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Archive for January, 2011

 Part of Me Is Here, But Part Of Me Is Gone

By Therese J. Borchard 

Most of us circle a few days of the calendar year that we know will be difficult to get through: the anniversary of a death, traumatic event, or even happy occasion. These dates are charged with emotion.

Sometimes we feel trapped by these dates — like there’s nothing we can do to stop them. The approaching date creates a sense of panic and anxiety in many of us, and we can feel out of control. The one benefit from anniversary anxiety is that we can predict it and therefore prepare for it. Here are 8 ways to do just that.

1. Forecast your emotions.

You’ve circled the day. You know it’s coming. Now get honest with yourself about how you might feel on that day. If it’s the anniversary of a death of a loved one, get ready to celebrate that person’s life with joy and sadness. Pull out some photos. Prepare to feel that hollow part in your heart open up once more to the loss you have felt since the death. Allow yourself some space for mourning, even if it’s been 10 years since you’ve separated and everyone tells you that you should be over it.

2. Plan a time-out.

Allow some time on the anniversary or the days preceding it to feel the range of emotions you are holding inside. Block out an hour to walk by the creek or hide out in a chapel to process the grief and anxiety. Take an extra long lunch and bring some tissue. To help surface your sentiments, jot down your fears or describe your sadness.

3. Stay away from the news.

If you’re like me you don’t need anything contributing to your panic up when you’re already anxious. So stay away from the TV and turn off the radio. You don’t need images of Ground Zero as you are trying to calm yourself, unless they serve the same purpose as photographs or journaling like I suggested above. I try to avoid any and all sources of stimulation when I feel anxious: the computer, tv, radio, bright lights, electronic games, and definitely Chuck E. Cheese, the state fair, and Six Flags amusement park. Pretend you are the Dalai Lama and go about your day as he would … breathing deeply and meditating at every chance.

4. Provide padding.

I’m not talking about stuffing your bra, although that you could try that and see if relieves any anxiety. I’m merely suggesting you be kind to yourself and talk it easy. In other words, treat this day as if you’re ill, because in a sense you are. Your body is producing too much Cortisol, the stress hormone and your amygdala, the almond-shaped neurons on the brain’s fear center is in overdrive, sending primal messages of panic similar to those in apes and monkeys. It’s like catching a cold or the flu, so you need to treat yourself as you would your sick seven-year-old. “Here now. Is there anything else I can get you? You just relax and take it easy.” A full-time job makes that treatment difficult, yes, but you need to allow for an excess of padding that you don’t otherwise give yourself.

5. Talk about it.

Something about gabbing heals. It doesn’t always have to be the old-fashioned way either. If the Internet doesn’t rev you up like I explained above, then it can be a great source of support. In fact, according to a 2002 study, Internet support groups have been shown to help those suffering from depression and anxiety. In fact 95 percent of those studied said that participation in depression Internet support groups helped their systems.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/10/03/8-ways-to-manage-anxiety-on-an-anniversary/



 

By Selena Chavis
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 2, 2010 

Can a virtual world help people better manage their health? Developers of a new computer program believe it can.

Developers of a new computer tool hope to improve provider-patient communications as well as self-management of mental health issues in young adults.

Thanks to a grant from the American Nurses Foundation and Midwest Nursing Research Society, Melissa Pinto-Foltz, a postdoctoral scholar and instructor at Case Western Reserve University, is working with a group to develop and construct the e-SMART-MH program to reach young adults already tied to their technology devices.

“Young adults accept technology as part of their lives and are comfortable interacting with it. This project seemed like a natural extension of what they are already doing every day,” Pinto-Foltz said.

While it may be easy for young adults to share the details of their daily lives on social networking mediums such as Facebook, the ability to communicate with health care providers about mental illness is a different story.

“Roughly one in every five young adults between 18 and 25 has a mental illness,” Pinto-Foltz said. “Seventy percent of them don’t receive treatment. Of those that do receive treatment, they have trouble managing the illness and often drop out of treatment early.”

Young adults are a particular concern, says Pinto-Foltz, adding that as young adults gain independence by heading off to college or becoming immersed in new environments, they struggle to manage mental illness.

The e-SMART-MH is a spin-off of a previously developed program called Electronic Self-Management Resource Training to Reduce Health Disparities (e-SMART-HD), which simulates patient-provider dialogues, through a virtual world environment.

