr. D. Mented." But if you just say "my character, Dr. D. Mented, tormented his patients with electroshock therapy," you’re probably going to end up with a boring story, because we’ve all seen many variations of it before. (Just off the top of my head: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the movie The House on Haunted Hill, and the television show Supernatural’s episode "Asylum.")
You may think I’m being ironic when I tell you besides helping to reduce stigma, the biggest argument against clichés is that they’re boring (especially the ones that are more than 50 years outdated, like the average "electroshock" portrayal). After all, Cedar Point is making plenty of money with their version of the cliché. But is it really the asylum that draws you in, or what supposedly happened in the asylum? It’s what supposedly happened, of course.
That’s what makes a good story detailing what happened to your characters, how they reacted, what they did in response, how it changed them. Maybe the line that intrigues you most from the St. Lucifer’s description is people chewing their tongues off (What would compel someone to do such a thing?! Figure it out and you have a story), or how people lost their facial features (Are their faces completely smooth? How would such a thing happen? Figure it out and you have a story), but what really draws me in is the "5 miles of underground tunnels."
Perform a little delving into what most machinations you about any given stereotype, put it together with six miles of underground tunnels commanded by a well-drawn villain (or whatever setting grabs your fancy), and you may just have something a lot better than a worn and ragged stereotype that’s only appealing for some pop scares at Halloween.
I believe that cliches wouldn’t work well in writing, but the sad fact is that they’re cliches for a reason: when the average person thinks about a psychological institution, those terrifying images are the first thing that come to mind. Perhaps NAMI thinks it’s going to close any of those haunted asylums which are already open, but bringing increased consciousness to the issue makes people take into consideration and questions their cliched beliefs.
Copyright by Lucy who likes shopping online, going fishing, often searches nike air max ltd and michael jordan sneakers on the Internet.
2010年10月25日星期一
Married couples are favored over all kinds of unmarried people
The feeling I get from some landlords is that they presume the married couple is older and much more mature than an unmarried person and particularly mores than a group of roommates (mature, responsible persons are assumed to have the ability to offer their own place, you see). A few years ago I was trying to find an apartment with roommates and I kept making a point to mention our ages to the landlords and rental agents when we viewed the residences, since all of us seemed pretty young to boot.
Presume you had a home to hire and you were determining among several interested parties, including married and unmarried person. Supposing, too, that the married and unmarried people were the same with regard to their work, interests, and what they like about the house. Do you think that your selection of tenants would have anything to do with their marital status?
That’s what Wendy Morris and Stacey Sinclair and I investigated in a series of 4 studies (with two variations on the fourth). In addition to tapping the usual participants in laboratory research - college students - we also recruited people who actually did work for rental agencies for one of the studies (Study 3).
Participants in each study read brief sketches of each of the interested parties, specifying the applicants’ employment, pastimes, how they found out about the house, and what appealed to them about it. There were several versions of any given profile, varying only in the marital status of the applicants.
In the first study, the choices were a married couple, a unmarried woman, and a unmarried man. If there were no bias, each would have been selected 33% of the time. Here are the actual results:
Study 1
79% married couple
13% cohabiting couple
8% pair of friends
Again, the married couple was favored by a huge margin.
Study 2
69% married couple
19% unmarried woman
12% unmarried man
The married couple was favored overwhelmingly. (This result and all the others I will describe are statistically significant.)
Perhaps the married couple was favored because there were two renters; people making the decisions could have figured that two people would be more likely than one person to have the money to cover the rent. So in the next study, the choices were a married couple, a cohabiting couple, and a pair of opposite-sex friends. Here are the results:
Study 2 was the same as Study 1, except this time the people making the decisions were actual rental agents. Here are their choices:
Study 3 (participants were rental agents)
61% married couple
24% cohabiting couple
15% pair of friends
The rental agents were not as wildly biased as the college students were, but they still favored the married couple by a very substantial margin.
Well, what if they assume that a married couple is more likely to stay together (and less likely to break the lease) than the cohabiting couple? In the first version of Study 4, we made it clear that both the married couple and the cohabiting couple had been together for the same length of time - 6 years.
In each of the studies, we asked the participants to rate their expectations for each of the potential tenants. For example, we asked them how likely each tenant would be to keep the house clean, damage the house, make noise, pay their rent on time, or break the lease. In all instances except two, the married applicants were rated more favorably than the singles. The exceptions were the unmarried woman and the cohabiting couple when they had been together longer than the married couple - both were rated just as positively as the married couple.
Notice that the more negative expectations for the unmarried tenants (e.g., that they would be less likely to take good care of the house and to pay on time) could not fully account for the results. That’s because even when the singles were perceived just as positively along those dimensions as the married couple was (in the case of the single woman and one of the cohabiting couples), the married couple was still favored as a renter by a very wide margin.
We also asked participants in each study to answer in an open-ended way (no rating scales) why they chose the applicant they did. By far, the most popular answer was that the choice was based on marital status. In each study, of those who chose the married couple, between 42% and 84% said simply that they choice the married couple because they were married.
If it is not obvious what’s wrong with that (and I’ve presented this work in the past to very smart people who did not get it), imagine that the choices were between African-American and white tenants, and the decision makers said that they chose the white applicants because they were white. Yet, across 3 studies and 2 variations of a fourth, participants unabashedly said that they chose the married couple because they were married.
There was another study in this journal article that we described an example of blatant discrimination against an unmarried person, or some other more widely-recognized aim of discrimination. We desired to know whether people would recognize and object to the discrimination against unmarried people to the same degree that they noticed and lamented discrimination against other communities.
As an educated white professional woman with an excellent credit rating, my experience has usually been that hire agents are glad to work with me, and when I’ve looked for residences contacting landlords directly I’ve had the same experience. Lots of landlords whom I’ve met through residence searches have not tried to hide their diverse prejudices.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with cheap coach purses and coach purses.
Presume you had a home to hire and you were determining among several interested parties, including married and unmarried person. Supposing, too, that the married and unmarried people were the same with regard to their work, interests, and what they like about the house. Do you think that your selection of tenants would have anything to do with their marital status?
That’s what Wendy Morris and Stacey Sinclair and I investigated in a series of 4 studies (with two variations on the fourth). In addition to tapping the usual participants in laboratory research - college students - we also recruited people who actually did work for rental agencies for one of the studies (Study 3).
Participants in each study read brief sketches of each of the interested parties, specifying the applicants’ employment, pastimes, how they found out about the house, and what appealed to them about it. There were several versions of any given profile, varying only in the marital status of the applicants.
In the first study, the choices were a married couple, a unmarried woman, and a unmarried man. If there were no bias, each would have been selected 33% of the time. Here are the actual results:
Study 1
79% married couple
13% cohabiting couple
8% pair of friends
Again, the married couple was favored by a huge margin.
Study 2
69% married couple
19% unmarried woman
12% unmarried man
The married couple was favored overwhelmingly. (This result and all the others I will describe are statistically significant.)
Perhaps the married couple was favored because there were two renters; people making the decisions could have figured that two people would be more likely than one person to have the money to cover the rent. So in the next study, the choices were a married couple, a cohabiting couple, and a pair of opposite-sex friends. Here are the results:
Study 2 was the same as Study 1, except this time the people making the decisions were actual rental agents. Here are their choices:
Study 3 (participants were rental agents)
61% married couple
24% cohabiting couple
15% pair of friends
The rental agents were not as wildly biased as the college students were, but they still favored the married couple by a very substantial margin.
Well, what if they assume that a married couple is more likely to stay together (and less likely to break the lease) than the cohabiting couple? In the first version of Study 4, we made it clear that both the married couple and the cohabiting couple had been together for the same length of time - 6 years.
In each of the studies, we asked the participants to rate their expectations for each of the potential tenants. For example, we asked them how likely each tenant would be to keep the house clean, damage the house, make noise, pay their rent on time, or break the lease. In all instances except two, the married applicants were rated more favorably than the singles. The exceptions were the unmarried woman and the cohabiting couple when they had been together longer than the married couple - both were rated just as positively as the married couple.
Notice that the more negative expectations for the unmarried tenants (e.g., that they would be less likely to take good care of the house and to pay on time) could not fully account for the results. That’s because even when the singles were perceived just as positively along those dimensions as the married couple was (in the case of the single woman and one of the cohabiting couples), the married couple was still favored as a renter by a very wide margin.
We also asked participants in each study to answer in an open-ended way (no rating scales) why they chose the applicant they did. By far, the most popular answer was that the choice was based on marital status. In each study, of those who chose the married couple, between 42% and 84% said simply that they choice the married couple because they were married.
If it is not obvious what’s wrong with that (and I’ve presented this work in the past to very smart people who did not get it), imagine that the choices were between African-American and white tenants, and the decision makers said that they chose the white applicants because they were white. Yet, across 3 studies and 2 variations of a fourth, participants unabashedly said that they chose the married couple because they were married.
There was another study in this journal article that we described an example of blatant discrimination against an unmarried person, or some other more widely-recognized aim of discrimination. We desired to know whether people would recognize and object to the discrimination against unmarried people to the same degree that they noticed and lamented discrimination against other communities.
As an educated white professional woman with an excellent credit rating, my experience has usually been that hire agents are glad to work with me, and when I’ve looked for residences contacting landlords directly I’ve had the same experience. Lots of landlords whom I’ve met through residence searches have not tried to hide their diverse prejudices.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with cheap coach purses and coach purses.
2010年10月24日星期日
How a Psychopath Choose his Victims
Some years ago, a fleeting incident happened when I was walking along a crowded Boston avenue. I was feeling exhausted and exaggerated the feeling in my actions. I must've appeared vulnerable. My eyes caught the stare of a person standing in a door appraising me, not as a pretty woman, it was a new type of look. It appeared as if he was assessing whether he could get something from me.
Of late my journalistic job brought me in touch with a man who, when I first met him, appeared to be the very personification of an enthralling and well-heeled gentleman. He is a native conversationalist , handsome, strong, mentally curious, financially successful, and wittily self-deprecating. What few people learn about him is that he has left behind a path of emotional destruction, having spent decades abusing vulnerable persons for his own twisted purposes.
Psychopaths, or sociopaths as some prefer to call them, are well known figures in our culture. We're fascinated by their predatory relationship with the rest of humanity. Their chilling alien-ness makes them convenient villains in books, film, and television. When we encounter them in real life, we think: There really are monsters roaming the world. But as my own recent experience has taught me, the crimes of the psychopath are not merely a function of the perpetrator. We are not all equally likely to fall prey. Just as psychopaths are a special breed, so too are their victims.
Psychologists have long been known that the more psychopathic a person is, the more easily they can identify potential victims. Indeed, they can do so just by watching the way a person moves. In one study, test subjects watched videos of twelve individuals walking, shot from behind, and rated how easily they could be mugged. As it happened, some of the people in the videotapes really had been mugged and the most psychopathic of the subjects were able to tell which was which. Writes Mauro:
The completed the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale: Version III, which measures interpersonal and affective traits associated with psychopathy as well as intra-personal instability and antisocial traits. Overall results confirmed a strong positive correlation between psychopathy scores and accuracy of victim identification. This means that individuals that score higher for psychopathy are better at selecting victims.
And what was it about these people that made them seem vulnerable? A later study found that the men were picking up on whole suite of nonverbal cues, including the length of their stride, how they shifted their weight, and how high they lifted their feet. Taken together, these cues gave the psychopathic men a rough gauge of how confident their potential victims were. Body language that implies a lack of confidence read: socially submissive includes lack of eye contact, fidgeting of the hands and feet, and the avoidance of large gestures when shifting posture.
The researchers' findings confirmed my own suspicions regarding the dubious fellow I mentioned above. The women who wound up on the receiving end of his attentions were individuals who, in their own description, were not very worldly, experienced, or outgoing. They were psychologically vulnerable and hence ill-equipped to either resist this fellow's predations or to deal with them emotionally after they had occurred. In the aftermath, they are so traumatized that even speaking about their experiences is extremely painful. And so the psychopath continues on his way.
The fairly depressing result of all this is that, as much we may dislike the thought of "blaming the victim," people who are on the receiving end of crime often do mark themselves out, if only subliminally. I presume that we might look on the brilliant side and recognize we now have things we could do to make us less vulnerable. But unluckily there always going to weaker and more vulnerable people of society, the lambs on whom the wolves will focus their concentration.
I think it's a deep part of our mammalian heritage to claim ascendancy wherever we can. When we're young, we're still learning to do this in a nuanced, actual way, and our lack of skill can often manifest as bullying. Certainly, taken to extremes this cruelty could be pathological.
Of late my journalistic job brought me in touch with a man who, when I first met him, appeared to be the very personification of an enthralling and well-heeled gentleman. He is a native conversationalist , handsome, strong, mentally curious, financially successful, and wittily self-deprecating. What few people learn about him is that he has left behind a path of emotional destruction, having spent decades abusing vulnerable persons for his own twisted purposes.
