What constitutes life falling apart? The death of a beloved spouse or family member? A marriage or relationship that has withered away or perhaps ended abruptly? A job loss potentially leading to financial ruin (or so you might think right now)?
Whichever situation is closest to yours, there are some steps that you must go through to come out the other side with your heart — and new life — intact.
The 6 Steps:
- 1. Wallow in it. This step is essential. Repeat everything you went and are still going through many times to anyone who will listen. Good friends and family will be very patient with this part of the process. If your big life change included a cheating spouse, self-righteous indignation is appropriate at this point.Part of this step includes getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other. Remember, this step is temporary. The more evolved among us can skip this step completely and go right to forgiveness and acceptance.
- 2. To eat or not to eat? Part of healing is taking care of yourself. Perhaps you are a stress-eater or (equally dangerous) stress-drinker — downing alcohol to numb your frazzled nerves, often followed by high-caffeine drinks to rev you back up.If you are a stress eater, first you need to recognize the fact that you are opening the freezer door. If ice cream is your weakness, why not put a sign on the freezer saying, “Go for a walk instead� Or have an apple with a little peanut butter on it. Basically, we’re talking about redirecting your focus to healthier choices that won’t make you feel guilty and hard on yourself afterward — which will increase your stress.Maybe you are a stress non-eater. You can’t stand the thought of food and simply stop eating, forcing your body to feed on itself, wasting your muscles and affecting your brain chemistry, adding to your already depressed state. If you are a stress non-eater, perhaps you need to place cards about the house saying, ‘Please feed me, I need fuel.’ Again, making healthy choices begins with awareness.
- 3. Get help. Your friends and family need a break, but you still need someone to talk to, so make an appointment with a therapist. If finances are a problem, there are community agencies that can help or provide you a referral. Your place of worship may offer you comfort. Therapeutic massage, acupuncture, meditation and yoga can help calm your nerves. Don’t underestimate the healing power of nature. A walk in the woods or by the sea or even stargazing from a high-rise building’s rooftop can offer you tremendous healing energy.
- 4. Read every book you can find. There are many books that will say exactly what you want to hear and some that won’t; eventually, read all of them. Some good choices are:
- *When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön
- *Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) by Carol Tavis and Elliot Aronson
- *Anything by Eckhart Tolle, Caroline Myss, and Deepak Chopra
- *Callings by Gregg Levoy
Basically, anything inspirational to you is a good choice.
- 5. Believe in yourself. Life begins anew. Choose to learn from experiences, choose to trust, choose to breathe deeply, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and move on. Dig deep and learn about the parts of yourself that you forgot were there. During times of self-reflection, many of us have reinforced what we already knew, and that is that family, friends and community are, basically, everything. Choose (it is a choice!) to move past fear and to believe in yourself. Do you believe in yourself? If you believe in yourself and your gifts — and we all have them — others will believe in you too. Choose to be openhearted. The best is yet to come. Believe it!
- 6. Pay it forward. If you have been through a life-changing event and know of someone who is going through one now, you can help as others helped you. Lend an ear, listen — really listen — and do what you can to help. Remember what helped you.
Know in your heart that most of the time there are lessons in the falling apart and such times offer a chance to learn and grow. Use your experiences to become a better version of yourself.
 
We trawl the world’s journals so you don’t have to:
What works in investigative psychology? (Legal and Criminological Psychology). Topics covered include interviewing child witnesses; confessions and interrogations; suspect line-ups; deception detection; offender profiling; and jury decision making.
Group processes and aggression (Aggression and Violent Behaviour).
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence Guidelines for the Treatment of Antisocial Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder (Personality and Mental Health). Open Access.
The sense of body (Neuropsychologia).
Developmental disorders of language and literacy (British Journal of Developmental Psychology).
Contemporary perspectives on sex offending, its assessment, and treatment (Psychology, Crime and Law).
I am 43 and started having panic attacks about a year ago. I have been having panic attacks daily for nearly 2months now and i am having great difficulty swallowing. At first i could swallow food following each mouthful with water but it has got worse. I would chew my food as small as i could and end up having 2 spit it out because no matter how much i told myself to swallow, i just couldnt. Now i am just taking liquids. Please help. I cant go on like this. I want to feel normal again!!!!
The above is an example of many E. Mails and comments posted to an article about the fear of swallowing.
