When love fails us

I put my boyfriend's picture in my drawer and locked it. threw the key to the sea. it has been one and half year, but never get simpler as the time goes. I still feel annoyed, miserable, puzzle and so much in pain. and when I know, he moves on, I questioning my ability to love someone and being loved. life is so strange, how could you like someone so deeply and find yourself painfully bleeding due to love .

I give you these ideas, on the anniversary of my separation, with the vacations coming. But before you start, please know this is not a tale of my previous wife and I. Take it as it is; a tale of autism and weakness at a time of year things often go wrong.

Lies, evasions, and half truths. All are deceits. Yesterday's white lie, once discovered, reveals the big one from the month before. That's the problem with lies. When you unravel one, there is always another behind. It's a ball of string that leads to the darkest recesses of the mind .

It's easy to demand honesty, to hold the other person to a high standard. It's hard to deliver, though, and harder still to know if we receive the truth in our most intimate exchanges. So often, love and hope blinds to what's obvious, when seen from a distance.

After all, what are those demands but another form of conditional love. Do this, and I'll love you. And the implied threat, Don't do this, and I withhold my love for you. There is also the thought that it takes a cheater to know a cheat; one must wonder from whence the demands for honesty and integrity arise. In hindsight, it would have been wise to question.

Our understanding of others is based on observation and interpretation. Revisited in the hard light of freshly discovered deception, everything changes. Was it innocent, or was it planned?

Relationships end, and we don't really know why. A few months later, the truth emerges, in a few casual words. There were the phone calls, those unexplained days, and those fights that made no sense, suddenly, everything look different. It feels wrong. Did those things really happen, or was it all in the mind? When one fact proves real, other evidence is harder to ignore. Hope gets replaced by resignation. And so the mind begins its tortured journey.

What seemed sweet and sad immediately turns shabby and tawdry. Sympathy turns to cold rage, as the realization of what's really happened sinks in. All of a sudden, the magic of the precious days before is shattered, never to seem beautiful again. Was her sweet smile real, or was it just a pretty lure, reeling him in?

Logic tells us it started out real. Love grows, and goes astray. Life intrudes. Other options appear. At some point, what was real became false. And looking back, we cannot know the precise time and place that it all went wrong.

The optimist says it was beautiful, until the very last day.

The pessimist says he was played for a fool, right from the start.

The realization sinks in that it's really over. Some would put her photo in the drawer. Others would cast it in the trash. In the end, everyone moves on. But for some, the pain lingers for a lifetime.

That's the terrible curse of autism, when love goes wrong. We lack the defenses others have evolved; our hearts are easily broken and hard to repair. We perseverate, and ugly thoughts circle in our mind, slicing jagged tears in the soul with every gyration. We lack expression, so the feelings stay locked inside, eating us alive. And worst of all, we lack the ability to sense positive energy from others, to rebuild our psyche. Breaks are the start of a hard, hard time. For some, it's a path to alcohol or depression. For others, it's a door to suicide.

I wish it wasn't so, having stood in those doorways myself.

Autistic people are particularly vulnerable to deceptions of the heart. Sadly, we often bring them on ourselves, through a mix of hope and blindness. We cannot tell what the other person intends, because that's the nature of social blindness. We're drawn to the smile, when another might have seen the phony. We stay when we should run, because we fear we're disabled, and love may never come again. For so many reasons, we are vulnerable.

It would be easy to blame predatory people. More and more, that's the American way. Blame someone or something else; something beyond our control. Many would seize that argument. I don't believe that.

I agree most of the people are not bad, but life gives them different options. Sometimes the ways they select are not the finest, just like we except otherwise, we can’t manage where another life leads. At times, all the highways hurt.

I've had a heavy heart for a very long time since I felt my relationship was finish. It's really difficult coping and facing the new reality. Life's challenging me for a second time. But I won't give up on Love. It's the most fantastic feeling.

Have a Break on Your Life

I’m addicted to technology at 18 years old. I don’t know if it’s common for a teenager, or anyone, to be as addicted as I am. I’m frightened to count how many hours each day I spend on facebook, youtube, twitter, email, and other sites; I know that I’m spending not less than triple the amount of time I’d like to spend on the internet. My issue with quitting or just logging off is that I feel insecure without my smartphone or facebook, and I can’t seem to get control of my life any longer.

In recent times, during a very grueling spin class in Califorlia City a lady pulled out and logged on to her IPad to check her email. The teacher was not pleased and when he proceeded to humiliate her openly, the class collectively broke out in applause.

Since I blog about our relationship with technology and rely on it to have my words read, I need my reading audience logged on to create the blog traffic to keep myself in the blogosphere. But this post is about empowering yourself to make conscious choices to log off and take a much needed time out from our digital lives. No matter how convenient and accessible technology has become, it is still our choice whether we remain tethered to it everywhere we go.

As toddlers, many of us had baby blankets, binkies or imaginary friends that we refused to part with under any circumstances. Pediatrician and Psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicot coined the phrase "transitional object" to describe the phenomenon of infants attaching to various objects (plush toys, blankets, etc.) that serve to provide comfort as they come to terms with their own individuality while confronting the anxiety caused by separation from their primary caretaker. This is a perfectly natural stage of development and for the most part, parents indulge our symbiotic relationships with our surrogates until we just grow out of it. Transitions are a normal part of our individuation and people of all ages will attach to something comfortable and familiar to provide security through these developmental transitions.

For those who struggle with separation and individuation, the transitional object becomes a hindrance to movement forward and the object becomes a liability. At some point the tattered fabric or the demanding imaginary friend are no longer cute or age-appropriate and need to be abandoned in the pursuit of healthy development.

As a therapist, I have clients who are reluctant to log off even for their hour of therapy. Ironically, in a time where we can be always connected, we are increasingly more disconnected with one another.

Look around you at a restaurant tonight and just observe how many people are on their phones texting instead of talking with one another-this is especially profound when you see a couple at a romantic table for two holding their handhelds instead of holding hands. Pay attention at the movies, play or symphony at just how many sounds, beeps and buzzes coming from the people around you and not from the talent you have paid to entertain you. People cannot even use the toilet anymore without feeling the need to stay connected, it is called a "restroom" for a reason.

As a species, it’s as if we feel we don’t exist if we are not immediately accessible. This separation anxiety en masse is a regression of monumental proportions. Since tech gadgets are not going anywhere, we have to recognize our relationship with them is layered and rooted in more than just their logistical convenience. Ask yourself–do you need to have your gadget on to feel connected? Can you relax if you are not accessible?

As the holidays approach it is a wonderful time to disengage and take a vacation from technology to reconnect with yourself and your family and friends. Recently on the ABC sitcom Modern Family, one of the family units tried to eliminate technology all together in order to reconnect with one another. For many, it would be hard to imagine a Thanksgiving without a turkey, so I am not suggesting you go cold-turkey on technology, but with a few simple modifications to your dependence on your gadgets, you may find that you have a holiday season worth remembering.

So for the brave and fearless, here are some holiday suggestions for giving yourself a vacation from technology.

1.Host tech free dinner parties. Inform guests that gadgets are persona non grata. Hosts can offer a "tech check" where guests can check their gadgets at the door and claim them at the time of departure.

2. At home, establish "tech free time" where all gadgets must be turned off. Play games, engage in discussions, eat together, etc.

3. Make exercise a time to connect with yourself and leave the distractions and stress of your every day behind. Create motivating playlists with your favorite music to keep you focused and pumped during your workouts, but leave gadgets that connect you to the outside world, inside your locker. Gyms should be gadget free.

4. Implement a "tech curfew". Let your friends, family and co-workers know that at a certain time, you are no longer available. Establish that time and turn off your technology. Without chimes and reminders that you have mail, you will claim a lot of extra time for yourself and perhaps reconnect with something called relaxation.

5. Tech charge time. Leave the house willingly without your gadgets and let them stay at home snug in their charging cradle. At first you may be uncomfortable with how naked you feel as you re-experience everyday activities without your phone, but after the initial shock you will be surprised at how liberating it is to not be accessible.

With the vacation season upon us, it is a great time to reconnect with family and enjoy some down time from work. Our Digital Self requests this break too, so let’s close up our gadgets and tune into chances to be tech free-not all the time, but enough to feel the dissimilarity.

It is very easy to be overwhelmed by technology and to spend a lot of time on it and with it. Not less than you know you are relying on it so much because you feel insecure without it. Most probably, when you challenge yourself to break from it, you will discover you don’t feel as insecure and will increase the confidence to concentrate on the things in your life you might be avoiding.

Forget About Work and Life Balance

As our values move and change with time, so do our views around how best to waste our time. To judge that one person is using their time incorrectly is to project our own values on them. Better to discover what is most important to that person and ask if they are honoring what is most vital.

Lots of my coaching customers laugh while the idea of work equilibrium is mentioned. Some have come to resent it as it implies that their overachieving methods are harmful and ought to be changed. Why should they feel guilty about not wanting to stare at their navels when they would rather be obsessively doing what they love? They persist that forcing themselves to poise their actions leaves them feeling more overwhelmed than refreshed.