Psychopaths, or sociopaths as some prefer to call them, are well known figures in our culture. We're fascinated by their predatory relationship with the rest of humanity. Their chilling alien-ness makes them convenient villains in books, film, and television. When we encounter them in real life, we think: There really are monsters roaming the world. But as my own recent experience has taught me, the crimes of the psychopath are not merely a function of the perpetrator. We are not all equally likely to fall prey. Just as psychopaths are a special breed, so too are their victims.
Psychologists have long been known that the more psychopathic a person is, the more easily they can identify potential victims. Indeed, they can do so just by watching the way a person moves. In one study, test subjects watched videos of twelve individuals walking, shot from behind, and rated how easily they could be mugged. As it happened, some of the people in the videotapes really had been mugged and the most psychopathic of the subjects were able to tell which was which. Writes Mauro:
The completed the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale: Version III, which measures interpersonal and affective traits associated with psychopathy as well as intra-personal instability and antisocial traits. Overall results confirmed a strong positive correlation between psychopathy scores and accuracy of victim identification. This means that individuals that score higher for psychopathy are better at selecting victims.
And what was it about these people that made them seem vulnerable? A later study found that the men were picking up on whole suite of nonverbal cues, including the length of their stride, how they shifted their weight, and how high they lifted their feet. Taken together, these cues gave the psychopathic men a rough gauge of how confident their potential victims were. Body language that implies a lack of confidence read: socially submissive includes lack of eye contact, fidgeting of the hands and feet, and the avoidance of large gestures when shifting posture.
The researchers' findings confirmed my own suspicions regarding the dubious fellow I mentioned above. The women who wound up on the receiving end of his attentions were individuals who, in their own description, were not very worldly, experienced, or outgoing. They were psychologically vulnerable and hence ill-equipped to either resist this fellow's predations or to deal with them emotionally after they had occurred. In the aftermath, they are so traumatized that even speaking about their experiences is extremely painful. And so the psychopath continues on his way.
The fairly depressing result of all this is that, as much we may dislike the thought of "blaming the victim," people who are on the receiving end of crime often do mark themselves out, if only subliminally. I presume that we might look on the brilliant side and recognize we now have things we could do to make us less vulnerable. But unluckily there always going to weaker and more vulnerable people of society, the lambs on whom the wolves will focus their concentration.
I think it's a deep part of our mammalian heritage to claim ascendancy wherever we can. When we're young, we're still learning to do this in a nuanced, actual way, and our lack of skill can often manifest as bullying. Certainly, taken to extremes this cruelty could be pathological.
2010年10月22日星期五
Some thoughts about how to enjoy your life right now
Journal writing could be a good way to be aware of the current moment. The one thing that all of us must be careful of is that we don't put it to use to critique ourselves, for instance, for not writing often enough, or well enough, or concerning important things. When we use it to notice and appreciate a day, a minute, or even a month or a year, it is a great tool.
Be here now. Do this now. How often can we hear these words, or similar ones, without being attentive to them? I was just in a yoga class where this was the motif. At the start of the class the teacher spoke the words and then gently talked about how difficult it is to follow this thought. We are so often focused on what we wish to be and where we wish to go and what we must achieve that we forget to get pleasure from the present time.
After each series of movements, the teacher would quietly say these words, reminding us to try to appreciate what we were feeling in that moment.
The theme had special meaning for me that day. My son had recently been home from college for a very brief visit. My husband I always anticipate his visits with great excitement. Yet when he arrives our small and already cluttered New York City apartment somehow starts to feel overstuffed. During his absence it seems that we have gotten used to having more space for our disorganization. So when he is at home again, happy as we are to see him, we start to feel a little overwhelmed and sometimes a little irritable.
On this visit I explained to him that I was working hard to keep the apartment a little neater and would really appreciate his help. He said that he would be glad to help, but that he thought the apartment looked wonderful - nice and cozy and warm. It was a sweet compliment, and I thanked him for it; but I half-laughingly told him that I wanted it to look elegant. He seemed astonished. "Mom," he said, "that would be awful. It wouldn't be you. This is you."
I thought of his words when I was trying to stay present in my yoga class. No, my apartment would never be elegant. I have too many things, too many photos, too many knick knacks, too many messy spots piled with books and papers.
After the yoga class I started thinking of ways that I could work towards being more present. I made a short list that I thought I would share with you. I would love to know of other possibilities, of ways that you have managed to bring yourself into the present, and whether or not that has helped you feel more comfortable being who you are. Books you have read, things you have learned, techniques you use. And I'd also like to know if you have questions or doubts about the idea - and if you've tried things that haven't worked! Here are my suggestions.
1 - Go for a walk in your neighborhood. Turn off your mp3 player. Listen to the sounds around you. Take in the smells, the sights, the feelings of being there. Do not try to accomplish anything. Do not run errands. If you stop and speak with someone, feel yourself there fully. If you speak to no one, feel what it is like. Neither of these is better than the other. Simply appreciate what it feels like to be in your neighborhood at this time on this day.
2 - If you have a child, take a few moments to be with him or her. Do not try to teach her anything. Just play or talk or sing or walk or even just sit and watch television. Pay attention to what is happening in the moment. If it is possible and not intrusive to him and doesn't interfere with whatever he is concentrating on, feel his skin. If she does not want to be touched, just feel what it is like being near to her. Listen to her sounds. Breathe the air around her. Try to put aside thoughts about whether or not he is doing things at a particular developmental or academic level, how she compares to other children her age or how he is in relation to his siblings. Enjoy this moment.
3 - Have a face to face conversation with another person (for this exercise, it should not be on the phone). It can be someone with whom you are very close, someone you might like to get to know better, or a chance acquaintance. Try to focus on the sounds of your voices, on the ways you feel standing or sitting near this person. Pay attention to how you feel as you end the conversation and move away from one another. See where your thoughts go. Try not to judge or criticize yourself or the other person. Try also not to look into the future or think about the past. Try to simply feel what it is like at this moment with this person.
4 - Take a yoga class or a meditation class and try to focus on each moment.
5 - Do any kind of exercise for a specific, limited period of time. Pay attention to what it feels like, but try not to allow yourself to think about how fast you are going or how hard you are working or how much more you should be doing. Give yourself credit for what you are doing each moment; and try to feel your muscles, your breath, your head, your feet, your skin - even your hair -as you go along.
6 - Hug someone you care about. This can be a spouse, a partner, a child (if they are willing), a parent, a pet, a friend. Feel your skin, their skin, the ways your bodies touch. Listen to the sounds you both make. Pay attention to the way they smell. Don't think about "where this will go." In fact, don't let it go anywhere. Keep it short. Just let it be. See what you feel in the next present moment.
7 - Take a shower or a bath. Use a scented soap. Burn candles (with care). Enjoy the moment; and pay attention to what you feel and think throughout the process and afterwards. (Don't be surprised to find that you are tempted to do more self-grooming. It's a natural response. You may want to smooth on body cream, file your nails, wash and dry your hair.) If you have the time, follow these urges, again paying attention to each moment. If you're out of time, remember this activity and what it felt like - and try to make time for it again as soon as you can!
8 - Read a book, listen to music, go to a movie. Let yourself be absorbed in the experience without trying to judge any aspect of the experience.
9 - Cook or bake something. It doesn't need to be a epicure dish. It can be something you eat alone or share with someone else. Make scrambled eggs if that appeals to you. But be aware of the course. What do you feel as you crack the eggs, beat them in the bowl, turn them into the pan? How does it feel to eat them? These are just a few thoughts. Do you have any other thoughts and activities which have helped you to "be present, be here now".
It would be a good idea to take things apart. I know that learning to play the piano badly has made it easier for me to realize good music much more. And remembering to think about good things, or things we've accomplished, or things we liked about a day is such a good suggestion, it's so much simpler, it seems, to think about what went wrong, but why not take into consideration what went right instead?
Be here now. Do this now. How often can we hear these words, or similar ones, without being attentive to them? I was just in a yoga class where this was the motif. At the start of the class the teacher spoke the words and then gently talked about how difficult it is to follow this thought. We are so often focused on what we wish to be and where we wish to go and what we must achieve that we forget to get pleasure from the present time.
After each series of movements, the teacher would quietly say these words, reminding us to try to appreciate what we were feeling in that moment.
The theme had special meaning for me that day. My son had recently been home from college for a very brief visit. My husband I always anticipate his visits with great excitement. Yet when he arrives our small and already cluttered New York City apartment somehow starts to feel overstuffed. During his absence it seems that we have gotten used to having more space for our disorganization. So when he is at home again, happy as we are to see him, we start to feel a little overwhelmed and sometimes a little irritable.
On this visit I explained to him that I was working hard to keep the apartment a little neater and would really appreciate his help. He said that he would be glad to help, but that he thought the apartment looked wonderful - nice and cozy and warm. It was a sweet compliment, and I thanked him for it; but I half-laughingly told him that I wanted it to look elegant. He seemed astonished. "Mom," he said, "that would be awful. It wouldn't be you. This is you."
I thought of his words when I was trying to stay present in my yoga class. No, my apartment would never be elegant. I have too many things, too many photos, too many knick knacks, too many messy spots piled with books and papers.
After the yoga class I started thinking of ways that I could work towards being more present. I made a short list that I thought I would share with you. I would love to know of other possibilities, of ways that you have managed to bring yourself into the present, and whether or not that has helped you feel more comfortable being who you are. Books you have read, things you have learned, techniques you use. And I'd also like to know if you have questions or doubts about the idea - and if you've tried things that haven't worked! Here are my suggestions.
1 - Go for a walk in your neighborhood. Turn off your mp3 player. Listen to the sounds around you. Take in the smells, the sights, the feelings of being there. Do not try to accomplish anything. Do not run errands. If you stop and speak with someone, feel yourself there fully. If you speak to no one, feel what it is like. Neither of these is better than the other. Simply appreciate what it feels like to be in your neighborhood at this time on this day.
2 - If you have a child, take a few moments to be with him or her. Do not try to teach her anything. Just play or talk or sing or walk or even just sit and watch television. Pay attention to what is happening in the moment. If it is possible and not intrusive to him and doesn't interfere with whatever he is concentrating on, feel his skin. If she does not want to be touched, just feel what it is like being near to her. Listen to her sounds. Breathe the air around her. Try to put aside thoughts about whether or not he is doing things at a particular developmental or academic level, how she compares to other children her age or how he is in relation to his siblings. Enjoy this moment.
3 - Have a face to face conversation with another person (for this exercise, it should not be on the phone). It can be someone with whom you are very close, someone you might like to get to know better, or a chance acquaintance. Try to focus on the sounds of your voices, on the ways you feel standing or sitting near this person. Pay attention to how you feel as you end the conversation and move away from one another. See where your thoughts go. Try not to judge or criticize yourself or the other person. Try also not to look into the future or think about the past. Try to simply feel what it is like at this moment with this person.
4 - Take a yoga class or a meditation class and try to focus on each moment.
5 - Do any kind of exercise for a specific, limited period of time. Pay attention to what it feels like, but try not to allow yourself to think about how fast you are going or how hard you are working or how much more you should be doing. Give yourself credit for what you are doing each moment; and try to feel your muscles, your breath, your head, your feet, your skin - even your hair -as you go along.
6 - Hug someone you care about. This can be a spouse, a partner, a child (if they are willing), a parent, a pet, a friend. Feel your skin, their skin, the ways your bodies touch. Listen to the sounds you both make. Pay attention to the way they smell. Don't think about "where this will go." In fact, don't let it go anywhere. Keep it short. Just let it be. See what you feel in the next present moment.
7 - Take a shower or a bath. Use a scented soap. Burn candles (with care). Enjoy the moment; and pay attention to what you feel and think throughout the process and afterwards. (Don't be surprised to find that you are tempted to do more self-grooming. It's a natural response. You may want to smooth on body cream, file your nails, wash and dry your hair.) If you have the time, follow these urges, again paying attention to each moment. If you're out of time, remember this activity and what it felt like - and try to make time for it again as soon as you can!
8 - Read a book, listen to music, go to a movie. Let yourself be absorbed in the experience without trying to judge any aspect of the experience.
9 - Cook or bake something. It doesn't need to be a epicure dish. It can be something you eat alone or share with someone else. Make scrambled eggs if that appeals to you. But be aware of the course. What do you feel as you crack the eggs, beat them in the bowl, turn them into the pan? How does it feel to eat them? These are just a few thoughts. Do you have any other thoughts and activities which have helped you to "be present, be here now".
It would be a good idea to take things apart. I know that learning to play the piano badly has made it easier for me to realize good music much more. And remembering to think about good things, or things we've accomplished, or things we liked about a day is such a good suggestion, it's so much simpler, it seems, to think about what went wrong, but why not take into consideration what went right instead?
3 hot sale Juicy Couture Tote
Different kinds of Juicy Couture Totes are on sale, there are black, blue, pink and other colors to choose. No matter what color of it, all of them are convenient to take, and most of them are very beautiful, it would be worth buying, especially for girls.
There are three popular ones of them.
Juicy Couture Velour Splendour Tote in BlackJuicy Couture Velour Splendour Tote in Black
A slouchy silhouette ups the sass of signature Juicy Couture velour.
Glouster velour with “Juicy Couture” and crowned “JC” medallion embroidery on front.
Goldtone hardware.