The original posting and responses can be found at the following URL:
Some people experience a lump in their throat upon swallowing food. Others fear that, if they eat or drink, they will choke to death. What ever the specific fear is, they all fear swallowing and this is called Phagophobia.
It is important to distinguish this psychological fear from those them stem from a real blockage or injury in the throat and trachea. There are many conditions that cause extreme pain upon swallowing and one of the common ones is the strep infection that, if it happens with great frequency, sometimes results in the surgical removal of tonsils. This is why it is never safe to assume that an adult or child who is complaining about being fearful about swallowing is simply having a psychological fear. Quite to the contrary, there are many head, neck and throat illness that create real pain and blockages that obstruct the ability to swallow. A thorough examination is always necessary to rule out anything physical or organic in nature.
Case Study (fictionalized)
During my thirty years if psychotherapy practice, I had several patients with the complaint that they feared swallowing. These individuals had each been to multiple numbers of medical doctors who ordered all types of tests and examinations that yielded nothing but good physical health.
When he came for psychotherapy, this man was filled with anxiety and depression and was losing weight. He was skeptical about the ability of psychotherapy to help him and was even more skeptical about the usefulness of medications. It should be noted that the death of an important relative seemed to have set off his anxiety and depression.
However, Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy combined with teaching him meditation and encouraging him to begin a good program of aerobic exercise really helped. He was accustomed to exercise but stopped when his symptoms worsened. Ultimately, he was seen by a psychiatrist who prescribed a low dose of anti depressant medication. That, combined with the psychotherapy, helped him put the swallowing anxiety and all of the symptoms to rest and he was able to resume a normal life.
Discussion:
Phagophobia or the fear of swallowing is usually forms one aspect of people who are overwhelmed with anxiety. In the case of the patient above, there was no incidence earlier in his life that served as catalyst for what became his fear of swallowing. Rather, he always experienced a mild anxiety, a symptom that was familiar throughout his family of origin.
However, there are people who go through something traumatic that can set them on the road to phagophobia. Surgery to remove tonsils with its painful aftermath can be the motivating factor for some people. Others may have a relative who suffered from head and neck cancer and that became the catalyst for their worry and fears about health and swallowing. Certainly, a tendency towards being a hypochondriac (worrying about being sick despite being in good health) along with strong tendencies to worry by obsessing about everything, all add to the likelihood of developing this type of phobia.
There is psychological treatment for this and all phobias and it involved cognitive behavioral therapy, learning meditation and deep relaxation and experiencing a gradual desensitization to these fears.
Source:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=35604&cn=1
 
Article Date: 15 Feb 2010 – 3:00 PST
A study has revealed that volunteer work has numerous positive psychological benefits and discovered that it may even improve the experience of work the following day. These results are published online today, 15th February 2010 in the Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology.
Dr Eva J. Mojza and colleagues at the University of Konstanz, Germany, studied the psychological effects of volunteer work in a sample of 105 people who worked an average five days a week, and volunteered for 6.7 hours each week on average. The participants volunteered in a range of activities from the fire service, to church groups.
“We predicted that volunteer work during the evenings would have positive psychological effects, such as increasing psychological detachment from paid work, and fulfilling important psychological needs such the need to connect with others, autonomy and competence,” said Dr Mojza.
The participants in the study each completed two questionnaires each day for a period of two weeks; one questionnaire after work, and another before going to bed. As well as reporting the time they had spent volunteering, they were asked to report their feelings on need satisfaction, psychological detachment from work, learning experiences, and their well-being at work. Results of the bed-time questionnaires were compared to the following day’s after work questionnaire.
The amount of time people spent on volunteer activities was positively related to psychological detachment from work, their learning experiences and need satisfaction. Furthermore, the psychological detachment and need satisfaction was linked to better active listening at work the following day. The amount of time spent on volunteer work during the evening was also linked to well-being at work the following day.
“The positive relationships we discovered in this study supports the thinking that even demanding and stressful leisure time experiences such as volunteering for fire and rescue services can have positive psychological effects and even bring benefits in the workplace,” said Dr Mojza. “Volunteering can bring many positive experiences such as the satisfaction of needs that aren’t met through work – mastering new skills and relating to people socially, and it also helps people to thoroughly disengage from their work.”