What's similar about these women who reject the notion of work/life balance is the level of passion they have for their work. When they find their work gives them a strong sense of purpose and satisfaction with their contribution, they happily work from early morning to late at night. Even if they schedule time for self-care and family, they don't see the need to equally balance their schedules.

One woman told me she felt lost before she found the job she over-commits her time to. She works for a no-kill animal shelter. When not at work, she thinks about how to improve the care of her "children" and raise funds for the shelter. Before she found this work, she spent more time with friends but often drank too much and then squandered her weekends nursing hangovers. She still shares moments with two good friends and visits her sister's family on holidays, but loves her work. She is happily out of balance.

Instead of working on equally balancing activities, I work with these clients on balancing their mind and body. They can happily live with their passionate obsession if they don't tip into mental and physical fatigue. Here are some tips for maintaining mental balance without work balance.

   1. Keep your body healthy. If you want to maintain a long work schedule, then you need to keep your body in good working order. Schedule time for exercise so you don't end the day with no time for the gym. Make sure you eat healthy meals instead of what you can gobble down in quick breaks. Sleep at least seven hours so you don't wear out as you wear yourself thin.
   2. Maintain social bonds. No matter if you think you don't need anyone's help, you are a human with social needs. Whether it's your family or your friends-hopefully both-you need a few significant relationships where you can be together without working. If you go to a movie once a week, enjoy some time afterwards talking about what you saw. Eat meals together. Take walks. Lay on the ground and watch the sun cross the sky. Your social connections keep your mind healthy.
   3. Regularly notice the world around you. I get acupuncture once a month to reset my overtaxed body. It was my acupuncturist who first told me that I was disconnected. He then prescribed a daily dose of going outside, smelling the air, appreciating the trees and feeling the ground beneath my feet. When I reconnect with nature, I reconnect with my soul.

The beauty of these tips is that you could combine them. For instance, plan on normal walks with relatives and friends to enjoy them when you absorb the sun and nature. Then if you work into the night to catch up on the emails that came in when you were walking, be sure you get enough sleep so you wake up excited about the work you will do next. Poise your body and mind if you can't balance your work by breaking for exercise, breaking bread with people you like.

Significant achievement needs a lack of balance during different seasons of our life. Balance means various things to dissimilar people. I know when I tip into overwhelm and need to go for a walk or just be calm for a minute and breath to get back on road. I even keep things in my desk that make me laugh when I should go back to actuality.

Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with juicy couture and juicy couture wallet.

Take Your Head Out

You can find young people who are considerate, and other people who are not. The same goes for the next generation. I’m young and I love technology, but I’m at all times cautious to put my cell phone away when in the checkout line or at a friend’s house. I know lots of people my own age who do the same.



I consider the generation gap is not any more evident than when in terms of electronics. The friends I have who are my age are, with a few exceptions, interested not at all in electronic equipments, are barely educated on the computer; all of them prefer the easiest type of cell phones, no bells, no whistles and no unbelievable new ‘apps’, just something for emergencies, or to keep in contact with their loved ones.



You rarely see someone of a certain age with their head in one of the hottest new ‘apps,’ bumping into people, ignoring the baby in the carriage, who is trying to get their attention or the person with whom they are walking. For me it’s like an obstacle course making my way down any street in the Big Apple trying to sidestep the cell phone junkies.
And, when my children and grandchildren are with me, I rarely start a meaningful conversation before their heads are down deciphering whatever text they just received and texting back. When I try to insist they give me their phones for the day, it’s as if I’ve asked them to forfeit one of their kidneys on the spot. My very grown kids are no better.



I find this new phenomenon exceedingly disconcerting, okay, obnoxious. Subways and airplanes have been a refuge, though even in the subterranean world where no signal is possible, people are still looking, reading, searching their phones, listening to their Ipod music which is so loud I can hear it through their earpieces. I can only wonder how sharp their hearing will be in the future. There is a plethora of interesting faces on those trains, advertisements to read, things to let your mind wander about, strolling musicians, pleas for food and money. But that little gadget in their palms holds all their interest and attention. The awful news is that we are soon to be able to use our cell phones on both subways and airplanes.

We, of that generation, still stroll through the park gazing at the beautiful leaves turning color, the awesome color of the sky in the early morning, while other people, at 8:00 a.m. are already palm to ear, listening, responding. We watch the skaters at Rockefeller Center, look in store windows, and get through a nice restaurant lunch without anything vibrating in our pockets or handbags. We walk down the street, fully aware of the man with a cane struggling to stay upright, the woman in the wheel chair, needing a wide path, the child with the balloon, the tiny dog strolling alongside his owner. We smile, we laugh. We are in the world and of it, without a single ‘app’ to our name.



I suppose that dissatisfaction with the new may come with each successive generation. And don’t get me wrong. I try to understand my grandchildren’s generational interests and I marvel at their know-how. They are, electronically savvy, but they also have different mores to contend with. What passes for okay today is often a lot different than in preceding generations.



But, courtesy really should not be gender or generation specific. All of us should be regarded with care. I tried telling one brash New Yorker who barreled into me on 85th Street to take his head out of his "apps." I don’t think he heard me rightly. I vowed not to express my request once more, no less than not in New York City, if not I could pronounce more obviously. But I am eager to do it in black and white. So, please, be friendly and considerate to persons around you, people who love you, and those who don’t even know you. You are lost life.



No dispute here that courtesy is important. On the other hand, there are methods that people can every efficiently ignore one another without electronics. The irony, certainly, is of the fact that the electronics supposedly keep us in touch with the bigger world, when actually our world and our consciousness of it can turn out to be very small.

Where all my civil liberties go?

The security theatre doesn’t take into consideration all manner of important concerns over civil liberties violations, psychological possessions, and probable health hazards of the new method, nor is it based on facts and proof – it’s a hysterical response to the coverage of terrorism, not a considered reaction. That’s the danger: it’s simpler to misuse such a system than it is to misuse a wise one.

Where have my civil liberties lost? As a people has been educated in psychology, you would consider I would have been ready for the new TSA screening programs- but not even that can have prepared me for what occurred at LAX last month.

My wife and I had a wonderful trip to the Los Angeles area last week. We enjoyed the sun and fun – even rented a convertible. The ocean off Malibu Beach and Santa Monica was grand and glorious – resplendent in sunshine.

We interviewed terrific couples for our next book about successful marriage, videotaped an upcoming television show about our newest book, and, all and all, had a grand California time. It was a wonderful trip, but the journey home was a nightmare.

Here’s what happened. When we got to LAX our trip definitely turned south.

Here I am, a 65-year-old man with gray hair, wearing a pair of Chino pants and a blue blazer, traveling with my wife. I am not a very dangerous looking guy and my track record in the legal system is squeaky clean. OK, I got a speeding ticket back in the 90′s! But the truth is, I have a great record as a human being overall. My 42 years as an educator qualifies me I think as one of the good guys.

Frankly, when I saw the "full body scanner" in front of me as we were beginning the screening process at LAX, I was kind of looking forward to trying out this new technology. My optimism didn’t last very long.

I went through the body scanner only to be pulled aside and told that the scanner had detected something "in my right groin area." I said to the TSA agent something like, "Huh?" I had no shoes, no belt, no jewelry, nothing except my socks, my Chino’s, my underwear, and my shirt. And trust me on this, I am not a terrorist – I have never committed a crime and I only have that speeding ticket I mentioned earlier.

What was about to happen to me was something I never expected. And I must say, it was traumatizing, uncomfortable, embarrassing, and downright humiliating.

I was pulled into a room after waiting for several minutes in the "holding area." Two TSA agents took me into this side room. The one agent told me he was going to search me. He committed to using only the "back of his hands" during this invasive search.

What happened during the next several minutes clearly and without question violated my civil liberties. What happened to me violated my rights as a citizen of this country, the United States of America.

During the invasive process I was going through, the TSA agent touched my genitals, patted down my legs and groin area, and embarrassed me by rubbing my inner legs and buttocks.

I will ask this simple question of those of you who are reading this – how does a 65 year old man, with gray hair, his bride of 44 years by his side, and one who has a very clean record of service to education for 42 years, get treated like a common criminal – or worst yet, a terrorist – when all I was doing was getting on an American airplane as a frequent flyer with a Gold Card? What has happened to my country?

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Missouri in the 1960′s, my English teacher required me to read "1984" by George Orwell. I dutifully read the book. And the truth is, I thought it was funny. I never imagined that America would come to the vision of George Orwell. Well, think again.

I am very worried about my country. I never imagined that I would be humiliated by my own government. Our government has, in my humble estimation, crossed over the line.

Where is the ACLU? Where are those Americans that confess to protect our civil liberties? My experience in LA was a divide moment in my life. I have always loved my nation and believed in all the liberties outlined in our Constitution. But my government has let me down. When our government gropes, fondles, and touches our human body in ways in which our constitution never imagined, it is time to question what has gone incorrect.