Juicy Couture Velour Splendour Tote in Blue
A slouchy silhouette ups the sass of signature Juicy Couture velour.
Glouster velour with “Juicy Couture” and crowned “JC” medallion embroidery on front.
Goldtone hardware.
Juicy Couture Velour Tassel Day Dreamer Handbags in Pink
Juicy Couture and crown embroidery on front.
Heart patch with embroidered “J” on the back.
Platform bottom.
Heart-shaped mirror.
Holds your wallet.
Personally, I like the second one the most, because I like the blue color. Blue is just like the sky, I can image I like a angel in the sky if I take a Juicy Couture Velour Splendour Tote in blue, and I hope the world can become more beautiful as more blue things exist.
There are three popular ones of them.
Juicy Couture Velour Splendour Tote in BlackJuicy Couture Velour Splendour Tote in Black
A slouchy silhouette ups the sass of signature Juicy Couture velour.
Glouster velour with “Juicy Couture” and crowned “JC” medallion embroidery on front.
Goldtone hardware.
A slouchy silhouette ups the sass of signature Juicy Couture velour.
Glouster velour with “Juicy Couture” and crowned “JC” medallion embroidery on front.
Goldtone hardware.
Juicy Couture Velour Tassel Day Dreamer Handbags in Pink
Juicy Couture and crown embroidery on front.
Heart patch with embroidered “J” on the back.
Platform bottom.
Heart-shaped mirror.
Holds your wallet.
Personally, I like the second one the most, because I like the blue color. Blue is just like the sky, I can image I like a angel in the sky if I take a Juicy Couture Velour Splendour Tote in blue, and I hope the world can become more beautiful as more blue things exist.
2010年10月20日星期三
Do you think religion is a good prescription?
Devout recommendations are better left to the religious specialists not health experts. But, a few medical doctors do prescribe secular methods like yoga or recreation methods and that looks like a good thing. My mother's doctor had her begin Transcendental Meditation and it's done wonders for her blood pressure.
A few medical doctors assert of the fact that health profit are so obvious, and so pronounced that they ought to be prescribing belief! This attitude is a bit na?ve. After all, rich people live healthier life than the poor. Does this mean that physicians ought to be prescribing wealth? Or how about advising single people to marry?
Moreover, when scientific medicine turns around and involves itself in religion, it begins to look much more like the shamanism of old and much less than science. Secular equivalents of religion's effects, such as yoga and relaxation training are more appropriate for doctors to investigate and recommend.
Health benefits of religion
With these phenomena in mind, some doctors claim they should advise patients to be more active in their churches in much the same vein as they are advising them to exercise or control their cholesterol level. Yet, they may be getting ahead of the evidence.
Oddly enough, there is no evidence that religion, per se, provides any health advantage. In other words, religious people benefit from church membership but they do so irrespective of the doctrinal content, religious practices, or even health behavior, advocated by their particular belief system. We know this because the health advantages of all of the major world religions are about the same with the qualification that most of the research has looked at Christians and Jews.
However inconsistent mainstream religions are in their practices and rituals, they may nevertheless promote the conviction that our existence is purposeful and our lives worthwhile. Such optimism carries a substantial health premium. Optimists are healthier. Their immune systems are more robust and they are more long-lived according to abundant research in the field of positive psychology.
Secular equivalents of religion
In conceding that religious people tend to have a more optimistic view of life, one must realize that there is nothing peculiar to religion in this respect. One does not have to be religious to enjoy a sense of purpose in life. The same boost can be obtained from secular activities such as sports, gardening, playing music, painting, political activism, or conducting scientific research.
Even prayers and rituals have their secular counterparts that may produce the same stress-management benefits. Secular meditation counteracts stress in much the same way as prayer, for instance, according to experiments.
Health researchers have long known that a substantial part of the health benefit from religion is really social. A religious congregation is, among other aspects, a social support network.
The social benefits and stress-management advantages from attending a weekly religious service also resemble those of a regular singing group, poetry reading, jam session, dance class, or any other such social outlet.
Experts who are well informed on these things will admit that there is no require in promoting faith for their customers. Instead, they ought to concentrate on secular equivalents that offer the same health profit but with no the luggage of combining secular health-promotion services with proselytism.
I agree that societal connect accounts for much of the benefit of relationship with a congregation. On the other hand, pious belief, faith, whatever word one uses and whether or not the beliefs are real, can also be an instrument for handling existential concerns and stressors like fear of death, meaning, and trouble in relationships. I believe that it is life if you believe in prayer are not just think of your life.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes collecting things, shopping online and playing computer, has a coach outlet online and a coach purses outlet with lots of fashion things.
A few medical doctors assert of the fact that health profit are so obvious, and so pronounced that they ought to be prescribing belief! This attitude is a bit na?ve. After all, rich people live healthier life than the poor. Does this mean that physicians ought to be prescribing wealth? Or how about advising single people to marry?
Moreover, when scientific medicine turns around and involves itself in religion, it begins to look much more like the shamanism of old and much less than science. Secular equivalents of religion's effects, such as yoga and relaxation training are more appropriate for doctors to investigate and recommend.
Health benefits of religion
With these phenomena in mind, some doctors claim they should advise patients to be more active in their churches in much the same vein as they are advising them to exercise or control their cholesterol level. Yet, they may be getting ahead of the evidence.
Oddly enough, there is no evidence that religion, per se, provides any health advantage. In other words, religious people benefit from church membership but they do so irrespective of the doctrinal content, religious practices, or even health behavior, advocated by their particular belief system. We know this because the health advantages of all of the major world religions are about the same with the qualification that most of the research has looked at Christians and Jews.
However inconsistent mainstream religions are in their practices and rituals, they may nevertheless promote the conviction that our existence is purposeful and our lives worthwhile. Such optimism carries a substantial health premium. Optimists are healthier. Their immune systems are more robust and they are more long-lived according to abundant research in the field of positive psychology.
Secular equivalents of religion
In conceding that religious people tend to have a more optimistic view of life, one must realize that there is nothing peculiar to religion in this respect. One does not have to be religious to enjoy a sense of purpose in life. The same boost can be obtained from secular activities such as sports, gardening, playing music, painting, political activism, or conducting scientific research.
Even prayers and rituals have their secular counterparts that may produce the same stress-management benefits. Secular meditation counteracts stress in much the same way as prayer, for instance, according to experiments.
Health researchers have long known that a substantial part of the health benefit from religion is really social. A religious congregation is, among other aspects, a social support network.
The social benefits and stress-management advantages from attending a weekly religious service also resemble those of a regular singing group, poetry reading, jam session, dance class, or any other such social outlet.
Experts who are well informed on these things will admit that there is no require in promoting faith for their customers. Instead, they ought to concentrate on secular equivalents that offer the same health profit but with no the luggage of combining secular health-promotion services with proselytism.
I agree that societal connect accounts for much of the benefit of relationship with a congregation. On the other hand, pious belief, faith, whatever word one uses and whether or not the beliefs are real, can also be an instrument for handling existential concerns and stressors like fear of death, meaning, and trouble in relationships. I believe that it is life if you believe in prayer are not just think of your life.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes collecting things, shopping online and playing computer, has a coach outlet online and a coach purses outlet with lots of fashion things.
Is Parenting Take the Offensive Against popular Culture?
Parents are far from ideal, but no less than they almost always have the most interest of their kids at heart. Not like the greedy companies who are only interested in earning money of children and really don’t mind how much they harm the mental and physical health of the children they exploit.
Fashionable culture might be the most powerful power in our society now. Whether through the media of television, films, music, the Web, radio, or magazines, fashionable culture is here and there, intense, and inexorable. So who can defend your kids from its Sirens’ call? Although universities, houses of worship, and our regime may help to changing degrees, the onus is on parents. It is, little doubt, a rising battle, but you don’t have the luxurious of sitting back and playing protection against fashionable culture; it will unavoidably overwhelm you and your kids. You have to take the offensive against fashionable culture to guard your kids from its bad messages.
If you look no deeper, you may conclude that those messages are harmless, but then you put your children at risk to the real dangers that lurch below the surface. Popular culture spends billions of dollars each year finding ways to lie, control, and push your children to the "dark side" without you even realizing it. To avoid this "grand seduction," deconstruct fashionable culture by looking beneath the surface of the fun and entertainment and see the real messages it’s communicating to your children.
A great exercise is to watch a television show, play a video game, or listen to music in which your children are involved:
1, Recognize what attracts your children to it (e.g., television commercials for junk food present attractive and cool children having a great time while eating the advertised product).
2, Identify how the ad is manipulating your children (e.g., children want to be fashionable and have fun).
3, Identify the messages that lie below the surface (e.g., junk food is good, being cool is more important than your health).
4, Compare these messages to those that you want to convey (e.g., are they consistent with or contrary to your messages?
5, If the messages from popular culture are incompatible with yours, make a deliberate decision to limit your kids’ exposure (e.g., limit the television shows they are allowed to watch).
Be aware that you don’t have to openly endorse fashionable culture’s messages for your children to be influenced by them. When you allow your children to play violent video games, listen to explicit music lyrics, or eat junk food, you are conveying your tacit approval. Because you typically express displeasure with your children when you don’t like something they’re doing, when you don’t express it, they will assume that what they’re doing is okay. The lesson here is that when you ignore something your children are doing, that is as good as encouraging it.
Decide how harmful different aspects of fashionable culture are to your children and realize that, given the power of popular culture, you can not fight and win every battle. So pick your battles carefully. It may be, for example, that you judge movies that have no commercial merchandising tie-ins to be okay for your children, but you don’t permit them to watch any television (because of the seemingly endless stream of commercials) or you limit their video-game play to nonviolent, educational games. You may decide that you can live with sometimes explicit music lyrics, but draw the line at provocative clothing. You might even accept an earring for your son or navel ring for your daughter knowing that children tend to outgrow them at some point.
Whatever you decide, I would encourage you to give your kids some "victories" in these battles. When you allow your kids to win a few small skirmishes, they won’t feel the need to seek out bigger wins that may be more destructive, for example, the use of drugs or alcohol. At the same time, whichever battles you do decide to fight, commit yourself 100 percent, and don’t relent no matter how difficult it gets.
One way to take the offensive is to become your kids’ gatekeeper to popular culture. Do your research and educate yourself about fashionable culture’s role in your kids’ lives. What are they watching, playing, listening to, and surfing? What messages are being communicated? Identify what is unhealthy and what is healthy. The fact is that you can’t prevent your children from using fashionable culture. What you can do is encourage popular culture that is both healthy, for example, educational television shows, video games, and websites, and entertaining-if it’s not engaging, your kids will discard it quickly. You may need to assume some responsibility in which you spend more time actively sharing these healthier forms of fashionable culture to ensure that your kids connect with them. You can also get them away from fashionable culture altogether by having them spend their time reading, exercising, or playing a sport or musical instrument.
As the gatekeeper, establish limits on how much time your children are allowed to spend and what they’re allowed to watch, play, listen to, and surf. For example, you may decide not to allow your kids to watch more than one hour of television each day, play video games during the week, or use the telephone or texting during dinner or homework.
If you introduce limits when there were few limits previously, your children will likely resist your efforts. For example, if your kids are addicted to video games and you limit or remove them, they will be very unhappy. In this situation, you have to be firm and consistent in establishing limits, expectations, and consequences-follow-through is everything!
Actively making a supportive society has important profit for both you and your kids. You’ll feel more supported as you face the behemoth of fashionable culture. Your kids will be surrounded by a society that helps you resist fashionable culture’s messages. When they leave your house, you and your kids will know they are entering a world that is populated by like-minded people who will help them in their daily battles with fashionable culture.
Finally, I think parent’s have every right to do what they think is greatest for their kid. It’s just the motivation behind it that worries me. Two parents can want the same thing, "Don’t eat rubbish food," and have immensely different approaches for getting there. Clearly that is an overstatement but I wish the spirit of what I was attempting to say came across okay.
Fashionable culture might be the most powerful power in our society now. Whether through the media of television, films, music, the Web, radio, or magazines, fashionable culture is here and there, intense, and inexorable. So who can defend your kids from its Sirens’ call? Although universities, houses of worship, and our regime may help to changing degrees, the onus is on parents. It is, little doubt, a rising battle, but you don’t have the luxurious of sitting back and playing protection against fashionable culture; it will unavoidably overwhelm you and your kids. You have to take the offensive against fashionable culture to guard your kids from its bad messages.
If you look no deeper, you may conclude that those messages are harmless, but then you put your children at risk to the real dangers that lurch below the surface. Popular culture spends billions of dollars each year finding ways to lie, control, and push your children to the "dark side" without you even realizing it. To avoid this "grand seduction," deconstruct fashionable culture by looking beneath the surface of the fun and entertainment and see the real messages it’s communicating to your children.
A great exercise is to watch a television show, play a video game, or listen to music in which your children are involved:
1, Recognize what attracts your children to it (e.g., television commercials for junk food present attractive and cool children having a great time while eating the advertised product).
2, Identify how the ad is manipulating your children (e.g., children want to be fashionable and have fun).
3, Identify the messages that lie below the surface (e.g., junk food is good, being cool is more important than your health).