Mary Forsberg Weiland, formerly a successful fashion model and wife of rock star Scott Weiland (singer for the popular 1990s rock band Stone Temple Pilots) recounts her life story growing up in in San Diego in a chaotic family environment featuring povery, frequent moves, divorce and remarriage, depression, suicidal ideation, and delinquency; her early and sudden success as a fashion model; more depression; her very intense and volitile marriage to Mr. Weiland; their drug addiction problems; and her very public manic episode in which she burned her husband’s clothes and damaged a hotel room. Though embarrassing, this episode resulted in her acceptance of treatment for bipolar disorder, an action which she credits with completely transforming her life and reducing her misery. Through her book, she hopes to share her experience with others so as to reduce the shame and stigma associated with addiction and bipolar disorder diagnosis and treatment.
David Van Nuys: Welcome to Wise Counsel, a podcast interview series sponsored by Mentalhelp.net, covering topics in mental health, wellness, and psychotherapy. My name is Dr. David Van Nuys. I’m a clinical psychologist and your host.
On today’s show, we’ll be talking with my guest, Mary Forsberg Weiland, about her recent memoir, which tracks her fame as an international model, her marriage to a rock star, and her struggle with both drug addiction and bipolar disorder.
Mary Weiland was born and raised in San Diego, California, and at age 15, she was selected out of approximately 40,000 young girls across America to appear in a special issue of Seventeen magazine. Soon after, she became emancipated and began an 18-year modeling career, represented by some of the most prestigious agencies in the business. Mary’s career as model took her around the world shooting campaigns for cosmetics giants such as Max Factor and Estee Lauder, as well as editorial photographs for magazines, including Cosmopolitan and Vogue.
At the age of 16, while working with the Bordeaux Agency in Los Angeles, Mary was assigned a driver named Scott Weiland, a then struggling rock singer. After an on-and-off romance of eight years, they married in 2000 at the height of Scott’s success as the front man for Stone Temple Pilots, one of the most accomplished and successful rock groups of the 1990s.
Both Scott and Mary have struggled with a myriad of substance abuse problems during their life together. While Scott was constantly in the news for a series of drug-related arrests, Mary herself made seven separate visits to rehab centers to overcome various addictions. After a widely publicized incident in 2007, when Mary was arrested and incarcerated after lighting a fire to Scott’s wardrobe, she finally got the help she needed. This led to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
Mary has ended her relationship with drugs and alcohol and turned her attention to helping others with bipolar disorder, which often goes undiagnosed. She’s working toward a certificate in drug and alcohol counseling with a focus on co-occurring disorders. She lives in Los Angeles with her two children, Noah and Lucy.
Now, let’s go to the interview.
Mary Forsberg Weiland, welcome to Wise Counsel.
Mary Weiland: Hi. Thank you for having me.
David: I’m happy to have the opportunity to speak with you. I’ve been reading your 2009 book, Fall to Pieces, and I have to say, it’s a real page turner.
Mary Weiland: Thank you so much. I didn’t want to put anybody into a coma with just medical jargon.
David: Well, this one really doesn’t do that. It was kind of hard to put it down, and I have to say I read it all the way through – just finished it up last night. Now, just to make sure all our listeners have some context for the discussion that we’re about to have, I want to mention up front that you were a very successful fashion model, married to Scott Weiland, a well-known rock star who is the lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots, STP, and another group, Velvet Revolver. Do I have that right?
Mary Weiland: You have it right, yes.
David: Okay. I’m of a generation that I did not know any of those groups, you’ll be horrified to hear.
Mary Weiland: I don’t know that I would have as well, if I didn’t marry into it.
David: Okay, and then, of course, another major thread that runs through the book has to do with your struggles with both drug addiction and bipolar disorder. Your book is a memoir, so maybe it makes sense for us to step through the major phases of your life story. So tell us about the early years of your growing up.
Mary Weiland: The early years of Mary were pretty chaotic. They were not the worst childhood you could have, and there was a lot of love there, but it was definitely falling under something that you might call chaotic, which was we moved quite a bit; my parents married and divorced each other more than once; and my father was struggling as well with his own addictions. And it was different than most people’s childhood, and I don’t know that that set the tone for where I have ended up today, or if it was just a part of me from the beginning – if bipolar and addiction, if those were just going to happen to me regardless, which I’m pretty certain that that’s the case. But I did experience a lot of depression as a child.