On the other hand, it can be considered that he was only saying nothing about his person made him seem incriminating. I would presume that with my background and appearance, this might never happen to me either but evidently, the next time I fly, I ought to be sure to scrub down really well. I expect to be treated like an American civilian, a civilian until I commit a crime.

Copyright by Lucy who likes shopping online, going fishing, often searches juicy couture bikini and juicy couture diaper bags on the Internet.

Can I finally Rupture the cycle?

I remember my analyst once telling me to picture that if I used to be very sick and vomited, a physician might see the things of the vomit to find out what made me ill. He said that’s what analysis is like. That I vomit, and he looks with the contents, and I am there with him when he does it. Every thing is examined cautiously, and selected apart. It’s uncomfortable and frightening. Another time he told me that we have to discharge things, and look at all the pieces, so as to know them.

Sometimes I’m unsure about my analysis, I don’t have the time, I don’t know why I’m going, I don’t know when it’s going to ever work, but not tonight. On this Tuesday night, five days separated from my last Friday meeting, I’m ready to get back on the couch.

The reason for my renewed enthusiasm isn’t that life feels grand and I’m all giddy to share it. It’s that so much feels broken inside, and I know I have to repair it.

This, of course, is a good thing. I’m realizing that the longer I’m in analysis (coming up on 4 years), the harder I’m trying to break things: Bad habits, negative cycles, and presenting problems are all in my sights – on target to get busted apart and banished.

But as so many of us in therapy know, our demons are highly capable of making a comeback the first time we beat them down, and the second. At least that’s been my experience.
Long, torturous cycles of discovery, taking months, would finally bring on breakthroughs. I felt repaired, and I would tell Ms. Analyst, with certainty, that this time I had finally turned the corner. The lifelong rupture was finally defeated. After our many sessions and my diligent work converting them into results outside of the pod I was now victorious, for real, and I was sure I would stay that way.

"I see," she would observe, "that this time feels different." And so it did. And then I would start musing about some other minor malady, perhaps even privately planning my eventual disembarkment from the pod.

Last week, after months of hard labor, I broke down one of my demons once more. Wrestled it into submission and put it in a mental chokehold. But this time really is different, because instead of thrusting my arms triumphantly into the air, I know to beware.

The problem has been neutralized, but I am not in a state of repair. I am in a state of rupture, and I will choose to stay there.

Why? Because Ms. Analyst believes – and I think I finally get it – that I must fully understand my darkest elements if I’m ever going to break free of their influence. The idea right now is not to learn how to go to a happy place, but to remain enveloped in the threatening conditions so we can see what’s really going on.

"Embrace the hopelessness," she urges, when I tell her that I’m hurting. "Embrace the chaos and destruction. Drop anchor and drill down."

It took me so long to understand what she meant by that. Wasn’t I in therapy so I could feel good? And wasn’t I telling her how I felt at the moment, which was bad? Wasn’t I effectively free associating?

But now I think I get it. I’ve modified my behavior, and earlier on that was enough to make me feel better. But now I don’t want to feel better. Not yet, odd as it sounds. We have a lot to learn from the chaos, and maybe tomorrow I’ll embrace it and unleash it in the session room, rather than just playing keep away.

How do you regress and recoil as your cycles come around? What does it take for you to turn the corner, and carry on going? Making things break, and then letting them stay seems like a stratagem strategy. But I think taking this new tack displays why it pays to stay in treatment. I’m still learning, through trial and error.


In my opinion, it’s frightening and superb. Ultimately, I don’t trust a therapy. I trust consciousness, and the ability to finally have more and more of a grasp on what we do and why, so we could do the best with that broken, complex mechanism that is our structure. That’s also a great way to see the best possible end consequence. It suggests and ongoing procedure, versus some imagined destination.


Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with juicy couture diaper bags and juicy couture sandals.

Directly Treatment: Seeing By the Sartorial Signifiers of Our Shrinks

As a licenced clinical psychologist, working with customers for over 19 years, I have worn jeans lots of times. Perhaps I've lost a few customers from it, maybe kept some because of it. However, hopefully ultimately, other factors are a lot more important to the victory or scarcity of victory in treatment.

I hear my professors discuss much on the importance of going into sessions naked. As I have a highly visual imagination, I am always greatly surprised by that metaphor. It has the same influence on me as the so-called treatment for stage scare. Picturing either of these, I go wordless and feel the necessity to hand out robes to those whose nudity I created. But I get the point. In our work as therapists, we have to be truthful, real and not hiding ourselves in breastplate; that said, it is possible to be emotionally truthful and still be dressed in a nice pair of trousers or dress.

Protect them from what, exactly? My imagination went into overdrive as I read about these psychoanalysts who used white coats as a protective coating. Did this sartorial signifier say, “You are infected and I am pure. I am an authority and you are not.” Or that they might get some sticky projective identification on their shirt and the white coat kept them clean, safe and warm? It is also a clear identification with the medical model. Is there any image of psychology more prevalent and lacking in warmth than the archetypal men in white coats?

I told my analyst about these analysts in white coats. He affirmed that he had seen pictures of early analysts in white coats. He went on to tell me how Kleinian analysts tend to dress like business-men: suits, dress shirts and ties. The unconscious aspect of this sartorial signifier suggests they are switching out of the medical model but still are working towards differentiating themselves from their patients, and want to make it clear that they are the ones in power.

As therapists, our wardrobes may be imparting more information about us than our interpretations. What is it we communicate to our clients by the way we dress?  How does our unconscious enter the analytic suite in terms of our sartorial self-expression? Do our clothing choices help or hurt our ability to come into the work “naked”? I know that I remember the wardrobe of each therapist I have ever seen and my fantasies about what their wardrobe revealed about who they really are.

Therapist, who I saw when I was ten, wore a stuffy mix of tweeds, Pendleton knits, bland plaids and orthopedic shoes. I have long wondered if under all that comfort and conformity was some sizzling hot lingerie. Her therapy involved many superego-like suggestions; she was forever teaching me about etiquette and rules and order. She was forever asking me about fantasies and/or masturbation (which seemed very strange and inappropriate to my ten-year-old self). I do, in retrospect, wonder what was under her superego suits.

I saw Therapist when I was in my early 20’s. She was an intern fresh out of grad school. Her hippy-dippy ways found their way into our therapy. She was constantly suggesting we do guided meditations and relaxation exercises. I should have known by her hemp handbag that we weren’t going to be a good fit.

I feel sure that if Hippy-Dippy therapist continues to practice today, her style might have morphed into the very popular style of therapist as the archetype of healer or shaman, this is a very popular style of dress for therapists that you would undoubtedly find at many a therapy conference. These therapists often wear flowing tunics, dresses and Eileen Fisher type separates, and a big, old honking archetypal accessory that implies ancient knowledge and access to the spiritual secrets of the psyche.

Therapist dressed in a wardrobe of 1940’s vintage wear, formal suits in obscure colors and shoes that could not be found in any store. Her hair was up in rolls and twists that made her seem otherworldly, not of this time and place, which added to her mystery and allure; this appearance of “otherness” only amplified my transference. It was as if she was a Jungian time-traveler and, I can tell you, that we did a whole lot of time traveling through my past.

Therapist, a Jungian analyst that I saw for over 11 years, dressed in a uniform of conservative plaids and checkered dress shirts, warm sweaters, dependable trousers and brogues. Everything about his appearance read as academic, and truth be told, this analyst was made for a classroom. I always felt that he was lecturing me, and that he was better suited for a lecture hall than an analytic suite. This preppy professor aesthetic is related to another kind of therapist who dresses in a collegiate, grad school, haphazard manner that also sends the message that only the mind matters.

In my own practice as a therapist, I can see how my wardrobe has changed as I have changed as a therapist. When I worked with children, I didn’t want to appear too formal, and chose colors and prints that might appeal to children. I also chose fabrics that allowed me freedom of movement for play therapy. When I began to see adults or do intakes, I dressed more professionally. And I know that when I was a pre-licensed intern, I dressed even more professionally as an attempt to compensate for my pre-licensed status, authority and structure through attire (maybe my version of a white coat). Now I dress as I always do, a lot like my own therapist: in classic, timeless, and enduring styles. I add a charm bracelet or, as I mentioned in “Nina Garcia Goes to Therapy,” a leopard pump. It is a way, I think, to say that I am serious and yet have a sense of humor and fun.

At the end of my last semester, my analyst asked me what I would make of a therapist who desired to wear jeans and t-shirts to work in. I told him I could be horrified. He admitted that he did hope he could be dressed in more comfortable clothes to work in. I told him to stop telling me on this. The fact is that I need him to be someone who doesn’t even own jeans and one t-shirt.

I consider that clothes are a really unconscious aspect for therapists and my hunch on why that is comes from Myers-Briggs typology. It is my educated visitor that most therapists are intuitive and not sensate. Intuitive are not usually conscious of the sensate world. I can't imagine of the fact that "one size fits all" method would ever really work. We are people who work with people, not machinery.

Is Only Child Happier?

I have a brother who is one year younger than me. Due to the closeness in age we hated one another growing up. But now that we’re adults, I’m really happy we have one another. We both grew up using ASL at home, also it’s nice to have the ability to keep up our native language.