4, Compare these messages to those that you want to convey (e.g., are they consistent with or contrary to your messages?
5, If the messages from popular culture are incompatible with yours, make a deliberate decision to limit your kids’ exposure (e.g., limit the television shows they are allowed to watch).
Be aware that you don’t have to openly endorse fashionable culture’s messages for your children to be influenced by them. When you allow your children to play violent video games, listen to explicit music lyrics, or eat junk food, you are conveying your tacit approval. Because you typically express displeasure with your children when you don’t like something they’re doing, when you don’t express it, they will assume that what they’re doing is okay. The lesson here is that when you ignore something your children are doing, that is as good as encouraging it.
Decide how harmful different aspects of fashionable culture are to your children and realize that, given the power of popular culture, you can not fight and win every battle. So pick your battles carefully. It may be, for example, that you judge movies that have no commercial merchandising tie-ins to be okay for your children, but you don’t permit them to watch any television (because of the seemingly endless stream of commercials) or you limit their video-game play to nonviolent, educational games. You may decide that you can live with sometimes explicit music lyrics, but draw the line at provocative clothing. You might even accept an earring for your son or navel ring for your daughter knowing that children tend to outgrow them at some point.
Whatever you decide, I would encourage you to give your kids some "victories" in these battles. When you allow your kids to win a few small skirmishes, they won’t feel the need to seek out bigger wins that may be more destructive, for example, the use of drugs or alcohol. At the same time, whichever battles you do decide to fight, commit yourself 100 percent, and don’t relent no matter how difficult it gets.
One way to take the offensive is to become your kids’ gatekeeper to popular culture. Do your research and educate yourself about fashionable culture’s role in your kids’ lives. What are they watching, playing, listening to, and surfing? What messages are being communicated? Identify what is unhealthy and what is healthy. The fact is that you can’t prevent your children from using fashionable culture. What you can do is encourage popular culture that is both healthy, for example, educational television shows, video games, and websites, and entertaining-if it’s not engaging, your kids will discard it quickly. You may need to assume some responsibility in which you spend more time actively sharing these healthier forms of fashionable culture to ensure that your kids connect with them. You can also get them away from fashionable culture altogether by having them spend their time reading, exercising, or playing a sport or musical instrument.
As the gatekeeper, establish limits on how much time your children are allowed to spend and what they’re allowed to watch, play, listen to, and surf. For example, you may decide not to allow your kids to watch more than one hour of television each day, play video games during the week, or use the telephone or texting during dinner or homework.
If you introduce limits when there were few limits previously, your children will likely resist your efforts. For example, if your kids are addicted to video games and you limit or remove them, they will be very unhappy. In this situation, you have to be firm and consistent in establishing limits, expectations, and consequences-follow-through is everything!
Actively making a supportive society has important profit for both you and your kids. You’ll feel more supported as you face the behemoth of fashionable culture. Your kids will be surrounded by a society that helps you resist fashionable culture’s messages. When they leave your house, you and your kids will know they are entering a world that is populated by like-minded people who will help them in their daily battles with fashionable culture.
Finally, I think parent’s have every right to do what they think is greatest for their kid. It’s just the motivation behind it that worries me. Two parents can want the same thing, "Don’t eat rubbish food," and have immensely different approaches for getting there. Clearly that is an overstatement but I wish the spirit of what I was attempting to say came across okay.
2010年10月19日星期二
Why people with Aspergers look so clumsy with others
I’m very touchy and can effortlessly understand other’s feelings, so much so it’s nearly spooky. However, I like people to be very real, directly, and get to the point. I often hope we lived in the earth where people just talked to other people and got to the point. There appears to be so much "dancing around" the point and it has always driven me mad. I’ve learned some of the societal rituals, and I always feel slowed down by having to carry out them.
Lonely people see security in numbers. If not we are shipwrecked and have been floating at the ocean in a ship for five days without food we don’t see security in other people. They stimulate the amygdala in our brains, producing adrenalin overload and a battle or flight response. So we might feel irritable, want to escape, or, because we’ve trained ourselves to do neither, we just become embarrassed, stiff, jerky, even suffer the pain of a temporary inability to talk. Several of us, because of the adrenalin rush, switch into execution form, and we can seem both witty and charming for a quick period of time. This tricks people into thinking we are socially skillful. It’s a smoke screen. Performances are tiring and we can’t stick with it for long-certainly not a whole work day, or any other lengthy gathering. Finally, we become exhausted and exhausted and have to withdraw mentally or physically.
Sensory overload is a daily battle and is now part of the criteria for autism spectrum disorders. For some with AS, a ceiling fan that spins beneath a light is like being in a disco with strobes after one too many cocktails. Even driving down the road with the sunlight slanting through trees hurts our brains and can make us sick. Busy patterns on wallpaper, carpet, etc. make us dizzy. Flickering fluorescents at the checkout will have us curling into a fetal position on the counter. The offices that we must shop or work in, and the restaurants and bars we eat/socialize in, are filled with so many sources of sensory overload, from cheap lighting to bad pop music, we may as well try to have a nice chat in front of the percussion section during a John Philip Sousa concert. So even if we don’t have a meltdown, we are certainly not going to be relaxed or cheerful in such environments.
We don’t have good facial recognition and have patchy memories. Some people who are autistic savants can recreate anything after seeing it once. We can often remember a string of sounds, sensations and images like a video recorder, but can have a hard time remembering what people’s faces look like. We might pass you in the hall, on the street, thinking you look vaguely familiar, while you’re saying "what’s his/her problem?" By the time we realize who you are, you’ve turned a corner and it’s too late to say hello. We can also remember an argument verbatim, or all the presidents in a row, but we might not remember where we were yesterday.
We don’t care for small talk and are all about our special interests. If we are not interested in who won American Idol, such discussions sound like the wah wah wah of Charlie Brown’s teacher, or the clucking of chickens. We might think you are a bit dull because you don’t share our passions, or (especially when we are younger) we may not notice and go on and on about the genius of our favorite film composers, oblivious to the eye rolling and nudging going on in the room. We have a more than healthy streak of self-absorption, so we might be our own best special interest. We do have to learn to keep that in check.
Our understanding of the societal rituals of this world is basic. If you had a few years of high school French, you can probably buy a pastry in Paris, figure out what date it is and find your way to the post office, but you can’t converse in depth, understand cultural allusions and references, innuendo, or idiom. That is about the extent of our own understanding of non-verbal signals, facial expressions, and the art of conversing; especially when we’re children, but to some degree, forever.
We march to our own drummer and have a funny way of marching. We don’t just take the road less traveled, we forge a new one. But because we have Dyspraxia and Proprioceptive dysfunction, we might not do it so gracefully. Dyspraxia means deficits in motor planning. Proprioception is known where your limbs are, relative to one another. While we may not need a cork on the end of our fork to keep from poking ourselves in the eye, we may fall up the down escalator or get hit in the face with the dodge ball a lot. We may be Isadora Duncan dancing alone, but in a line dance we’ll go the wrong way. You get the picture.
We don’t have a strong sense of gender roles. Young women with AS don’t have the whole eyelash batting, hair-tossing artillery of gender-specific body language that others seem to feel comfortable with. We think it’s a load of baloney. We may get better at it with age, but will often slip into and prefer complete androgyny. We may get involved in our interests and forget to brush our hair (we certainly won’t spend an hour straightening it!), wear mis-matching clothes, or have an aversion to deodorant, so we can seem slovenly, cold or butch.
We’re geeks. We might rather be thrown into a world where we have to battle orcs or even the Borg than deal with the suit-and-tie banality of this one. We may watch Ted conferences and Family Guy episodes with equal fervor, or think David Bowie is the ultimate everything. We’re generally convinced that the uber-NTs on shows like Fear Factor are not from the same species as us.
Last but not least, disquiet is our prevalent feeling. We could seem anxious and controlling all the time. The manage thing is just us attempting to keep order in the disorder, attempting to feel safe on this crazy world. Lots of on the spectrum take anti-anxiety meds, but there is no medicine to make you a neurotypical. The brain is a flexible organ and that we do learn, but we are going to always be Aspies. Say it loud and say it proud.
There is a different between knowing and really caring. It’s similar to Daniel Goleman’ s distinction between societal awareness and societal competence. I have autistic tendencies though I have never been diagnosed with it. I am extremely socially conscious, almost to the point where I get overwhelmed, but I have terrible societal competence. It’s a work in advancement I have shown much progress since I first began consciously looking for better relationships.
Lonely people see security in numbers. If not we are shipwrecked and have been floating at the ocean in a ship for five days without food we don’t see security in other people. They stimulate the amygdala in our brains, producing adrenalin overload and a battle or flight response. So we might feel irritable, want to escape, or, because we’ve trained ourselves to do neither, we just become embarrassed, stiff, jerky, even suffer the pain of a temporary inability to talk. Several of us, because of the adrenalin rush, switch into execution form, and we can seem both witty and charming for a quick period of time. This tricks people into thinking we are socially skillful. It’s a smoke screen. Performances are tiring and we can’t stick with it for long-certainly not a whole work day, or any other lengthy gathering. Finally, we become exhausted and exhausted and have to withdraw mentally or physically.
Sensory overload is a daily battle and is now part of the criteria for autism spectrum disorders. For some with AS, a ceiling fan that spins beneath a light is like being in a disco with strobes after one too many cocktails. Even driving down the road with the sunlight slanting through trees hurts our brains and can make us sick. Busy patterns on wallpaper, carpet, etc. make us dizzy. Flickering fluorescents at the checkout will have us curling into a fetal position on the counter. The offices that we must shop or work in, and the restaurants and bars we eat/socialize in, are filled with so many sources of sensory overload, from cheap lighting to bad pop music, we may as well try to have a nice chat in front of the percussion section during a John Philip Sousa concert. So even if we don’t have a meltdown, we are certainly not going to be relaxed or cheerful in such environments.
We don’t have good facial recognition and have patchy memories. Some people who are autistic savants can recreate anything after seeing it once. We can often remember a string of sounds, sensations and images like a video recorder, but can have a hard time remembering what people’s faces look like. We might pass you in the hall, on the street, thinking you look vaguely familiar, while you’re saying "what’s his/her problem?" By the time we realize who you are, you’ve turned a corner and it’s too late to say hello. We can also remember an argument verbatim, or all the presidents in a row, but we might not remember where we were yesterday.
We don’t care for small talk and are all about our special interests. If we are not interested in who won American Idol, such discussions sound like the wah wah wah of Charlie Brown’s teacher, or the clucking of chickens. We might think you are a bit dull because you don’t share our passions, or (especially when we are younger) we may not notice and go on and on about the genius of our favorite film composers, oblivious to the eye rolling and nudging going on in the room. We have a more than healthy streak of self-absorption, so we might be our own best special interest. We do have to learn to keep that in check.
Our understanding of the societal rituals of this world is basic. If you had a few years of high school French, you can probably buy a pastry in Paris, figure out what date it is and find your way to the post office, but you can’t converse in depth, understand cultural allusions and references, innuendo, or idiom. That is about the extent of our own understanding of non-verbal signals, facial expressions, and the art of conversing; especially when we’re children, but to some degree, forever.
We march to our own drummer and have a funny way of marching. We don’t just take the road less traveled, we forge a new one. But because we have Dyspraxia and Proprioceptive dysfunction, we might not do it so gracefully. Dyspraxia means deficits in motor planning. Proprioception is known where your limbs are, relative to one another. While we may not need a cork on the end of our fork to keep from poking ourselves in the eye, we may fall up the down escalator or get hit in the face with the dodge ball a lot. We may be Isadora Duncan dancing alone, but in a line dance we’ll go the wrong way. You get the picture.
We don’t have a strong sense of gender roles. Young women with AS don’t have the whole eyelash batting, hair-tossing artillery of gender-specific body language that others seem to feel comfortable with. We think it’s a load of baloney. We may get better at it with age, but will often slip into and prefer complete androgyny. We may get involved in our interests and forget to brush our hair (we certainly won’t spend an hour straightening it!), wear mis-matching clothes, or have an aversion to deodorant, so we can seem slovenly, cold or butch.
We’re geeks. We might rather be thrown into a world where we have to battle orcs or even the Borg than deal with the suit-and-tie banality of this one. We may watch Ted conferences and Family Guy episodes with equal fervor, or think David Bowie is the ultimate everything. We’re generally convinced that the uber-NTs on shows like Fear Factor are not from the same species as us.
Last but not least, disquiet is our prevalent feeling. We could seem anxious and controlling all the time. The manage thing is just us attempting to keep order in the disorder, attempting to feel safe on this crazy world. Lots of on the spectrum take anti-anxiety meds, but there is no medicine to make you a neurotypical. The brain is a flexible organ and that we do learn, but we are going to always be Aspies. Say it loud and say it proud.
There is a different between knowing and really caring. It’s similar to Daniel Goleman’ s distinction between societal awareness and societal competence. I have autistic tendencies though I have never been diagnosed with it. I am extremely socially conscious, almost to the point where I get overwhelmed, but I have terrible societal competence. It’s a work in advancement I have shown much progress since I first began consciously looking for better relationships.