David: Yes, something I just realized that you and I have in common is that my parents also got divorced and remarried to each other several times.
Mary Weiland: Yes, I have a couple friends that have done that as well. It’s definitely not something many people do, but you got to give your parents credit for trying.
Read More …Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=35049&cn=4
 
As part of our partnership with LEGO UK, we have secured four unique LEGO creations from renowned designers Eley Kishimoto, Wayne Hemingway, Antoni & Alison and Sam Ubhi to be auctioned off on eBay for the NAS.
The designs will be up for grabs from 8pm on 15 February and end on 25 February, to coincide with London Fashion Week 2010. All proceeds will go towards the work of the NAS.
Visit our eBay auction page here.
You can read more about each design by following the links below. You’ll find a direct link to that item’s eBay auction on each page.
Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto said: “It was so much fun to get involved with this project. The bricks are so versatile and combining LEGO and fashion was a real challenge. We chose to recreate a tile of our ‘flash’ print and hope that it helps to raise lots of money for the charity.”
For more details on the auction, contact Kevin Croasdale on kevin.croasdale@nas.org.uk or call 020 7903 3532.
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Fashion house Antoni & Alison produced a modern art inspired piece. 
Global fashion designers Eley Kishimoto incorporated their signature ‘flash’ print into their design.
Women’s accessories designer Sam Ubhi made a handbag to coincide with the launch of her new handbag range.
Design guru Wayne Hemingway MBE produced a credit crunch-inspired fat cat money bank.Jan
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Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 12, 2010Â
A new randomized control research trial has found that chamomile helps lessen symptoms of mild to moderate general anxiety disorder.
As a herbal remedy, chamomile tea has been used for centuries to calm nerves and its oil has been an ingredient in commercial flavors and perfumes.
The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, reports that “chamomile extract therapy was found to be efficacious for mild-moderate GAD.â€
Patients with mild-moderate GAD were included in the study and received either chamomile or placebo. Those that received the chamomile treatment were found to have a significant change in the severity of their GAD.
Evaluators Michael Van Ameringen and Beth Patterson comment on the results of the study, saying that they “suggest that chamomile may have modest [anti-panic] activity in patients with mild-moderate GAD and may potentially be used in those who are averse to traditional pharmacotherapy.â€
These findings are important “because many individuals who suffer from GAD do not view their anxiety as a medical condition, [and, therefore,] self-diagnosis and self-medicating with alternative, over-the-counter remedies is common.â€
Van Amerigen and Patterson said “a big strength of this paper is that the authors took a herbal remedy and subjected it to scientific rigor unlike many ‘natural’ remedies which have associated claims of efficacy with no supportive data.â€
Source: Faculty of 1000
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/02/12/chamomile-for-anxiety/11400.html
Related News Articles
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AP Medical Writer
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| In this photo taken on Feb. 10, 2010, Keith and Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., pose for a photo in their home with their sons, front left, Kolten, 6, and Caiden, 7 and in the back, Keifer, 9, left, and Connor, 11. All four boys have different forms of autism. Their mother argues that a revision to lump together in a single “autism spectrum disorders” category, could make it easier for less severely affected kids, including those with Asperger’s and a variation called pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified, to get school services and treatment designated for autism. Gibson also says, she’d no longer have to use four different terms to describe her boys. (AP Photo/Scott Erskine) |
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CHICAGO — In the autism world, “Aspies” are sometimes seen as the elites, the ones who are socially awkward, yet academically gifted and who embrace their quirkiness.
Now, many Aspies, a nickname for people with Asperger’s syndrome, are upset over a proposal they see as an attack on their identity. Under proposed changes to the most widely used diagnostic manual of mental illness, Asperger’s syndrome would no longer be a separate diagnosis.
Instead, Asperger’s and other forms of autism would be lumped together in a single “autism spectrum disorders” category. Some parents say they’d welcome the change, thinking it would eliminate confusion over autism’s variations and perhaps lead to better educational services for affected kids.
But opponents — mostly older teens and adults with Asperger’s — disagree.
Liane Holliday Willey, a Michigan author and self-described Aspie whose daughter also has Asperger’s, fears Asperger’s kids will be stigmatized by the autism label — or will go undiagnosed and get no services at all.
Grouping Aspies with people “who have language delays, need more self-care and have lower IQs, how in the world are we going to rise to what we can do?” Willey said.