You know that stereotype of a snotty, spoiled only kid?  The child who never learns how to share or socialize and acts way too grown up for the reason that they never get any playtime with other kids?  Well seemingly, that’s bullshit.  The Observer ran a report from the understanding society study in France that found only kids to be happier kids.  And the more sisters and brothers they had, the less happy they were.

Researchers are hypothesizing many reasons for this sibling-induced unhappiness.  The biggest reason seems to be everyone’s favorite issue, bullying, with approximately 30% of children being called “nasty names” by their siblings.  The other culprits seem to be lack of privacy and competition for parental attention.

While these findings may run against preconceived notions, they aren’t illogical.  As a child, I had plenty of arguments with my older brothers and sisters.  And when I was in middle school, I was more likely to tell you that my brother smelled and never let me play with him and his friends then about the time he scared the crap out of the boy at my bus stop who was making lewd and icky comments to me every morning.  Seriously, Nicky, I can still see the look of terror in that boy’s eyes as you drove away!  And he never spoke to me again.  Thank you!

For a long time, parents have worried that only children lagged behind their peers socially.  My grandmother once told me that you should have at least 4 children, because every girl deserved a sister and every boy deserved a brother.  I never asked what happened if you got 3 girls and 1 boy.  Back to the science, if I remember right, several studies proved this theory to be untrue.  Now, it looks like single-child families are the psychological winners.  But I think this may be another stereotype that withers away as children age.  I may have complained that Nicky smelled when I was younger (I think teenage angst has a very distinct odor), but now I appreciate having an older brother.  He gets to help with my parents’ 30th anniversary party and we can drink too much together at family gatherings.  Every once in a while we have long talks on a drive to visit our grandparents and my daughter will frequently steal my cell phone to call Uncle Nick.

I’m not saying that just kid is inevitably better than another, but I think the pros and cons might even out as we get elder.  Sure I might have been picked on more, but now I have sisters and brothers to support me and care about me.  As my parent’s get older, I’ll have help, should I need to help look after them.  And most importantly, whether we argue or disagree, I have brothers and sisters who love me.  I’ve never been an only kid, so I don’t know the way they feel about it all.  But I’m interested in searching for!  Do you think having brothers and sisters helps kids grow or results in sad bickering?  Are only kids really the happiest of all of them?

I don’t think there’s anything incorrect with being an only kid, but my brothers and I are close in ways I could never be with anybody else. They are the only people who consistently call me out when I’m bullshitting, for instance. Yes, we fought when we were younger - still do sometimes, in reality. But we’ve turned out to be better friends as we’ve grown up, and it’s surprising how similar and unusual we are.

Christian Louboutin Introduces The "Peace Of Shoe" For Charity

The "Peace Of Shoe" is so gorgeous and fashionable, I want to have it as the first time I saw it, because I think they are really adorable. I don't know whether I will wear it or not when I have it next week, maybe I will wear it when I stay with my friends and families, maybe I will wear it when I'm alone.

If you're looking for a present that gives back this holiday season (or your girlfriend is), then allow us to introduce you to the fully splurge-worthy and entirely to-die-for Religious Louboutin "Peace of Shoe," with 99% of the proceeds benefitting microfinance in deprived places.




When Mr. Louboutin read Creating a World Without Poverty, an influential book by economics professor and Grameen Bank founder Muhammed Yunus, he became inspired by the volume's ideals and decided to design a shoe to benefit the world's poorest people. The result is "Peace of Shoe," a classic satin peep-toe platform that's hand-stitched and ribbon-trimmed. Only 33 pairs have been produced, and each is numbered and signed by the designer.

And while the $1,495 price tag is certainly eye-opening (and, let's face it, more than most people will spend on shoes in a lifetime!), it's a splurge to be made in good conscience, 100% of the shoe's proceeds will benefit microfinance via the Grameen Foundation, which provides poor people in remote areas small loans to start businesses and eventually support themselves.

The shoes above will debut this week at the New York and California stores, and will come in champagne, mauve, and hot pink. Hey, if you will be wasteful about your shoes this season, you might as well make a difference while doing it, right? 

As I think, The "Peace Of Shoe" is really a good gift with a charity angle this holiday season, well, I love those taupe ones the most. And if I had 1000+ bucks to spend on shoes and free time, I'd buy them whether it was for charity or not, what's more, I think The "Peace Of Shoe" is worthy to collect.

Is Your Lover's Weight Gain a Good Excuse for an Affair?

It might not be a proper reason for an affair as you are extreme weight, but it could be a reasonable rationale for a divorce. It relies on whether one wants to be married to one's best friend, or one's lover. I choose to be married to my lover. Needless to say, the killer is while one has three or four little children, and then your partner's appearance goes to hell in a hand-basket and the last thing you feel like doing is touch them, and the only thing you need to do less is divorce and mess things up for your child.

A lot of guys have told me over the time that they are no more attracted to their wives as their wives have obtained a considerable amount of weight. They wonder out loud if this can be a right reason for an affair. In the end, they say, they themselves have kept their part of the bargain by staying in shape, but their wives have not. They have expressed big frustration over the truth that their only lover has "let herself go".

Now it certainly is the case that both men and women in the U.S. tend to gain weight after they get married. However, data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Epidemiologic Follow-up Survey of men and women in the U.S. showed that the occurrence of a major weight gain was twice as great among women (5.3%) than among men (2.3%) over a 10-year period. A major weight gain was defined as an increase of five or more body mass index units.

Women are likely to keep their bodies in better shape with less conscientious. And men just care more on how their wives look. In fact, study has demonstrated that all over the world, men put an even greater premium on their wife's beauty than women put on their husband's beauty.

I'm not going to lie I would feel like its not fair if I am working out to seem good for her but am not getting the same in return. Though I don't believe I would consider a matter rather and I would not straight up just tell her that she is getting less beautiful, rather I'm unsure if this might work but go on workout dates. I mean going on jogs or any kind of workout or even both sharing a healthier diet together would possibly not give her a direct clue that I think she is gaining some too pounds but rather an effort to spend more time together.


Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes writing, singing and shopping, free article directory and article writing service are her hobbies.

The Big Lie: We teach Spelling in our class

Spawned by the selling divisions of large companies, reading book corporations have convinced a few state school boards, superintendents, supervisors, principals, and other decision makers that they need not buy spelling books for the reason that "your child gets spelling in the reading program." What the reading program gives may cripple your son or daughter as a speller and put her in danger as being a expert reader and author.



Gentry fail to reveal that he is, or has been, the writer of an expensive spelling book series so his thoughts ought to be regarded with doubt, more as an advert than a well reasoned educational suggestion. Surely spelling ought to be educated methodically but to suggest that using a spelling book designed for grade level order is the only answer overlooks many different approaches which are perhaps more engaging and meet the diverse needs of scholars better.



Currently three major toxic delivery systems for spelling instruction are infecting American schools. Each of them fails to provide a spiraling spelling curriculum and none is research-based or proven. It’s ludicrous given the evolving and expanding research base for the importance of spelling knowledge for developing readers and writers in elementary school. One toxic system purports to give children "spelling words their way" with games and word sorting as a replacement for spelling books. Probably the most egregious is the pretense that spelling is taught in the reading program.



A new trend is to add a spelling component to the already cumbersome reading basal which is purchased by many districts to provide a curriculum for teaching reading at each grade level. This spelling component in reading trend began a few years ago as a marketing technique: "Buy our reading program and we’ll give you spelling for free!" That sounds appealing in our struggling economy, but buyer, beware. What you get is busy-work worksheets, no curriculum, the wrong words to memorize at a particular grade level, badly designed exercises that were developed by product-development companies with no expertise in spelling education, or a watered-down version of the kind of instruction that creates a powerful speller. At best teachers who are forced to use these programs don’t teach spelling, they assign it.



This year, the Texas State Board of Education is making a move to combat this egregious move backward in literacy education by calling for a state-wide standalone spelling book adoption. In the big scheme of things, spelling books are a small investment and deliver a big bang for the buck. If you see a spelling book coming home it means your child has a spelling curriculum in school. A tradition of having the parent involved with the complexities of teaching and practicing English spelling is a boon to your child’s education. Yes, your child should have spelling homework. Spelling knowledge increases reading and writing proficiency which impacts student performance across the entire school curriculum. We all should applaud this call for a spelling textbook adoption in Texas.



One example of the need for new books is the introduction of new technologies including eBook format and technologies that allow teachers to incorporate practice activities at home on the computer and practice with interactive white board applications for teaching word patterns in class. The 21st century spelling book has come a long way from rote memorization of a word list. But back to the big lie. What do you get if you allow your child to be educated spelling in the reading program?



To answer this question, I analyzed the "spelling program" in the best-selling reading program currently in use in Texas. This program has a 2011 copyright and it’s the very same program one of the nation’s largest textbook publishers sells to schools nationwide–possibly in your child’s district. Here’s what I found in the Unit 3, Grade 4 teacher’s edition:
Where’s Spelling?