2010年10月18日星期一
4 Teen Suicides in a high school: Is Bullying to Blame?
I graduated Mentor High School the last year, and I don't ever remember to bully on the grandiose scale. I had a really real experience there, and the caring, helpful school staff and all teachers of the school were positively a big part of the main reason I loved it so much.
No high school student ought to ever be in a casket rather than in a cap and robe. "1 Ohio high school, four bullied teens departed by own hand" was the latest headline of an Associated Press article on a cluster of high school student suicides happening just over a half and two year period in the "pleasant beachfront community" of Mentor, Ohio.
According to news reports, there seems to be an epidemic of bullying in the country, fueling a spate of suicides. But the contrast is stark in that Cleveland suburb: Mentor was voted one of the "100 Best Places to Live" this year by CNN and Money Magazine, and Mentor High School is seemingly steeped in a "culture of mean" with apparently lethal consequences.
The death of any teenager is a tragic event. The shock, confusion, and grief that follow can contribute to constructive growth or can result in debilitating resentment and an unresolved search for blame. There are two fundamental errors in thinking that can emerge from this situation: The first is that Mentor High School is a uniquely harsh and intolerant hotbed of hate, and the second is that bullying is the fundamental contributor to suicide.
Mentor High had impactful teachers, advanced and varied educational courses, a range of successful athletics (not that I was ever involved with given my near total lack of sports abilities), and excellent arts programs (that I was involved with despite my near total lack of musical abilities). It's a very large school - about 3,000 students for three grades - so there was always one clique or another to fit into.
Of course, I don't want to sound like I look back through a gauzy sentimental lens. As I mentioned in a graduation speech, getting through it wasn't all that easy. Personally, I was happy in some ways and troubled in other people. Kids could be quite cruel: there were frequent fights and harsh bullying (and like most people, I'd be an outright liar if I didn't admit that I had lobbed some name-calling and gossip, too). Like John Ciardi once said: "You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone."
However, I believe that Mentor High School and its students are more similar to than different from most other high schools and their students across the country. Maybe something has changed drastically in the past ten years (I don't know any of the people or families from the AP story), but I highly doubt it.
Bullying is a terrible thing and appropriate steps should be taken to stop it from occurring and to fully punish those responsible. I also know that there is a strong and destructive tide of religious, political, and homophobic intolerance in this country that must be confronted. At the same time, bullying is unfortunately pervasive. Look deep enough into anyone's history and you'll find they've almost certainly been bullied in one way or another at some point in their lives, and you'll also find that they've probably done some bullying themselves. Adolescents in particular can be cruel, aggressive, and destructive, but chalking up bullying as the fundamental contributor to suicide is a dangerously facile explanation.
The United States suicide rate is just over 10 suicides per 100,001 people each year, with adolescents at high risk. But although the suicide rate in this country has increased in recent years and adolescent, the increase comes more from middle-aged white men and women than adolescents. There are a number of known factors which increase suicide risk.
Suicides often occur in clusters. There is an increased risk in those with a family history of suicide or in proximity to a recent suicide. For this reason, the media has historically been reluctant to report on cases of suicide. Meredith Rezak talked of suicide shortly after her friend Eric shot himself and she committed suicide in the same method only three weeks later. A year after Meredith's death, her older brother also shot and killed himself. Her second brother also died of a drug overdose not long after.
Firearms in the household are also a major risk factor. Males are almost 30% more likely than females to use them as lethal means, and adolescents are also much more likely to use firearms as seen in two of the four Ohio cases.
Social isolation is a significant contributor as are family or personal history of mental illness, physical/sexual abuse, and substance use. Lack of social support exacerbates almost every form of physical and mental illness. Two of the students had actually withdrawn from high school to enroll in online programs a short-time before their deaths, and as another student noted, one of the victims struggled because "she didn't fit in" and had serious issues at home that were unrelated to school.
Perhaps even more than depression, the presence of emotional dysregulation is highly associated with suicide attempts and deaths. Emotion dysregulation refers to problems with intense emotional experiencing, difficulties thinking clearly in emotional situations, interpersonal desperation, and impulsive behaviors. In extreme instances, these problems are often diagnostically labeled as Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and even Attention Deficit Disorder. Individuals will often describe these experiences as having emotions which are overwhelming and which spiral out of control. When they feel bad, they feel really bad, and even when they feel good they can feel really good.
Emotionally dysregulated people can be highly entertaining, humorous, class clowns with a flair for the dramatic. In these strong emotional states, they have trouble focusing or thinking rationally. When feeling bad, they can't ever remember feeling good and imagine they may never feel good again. They have difficulty focusing, remembering, and sometimes struggle to keep a clear topic when having a conversation or telling a story.
Feeling dysregulation often shows up as clingy behaviors or perhaps a despairing necessity for societal and romantic relationships. A regularly expressed thought is the sensation that a good relationship will solve all of their problems, and rejection or interpersonal conflicts often leads to intense emotional distress. These persons have difficulty forming a coherent identity: they don't seem to be sure who they are as people, what they need out of life, or how they fit in with other people. They might be drawn to excessive communities with strong belief systems or they may idealize charismatic other people. Lastly, they have a tendency in making hasty, impetuous, and poor conclusions.
In my opinion, I feel like the suing families are only attempting to get as much bad press as possible so our college will resolve, but that's never likely to happen. Mr. Spicia, our principal, is caring and is very upset with what's going on. Yesterday, we had a college-wide meeting that boosted school morale. As much as lots of people hate to hear it, we're not to blame, no less than not our employees and programs. Within 2,990 students, there's going to be one that is not the nicest, but it can't be the primary factor in the suicides.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes collecting things, shopping online and playing computer, has a coach factory outlet and coach outlet store with lots of fashion things.
No high school student ought to ever be in a casket rather than in a cap and robe. "1 Ohio high school, four bullied teens departed by own hand" was the latest headline of an Associated Press article on a cluster of high school student suicides happening just over a half and two year period in the "pleasant beachfront community" of Mentor, Ohio.
According to news reports, there seems to be an epidemic of bullying in the country, fueling a spate of suicides. But the contrast is stark in that Cleveland suburb: Mentor was voted one of the "100 Best Places to Live" this year by CNN and Money Magazine, and Mentor High School is seemingly steeped in a "culture of mean" with apparently lethal consequences.
The death of any teenager is a tragic event. The shock, confusion, and grief that follow can contribute to constructive growth or can result in debilitating resentment and an unresolved search for blame. There are two fundamental errors in thinking that can emerge from this situation: The first is that Mentor High School is a uniquely harsh and intolerant hotbed of hate, and the second is that bullying is the fundamental contributor to suicide.
Mentor High had impactful teachers, advanced and varied educational courses, a range of successful athletics (not that I was ever involved with given my near total lack of sports abilities), and excellent arts programs (that I was involved with despite my near total lack of musical abilities). It's a very large school - about 3,000 students for three grades - so there was always one clique or another to fit into.
Of course, I don't want to sound like I look back through a gauzy sentimental lens. As I mentioned in a graduation speech, getting through it wasn't all that easy. Personally, I was happy in some ways and troubled in other people. Kids could be quite cruel: there were frequent fights and harsh bullying (and like most people, I'd be an outright liar if I didn't admit that I had lobbed some name-calling and gossip, too). Like John Ciardi once said: "You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone."
However, I believe that Mentor High School and its students are more similar to than different from most other high schools and their students across the country. Maybe something has changed drastically in the past ten years (I don't know any of the people or families from the AP story), but I highly doubt it.
Bullying is a terrible thing and appropriate steps should be taken to stop it from occurring and to fully punish those responsible. I also know that there is a strong and destructive tide of religious, political, and homophobic intolerance in this country that must be confronted. At the same time, bullying is unfortunately pervasive. Look deep enough into anyone's history and you'll find they've almost certainly been bullied in one way or another at some point in their lives, and you'll also find that they've probably done some bullying themselves. Adolescents in particular can be cruel, aggressive, and destructive, but chalking up bullying as the fundamental contributor to suicide is a dangerously facile explanation.
The United States suicide rate is just over 10 suicides per 100,001 people each year, with adolescents at high risk. But although the suicide rate in this country has increased in recent years and adolescent, the increase comes more from middle-aged white men and women than adolescents. There are a number of known factors which increase suicide risk.
Suicides often occur in clusters. There is an increased risk in those with a family history of suicide or in proximity to a recent suicide. For this reason, the media has historically been reluctant to report on cases of suicide. Meredith Rezak talked of suicide shortly after her friend Eric shot himself and she committed suicide in the same method only three weeks later. A year after Meredith's death, her older brother also shot and killed himself. Her second brother also died of a drug overdose not long after.
Firearms in the household are also a major risk factor. Males are almost 30% more likely than females to use them as lethal means, and adolescents are also much more likely to use firearms as seen in two of the four Ohio cases.
Social isolation is a significant contributor as are family or personal history of mental illness, physical/sexual abuse, and substance use. Lack of social support exacerbates almost every form of physical and mental illness. Two of the students had actually withdrawn from high school to enroll in online programs a short-time before their deaths, and as another student noted, one of the victims struggled because "she didn't fit in" and had serious issues at home that were unrelated to school.
Perhaps even more than depression, the presence of emotional dysregulation is highly associated with suicide attempts and deaths. Emotion dysregulation refers to problems with intense emotional experiencing, difficulties thinking clearly in emotional situations, interpersonal desperation, and impulsive behaviors. In extreme instances, these problems are often diagnostically labeled as Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and even Attention Deficit Disorder. Individuals will often describe these experiences as having emotions which are overwhelming and which spiral out of control. When they feel bad, they feel really bad, and even when they feel good they can feel really good.
Emotionally dysregulated people can be highly entertaining, humorous, class clowns with a flair for the dramatic. In these strong emotional states, they have trouble focusing or thinking rationally. When feeling bad, they can't ever remember feeling good and imagine they may never feel good again. They have difficulty focusing, remembering, and sometimes struggle to keep a clear topic when having a conversation or telling a story.
Feeling dysregulation often shows up as clingy behaviors or perhaps a despairing necessity for societal and romantic relationships. A regularly expressed thought is the sensation that a good relationship will solve all of their problems, and rejection or interpersonal conflicts often leads to intense emotional distress. These persons have difficulty forming a coherent identity: they don't seem to be sure who they are as people, what they need out of life, or how they fit in with other people. They might be drawn to excessive communities with strong belief systems or they may idealize charismatic other people. Lastly, they have a tendency in making hasty, impetuous, and poor conclusions.
In my opinion, I feel like the suing families are only attempting to get as much bad press as possible so our college will resolve, but that's never likely to happen. Mr. Spicia, our principal, is caring and is very upset with what's going on. Yesterday, we had a college-wide meeting that boosted school morale. As much as lots of people hate to hear it, we're not to blame, no less than not our employees and programs. Within 2,990 students, there's going to be one that is not the nicest, but it can't be the primary factor in the suicides.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes collecting things, shopping online and playing computer, has a coach factory outlet and coach outlet store with lots of fashion things.
2010年10月17日星期日
Do you think Invest in Gold is Irrational Exuberance?
When the financial crisis come, there were some who said of the fact that federal government would inflate the foreign currency to alleviate the debt load. Gold was around $799 at the time. Now it is about $1299. The government is running a $1.49 trillion deficit, not including the wars; the states are bankrupt while pensions are factored in and clearly think the feds will bail them out; and Bernacke is more than hinting that he will print about trillion or two to buy mortgages. This latest statement has sent the stock market and virtually all commodities.
Yes, there are a few things extensive and tangible on valuable metals. If you were to think about a chart of gold prices from 1986 to today, gold has traded within a really tight trading range until it took off as we went into downturn. Is that this a surprise? No. In reality, investors fly from stocks while markets dip. Yes, that’s the sell part. Since the marketplace abhors a vacuum and rates of interest are close to zero, what might be more enjoyment than to put your hard earned coin into, uh, coin. But what spurs investors to take the jump from one market to a different?
The answer is a two-partner: one, Fear; and two, those who wish to sell gold. The media does it’s very best to stir the pot to rile up investors that their life savings will be worthless and that selling is a very good move; meanwhile, where does this "news" come from about the ultimate result of staying put in their portfolio? OK, remind me again, how do these folks get paid? Commissions from buying and selling you say? Ah, yes, commissions. So, would it be fair to say that someone has great motivation to scare the wits out of people?
Everyone wants to be perceived as "smart" and "in the know." So when the pundits and salesmen shove charts in your face displaying the incredible rise in the price of gold, you might feel the tug to climb aboard the Midas Express. But before you do, take a moment to think about it and ask yourself a few choice questions.
1. Why is it a good investment?
2. What is my expectation of profit and over what time frame?
3. How will I know when to sell?
4. Is my decision- making based in emotion, fear or knowledge?
When you’ve deliberated and you still think this really is the correct move, take one more minute to think about your past successes and, yes, failures in making investment conclusions. Lay it out on the table and be truthful with yourself. We’re not discussing about miscounting golf shots here. For those who are contemplating this buy out of terror of the fall down of our financial system, maybe you may consider buying bags of grain instead of bars of gold. History is a good teacher; market cycles are just like that, cyclical. Rates of interest will not be close to zero forever, gold will not go up to the sky.