A virtual world is like Second Life, where people view a computer-generated 3-D environment on a computer screen. Virtual health care providers, seen as avatars, interact with them in this virtual environment.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/10/02/can-a-virtual-world-help-young-adults-with-mental-health-issues/19084.html



 

By Therese J. Borchard

Recovering alcoholics say there is magic to be found in the rooms of their support groups. I have experienced and benefited from that, but, like others can’t name the exact ingredient of the meetings that has healing faculties.

Tara Handron, a playwright and actress, does as good of a job as anyone I’ve known, at uncovering why and how recovering alcoholics are able to stay sober when they spill their guts between four walls.

The other night I attended her one-person performance, a 60-minute play, that discards clichéd portrayals of recovery and relies on complex characters and richly layered stories to expose the raw emotions so many alcoholic women experience. Tara’s back-to-back portrayals of over 20 female alcoholics of various ages, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds come out of her own thesis research on the subject, in face-to-face and computer mediated recovery meetings, as part of her Master’s degree program at Georgetown University. She challenges the role of technology, specifically online recovery meetings, is playing in the rehabilitation of alcoholics in the new millennium.

In watching the performance, and especially in the examples of online groups she presented, I realized the same things happen on the comboxes of Beyond Blue posts and on the discussion threads of Group Beyond Blue. We really are, in essence, a support group for each other.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/10/02/getting-sober-hope-in-the-rooms-and-online/



 

Insomniacs will soon be getting help to overcome sleeplessness via social networks.

Researchers aim to find out if networks such as Twitter and Facebook can enhance existing treatments for insomnia, depression and anxiety.

While some of these are already computer-based they typically involve a patient using the system in isolation.

Persistent access to friends, family and therapists may prolong the beneficial effects of treatment.

Computer aid

Many people who suffer bouts of insomnia are helped in their recovery by using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) through which they learn to avoid the patterns of activity and thought that make them poor sleepers.

Some therapists use computer-based learning exercises as a way to embed lessons about more positive patterns of behaviour.

Dr Shaun Lawson, a reader in computer science at Lincoln University who is directing the research project, said existing PC-based CBT packages had not kept up with the changing ways that people use computers.

“The way that people interact with computers these days is not by sitting down in a room on their own looking at a screen,” he said. “Today people use computers to connect with each other.”

In particular, said Dr Lawson, the growing use of social networks could be a good guide to better ways to build computer-based CBT systems.

“The way that people engage with social networks, how many times they do it in a day, it is very similar to the kind of ways that we would really want people to interact with CBT treatment,” he said.

Instead of just having one long session per week, on social networks people interact on a more persistent basis. Some go back to visit several times a day and most check in a few times a week.

Game play

The early stages of the project will study use of social networks to map out this pattern of activity. There are many aspects of this behaviour that could prove useful to the project, said Dr Lawson.

“What’s interesting on social networks is that people are more likely to self-disclose on them,” he said. People regularly report how they feel via Tweets or status updates in ways that would be odd or inappropriate in normal conversation.

Read in Full:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11454894



 

New equality rights in workplace come into force

New rules aimed at banning discrimination by employers, covering areas such as age, disability and pay, have come into force across Britain.

The Equality Act covers many workplace areas and draws nine separate pieces of legislation into a single Act.

Equalities Minister Theresa May says it will now be easier for firms to comply with anti-discrimination rules.

However, some business groups argued the new legislation will impose a heavy burden on employers.

The new law applies in England, Wales and Scotland.

‘Challenging times’

The new law restricts the circumstances in which employers can ask job applicants questions about disability or health prior to offering them a position, making it more difficult for disabled people to be unfairly screened out.

“In these challenging economic times it’s more important than ever for employers to make the most of all the talent available,” said Ms May.

There are also new powers for employment tribunals.

The Act will also stop employers using pay secrecy clauses to prevent employees discussing their own pay, which means men and women can compare pay.

Read in Full:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11446650

 Houses of Parliament, London

Equality Act – a health warning for the sick and disabled

The Equality Act brings the UK in line with its competitors, but may not be much good to jobseekers who are disabled or suffering from a medical condition

Anne Wollenberg

When prospective employers asked questions about her health, Ruth Rosselson felt she had to sell herself harder to compensate. “I felt I had to defend myself and my condition when I was supposed to be applying on merit,” says the 40-year-old, who has palindromic rheumatism, a variable autoimmune arthritic condition. “It doesn’t mean I don’t work hard.”

For Rosselson, an ethical consultant and writer from Manchester who is now self-employed, pre-employment medical questions proved intrusive and discouraging. “I’d start to fill them out, then end up just giving up,” she says. “If an application had an extensive medical questionnaire, it put me off. If I didn’t have a medical condition, it would have been much easier.