The obvious place to find the spelling component in the reading program is the table of contents. But in Unit 3, a mammoth, 487-page, 11 inch x 12 inch teacher’s guide that only covers five weeks of the reading curriculum, there is absolutely no mention of spelling in the table of contents.



This huge, unwieldy teacher’s guide provides 70+ pages each week to guide the teacher in teaching the reading lesson. The seventy pages for each week begin with a two-page "Suggested Weekly Plan." There one finds spelling competing with grammar and writing for the teacher’s and student’s attention. Only two pages in the 70-page guide for the week are devoted to spelling!



The two pitiful pages for spelling must compete with one page for decoding and recognizing common word parts; two pages of vocabulary strategies on Greek and Latin word parts that aren’t the same content as the spelling lesson; four pages of grammar focusing on regular verbs but again, totally unrelated to the spelling lesson. In other words, there is so much unrelated superficial stuff going on with word study in a particular week that many teachers either may not find the spelling lesson or will not have time to teach it.


There isn’t any in the handbook that I could find a spiraling curriculum that would show the parent what words and designs are educated at a specific grade level, no way to discover what your child learned last month or how this year’s curriculum relates to what is going to be educated at the following grade. Every kid will get the same wordlist as opposed to on-, above- and below-grade-level products for differentiation. All kids get the same four work sheets for practice. The class that is educated in fifth grade, "more words with -ed or -ing," should have been educated in fourth grade.



For years I have advocated teaching spelling to kids. Imaginative spelling, supercilious they will learn the intricacies of language just by reading these big lies. Right spelling of words is critical and our scholars should be educated how to do it. In my classroom the spelling is differentiated, word patterns are educated, we study words for digraphs, blends, vowel groups, we write about our spelling and these are third graders.

Complain Erudite Helplessness and Voter Turnout in 2010

Erudite helplessness has been studied in people for many years and has been induced and observed in numerous experiments, none of which concerned electric shocks to human beings, as ought to be clear. Rather, erudite helplessness is experimentally induced by easy negative experiences related to scarcity of manage over outcomes. In life, such situations happen naturally and normally.

Last month, we talked whether record voter discontent would result in larger turnout this year or whether eligible voters would exhibit "complaining erudite helplessness" and stay home on Voting Day. Complaining erudite helplessness refers to our propensity to complain uselessly in situations in which we experience ourselves as having no control over the outcome. In consequence, we express dissatisfaction but fail to take action to cure the situation.

To answer this question I must invoke the most classic of psychologist responses to simple ‘yes or no’ questions about human behavior-umm, well, it depends. Feel free to roll your eyes.

There is a good reason "it depends" is often the answer of choice in psychology. Looking at overall group means gives us a simple summary of the results but often overlooks important information about individual or sub-group differences. A good example of this is how we measure intelligence. One’s IQ score is typically reached by averaging scores on numerous subtests to get a single number. However, someone with an autistic spectrum disorder might do brilliantly on some subtests and terribly on others. Thus, they might end up with an overall average IQ score even though none of their abilities is remotely average. If we were then asked if such a person had above or below average intelligence, the best answer would be, umm, well, it depends, in this case, on the specific intellectual ability involved.

Early reports place general turnout rates for 2010 at 41.4 % (as of this writing), slightly higher than the past two midterm elections, but safely within the margins of voter turnout in the past 6 midterm elections (which ranged between 38%-42%). Given the heightened emotional state of the electorate this year, it would be difficult to conclude anything substantial from these numbers one way or the other. But the picture changes when we look at specific subgroups, for example-voter age.

Although more people vote in Presidential elections, proportions between voting groups should remain constant. In 2008 the percentage of voters aged 18-29 was a whopping 18% while the percentage of voters over age 65 was 15%. This year, early estimates indicate voters aged 18-29 represented a mere 11% of the electorate while the percent of voters over age 65 comprised a huge 23% of the voting public. Thus, the change in general voter turnout might seem insignificant at first glance but an examination of specific electoral groups indicates otherwise.

Differences in the composition of the electorate notwithstanding, the fact remains that despite the vast majority of eligible voters feeling dissatisfied and even angry with their elected officials only a minority of eligible voters actually voted. When pundits try to explain why so few of us (less than half) performed our civic duty, they invariably invoke their favorite culprit-voter apathy’. The term ‘apathy’ implies indifference, disinterest or lack of concern. Yet this year more than ever, eligible voters felt frustrated and angry, emotions that are practically the polar opposites of apathy. If the majority of voters felt so negatively about their elected officials yet declined to take the one action that could bring about change-vote, it speaks not to apathy but to complaining erudite helplessness. Only complaining learned helplessness explains how we can feel so strongly about a frustrating situation, yet fail to take effective steps toward resolving it.

Complaining erudite helplessness is by no means limited to our voting behavior. Rather it reflects a shift in our general perception of complaining, its functions and purposes. Our complaints used to be expressions of dissatisfaction we used to attain resolutions to our problems.

Today, complaining and venting are perceived by lots of to be exchangeable activities. In other words, the distinction between passively whining on something and actively doing something about it is becoming puzzled in our national psyches. Nothing illustrates this point more than a movement television ad in Nevada. The ad urged Latino voters to punish democrats and express their wish for change by pleading them: "Take Action! Don’t Vote".

It is difficult to see what this needs to do with erudite helplessness. Voters are not subject to repetitive electric shocks. People who supported the president in 2007 only have to stay home to show their discontent. They don’t want to vote Republican and they want to express discontent, so they stay home.

Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with nike air max ltd and oakley eyewear.

Cool Art therapy Intervention 1, The Art Therapist’s 3rd Hand

In art treatment, art therapists' brains are cataloging artwork and pictures. I believe the conversation was associated with art and diagnosis and signs in art. Theoretically, if you take that one footstep further, maybe our brains also catalog art interventions and we pull from these and our experiences to make an intervention appropriate to the customer. Maybe this is how we develop our intuitive third hand.

Cool Art treatment Intervention is probably not a way or method, but the essence of what makes art therapists unusual from other helping specialists who use art as form of therapy. It's known as the "third hand" and to me, it's art treatment's edition of mindfulness, insight and empathy. By explanation, it's an overarching method of thinking about intervention that describes how art therapists apply their artistic competence and thoughts in service of other people.

Edith Kramer, a renowned US art therapist, artist and author, is credited with coining the term "third hand," an idea central to her approach to art as therapy. To Kramer, art treatment's purpose is to enable the individual to create visual images that eloquently and truthfully communicate experience, and to the best of the person's abilities. Kramer's stance echoes psychoanalyst Theodore Reik's Listening with the Third Ear, a treatise describing how psychotherapists intuitively use their own unconscious minds to decipher and understand their clients.

While it might seem that a "third eye" for seeing the metaphors, symbols, and meta-messages in art expressions would be enough, the practice of art treatment goes much deeper. An effective art therapist must have a command of the third hand to enhance a client's creativity without being intrusive, imposing one's own style or artistic values, and misinterpreting meanings found in images. Ultimately, the responses of the therapist to a client's process of art making reflects and supports that client's worldview, creative potential, and ability to use art for reparation and recovery.

Here's an explanation of third hand intervention in its simplest form. When working with a child client, I might develop a drawing for the child to finish as a way of establishing a relationship or communication. In another situation, I might save a child's clay figure from falling apart by showing the child how to reinforce the legs or armature. Sometimes an art therapist literally becomes the hands for an individual; an adult with a debilitating medical illness may need me to help cut and arrange photos for a collage. Other times, I might make art during the session along side a client if it is therapeutically helpful or I might even communicate something non-verbally through an art expression rather than use words.

Most importantly, an art therapist's third hand perceives and capitalizes on appropriate metaphors via art-based interventions to help clients. I am reminded of couples art therapy session facilitated by art therapist and family therapist Shirley Riley, a master of therapeutic metaphor via imagery. The couple came to Riley for help with their marriage; they had decided that their age difference was insurmountable because the wife was eight years older than the husband. In response, Riley went along with their belief, but also asked that they each bring a copy of their birth certificates to the next session. At that point she suggested that they cut up the copies and colloboratively create a collage incorporating the pieces. In brief, the couple realized that they could not change the age gap, but the process of cutting up the certificates and making a collage together from the pieces gave them a new vision for what worked in their relationship rather than what could not be changed. It was the perfect "third hand" metaphor to get them to re-story their relationship and recommit to their marriage.

To me, what Kramer calls the "third hand" in art therapy echoes what physician and neuroscience guru Dan Siegel speaks of as "mindsight," a capacity for insight (knowing what one feels) and empathy (knowing what others feel). Trauma expert Bruce Perry uses the term "attunement," the ability to be able to read the non-verbal communication and rhythms of others. In other words, it is perceiving not only what individuals say, but also attending to eye signals, facial gestures, tone of voice, and even breathing rate; in art treatment, it also means attending to the content of images and creative process. If this all sounds incredibly intuitive, to some extent it is; on the other hand, it is the mindful focus essential to achieving the magical moments of success in any form of treatment.