Lots of people scoff at the thought of a collapse, and they could well be correct. Other people argue that the reasons pointing to such a possibility are many and convincing and ought to. At minimum, be taken gravely, which leads them to contemplate how they may get ready for it.
Copyright by Lucy who likes shopping online, going fishing, often searches nike air max ltd and air jordan vi on the Internet.
Yes, there are a few things extensive and tangible on valuable metals. If you were to think about a chart of gold prices from 1986 to today, gold has traded within a really tight trading range until it took off as we went into downturn. Is that this a surprise? No. In reality, investors fly from stocks while markets dip. Yes, that’s the sell part. Since the marketplace abhors a vacuum and rates of interest are close to zero, what might be more enjoyment than to put your hard earned coin into, uh, coin. But what spurs investors to take the jump from one market to a different?
The answer is a two-partner: one, Fear; and two, those who wish to sell gold. The media does it’s very best to stir the pot to rile up investors that their life savings will be worthless and that selling is a very good move; meanwhile, where does this "news" come from about the ultimate result of staying put in their portfolio? OK, remind me again, how do these folks get paid? Commissions from buying and selling you say? Ah, yes, commissions. So, would it be fair to say that someone has great motivation to scare the wits out of people?
Everyone wants to be perceived as "smart" and "in the know." So when the pundits and salesmen shove charts in your face displaying the incredible rise in the price of gold, you might feel the tug to climb aboard the Midas Express. But before you do, take a moment to think about it and ask yourself a few choice questions.
1. Why is it a good investment?
2. What is my expectation of profit and over what time frame?
3. How will I know when to sell?
4. Is my decision- making based in emotion, fear or knowledge?
When you’ve deliberated and you still think this really is the correct move, take one more minute to think about your past successes and, yes, failures in making investment conclusions. Lay it out on the table and be truthful with yourself. We’re not discussing about miscounting golf shots here. For those who are contemplating this buy out of terror of the fall down of our financial system, maybe you may consider buying bags of grain instead of bars of gold. History is a good teacher; market cycles are just like that, cyclical. Rates of interest will not be close to zero forever, gold will not go up to the sky.
Lots of people scoff at the thought of a collapse, and they could well be correct. Other people argue that the reasons pointing to such a possibility are many and convincing and ought to. At minimum, be taken gravely, which leads them to contemplate how they may get ready for it.
Copyright by Lucy who likes shopping online, going fishing, often searches nike air max ltd and air jordan vi on the Internet.
2010年10月15日星期五
The Mysterious Status of Deep Sleep
All creatures have sleep, sleep take place of the most of time of our life. Especially, we human being should sleep everyday, surely, we also can have no sleep about two or three days if you are can stay awake. However, not everyone can have good sleep everyday, and we really know the suffering of bad sleep, What’s more, it’s that we couldn’t have a sleep.
Deep sleep can be a mysterious status that we often have quite a few times every night. The nature of deep sleep is a bit less popular than the greater dramatic dream sleep. When we are very conscious today of dream sleep and of the ability of many people to be conscious of and even direct their dreams in a situation known as clear dreaming, the nature of deep sleep continues to invite a way of mystery.
Sleep stages were first discovered in the 1940s when Loomis and his colleagues began doing overnight EEG recordings of sleeping people. It became clear that the EEG of sleep is not unitary and, in fact, changes over the course of the night. Stages of sleep were recognized by the regular changes noted in the EEG. By the early 1970s it was possible to specify ways of reliably scoring these stages and some knowledge existed about their presumed role in the restorative process of sleep. Because of the dramatic nature of dreams and their historical role in religion, literature and psychoanalysis, REM sleep, during which these vivid experiences occur, became well known to the public. Less emphasis has been placed on the non-dream state of deep sleep.
This stage of sleep is also known as delta sleep, slow wave sleep or, more recently, N3. It is called delta sleep because of the presence of high amplitude, low frequency delta waves that are seen to occur in the EEG. In the past this stage was divided into two stages, stage 3 and stage 4, depending on the percentage of delta waves present. Stage 4 has a greater amount of delta wave activity than does stage 3 and was thought of as a deeper state of sleep. Research has not, however, been able to clearly show any significant difference in the benefit of these two stages, and more recently they have been combined into a single stage called N3.
Subjectively deep sleep is a time of nearly complete disengagement from the environment. It is very difficult to awaken a person in deep sleep, and children in this state may be nearly impossible to wake up. It is from this stage that sleepwalking emerges. This happens when there is a sudden arousal from deep sleep that causes the motor centers of the brain but not the higher centers to awaken so that the person is in a sleep state dissociation characterized by complex motor activity with limited judgment and awareness.
Many important physiological processes occur during deep sleep. Most deep sleep occurs during the first two sleep cycles with the greatest amount of deep sleep typically occurring in the first cycle. As the night progresses, deep sleep decreases and is replaced by the lighter stage 2 sleep and there is an increasing amount of REM sleep toward morning. Deep sleep is extremely effective in decreasing sleep drive that builds steadily with wakefulness over the course of the day. It is far more effective than stage 2 sleep in this regard. One reason that short afternoon naps of about 20 minutes may not affect night time sleep while longer ones may result in difficulty falling asleep, is that in a short nap there is not enough time to cycle into deep sleep and most sleep is stage 2. If N3 sleep occurs during the nap, it will rapidly decrease sleep drive and make it hard to fall asleep later that night.
There are also psychological benefits of deep sleep. By rapidly reducing sleep need, this stage of sleep is an especially refreshing part of the sleep cycle, unless you are wakened out of it, in which case you will feel very sluggish and may have sleep drunkenness in which it unsafe to drive. Some recent neural network research also indicates that deep sleep may be important in helping clear the brain for new learning the next day.
In some eastern mystical traditions the state of consciousness through which we ordinarily experience the world is thought of as being one of gross awareness. There is a more subtle state of awareness that may be developed through meditation and can be thought of as being more subtle and like that of the dreaming state of consciousness. The deepest level of consciousness in this scheme is the very subtle one in which it is possible to become aware of the emptiness in which all phenomenon are thought to occur. According to the integral philosopher Ken Wilber, with training in advanced meditation, it is possible for people to be aware of the subtle and very subtle states of consciousness to the point of being aware of the states of dreaming and even the state of deep sleep. We now know that lucid dreaming is possible. During lucid dreaming people can be aware of and alter their dreams. If Wilber is correct, then some advanced practitioners of meditation may actually be able to maintain a form of conscious awareness of even the formless void of deep sleep.
Whether or not most of us are aware of the state of deep sleep, it functions to restore us physically and mentally. Unfortunately deep sleep is very vulnerable to the effects of stress, sleep disruption, ageing, and many drugs. By preventing adequate deep sleep all of these factors contribute to the run down, tired feelings that many people who are dealing with financial pressure, sleep apnea, getting older and taking certain drugs experience daily.
So what can we do to have more of this amazing, mysteriously recuperative sleep stage? We can’t turn back the time on getting older, or eradicate life’s omnipresent stressors, and there is no simple fix- but when we take methods to assure that we now have a daily, pre-midnight bedtime, that we get any apnea trouble treated, and that we use relaxation breathing or other thoughtful methods to slip into sleep, we may certainly find that the mysterious and restorative powers of deep sleep are within our reach. It’s definitely worth the attempt!
Although we can have a sleep, but how can we have a deep sleep is the most important issue to talk. No good or enough sleep is just like we haven’t sleep at all, it is bad for our healthy and we can’t have a good life. Except the ways mentioned upside, I think we can have exercise everyday to have a good sleep.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with nike air max ltd and nike air max ltd.
Deep sleep can be a mysterious status that we often have quite a few times every night. The nature of deep sleep is a bit less popular than the greater dramatic dream sleep. When we are very conscious today of dream sleep and of the ability of many people to be conscious of and even direct their dreams in a situation known as clear dreaming, the nature of deep sleep continues to invite a way of mystery.
Sleep stages were first discovered in the 1940s when Loomis and his colleagues began doing overnight EEG recordings of sleeping people. It became clear that the EEG of sleep is not unitary and, in fact, changes over the course of the night. Stages of sleep were recognized by the regular changes noted in the EEG. By the early 1970s it was possible to specify ways of reliably scoring these stages and some knowledge existed about their presumed role in the restorative process of sleep. Because of the dramatic nature of dreams and their historical role in religion, literature and psychoanalysis, REM sleep, during which these vivid experiences occur, became well known to the public. Less emphasis has been placed on the non-dream state of deep sleep.
This stage of sleep is also known as delta sleep, slow wave sleep or, more recently, N3. It is called delta sleep because of the presence of high amplitude, low frequency delta waves that are seen to occur in the EEG. In the past this stage was divided into two stages, stage 3 and stage 4, depending on the percentage of delta waves present. Stage 4 has a greater amount of delta wave activity than does stage 3 and was thought of as a deeper state of sleep. Research has not, however, been able to clearly show any significant difference in the benefit of these two stages, and more recently they have been combined into a single stage called N3.
Subjectively deep sleep is a time of nearly complete disengagement from the environment. It is very difficult to awaken a person in deep sleep, and children in this state may be nearly impossible to wake up. It is from this stage that sleepwalking emerges. This happens when there is a sudden arousal from deep sleep that causes the motor centers of the brain but not the higher centers to awaken so that the person is in a sleep state dissociation characterized by complex motor activity with limited judgment and awareness.
Many important physiological processes occur during deep sleep. Most deep sleep occurs during the first two sleep cycles with the greatest amount of deep sleep typically occurring in the first cycle. As the night progresses, deep sleep decreases and is replaced by the lighter stage 2 sleep and there is an increasing amount of REM sleep toward morning. Deep sleep is extremely effective in decreasing sleep drive that builds steadily with wakefulness over the course of the day. It is far more effective than stage 2 sleep in this regard. One reason that short afternoon naps of about 20 minutes may not affect night time sleep while longer ones may result in difficulty falling asleep, is that in a short nap there is not enough time to cycle into deep sleep and most sleep is stage 2. If N3 sleep occurs during the nap, it will rapidly decrease sleep drive and make it hard to fall asleep later that night.
There are also psychological benefits of deep sleep. By rapidly reducing sleep need, this stage of sleep is an especially refreshing part of the sleep cycle, unless you are wakened out of it, in which case you will feel very sluggish and may have sleep drunkenness in which it unsafe to drive. Some recent neural network research also indicates that deep sleep may be important in helping clear the brain for new learning the next day.
In some eastern mystical traditions the state of consciousness through which we ordinarily experience the world is thought of as being one of gross awareness. There is a more subtle state of awareness that may be developed through meditation and can be thought of as being more subtle and like that of the dreaming state of consciousness. The deepest level of consciousness in this scheme is the very subtle one in which it is possible to become aware of the emptiness in which all phenomenon are thought to occur. According to the integral philosopher Ken Wilber, with training in advanced meditation, it is possible for people to be aware of the subtle and very subtle states of consciousness to the point of being aware of the states of dreaming and even the state of deep sleep. We now know that lucid dreaming is possible. During lucid dreaming people can be aware of and alter their dreams. If Wilber is correct, then some advanced practitioners of meditation may actually be able to maintain a form of conscious awareness of even the formless void of deep sleep.
Whether or not most of us are aware of the state of deep sleep, it functions to restore us physically and mentally. Unfortunately deep sleep is very vulnerable to the effects of stress, sleep disruption, ageing, and many drugs. By preventing adequate deep sleep all of these factors contribute to the run down, tired feelings that many people who are dealing with financial pressure, sleep apnea, getting older and taking certain drugs experience daily.
So what can we do to have more of this amazing, mysteriously recuperative sleep stage? We can’t turn back the time on getting older, or eradicate life’s omnipresent stressors, and there is no simple fix- but when we take methods to assure that we now have a daily, pre-midnight bedtime, that we get any apnea trouble treated, and that we use relaxation breathing or other thoughtful methods to slip into sleep, we may certainly find that the mysterious and restorative powers of deep sleep are within our reach. It’s definitely worth the attempt!
Although we can have a sleep, but how can we have a deep sleep is the most important issue to talk. No good or enough sleep is just like we haven’t sleep at all, it is bad for our healthy and we can’t have a good life. Except the ways mentioned upside, I think we can have exercise everyday to have a good sleep.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with nike air max ltd and nike air max ltd.
2010年10月14日星期四
How do we create a conversation about racism with white people?
What works well for you while you have an interest in inviting white people to discuss racism? How do you begin the discussion and invite white people to consider the privilege of not discussing about it? In a single sentence what works for me is when I can meet a people where she is in that time, as opposed to where I would like her to be or where I think she ought to be.
Everyone is an individual. And as well: everyone is a part of a group. Whites don’t like to discuss what they’ve always had and didn’t realize, privilege. The key problem to invite majority race (white-people in US) to discuss racism is they try to become politically correct. As for the minority (non-whites in US) lot of the people get satisfaction ignoring the racist aspect they are experiencing so I always have difficulty to talk about racism.