“Those sorts of questionnaires don’t seem to account for the fact that a condition can fluctuate,” she adds. “Either you have a disability or you don’t. There are days when I can’t walk, but they’re very rare. My arthritis can affect my hands and how I type, but it’s rare that it’s that bad – maybe only once or twice a year. A lot of the time, I am just like anybody else.”

Employers are no longer free to ask such questions as they please. Under the Equality Act 2010, which came into force on 1 October, any medical questions asked before a job offer is made must relate specifically to the tasks involved in carrying out the role. This is potentially good news for people who, like Rosselson, feel that disclosing information about a condition or disability may weaken their chances of getting a job.

For Peter Clark*, an arts worker from north-east England, it’s game over if an application asks how many sick days he’s taken. “I once put how many I’d had and didn’t get an interview for a job where I met all the criteria,” he says. Clark has multiple disabilities including ataxic cerebral palsy and a digestive disorder, which once caused 17 absences in a 12-month period. “Now I know the number is too high, so there’s no point even trying.”

In 1998, disabled people were twice as likely as the able-bodied to be out of work. In 2010, that’s still the case. Only one in 10 tribunal claims made under the Disability Discrimination Act – which the Equality Act mostly replaces – concerns recruitment, but discrimination there isn’t less common – just harder to prove.

Read in Full:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/oct/02/equality-act-sick-disabled



Men Prefer a Pretty Face for a Long-term Relationship


By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on September 27, 2010


New research conducted on college students from the University of Texas suggests men prefer a good body over a pretty face for short-term companionship.


However, if they desire a long-term relationship, then a pretty face becomes more valued.


A woman’s body generally provides cues about her state of fertility while her face gives insight into her long-term reproductive value, according to previous research. The new findings suggest men seeking a short-term relationship have psychological adaptations to look for partners who are fertile and can produce offspring.


“Men’s priorities shift depending on what they want in a mate, with facial features taking on more importance when a long-term relationship is the goal,” says Jaime Confer, who co-authored the research.


“Mating is central to the engine of natural selection. This research helps clarify people’s preference.”


Women showed no significant difference in their interest in faces or bodies when looking for short-term or long-term mates, according to the study published this month in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.


Previous research has examined the qualities that make faces and bodies attractive, such as symmetry and waist-to-hip ratio. But this is the first study to experimentally analyze the relative importance of faces and bodies as whole components.


Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/09/27/men-prefer-a-pretty-face-for-a-long-term-relationship/18789.html


Study Shows How Fight Styles Affect Marriage, Predict Divorce


Article Date: 30 Sep 2010 – 0:00 PDT


It’s common knowledge that newlyweds who yell or call each other names have a higher chance of getting divorced. But a new University of Michigan study shows that other conflict patterns also predict divorce.


A particularly toxic pattern is when one spouse deals with conflict constructively, by calmly discussing the situation, listening to their partner’s point of view, or trying hard to find out what their partner is feeling, for example – and the other spouse withdraws.


“This pattern seems to have a damaging effect on the longevity of marriage,” said U-M researcher Kira Birditt, first author of a study on marital conflict behaviors and implications for divorce published in the current issue (October 2010) of the Journal of Marriage and Family. “Spouses who deal with conflicts constructively may view their partners’ habit of withdrawing as a lack of investment in the relationship rather than an attempt to cool down.”


Couples in which both spouses used constructive strategies had lower divorce rates, Birditt found.


Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/202863.php


The Argument

8 Ways to Ruin Your Relationship


By John M Grohol PsyD


While most of the time we try and stay positive here on World of Psychology, every now and again reality sucker-punches us back to our senses (although not personally affecting me).


The fact remains that despite our wise advice over the years, we haven’t budged the divorce rate in the U.S. (not that we thought we could!). Most relationships fail — there’s simply no way to argue with it.


So maybe it would help some of our readers to catch sign of their failing relationship before it’s too late. Sure, we all would like to think that we could see the end of our relationship coming from a mile away. But truth is, many of us need a little help.


To that end, here are 8 ways you can bet you’re ruining your relationship and heading to splitsville.


1. Take your partner for granted.


There’s no better way to help hurry the end of the relationship than to just assume your partner is always there to make your life easier. Whether it’s by going to work or staying at home, cooking dinner or doing the grocery shopping, the ins and outs of our every day existence can take an especially hard toll when it comes to taking that special someone in our lives for granted.


Acknowledge your significant other’s efforts to your joint relationship and life together (no matter who is doing what). Say “Thank you” and “please” for being served something or for someone doing you a favor. After all, you wouldn’t treat a stranger in your home in that manner, so why would you treat the one you love any worse?