Rebecca Rubinstein, 23, a graduate student from Massapequa, N.Y., says she “vehemently” opposes the proposal and will think of herself as someone with Asperger’s no matter what.
Autism and Asperger’s “mean such different things,” she said.
Read More …Â http://ap.alaskajournal.com/pstories/health/20100211
 
Move to merge Asperger’s, autism in diagnostic manual stirs debate
“If I call it ‘autism,’ that’s going to raise a lot of red flags for people who don’t know him,” said Brown, author of the novel about autism “There Are No Words.”
Both Brown and her son William are opposed to new guidelines being put forth by the American Psychiatric Association that would make Asperger’s syndrome part of the autism spectrum disorders rather than a separate diagnosis. In the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which helps mental health professionals identify specific conditions, it is not listed under autism.
The revisions are being considered for the DSM’s fifth edition, due in 2013. They were made public Wednesday at DSM5.org, and are available for public comment until April 20.
Read more about the proposed changes to the DSM
The clustering of Asperger’s and other developmental conditions with autism has generated a flurry of comments and concerns among people with the conditions, as well as parents.
The Asperger’s Association of New England, a nonprofit organization with more than 3,000 members, has written a letter to the APA committee in charge of revising autism diagnoses explaining that Asperger’s should remain separate, said Dania Jekel, the association’s executive director. The group is currently trying to mobilize other organizations to speak out and do what they can to see that the diagnosis remains in the DSM V.
“This is their identity, which is really being taken away,” Jekel said. “If everybody’s sort of lumped together, we’re going to lose that.”
Brown cited rumors that such intellectual icons as Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein may have had Asperger’s, which fuel the positive image that has been cultivated in reference to the condition.
“Autism tends to be defined as a deficit, and people with Asperger’s see themselves as having an advantage in life,” said Eileen Parker, 46, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, who has Asperger’s. That is why the community is split over the DSM issue, she said. She personally agrees that Asperger’s belongs under autism for scientific reasons.
Read More …Â http://us.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/11/aspergers.autism.dsm.v/index.html?hpt=C2
Kindness May Be The Key To Dating Success – British Psychological Society
Article Date: 11 Feb 2010 – 3:00 PST
Women prefer generous men for long-term relationships – or even for just one date. This is the finding of a study published today, 11th February 2010 in the British Journal of Psychology.
Dr Pat Barclay at McMaster University, Canada, investigated whether highlighting kind qualities affected people’s mate choice, to further investigate evolutionary theories of the persistence of human altruism.
One hundred and fifty women were asked to read short profiles accompanying photographs of men, then asked how willing they would be to have short-term or long-term relationships with them, and to rate their physical and sexual attractiveness. 155 men did the same for photos of women.
Dr Barclay said: “In some of the profiles we gave hints to indicate kind, altruistic interests such as ‘I enjoy helping people’ and ‘I volunteer at the food bank’, we also altered whether the profiles sought short-term or long-term relationships. We then compared the responses to these ‘altruistic profiles’ to ‘neutral’ versions of the same profiles which didn’t contain the altruistic clues.”
The study found that both men and women were significantly more willing to have long-term relationships with the altruistic profiles than the neutral profiles. Women showed a stronger preference for altruistic profiles than for neutral profiles for both dates and long-term relationships. However, men actually seemed to show a slight aversion for altruistic women when looking for short-term relationships like one-night-stands.
“We found that women showed a strong preference for relationships with altruistic men in this study, even though the clues to altruistic traits were fairly subtle. This suggests that women are attuned to generosity, and that altruism serves a purpose in mate selection.
“Altruism is a costly behaviour that seems to bring no obvious or immediate benefit to the altruist. However, as we have seen in this study, it seems to serve an important purpose in mate choice. If a man is kind and generous towards others – even strangers – then there’s a good chance that he’d make a good and generous parent.”
The altruistic profiles were not judged to be more physically or sexually attractive than neutral profiles by either men or women.
Source
British Psychological Society
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/178861.php
Friday, 12 February 2010
Evidence-based tips for Valentine’s
Need to woo a partner in time for Sunday? Follow these simple, evidence-based instructions for boosting your irresistibility …
When asking a lady for a dance or for her number, your chances will be improved by lightly touching her on the arm. Try not to do it in a creepy way.
Use mimicry, bodily and verbal. Use mimicry, bodily and verbal (see what I did there?)