This sentence has a lot of meaning for me, including the general mindset that I don’t want to talk to white people about their own privilege and racism unless they are ready to have such a conversation. I do talk about my own privilege (when its relevant and when I’m aware of it), both because doing so allows me to live in the world with integrity and because it’s important to me to try to model white anti-racism to the best of my ability.
Apart from the above, I usually leave people alone unless they communicate to me that this is a conversation they want to have, in which case I’m usually happy to participate. I take this approach because if someone doesn’t want to talk about it with me, he is probably not open to anything I say anyway, which makes my trying to have it counterproductive. Better, I figure, to wait until people are ready to engage than scare them away by approaching them before they’re ready.
When someone does initiate a conversation about privilege or racism, I try to ally with the person, so it’s the other person and me against privilege. That is, I assume and behave as though the person wants to interact with the world as an anti-racist, even though he may not yet be there. Basically, I try to be supportive, rather than confrontational.
When I teach my race class, I do mostly the same thing, except that I do sometimes provide students with gentle feedback about their own privilege, usually by asking exploratory questions. I do this because I assume that their deciding to take my class means that they’re, at least on some level, ready to have this kind of conversation. Again, I try to ally with the students against racism. I use a variety of strategies to communicate this, but as just one example: I never label a person as racist. Instead I may talk about specific behaviors that "some people perceive as racist" and explain why they’re perceived that way. This makes it less threatening, which, in turn, makes it more likely that they can hear (and internalize) what I’m saying.
When I first started teaching the race class, I used to be more direct and straightforward in class. I liked the response I got, particularly when Black students came up to me after class and said things like "I really like that you tell it how it is". The problem was that I was loosing a bunch of white students in the process. They’d stop coming to class or they’d come but pretty much tune me out because they decided that I couldn’t relate to them. Over time, I shifted to what I described here.
Currently, I occasionally have Black college students ask me "Why do you hold their hand rather than just telling it like it is?" And I answer by expressing appreciation for the silent compliment and then explain that I am doing my best to tell it like it is, only I’m attempting to do it in a way of the fact that the white students can actually hear. I’m not under the illusion that I am successful 99% of the time, but I can see the diversity and feel more effective in school than I used to.
As I think, a schoolteacher might go to the trouble to click on the link to the class before recommending that students not take it. The class is not about white privilege, though I do waste one day discussing about it. The class is about the psychology of race and ethnicity and focuses on racial characteristics, acculturation, stereotype and prejudice decrease, and the role of race in a variety of domains like education and criminal justice.
Everyone is an individual. And as well: everyone is a part of a group. Whites don’t like to discuss what they’ve always had and didn’t realize, privilege. The key problem to invite majority race (white-people in US) to discuss racism is they try to become politically correct. As for the minority (non-whites in US) lot of the people get satisfaction ignoring the racist aspect they are experiencing so I always have difficulty to talk about racism.
This sentence has a lot of meaning for me, including the general mindset that I don’t want to talk to white people about their own privilege and racism unless they are ready to have such a conversation. I do talk about my own privilege (when its relevant and when I’m aware of it), both because doing so allows me to live in the world with integrity and because it’s important to me to try to model white anti-racism to the best of my ability.
Apart from the above, I usually leave people alone unless they communicate to me that this is a conversation they want to have, in which case I’m usually happy to participate. I take this approach because if someone doesn’t want to talk about it with me, he is probably not open to anything I say anyway, which makes my trying to have it counterproductive. Better, I figure, to wait until people are ready to engage than scare them away by approaching them before they’re ready.
When someone does initiate a conversation about privilege or racism, I try to ally with the person, so it’s the other person and me against privilege. That is, I assume and behave as though the person wants to interact with the world as an anti-racist, even though he may not yet be there. Basically, I try to be supportive, rather than confrontational.
When I teach my race class, I do mostly the same thing, except that I do sometimes provide students with gentle feedback about their own privilege, usually by asking exploratory questions. I do this because I assume that their deciding to take my class means that they’re, at least on some level, ready to have this kind of conversation. Again, I try to ally with the students against racism. I use a variety of strategies to communicate this, but as just one example: I never label a person as racist. Instead I may talk about specific behaviors that "some people perceive as racist" and explain why they’re perceived that way. This makes it less threatening, which, in turn, makes it more likely that they can hear (and internalize) what I’m saying.
When I first started teaching the race class, I used to be more direct and straightforward in class. I liked the response I got, particularly when Black students came up to me after class and said things like "I really like that you tell it how it is". The problem was that I was loosing a bunch of white students in the process. They’d stop coming to class or they’d come but pretty much tune me out because they decided that I couldn’t relate to them. Over time, I shifted to what I described here.
Currently, I occasionally have Black college students ask me "Why do you hold their hand rather than just telling it like it is?" And I answer by expressing appreciation for the silent compliment and then explain that I am doing my best to tell it like it is, only I’m attempting to do it in a way of the fact that the white students can actually hear. I’m not under the illusion that I am successful 99% of the time, but I can see the diversity and feel more effective in school than I used to.
As I think, a schoolteacher might go to the trouble to click on the link to the class before recommending that students not take it. The class is not about white privilege, though I do waste one day discussing about it. The class is about the psychology of race and ethnicity and focuses on racial characteristics, acculturation, stereotype and prejudice decrease, and the role of race in a variety of domains like education and criminal justice.
2010年10月13日星期三
Children in the Middle Post-Divorce
The most hurtful is when the parents either compete with each other over who is the appropriate parent or when the more tolerant parent uses the strict parent to become the bad man and homework to subsidize the feasibility of the success of the more indulgent parenting style. As time goes on, kids may select the more indulgent style as an avoidance tactic. Usually, stricter parents cannot or will not become “Disney dads and moms”, so the long run affect of these selections may cause important alienation of the stricter parent from his or her children and the corrosion of the indulgent parent’s ability to discipline at all.
To a degree, the task of the father in the household is really different than it was ten years ago. Lots of fathers are as good caring for their children as their wives are. But lurking below the face there remains a deep bias in our culture that women are better at raising children than men, and that supposition jumps out strongly in situations of divorce. Although, where I live in the province of Berlin, the trend is toward 40 living arrangements.
As far as I’m concerned, as a family therapist who has worked for decades with families grappling with this issue, it makes less difference how much actual time each parent is awarded than how they handle it and talk to their children about it. If the parents both support the arrangement, whatever form it takes, then children feel secure, too. But that’s usually not the case and the children often know that one parent is angry or sad about the set-up and that makes them feel angry or sad too.
In my office, mothers often complain about the father’s style of parenting, saying either that it’s too lax (the children stay up late eating Twinkies) or that it’s too severe (he won’t let them go to sleep till all the homework is done). Whatever the case, moms often take the role of the arbiter of what’s right, both during the marriage and after, so dads feel devalued and criticized for their style.
The mom is often more intimately connected to the child and takes the position that she has to protect his emotional state, and that attunement is good and valuable. But kids can also benefit from a father’s kind of parenting, which may be more black and white, challenging the child to push himself to achieve. That is a male vibration that is less centered on the child’s emotional state and more about his success in school or sports, and, in my book that’s also good and valuable too - the reality principle.
If a child is lucky enough to have both dynamics in his life, he can grow. But only if the parents, married or divorced, are not at battle with each other about this and recognize the role and importance of both the male and female energy in the child’s life. A strict but loving dad, who expects a lot from children, won’t hurt them, even if the kids sometimes don’t like what he has to say.
A side bar to this is that I’ve often heard mothers complain of the fact that divorced dad is not seeing enough of the children. Fathers, for their part, say that they want to be more involved but the must run the gauntlet of their ex-wife’s anger every time they go to pick the kids and it inhibits them. People, could you try to keep your grown-up issues out of the children’ arena? Find other times to talk about money and affairs than when the children have their backpacks on and are on their way out the door at the cross-over time. To you, it’s common, but to your children, it hurts.
At some point, I believe, we have to arm our kids with what we believe to be the truth. Supporting a primary custodial parent who insidiously alienates children from the secondary custodial parent is not healthy for the children and does not lead to the children’s ability to learn how to build appropriate committed relationships with members of the other gender.
To a degree, the task of the father in the household is really different than it was ten years ago. Lots of fathers are as good caring for their children as their wives are. But lurking below the face there remains a deep bias in our culture that women are better at raising children than men, and that supposition jumps out strongly in situations of divorce. Although, where I live in the province of Berlin, the trend is toward 40 living arrangements.
As far as I’m concerned, as a family therapist who has worked for decades with families grappling with this issue, it makes less difference how much actual time each parent is awarded than how they handle it and talk to their children about it. If the parents both support the arrangement, whatever form it takes, then children feel secure, too. But that’s usually not the case and the children often know that one parent is angry or sad about the set-up and that makes them feel angry or sad too.
In my office, mothers often complain about the father’s style of parenting, saying either that it’s too lax (the children stay up late eating Twinkies) or that it’s too severe (he won’t let them go to sleep till all the homework is done). Whatever the case, moms often take the role of the arbiter of what’s right, both during the marriage and after, so dads feel devalued and criticized for their style.
The mom is often more intimately connected to the child and takes the position that she has to protect his emotional state, and that attunement is good and valuable. But kids can also benefit from a father’s kind of parenting, which may be more black and white, challenging the child to push himself to achieve. That is a male vibration that is less centered on the child’s emotional state and more about his success in school or sports, and, in my book that’s also good and valuable too - the reality principle.
If a child is lucky enough to have both dynamics in his life, he can grow. But only if the parents, married or divorced, are not at battle with each other about this and recognize the role and importance of both the male and female energy in the child’s life. A strict but loving dad, who expects a lot from children, won’t hurt them, even if the kids sometimes don’t like what he has to say.
A side bar to this is that I’ve often heard mothers complain of the fact that divorced dad is not seeing enough of the children. Fathers, for their part, say that they want to be more involved but the must run the gauntlet of their ex-wife’s anger every time they go to pick the kids and it inhibits them. People, could you try to keep your grown-up issues out of the children’ arena? Find other times to talk about money and affairs than when the children have their backpacks on and are on their way out the door at the cross-over time. To you, it’s common, but to your children, it hurts.
At some point, I believe, we have to arm our kids with what we believe to be the truth. Supporting a primary custodial parent who insidiously alienates children from the secondary custodial parent is not healthy for the children and does not lead to the children’s ability to learn how to build appropriate committed relationships with members of the other gender.
When you Falling in Love with Your psychiatrist
Her psychiatrist understands her inner ideas and emotions better than anyone. She can say anything to him and he doesn’t criticize her, but just appears to know her more. She feels secure and comforted whenever she sees him. He is sure of just when to hand her a hankie when she’s going to cry, and they share laughs together for the reason that her humorousness is so like his. She finds herself eager for sessions and even wondering what to be dressed in. She daydreams about him and wonders if he feels the same unusual connection to her. Maybe she’s become his favorite patient.
She feels guilty while her partner asks how treatment is going, and tells herself that her emotions about her psychiatrist can’t be true. In the end, she’s paying for his time and hate it, he’s never late with a bill, and there’s no particular discount for these particular emotions.
So what if she’s in love with him? It happens. She didn’t plan it that way. And he may even love her back. Jason Robards was a psychologist in Tender is the Night and married his patient, Jennifer Jones. And in Spellbound, Ingrid Bergman fell in love with her patient Gregory Peck. Maybe she should just come out with it and tell him how she really feels, but what if he rejects her?
This patient’s experiences are typical of what occurs in many forms of psychotherapy that focus on exploring and understanding the patient’s inner psychological life. Known as transference, it means that the patient is transferring feelings she has toward a parent or authority figure, onto the therapist. A therapist who can remain neutral by not expressing his own issues and emotional reactions during treatment will allow the patient to fill in what she imagines to be the therapist’s reaction. When the time comes for the therapist to point out the reality of the relationship, the patient will hopefully gain insight into her distortions, and realize how she transfers past distortions onto other relationships in her life. With the psychiatrist’s help, the patient can come to grips with this pattern, put her distortions into perspective, and move on with her life.
This process can be particularly challenging when the patient’s transference is eroticized. And if the therapist is experiencing emotional issues in his own personal life, it can lead to a dangerous romantic liaison as it is often depicted in films. An ethical, well-trained psychiatrist, however, knows how to deal with his own emotional reactions to his patient’s expressions of transference.
Freud used the term countertransference to refer to the therapist’s emotional responses to a patient during psychotherapy. An effective therapist has the capacity for empathy and will experience countertransference feelings, but should not allow them to interfere with the therapy. In fact, for psychiatrists who maintain perspective on these reactions and their distortions, countertransference offers an important opportunity to explore the patient’s inner emotional world. It helps the therapist understand how the patient’s behaviors affect others in her life, and how these distortions can create dysfunctional interpersonal patterns.
Anyone who has positive or negative feelings towards her psychiatrist during therapy should discuss those feelings, no matter how uncomfortable that discussion may be. For many patients, it provides an opportunity to gain greater understanding of themselves, offering a path to emotional health.
However, some patients can’t handle this kind of exploratory insight-oriented psychotherapy. The child psychiatrist’s silence or probing questions may stir up so much anxiety that it distorts the patient’s reality and imposes other dangers.