2. Stop talking.


Remember the start of your relationship? You couldn’t stop talking! You might’ve spent all night talking to one another, or countless hours on the phone or cuddled up on a couch somewhere.


Relationships die when the two people in it stop talking. And I don’t mean actual, physical talking (“We talk all the time!”). I mean the kind of real, honest conversations that couples have all the time at the beginning of a relationship, but which fade over time.


That fading is a natural progression in most relationships. The key is to not let that fading turn into never having those real conversations (which aren’t about the kids, your jobs, or what you read on TMZ today).


3. Stop expressing your feelings.


As we go along in a relationship, it’s also natural to stop saying, “I love you” as often. Or showing anger when you’re angry at your partner, or showing adoration when you’re feeling especially loving toward them. It’s as if the extremes of our emotions are taken away, and all we have left is a lot of moderate, unsexy feelings.


As much as you might think those feelings are too boring to share, they remain just as important to share. Yes, the passionate feelings at the beginning of any relationship tend to fade for most people. But that doesn’t mean you stop feeling, or that you should stop telling your loved one how you feel.


4. Stop listening.


Nobody likes to not be heard. So there’s no better way to kill a relationship than to stop listening to what your partner has to say.


It shows a lack of respect for the person, and of course your significant other will pick up on the fact that you’re no longer listening. If nobody’s listening, how can a relationship grow or thrive?


5. Kill the fun.


We hook up together in life for many reasons — shared perspectives and outlooks, physical attraction, shared spirituality, shared professional lives, etc. But we also enjoy one another’s company because it’s fun!


When fun leaves a relationship, it can be a sign that the relationship is heading to the rocks. Fun is a part of life and it’s definitely a part of any healthy relationship. However you and your significant other define fun, it’s important to keep doing it even as your relationship matures.


Love to dance but haven’t been in years? It’s time to make a new dance date. Met while hiking or kayaking, but haven’t made time to do it in months (or years)? Pack the backpack and get your outdoors on.


Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/09/20/8-ways-to-ruin-your-relationship/


Popularity Affects Drug And Alcohol Consumption


Article Date: 29 Sep 2010 – 4:00 PDT


The consumption of drugs and alcohol by teenagers is not just about rebellion or emotional troubles. It’s about being one of the cool kids, according to a study by led by researchers at the Universite de Montreal.


“Our study highlights a correlation between popularity and consumption,” says Jean-Sébastien Fallu, lead researcher and professor at the Université de Montréal’s School of Psychoeducation. “The teenagers we studied were well-accepted, very sensitive to social codes, and understood the compromises that it takes to be popular.”

Link between popularity, friends and consumption


The study, which is to be published during the next year as part of a collective work, was conducted on more than 500 French- speaking students at three separate moments of their lives: at ages 10 to 11, 12 to 13 and 14 to15. It took into consideration the popularity of the child and their friends and tracked their consumption of alcohol, marijuana and hard drugs.


The findings showed an increase in consumption, as the child got older regardless of their popularity level. However, the more popular a child and their friends were, the greater this consumption was. There was a two-fold between increase between ages 10 and 15 for the most popular kids who also had very popular friends. However, this trend did not apply to popular kids whose friends were not as popular.


Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/202824.php


Cultures of friendship


Neuroanthropology has an all-too-brief interview on how different cultures around the world have fundamentally different ideas about what it means to be a friend.


The interviewee is anthropologist Dan Hruschka who has just written a book summarising his research on the anthropology of friendship.


It’s a wonderfully simple idea but really challenges some of our core assumptions about social relationships:


Can you describe one of your examples that really makes us think differently about friendship?


When you look at friendship cross-culturally, there are many surprises! Consider the fact that in societies around the world, close friends will sanctify their relationships with elaborate public ceremonies not unlike American weddings or that parents or elders can arrange their children’s friendships in much the same way that marriages are arranged in many parts of the world.


Read in Full:  http://mindhacks.com/2010/09/24/cultures-of-friendships/




 Exploring Sleep

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 1, 2010 

A provocative new study suggests too much sleep, or not enough sleep, influences how long a person will live.

In a novel research design, researchers from the University of California, San Diego discovered that less than five hours of sleep a night is probably not enough, and eight hours of sleep is probably too much.

A team of scientists, headed by Daniel F. Kripke, MD, revisited original research conducted between 1995 and 1999.