If you’re male, try to make yourself look taller and vice versa for women.
Hire a sports car, if you’re a man, but don’t bother if you’re a woman. Both sexes should avoid Toyotas – that’s a joke, please don’t sue, they’re lovely cars.
When flirting with a man, use direct, no-nonsense chat up lines rather than the subtle or witty approach. Men are very easily confused you know.
When wooing a woman, use chat-up lines that demonstrate your helpfulness, generosity, athleticism, ‘culture’ and wealth. Don’t bother with jokes, empty compliments and sexual references. This ought to do it – ‘Hey gorgeous, sorry I’m late: the opera over-ran, then I had to race to my neighbour’s to help carry her piano upstairs – the one I bought her as a moving in present’.
Try not to come across as too desperate. Don’t, whatever you do, admit to reading this blog post.
If you’re a really handsome man, don’t show off your wealth too much – women might just conclude that you’re likely to be unfaithful in the future. And anyway Mr Clooney, I’m sure you don’t need these tips.
You hunky smile magnet! Here’s a good one for heterosexual men: get friends of the opposite sex to smile at you. Women apparently find a man’s face more attractive after it’s been smiled at by a woman.
If you’re a larger woman, keep your chosen man hungry and he’s more likely to find you attractive.
Don’t flirt and drive! Remember gentleman, interacting with a lady can impair your cognitive faculties.
Finally, here’s a Time magazine article on flirting, just to get you in the mood.
Happy Valentine’s day for Sunday! (Apologies for male, heterosexual bias.)
We just met, but I feel like I know you. Do I?
What is going on with these snap judgments?
A lot of recent research has begun top play up the accuracy of judgments that get made quickly based on a sliver of information. This work, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink suggests that there are many cases in which these snap judgments are accurate.
A paper by Daniel Ames, Lara Kammrath, Alexandra Suppes, and Niall Bolger in the February, 2010 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin looked at people’s confidence and accuracy when making judgments about personality characteristics of others.
In these studies, participants got to see photographs or short videos of real people. The authors had also done personality assessments of these people to find out their values on the Big Five personality attributes (openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability). For each of the people that a participant judged, they saw a picture or video, and filled out a brief personality questionnaire for them. Then, they judged how confident they were in their judgments.
The results suggest that people are moderately accurate at predicting a few personality dimensions based on small amounts of information. For example, when seeing a brief video, participants showed some accuracy predicting a target person’s agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability, but not their extraversion or openness.
Although they were able to predict these dimensions to some degree, there was quite a bit of disagreement between people. That is, the judgments were very variable. In addition, a person’s confidence in their judgment about someone else had almost no relationship at all to their accuracy. There was a slight tendency for people to be correct that they felt that they had no good basis for making a prediction, but when people were confident that they could make a good prediction, that did not signal that they actually could make a good prediction.
In addition, people who generally have high confidence in their intuitions were more confident in their judgments than those who like to think a lot about making judgments. But this trust in intuition did not lead to more accurate judgments.
So, what does this mean?
When getting to know other people, we ought to treat our first impressions with caution. It really does take a while to get to know people, and those first impressions are often flawed.
Worse yet, they can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those initial impressions can affect how you treat people you have just met. And your treatment of them will affect the way they react to you in return.
Finally, remember that your confidence in your beliefs about people you just met doesn’t really reflect how accurately you have gotten to know them.
If Marriage Is So Good, Why Do So Many People Seek Divorce?
“Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.” Oscar Wilde
“I just want what every married woman wants, someone besides her husband to sleep with.” Peg Bundy, the character on the television show Married with Children.
Some studies indicate that married people live longer, benefit from better health, earn more money, accumulate more wealth, feel happier, enjoy more satisfying sexual relationships, and have happier and more successful children than those who remain single, cohabit, or get divorced (see here). Despite such benefits, about half of all recent marriages currently end in divorce and many people choose to be single parents. Although marriage offers great benefits, many people do not want to be married. This is the marriage paradox.
If sex within marriage is so good, why do so many people seek extramarital sex? Extramarital sex prevails despite the enormous risks it carries for those involved in it, including risks to their health, family, financial resources, and status. Moreover, it has been argued that married people have both more and better sex than singles do; only cohabitors have more sex than married couples, but they do not necessarily enjoy it as much. Married people are more satisfied with sex than cohabiting or single people are. This is due not merely to convenience, but to commitment. Thus, people who expect their current relationship to last at least several years are more likely than less committed people to find sex extremely satisfying emotionally.