The therapy had made her into a really distorted transfer state that she thought I had made love to her with staring into her eyes. Once I realized that her transfer emotions had morphed into dangerously psychotic romantic needs, I rapidly changed my treatment policy. I ended inquiring her past and helped her deal with her present anxieties. I continued to work with this patient for one more month or so, and she improved. I attempted never to stare into her eyes again.
So falling in love together with your psychiatrist is usually a usual part of treatment. Some people can’t deal with it, and a skilled psychiatrist understands how to spot them and help them cope with their problems in the present. For most sufferers, talking about those emotions with the psychoanalyst and learning how they relate to past relationships often speeds up emotional increase, recuperation and health.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with coach rain boots and oakley sunglass.
She feels guilty while her partner asks how treatment is going, and tells herself that her emotions about her psychiatrist can’t be true. In the end, she’s paying for his time and hate it, he’s never late with a bill, and there’s no particular discount for these particular emotions.
So what if she’s in love with him? It happens. She didn’t plan it that way. And he may even love her back. Jason Robards was a psychologist in Tender is the Night and married his patient, Jennifer Jones. And in Spellbound, Ingrid Bergman fell in love with her patient Gregory Peck. Maybe she should just come out with it and tell him how she really feels, but what if he rejects her?
This patient’s experiences are typical of what occurs in many forms of psychotherapy that focus on exploring and understanding the patient’s inner psychological life. Known as transference, it means that the patient is transferring feelings she has toward a parent or authority figure, onto the therapist. A therapist who can remain neutral by not expressing his own issues and emotional reactions during treatment will allow the patient to fill in what she imagines to be the therapist’s reaction. When the time comes for the therapist to point out the reality of the relationship, the patient will hopefully gain insight into her distortions, and realize how she transfers past distortions onto other relationships in her life. With the psychiatrist’s help, the patient can come to grips with this pattern, put her distortions into perspective, and move on with her life.
This process can be particularly challenging when the patient’s transference is eroticized. And if the therapist is experiencing emotional issues in his own personal life, it can lead to a dangerous romantic liaison as it is often depicted in films. An ethical, well-trained psychiatrist, however, knows how to deal with his own emotional reactions to his patient’s expressions of transference.
Freud used the term countertransference to refer to the therapist’s emotional responses to a patient during psychotherapy. An effective therapist has the capacity for empathy and will experience countertransference feelings, but should not allow them to interfere with the therapy. In fact, for psychiatrists who maintain perspective on these reactions and their distortions, countertransference offers an important opportunity to explore the patient’s inner emotional world. It helps the therapist understand how the patient’s behaviors affect others in her life, and how these distortions can create dysfunctional interpersonal patterns.
Anyone who has positive or negative feelings towards her psychiatrist during therapy should discuss those feelings, no matter how uncomfortable that discussion may be. For many patients, it provides an opportunity to gain greater understanding of themselves, offering a path to emotional health.
However, some patients can’t handle this kind of exploratory insight-oriented psychotherapy. The child psychiatrist’s silence or probing questions may stir up so much anxiety that it distorts the patient’s reality and imposes other dangers.
The therapy had made her into a really distorted transfer state that she thought I had made love to her with staring into her eyes. Once I realized that her transfer emotions had morphed into dangerously psychotic romantic needs, I rapidly changed my treatment policy. I ended inquiring her past and helped her deal with her present anxieties. I continued to work with this patient for one more month or so, and she improved. I attempted never to stare into her eyes again.
So falling in love together with your psychiatrist is usually a usual part of treatment. Some people can’t deal with it, and a skilled psychiatrist understands how to spot them and help them cope with their problems in the present. For most sufferers, talking about those emotions with the psychoanalyst and learning how they relate to past relationships often speeds up emotional increase, recuperation and health.
Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with coach rain boots and oakley sunglass.
2010年10月12日星期二
SAMHSA, the Story of an Opportunity Lost
I am continually fighting to acquire nutrition on the agenda in psychological health forums, public meetings, survivor communities, conferences, and into programs at different levels. Luckily, the understanding is growing that poor nutrition and nutrient-poor foods are big, main factors in why people’s brains don’t work well or sometimes at all.
On Thursday morning, I was given about 40 minutes to speak, and after I gave a short view of Anatomy of an Epidemic, I spoke at bigger length about this question: Is it real that people diagnosed with schizophrenia (or other psychotic disorders) need to be on antipsychotic medication all their lives? There is a reasonably long line of studies dating back to the 1970s that bear on this issue, and the conclusion to be drawn is this: If psychotherapy desires to maximise long-term outcomes, it needs to use antipsychotic medicines in a selective, limited way. Time and time again, the studies showed that there is a big subgroup of sufferers that would fare better if they were never put on the medicines in the first place, or if they were maintained on the medicines for only a quick time.
The beauty of this particular story of science is that it concludes with a description of how western Lapland, in northern Finland, started using antipsychotic medications in this manner in 1992, and today their psychotic patients enjoy the best long-term outcomes in the western world. Five years after a first psychotic episode, eighty percent of their patients are either back in school or working. About one-third of the patients have been exposed to antipsychotics during this period, and about twenty percent end up taking the medication regularly. And what I like most about this success story is that it cannot be viewed, in any way, as an “anti-medication” story. It’s a “best-practices” story.
Most of the audience understood this to be a “good news” tale, with science telling us of a therapeutic path that led to high recovery rates. And imagine if the program, at this national conference, had been structured to have psychiatrists (or other providers) discuss the talk I had just given. We could have spoken about whether a similar therapeutic approach could ever be tried here, and with representatives from SAMHSA there, perhaps this possibility could even have leapt onto a national agenda. This could have been a moment for transformative change in the treatment of first-episode psychosis in this country, a change designed to put young people back onto a path of real recovery, rather than down a path that led all too often to chronicity and disability. But unfortunately, in that Hyatt Regency ballroom, a much different process was underway. Several SAMHSA officials were nervously huddled with the psychiatrist, Mark Ragins, who had been selected to rebut my talk, apparently with a sense of urgency that he effectively counter what I had said. No good news allowed!
When Dr. Ragins took the stage at lunchtime, he was remarkably candid. He was here because SAMHSA wouldn’t let me speak unless a psychiatrist had a chance to rebut what I had said. This, of course, was startling news to most in the audience, as few had ever been to a conference where a second keynote speaker was brought in to discredit the first.
There was, however, no real discussion by Dr. Ragins of the talk I had given, or the issues brought up in Anatomy of an Epidemic. Instead, Dr. Ragins used this metaphor to criticize Anatomy: In the book, he said, I had provided readers with a “compelling picture” of a “close-up of a car accident,” but “we have to widen our view to decide if freeways should be torn down.” Dr. Ragins then discussed other factors besides medication that might be causing the astonishing rise in the number of disabled mentally ill in our society, such as the fact that once people are on SSI or SSDI, there is a financial disincentive to return to work (which I agree is a factor.) Finally, in apparent reference to the many studies I cited in the book that had found that medicated patients have worse long-term outcomes than the off-medication group, he said:
“Medical interventions are always correlated with worse (long-term) problems. It is likely that all interventions ‘done to’ someone to give them help or take care of them will have short-term benefits that wane over time and may well become long-term negatives.”
I still am not quite sure how that was supposed to be a “rebuttal” to Anatomy of an Epidemic. But that is how it was being pitched, and then when Dr. Ragins detailed some of his thoughts on what promoted long-term recovery — “Love other people, family, partners, kids” was one of the things he advised — I could only think: Am I supposed to be against this? Indeed, I had the feeling that if Dr. Ragins and I had been on a panel together, we would have found much common ground, and that he might have thought that there was considerable merit to the Western Lapland approach. But the chance to have that productive discussion had been lost.
During the conference, D. J. Jaffe, who has close ties to the National Alliance on mental Illness, having served on its national board of directors, wrote a blog about the conference for The Huffington Post, describing it as a waste of taxpayer money. My presence there, he argued, was evidence of why this was so. The keynote speaker, Jaffe said, had written that “antipsychotic drugs do not fix any known brain abnormality nor do they put brain chemistry back into balance,” and readers were left to understand that, given that everybody knew that psychological disorders were caused by chemical imbalances, I was a bit of a loony-tune.
Now I must confess that I start to lose all wish. It seems fairly not possible that our world will ever be able to have a considerate, truthful debate on what is really known about psychological issues, and about the merits of psychiatric drugs. The forces lined up against such a discussion are just too great.
Illness is the lack of health as much as anything else. What we ought to be discussing about as we apply and use informed, guided, and sustained nutritional treatment, is ‘side benefits’, numerous benefits for other physical systems that willingly translate to psychological and emotional factors and build healthier, new life and more completely functioning people.
On Thursday morning, I was given about 40 minutes to speak, and after I gave a short view of Anatomy of an Epidemic, I spoke at bigger length about this question: Is it real that people diagnosed with schizophrenia (or other psychotic disorders) need to be on antipsychotic medication all their lives? There is a reasonably long line of studies dating back to the 1970s that bear on this issue, and the conclusion to be drawn is this: If psychotherapy desires to maximise long-term outcomes, it needs to use antipsychotic medicines in a selective, limited way. Time and time again, the studies showed that there is a big subgroup of sufferers that would fare better if they were never put on the medicines in the first place, or if they were maintained on the medicines for only a quick time.
The beauty of this particular story of science is that it concludes with a description of how western Lapland, in northern Finland, started using antipsychotic medications in this manner in 1992, and today their psychotic patients enjoy the best long-term outcomes in the western world. Five years after a first psychotic episode, eighty percent of their patients are either back in school or working. About one-third of the patients have been exposed to antipsychotics during this period, and about twenty percent end up taking the medication regularly. And what I like most about this success story is that it cannot be viewed, in any way, as an “anti-medication” story. It’s a “best-practices” story.
Most of the audience understood this to be a “good news” tale, with science telling us of a therapeutic path that led to high recovery rates. And imagine if the program, at this national conference, had been structured to have psychiatrists (or other providers) discuss the talk I had just given. We could have spoken about whether a similar therapeutic approach could ever be tried here, and with representatives from SAMHSA there, perhaps this possibility could even have leapt onto a national agenda. This could have been a moment for transformative change in the treatment of first-episode psychosis in this country, a change designed to put young people back onto a path of real recovery, rather than down a path that led all too often to chronicity and disability. But unfortunately, in that Hyatt Regency ballroom, a much different process was underway. Several SAMHSA officials were nervously huddled with the psychiatrist, Mark Ragins, who had been selected to rebut my talk, apparently with a sense of urgency that he effectively counter what I had said. No good news allowed!
When Dr. Ragins took the stage at lunchtime, he was remarkably candid. He was here because SAMHSA wouldn’t let me speak unless a psychiatrist had a chance to rebut what I had said. This, of course, was startling news to most in the audience, as few had ever been to a conference where a second keynote speaker was brought in to discredit the first.
There was, however, no real discussion by Dr. Ragins of the talk I had given, or the issues brought up in Anatomy of an Epidemic. Instead, Dr. Ragins used this metaphor to criticize Anatomy: In the book, he said, I had provided readers with a “compelling picture” of a “close-up of a car accident,” but “we have to widen our view to decide if freeways should be torn down.” Dr. Ragins then discussed other factors besides medication that might be causing the astonishing rise in the number of disabled mentally ill in our society, such as the fact that once people are on SSI or SSDI, there is a financial disincentive to return to work (which I agree is a factor.) Finally, in apparent reference to the many studies I cited in the book that had found that medicated patients have worse long-term outcomes than the off-medication group, he said:
“Medical interventions are always correlated with worse (long-term) problems. It is likely that all interventions ‘done to’ someone to give them help or take care of them will have short-term benefits that wane over time and may well become long-term negatives.”
I still am not quite sure how that was supposed to be a “rebuttal” to Anatomy of an Epidemic. But that is how it was being pitched, and then when Dr. Ragins detailed some of his thoughts on what promoted long-term recovery — “Love other people, family, partners, kids” was one of the things he advised — I could only think: Am I supposed to be against this? Indeed, I had the feeling that if Dr. Ragins and I had been on a panel together, we would have found much common ground, and that he might have thought that there was considerable merit to the Western Lapland approach. But the chance to have that productive discussion had been lost.
During the conference, D. J. Jaffe, who has close ties to the National Alliance on mental Illness, having served on its national board of directors, wrote a blog about the conference for The Huffington Post, describing it as a waste of taxpayer money. My presence there, he argued, was evidence of why this was so. The keynote speaker, Jaffe said, had written that “antipsychotic drugs do not fix any known brain abnormality nor do they put brain chemistry back into balance,” and readers were left to understand that, given that everybody knew that psychological disorders were caused by chemical imbalances, I was a bit of a loony-tune.
Now I must confess that I start to lose all wish. It seems fairly not possible that our world will ever be able to have a considerate, truthful debate on what is really known about psychological issues, and about the merits of psychiatric drugs. The forces lined up against such a discussion are just too great.
Illness is the lack of health as much as anything else. What we ought to be discussing about as we apply and use informed, guided, and sustained nutritional treatment, is ‘side benefits’, numerous benefits for other physical systems that willingly translate to psychological and emotional factors and build healthier, new life and more completely functioning people.
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