As I said in the beginning of the Top Eight Coolest Art treatment Interventions, all helping experts know that nobody intervention could be applied to all customers or all situations. That is the daily challenge of our work, to use our third hand, sympathy, attunement or whatever you select to call it to facilitate change, insight, and well-being in those we come across. And "third hands" down, it's positively the "coolest" part of my work as an art therapist.

I really do believe that this way of working is what makes us unusual than say counselors who use art to help people. But I sometimes wonder if higher education is really teaching our new graduates to use this method; I get so many requirements from new experts for a set of activities to use and my feeling is they are not being educated on how to think with artistic empathy.

Copyright by Lucy who likes shopping online, going fishing, often searches nike air max ltd and fashion things on the Internet. 

What makes it hard to believe in yourself.

I am presently nineteen and not living at home and it seems at this age, learning to believe in yourself turns into more important. I am comforted to read the part on getting better at trusting yourself as you practice truly doing things requiring you to believe in yourself. I had a childhood characterized by my father and mother volatile emotional connection to me and consequently I have a hard time learning to emotionally believe in people.


Many years ago I was working with a customer who was expecting her another baby. She was excited but nervous, and her worries focused on the ache of childbirth. As was real of many of her past experiences, she could not remember much about the birth of her first baby several years earlier, but she had an unclear sense that it had been pretty dreadful. She was scared of getting stuck in pain and not having the ability to do anything on it.


At the time I was also pregnant and a little worried myself. My obstetrician believed that too much pain was not good for mother or child and carefully explained how he liked to manage the discomfort. Still nervous, I spoke with a friend with several children who said, "You can trust your body. It will know how to do this."


It was a fascinating concept. While I knew that women had, indeed, been giving birth for thousands of years, I also knew these words would not help my client. My work with women with eating disorders had taught me how hard it is for many people to believe in their bodies. The idea of eating when hungry and stopping when full was completely unattainable for these women.


The book helped open up a dialogue between body and mind for some of my clients, but it underscored for me how difficult it is for many people to intuitively know when to eat, sleep or exercise, even without an eating disorder.


Freud introduced us to the idea that what we think we know about ourselves may have nothing to do with what is actually going on in our psyches. In fact, some of our behavior is directed by unconscious wishes or beliefs that are the exact opposite of what we think we want or believe to be true.


Recent neuroscience research has added to this sense that we can't always believe in our thoughts and/or feelings to tell us what is going on inside of us. In fact, I sometimes think that brain research has just confirmed that sometimes the right hand literally doesn't know what the left is doing. Certainly the recently discovered information that the right part of our brain doesn't always communicate clearly or well to the left part (and vice versa) explains some of the confusion.


Of course difficulty knowing what we think or feel can be related to childhood experiences - painful memories we have pushed away; problematic tools for coping with feelings handed down from parents to their children (like using food to make ourselves feel better); inadequate or hurtful responses to our developing self over the years. But it can also be simply a fact of human development. Sometimes even the best adjusted of us, having had good parenting and essentially good lives, may encounter a moment or an experience in which we doubt ourselves - in which we don't trust our bodies or our thoughts or our feelings or our competence to get through a particular situation.


What do we do then? Here are four ideas that have helped many of my clients over the years. Hopefully they will be useful to you:


1) Find people you trust: Surround yourself with them. The more you feel connected to and safe with the people in your life, the more comfortable you will feel with yourself.
2) Put things into words: Talk, talk, and talk some more. Neuroscientists have shown that talking about what you are thinking and feeling to someone else, someone who is listening and who responds to what you say - not just reflecting back what you have said, but adding their own ideas and thoughts to the mix - can actually change the neurological makeup of your brain. It can help your right brain speak more clearly to your left brain, and your left to your right. It can help your unconscious become conscious, unrecognized beliefs to be recognized, and everything to get clearer. (Writing helps this process as well, but it might be even more helpful if you can share your writing with someone.) Of course, this goes back to the issue of finding people you can trust with these feelings.


3) Practice makes perfect: Like the old joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall, the key to all of this is "practice, practice, practice." None of us learns to believe in ourselves magically or instantaneously - nor, in fact, should we! A perfect example is driving a car. We don't get into a car to drive for the first time with all of the right instincts ready to go. We get learner's permits, and we practice - a lot. We get a lot of verbal instruction as well - "pull up closer to the stop sign, start braking farther back, don't brake on wet pavement, etc." And over time we put together the verbal information with the physical experience of actually driving, of watching out for other drivers, of learning what we can expect and how we can deal with the unexpected and gradually (hopefully) we become mature, safe and trustworthy drivers.


4) Be trustworthy: If you want to believe in yourself, be trustworthy with others. Try to give what you would like to receive, whether it is understanding, empathy, counsel, or simply a quiet presence. Try to recognize what your friends and family need from you and try to honestly give what you can, when you can - without sacrificing yourself. Setting boundaries is part of any caring relationship; and negotiating needs (yours, theirs, someone else's) helps you know and believe in yourself, and helps others know and believe in you as well.


So, whether you're trying to eat more consciously or start making presentations without panicking, you need to know that you won't get it right the first time (or the fifth or the tenth). When it comes to having a baby (and some other activities) of course, practice isn't exactly an option; so then the first two suggestions become more important. Surround yourself with people you trust - not just the professionals, and not just your loved one(s), but a combination. And talk, talk, and talk some more.


To go back to my pregnant client - as she talked with me, and with her mother and her friends and her partner, she realized that she did not completely trust her midwife. She couldn't quite put her finger on why, but she began interviewing other professionals and found someone she felt much more comfortable with. And while her anxiety did not disappear, it diminished to much more manageable levels.


My child came early, before my husband and I had completed our birthing classes; but even though I didn't "know" what I was supposed to do, with the help of the professionals, a dear friend, and my husband, we did just fine.


What about you? I've found your responses to other questions so considerate and helpful, I'd like to hear what you should say about believing in yourself. What kinds of things have helped you develop it? What types of things have made it difficult for you?


Personally, it's one of the ways in which psychoanalysis could be really helpful. You need a psychoanalyst who is trained to hear you and help you figure out what makes it difficult for you to believe in yourself. That's usually something family and friends can't do for us.

Early adolescence, Few responsibility.

While parents consider that preaching is enough and allow confronting results go, not confessing to the sufferer, not hearing from the sufferer how incorrect their actions are, and not making recompense to the sufferer. Just telling children they did incorrect is the simple way out.

Symbolically speaking, liberty is the adolescent's "drug" of selection both for the latitude of action and the excitement it offers. Teenagers long for liberty in ways most kids never do. Liberty is the possibility to open up an elder world of experience, to experiment and to discover the thrill of daring the unknown and sometimes doing the forbidden.

Now the child relationship becomes more challenging and abrasive as healthy adolescents start to push for more freedom to grow as soon as they can get it and healthy parents act to restrain that push within the limits of safety and responsibility. This is the ongoing conflict of interests that plays out over the ten to twelve years that begins with the separation from childhood in late elementary or early middle school and ends with the entry into young adulthood some ten to twelve years later when functional independence is finally gained.

What drives the adolescent push for freedom is an innate need to break the old boundaries of childhood to create more room to grow and act more grown up. What drives parental restraint is an innate need to direct and protect the adolescent from harm, particularly harm of his or her own making.

This is where setting limits comes in. Parents restrict freedoms in order to moderate the risks involved, only permitting more freedoms as evidence of responsibility is given.

It is unpopular for parents to set limits, taking stands for the adolescent's best interests against what he or she wants. Furthermore, it takes consistency and supervision to make them stick. Parental inconsistency sends a damaging double message - "sometimes we mean it and sometimes we don't," the young person usually betting on "don't." The adolescent isn't grateful for the parental efforts on his or her behalf, but usually resents them instead. "You never let me do anything!" Now thankless parenting has begun.

Most of all, it takes the willingness of parents to close the loop of responsibility when social limits are broken to show the adolescent that rules mean business, that social rules are here to stay. How is this done?

Consider three common social limit-breaking activities that can occur during early adolescence -vandalizing, and shoplifting. They are all usually done in the company of peers in the spirit of shared adventure, bonding, and support. At this age, what none of these young people would dare to do alone, all will encourage each other to do together.

For example, the seventh grader has two friends over for the night and about 2:00 A.M., long after parents are asleep, one of them gets this fun idea. They decide to make a threatening phone call to the old guy down at the end of block, and the result is very satisfying. He gets really upset. Thinking they have pulled it off, they are congratulating themselves when the phone rings and one of the parents picks it up. Turns out the man had Caller ID.

What do parents do? They close the loop of responsibility. They march the three young miscreants down the street to confront the victim of their prank, to hear from him what it felt like to get a call like that, and then to arrange some reparation to be made.

Or, to show a guy they all agree to dislike how much they dislike him, a group of girls sneak out and egg and oreo his parents' car. Next day they boast about it to the boy who tells his parents who call the parents of the girls. So what do the parents do? They close the loop of responsibility. They have the girls confront the victims of their vandalizing, hearing what it felt like to be attacked in this way, cleaning off the car, and coming up with some reparation to make to the boy and his parents for damage done. Vandalizing that began as girls paying mean attention to the boy ended up bringing unwanted consequences to themselves.