In that earlier study, part of the Women’s Health Initiative, Kripke and colleagues had monitored 459 women living in San Diego (ranging in age from 50 to 81) to determine if sleep duration could be associated with mortality.

Fourteen years later, they returned to see who was still alive and well.

Of the original participants, 444 were located and evaluated. Eighty-six women had died. Previous studies, based upon questionnaires of people’s sleep habits, had posited that sleeping 6.5 to 7.5 hours per night was associated with best survival.

Kripke and colleagues, whose 1990s research had used wrist activity monitors to record sleep durations, essentially confirmed those findings, but with a twist.

“The surprise was that when sleep was measured objectively, the best survival was observed among women who slept 5 to 6.5 hours,” Kripke said.

“Women who slept less than five hours a night or more than 6.5 hours were less likely to be alive at the 14-year followup.”

The findings are published online in the journal Sleep Medicine.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/10/01/secret-to-long-life-just-enough-sleep/19036.html

 



 

The laryngoscopy. From García, 1884

Multiple passions led the singer Manuel García to scientific discovery.



 

Article Date: 01 Oct 2010 – 0:00 PDT

Many researchers have studied the relationship between the increase in sales of new antidepressants in recent decades and a simultaneous decline in the suicide rate. In a study based on figures from the Nordic countries, researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health found no evidence that increased sales of the new medicines could be linked to a lower suicide rate. The researchers also did not find any relationship between reduced sales of the older and more toxic antidepressants and a reduction in suicide rates.

The suicide rate has been declining since the end of the 1980s in many Western countries, including Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Around 1990, the new SSRI drugs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) became available on the market. Sales figures for these new antidepressant drugs have increased annually, whereas sales of the older TCA drugs (tricyclic anti-depressants) have declined substantially. TCA drugs are associated with a risk of poisoning with overdose.

Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/203018.php

 

Middle-Age Suicide On the Rise

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on September 28, 2010 

A new analysis shows a significant rise in suicide rates among middle-aged people.

Sociologists Ellen Idler of Emory and Julie Phillips of Rutgers University paint baby boomers as the driving force behind the new development.

Their report is found in the journal Public Health Reports.

“The findings are disturbing, because they’re a reversal of a long-standing trend,” Idler says.

The suicide rate for the U.S. population overall has been declining for decades, Idler notes. And people aged 40-59, in particular, have long had a moderate suicide rate.

The baby boomers, people born between 1945 and 1964, have broken that pattern. By 2000, most people aged 40 to 59 were baby boomers and the suicide rate started climbing steadily for these middle-age ranges.

The authors found significant increases of more than 2 percent per year for men, and more than 3 percent per year for women, from 1999 to 2005. (By 2005, all middle-aged people were baby boomers.)

The post-1999 increase has been particularly dramatic for those who are unmarried and those without a college degree, the analysis showed. For example, from 2000 to 2005, the suicide rate jumped nearly 30 percent for men and women aged 50 to 59 with some college but no degree. Middle-aged people with a college degree appeared largely protected from the trend.

The baby boomers also experienced higher suicide rates during their adolescence and young adulthood, doubling the rate for those age groups at the time. Their suicide rate then declined slightly and stabilized, before beginning to increase again in midlife.

Read in Full: http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/09/28/middle-age-suicide-on-the-rise/18824.html



 

Article Date: 01 Oct 2010 – 3:00 PDT

AstraZeneca UK is delighted to announce that it has received UK approval for Seroquel XL(R) (quetiapine prolonged release) as an add-on treatment of major depressive episodes in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) who have had sub-optimal response to antidepressant monotherapy. Prior to initiating treatment, clinicians should consider the safety profile of quetiapine prolonged release. The decision follows the European Commission approval earlier this month.

According to the Depression Alliance one in five people will have depression at some point in their life[i], and MDD is the leading cause of suicide particularly in people who have not received adequate treatment for their symptoms[ii]. As up to 50% of people who suffer from MDD do not respond to first-line antidepressant treatment[iii], add-on treatments are regularly used to manage this serious condition and are included in national guidelines[iv],[v]. The new indication for quetiapine prolonged release will therefore potentially benefit such people who have failed to respond to first-line treatment and who require additional therapy.

“Depression is an important public-health problem which has been shown to have a greater negative effect on health than angina, arthritis, asthma, and diabetes[vi]”, said Stuart Montgomery, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry. “Effective medicines are a cornerstone of management for people with depression, and this new indication for quetiapine prolonged release provides healthcare professionals with a new option of add-on therapy when considering how best to treat inadequately responding MDD. This can only be good news for people who suffer from this serious and common condition.”

Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/203153.php