Or, a group of friends, not to get anything particular they wanted but to see what they could get away with, decide to shop lift CD's from a store. The police are called and they are taken to a detention center where one young man calls home. So what do his parents do?

They listen to the teary voice, promise to come down right away, wait a couple hours, then after signing out the unhappy adolescent, drive away but not, as the youngster observes, the familiar way back home. "This isn't the way home, where are we going?" he asks. "We are going back to the store," reply the parents. "I don't want to go back to the store," protests the young person.

"I know you don't," they explain, "but that is what we are going to do. And when we get there, you're going to confess to the manager. You're going to hear what it felt like to be stolen from, and then work out some way to pay that person back for what you've done." Shop lifting that began as a good idea with peers ended up as a bad experience for the adolescent.

The rule for parenting around social limit breaking in early adolescence is this. Usually, the young person is unaware of larger risks that he or she was taking, so parents have to spell them out - what might have happened for the worse, but luckily did not. For example, what the early adolescent thinks is just for fun overlooks the possibly serious side. Thus frightening an "old guy" may be less funny if the threatening prank call succeeds, the man who has a heart condition gets really scared, and fear provokes a medical emergency. Doesn't seem so funny now, does it?

Most important, they have the adolescent declare what they did to the sufferer face to face, hear what it felt like to be the sufferer, and make reparation to the sufferer for injury that was done. This is how the loop of responsibility is closed.

While parents fail to do this and dismiss societal limit breaking in early teenage years as guiltless harm or simply deal with the problem discretely by punishing the infraction at home, they are likely to encourage more significant limit breaking later on.

I'm not hearing anything new here. I believe there is a certain amount of knowledge  in your basic suggestion but it isn't going to be super effective in the long term, particularly given that the attitude of the parents is not obviously addressed. From what I know, many people who passionately think that this is the correct way to parent end up in a never-ending cycle that doesn't get really bad but just kind of stays the same until the "child" outgrows the stage and break frees of his or her parents so they do not have to deal with it any longer.

Marc Jacobs Wool Bag $3,895.01

All of us need different kinds of bags, especially for girls. As the winter is coming, it would be a good choice if you choose to take a wool bag. Marc Jacobs Castoro Ash Satchel is a good choice.

For some people who didn't like the wool bag from last month, I'm going to go ahead and just presume you will pretty much dislike this one, and I must agree with you.

I like fur, I do. I like when it's done right. I like when it doesn't really look like a full grown animal and I like when it's subtle . This bag is none of those things. Personally, I could not see myself carrying this bad boy.

First off, the Marc Jacobs Castoro Ash Satchel is made from beaver fur. Let me say that again, you would be carrying around a beaver on your arm. Pass.

Next, it's a larger bag at about 13.5 x 15.5. So you could possibly be carrying around multiple beavers. Also pass.

Lastly, it's honestly just too much. If there was fur detail on the trip or even a fur flap, I could deal with it, but this is just an overcoat of not even pretty looking fur. What happens when it gets wet? Does it smell like wet dog? Do you have to brush it out? I mean seriously, would I need to get my bag groomed?

I am high maintenance enough, I do not like my bag which is equally as much upkeep. Would you wear the beaver? If so, you can pick it up for about $3,895.01 at Barneys.

Although it is a little gross, but I like fur and I wear fur, especially fur on bags, what's more, now I have enough money to buy some bags. On the other hand, I think  the price of this bag is too expensive, there would be few people are willing to pay for it.

The Sorrow of Being Rejected Because You’re Single

I recently spent a Sunday away for a wedding party. Four of my "close friends" were also in attendance, all with their husbands. One of the couples just spent time with the group when they had to the marriage reception, and so on. The other three couples basically formed the "couples club." These three women have an air about them now that they didn't before they got married.

All of a sudden, it's like discussing about me is just the polite thing to do, even if they are of a higher status. They went off and did things as the couples club without bothering to invite or even clue in anybody else. Fortunately there was one other single guest and some guests whose romantic spouses couldn't make the journey. I spent the majority of my time with them even if I was longing for spending time with my "close friends" that I don't get to meet very often.

There's a theme I've addressed here before but it keeps coming up again and again. Just in the past day or three, I've heard from some readers on it. A single man, for instance, writes that he used to be a part of a close group of single friends. Now, although, other people have become coupled and hang out together as couples; he's no longer invited.

Another reader, M, described how lonely it feels to be a single person among couples (during those times when she is included) and wonders whether any Living Single readers can explain that feeling (and also, I would add, how to get beyond it).

I, too, have experienced the pain of exclusion by friends who were, or became, coupled. In fact, wondering whether I was being left out because I was single motivated some of my initial interest in studying single life.

By now, I see those practices (of socializing only with other couples and neglecting single friends) as more a reflection on the practitioners than on me. At least some of those people, I suspect, really do believe that their coupled status makes them superior to single people, and that socializing just with couples is more prestigious than spending time with the people you like the most, regardless of their relationship status.

Often I find that the key distinction is not whether another person is or is not coupled, but whether the coupled person enjoys having a life that is not entirely enmeshed with their partner's. I always like spending some one-on-one time with each of my friends, but if a friend is partnered with someone I like, I might also enjoy some time with the friend and the partner.

When I post about this topic, a lively debate almost always ensues. Who is ditching whom? Is the trimming of friendship circles reasonable or mean? I would love to see some rigorous research done on the topic.

There is a related topic, though, that is one of the liveliest and most important areas of research in social psychology today. That's the study of ostracism and social exclusion. The field got kicked into high gear when early studies showed that the most minimal forms of exclusion could feel devastating. In one paradigm, for instance, people play catch in cyberspace.

As is true in all social psychological research, not everyone responds the same way or with the same intensity. Still, I think there is an interesting implication: If you find interpersonal exclusion to be deeply painful, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are overly sensitive. Ostracism - even minimal forms of it - typically is unnerving.

Now consider the kinds of interpersonal exclusions we have been discussing here. The persons doing the excluding are not impersonal avatars in cyberspace - they are people you have known, maybe for years. People you have considered to be your friends. Of course it hurts.

OK, then, let the controversy start still again. And allow me stipulate, once again, that ultimate investigation on the dynamics of interactions between singles and partners remains to be done.

I think we singles down in the trenches might have a greater time dispelling the myth that life happiness can just come from coupling. That's a myth that can be more effortlessly debunked on a gut emotional level by anybody who has been in a relationship. As for singles, I don't think married persons are ever going to see that as being a problem since they're in a group who's not experiencing the discrimination.

Copyright by Lucy who likes shopping online, going fishing, often searches nike air max ltd and michael jordan sneakers on the Internet.

Parenting: Scare of Failure Revisited

I gave up on university and engaged in a lot of self-sabotaging behaviors, normally sleeping on a regular basis, skipping class, and failing to do work, finally destroying my GPA on purpose. I carried the same thoughts into law school, which I went into for the reason that my GPA was too poor to get me into any decent program outside of the field of law.

In my very first Children & Culture Alert! Newsletter published in May of 2006, I discussed the miserable epidemic of fear of failure which was rampant in America then. Well, more than four years later, fear of failure continues to be the most pervasive and debilitating matter among kids I see in my practice and the hundreds I have spoken to since. But the main reason I wish to revisit fear of failure nowadays is because I have discovered a new crumple to the fear-of-failure phenomenon that brings larger clarity to the issues that kids face in our increasingly achievement-oriented culture.

What is Fear of Failure?

At the heart of fear of failure is the belief held by children that if they fail, in school, sports, the performing arts, or socially, then bad things will happen, for example, they will disappoint their parents, be ostracized by their peer group, experience embarrassment or shame, or feel worthless. Fear of failure typically emerges from messages that children’s parents convey that being loved depends on their being successful or that their parents’ love will be withdrawn if they fail (this is rarely the message that parents send, but it is the one that children frequently receive). Children with Fear of failure perceive failure to be a ravenous beast that pursues them relentlessly and they only experience a small amount of relief when they succeed (and that feeling doesn’t last long). As a result, avoiding failure becomes their singular motivation and goal in life.
Despite this profound fear of failure, so many of the children I have worked with did nonetheless fail frequently and often monumentally, either by giving up easily or doing something that ensured failure, even when success was highly likely.

Total Failure

I came to see that most children don’t have a fear of failure, but rather they had a fear of total failure. I define total failure as "giving it their all and not achieving their goal." When I ask children if total failure is a good or bad thing, the response is unanimous and stark; it is the worst thing! So what is so bad about total failure? In a way, it’s the end of the road toward that goal. If children give everything they have and don’t achieve the goal, they have to admit that they simply weren’t good enough and there’s nothing more they can. This realization is, for most children, truly untenable.

Yet I would argue that total failure is a good (though not ideal) goal because, even though children may not reach their goal, they did everything they could to realize it and no one can ask more of them than their best effort. To put this in perspective, I define total success as children giving it everything they have and achieving their goal. Total success and total failure have one thing in common: giving it everything they’ve got. So the real goal for children is to experience "total" something, whether success or failure, because what more can they do. At the end of the day, will children be disappointed in not having achieved their goal? Of course, but there will also be indelible satisfaction at having given their best effort and fully realized their ability. Also, the simple reality is that if children don’t give it everything they’ve got, they will have little chance of ever reaching their goals or achieving total success.

Risks

One of the most destructive aspects of fear of total failure is that children are afraid to take risks. By definition, the more risks that children take, the greater the likelihood of failure. Yet risk is essential for achieving total success. Risk means children getting out of their comfort zones, pushing themselves a bit beyond what they thought was possible, and, most basically, risking the possibility of failure. Without risk, there can be little growth or progress, children are perpetually stuck in one place, and they can never realize total success. Unfortunately, another paradox about fear of total failure is that the only way to be truly successful is to take risks. So, children with a fear of total failure play it safe and avoid failure-that’s a relief!-but they also experience the frustration of unfulfilled promise and miss the exhilaration of having "left it all out on the field."

Cardinal Rules

There are two cardinal rules that I have tried to live my life by and teach my clients and my own children. Regret is defined as: "to feel sorry or disappointed about something that one wish could be different; a sense of loss or longing for something gone," in other words, "Darn it, I wish I had tried harder." In the end, you want your children to make a statement: "I gave it everything I had," and experience two emotions: pride and fulfillment in having given it their all.
To realize their life’s targets, your kids have to hug the next:"To realize Total Victory, I have to be willing to accept Total Failure." By doing so, they are going to have nothing to fear from failure and, consequently, are free to pursue success with unrestrained gusto.

As well as the young people I work with, I also consult with successful people in the commerce world, sports, law, and medicine, and your words could have come out of their mouths.

Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes swimming, shopping online and has a shop with nike air max ltd and michael jordan sneakers.

Is it better to walk alone or persevere with uninspiring friendships?

At the beginning of 2010, I concluded that I must go into silent retreat to get away from all the relational obligations I had accumulated over the days. I never managed to go away completely, but after a short rest I gave myself permission to only re-engage with the friends I felt excited about. To my surprise very few aged friends made it back to my life. I just wasn’t interested in having the same old conversations about the trials and problems of their life or mine, across a hotel table.

The most important thing to me is my friendships. It is real that I don’t have some friends. I have found this to be the most excellent way. Having some friends always looked like a crazy thought to me. How can you be anticipated to give time to yourself and some friends with not burning yourself out?

My theory has a major flaw in it, which I am only just discovering. What happens when you discover that the few friends you have are people with whom you no longer have anything in common?

This year (2010) has been a rather strange one for me. I have noticed my desires, wants, and wishes are shifting and changing. They no longer match what they have been for so many years before. This shifting is starting to cause cracks to appear in my friendships and creating a void between them and me. Have you ever experienced this and how did you get through it?

The most striking thing that has happened is how I feel and view my friends. As cruel as this may appear, I am finding my friendships unfulfilling, uninspiring, unchallenging and boring. They are terribly stale. Is this normal and just something that comes and goes?

After spending the last two weeks in Turkey with three friends, it has seriously brought my feelings about my friendships to the centre of my thoughts. Very often, I was bored rigid with their company.

They were happy to sit, read, eat, drink, sleep and read some more. I was craving stimulating conversation and exploring the area of Turkey we were staying in. How was I supposed to compete with Stephen King, James Herbert and J.R.R. Tolkien? Trust me, I tried but in the end, I was fed up with trying to start conversations. It was clear that out of the four of us I was the odd one. I desired conversation and interaction and they preferred solitude and to disappear into three different worlds of fiction. For me, the real world is far more interesting.

I discovered a very private and quiet Turkish village up in the mountains. I would love to have shared that with a friend – I was apparently on holiday with three people who hold the title of friend but the shops, drinking, pool and books were far more appealing than exploration, or my company. Am I reading into this all wrong or is it actually I that is the problem?
Death of Friendship

I never enjoy ending a friendship because I love the person or we would not be friends in the first place. My problem is that I am beating myself up over the real motives behind my change of feelings. Why do I no longer find such trivial stuff that interesting and why do I crave more meaningful and "real" issues? Why do I instantly switch off and grow bored when I read or hear about sexual encounters, X Factor or how much drink a person has consumed in a very short space of time? Why do I look upon these people as tragic and sad and think they need to grow up and get a life?

Is there a solution to this? Is it simply a case of I am changing and drifting away from my present friends or is there something else going on that I have overlooked? Is this something that has already happened to you? If so, how did you deal with it? Must I really take the drastic step of ending the friendships that no longer give me anything?

The other fear is that I will simply end up being a lonely person because I will never find friends to whom I can relate. Clearly, the risk with this thought is that I settle for second or third best and remain unfulfilled, unchallenged, uninspired and very unhappy, which cannot be good.

Whatever the solution or whatever happens is clear that I am changing and my desires have shifted. I will never be able to get excited about sexual conquests, X Factor, Kylie, Madonna or how much drink a person has damaged their body with. Going out to gay bars and nightclubs will never excite me or interest me and I will always appear homophobic because of my alternative views.

I suppose I have to make a few hard options or just admit the change and variances and see if I could make all of it work. If you have been through this or are going through this I would be so pleased to hear what you must say and how you dealt with it.

You can certainly find a lot of people out there who don’t have much going on and live preposterous life, but you never know if you explore somebody that you may find a depth they have been hiding. For me, I assume there should be other people who suppress their profundity the same way I do. Some versions of introversion take the form of a false public friendly individuality when in fact the person is hiding their real self out of coyness.

Copyright by Lucy who likes shopping online, going fishing, often searches nike air max ltd and michael jordan sneakers on the Internet.

Is it good to make kids frightened?

As the culture has gotten so desensitized to violence and horror doesn’t mean that children’s developmental needs have changed, it may have bad effect on children, their sleep, their study, even their whole life, but is it good to make them afraid?

I remember when my parents took the family to a triple characteristic that included the Brides of Dracula. I put my head in my mom’s knees a lot. I was six. On an extensive, hosted visit in Korea when I was nine, we were taken to the film house to see a slasher film where Korean members of the family were chopping one another up with axes in the heavy rain, a lot of rain. Once more, my head stayed mostly in my mother’s knees.

As we approach Halloween, it is important for adults to remember to be sensitive to the needs of children. Joanne Cantor has documented how seeing the wrong movie at the wrong time (under 12) can scar a person for years. Do you need to sleep with a light on? (Although you might think this is not a big deal, it is important for cancer prevention to sleep in the dark.)

What we know is that kids of different ages perceive media in different ways:
    1, children under 5 have problems distinguishing reality and fantasy in media.
    2, children under 7 are usually scared by spooky fantasy (e.g., The Incredible Hulk, sharks in Finding Nemo). It doesn’t much matter what the adult says because it feels real to the child.
    3, kids 8-12 are most frightened by realistic violence (e.g., people breaking in the home, storms).

Even more so today, we immerse our children in scary images without thinking much about it. It used to be that teen-scary programming was not shown till after primetime, with the assumption that children would be in bed by then. This has eroded considerably. These days television programmers and advertisers seem to make few accommodations for young viewers. For example, during football games on Sundays, advertisements for scary movies and shows are shown on the screen simultaneously with the game. I have complained about this in letters and some networks are more careful.

One of the most important characteristics for healthy development is a sense of trust. Watching violent and scary media beyond one’s control leads one to mistrust one’s caregivers and the world. When people think the world is a dangerous place (as those who watch a lot of TV do), they are less sensitive towards others and more self-concerned. See here for more information on violent media effects on kids.

I’m not saying that kids should not have scary experiences. But they should be within their control. In our ancient past, children would have listened to the adults telling stories and interpreting dreams. Listening to stories allows the individual to imagine as much as scariness they can handle.

At the request of my nephew, I used to read Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree over and over as he learned to deal with his own fears and imagined escaping them. It’s easy with books for children to have control. They can walk away or shut the book if it is too much.

But when we take a child to a movie or sit them with the family in front of the television, they cannot easily escape and can be fascinated with the more benign action that leads up to the scariness, leaving them vulnerable to the surprise. Joanne Cantor has written a book to help parents with young children deal with media trauma, Teddy’s TV Troubles.
Was I scarred by my early movie experiences? Thank god for my mother’s lap! Yes, it took me concerted effort as a young adult to learn to enjoy the dark (going camping alone in the Rocky Mountains) and not expect rainstorms to also bring people with axes.

Wouldn’t be nice to cultivate in our children, an enjoyment of the dark so that they can feel as John Muir did at midnight under Yosemite falls:
"I will have a wonderful walk along the hill in this slender, white light, over the unlock brows grayed with Selaginella and through the thick back shadow caves in the live oaks, all stuck filled with snowy lances of moonlight."

I agree that given the way films are marketed to children, it’s simple for parents to make a different guess about a movie’s suitability. And that’s why it’s so significant for parents not to pooh-pooh their kid’s reactions but to acknowledge that lots of kids have been afraid by similar films, and to be patient and eager to help them deal with their worries. We have become so desensitized that a lot of parents don’t remember this.