Satisfaction with a sexual relationship is increased when the partners do not have sex with others. Accordingly, married people with more traditional views concerning sex out of wedlock are more likely to be sexually satisfied than married people with less traditional views are. However, even married people who have sexual affairs might enjoy better sex with their spouse. Thus, Margaret, a married woman who is having an affair for the first time in her long marriage, says, “The best orgasms I get are with my husband, although I can have faster and more orgasms with my lover. But there is something with my husband that is unique; I guess we have had more practice.”
Analyzing the empirical findings concerning the above marriage paradox requires a subtle approach. Indeed, one longitudinal study of the impact of marital transitions on life satisfaction reveals that people who get married and stay married are indeed more satisfied than on average, but they were already so, long before the marriage took place. It seems that, often, happy people are more likely to get and stay married. On average, people get only a very small boost from marriage; most people are no more satisfied after marriage than they were prior to it. (Although it should be noted that the events of widowhood, and perhaps divorce as well, appear to have long-lasting negative effects.)
These findings do not mean that, after marriage, all people retain their starting level of satisfaction. Instead, while many people end up happier than they were before marriage, just as many end up less happy than they were, as marriage can be pleasant but also stressful. Various psychological factors are involved in determining such results. These findings suggest that some of the differences concerning happiness in marriage are due to pre-existing differences in satisfaction-these individual differences can easily be overlooked if only average trends are examined. Contextual and individual differences are thus crucial for determining long-term, as well as short-term, life satisfaction.
Several implications can be drawn from the above findings. First, for many people marriage is a suitable social framework for maintaining a high level of happiness; it is a most suitable one for those who are typically happier. Second, marriage is not suitable for many other people-typically, those with lower levels of happiness. Third, the existence of romantic bonds, as well as other life circumstances, can make a difference to our happiness. Although for many people marriage is a beneficial romantic form, for others it is not.
Historically, the social framework of marriage has been considered beneficial because it offers life satisfaction, sex, children, and financial benefits. Not all these factors have had a similar weight through history. Thus, in some sectors of certain societies, life satisfaction and sex were not significant in marriage. Our current society provides alternative forms of relationships that can offer these benefits, too. Thus, there are plenty of sexual opportunities outside marriage, children do not have to be raised within marriage, and people ensure their financial security without being married.
It seems that the gradual process of dissociating marriage from its significant relative advantages in terms of factors such as sex, children and financial security will continue. Accordingly, the survival of marriage will depend upon (a) its ability to fulfill its intrinsic emotional function-that is, offering a more satisfactory form of life, and (b) its ability to be at least as beneficial as other alternatives regarding the other factors. It would appear that marriage can be at least as beneficial as other forms of relationships in matters of raising children and financial security. In terms of other factors, greater personal space would be very valuable in order to maximize such benefits.
The above considerations can be encapsulated in the following statement that a lover might express: “Darling, I have read that marriage is good for people and makes them very happy. So why are you so miserable in our marriage? Perhaps you haven’t yet read those studies?”
Marriage: I, You, We and, What’s in a Pronoun?
What is in a pronoun? Apparently a very great deal according to research done at U.C.Berkeley. A study of 150 married couples was completed at U.C. Berkeley and published in the American Psychological Association journal, “Psychology and Aging.” The couples were middle aged and older. The middle aged group had been married at least fifteen years and the older couples thirty years and more.
One of the most important variables studied and reported in this research were the numbers of times couples used words such as, “we, our, us,” as opposed to words such as, “I, me, you.” The couples who reported feelings of happiness in their marriages used the pronouns “we, our, us,” frequently while the couples who with lower feelings of happiness used the pronouns, “I, me, you,” more frequently.
Interestingly, when a spouse used the term “we” to talk about an activity, the other spouse registered very positive feelings. In other words, spouses enjoy hearing their partner using “we” types of words.
This does not suggest that the road to a happier marriage lies in how couples express themselves. Rather, noting the types of pronouns couples use gives a clue as to how they see their marriages and themselves.
Discussion:
Buber was correct when he discussed the importance of relationships to human happiness. This is an important fact that many people have difficulty grasping and understanding in today’s world and perhaps always.
I have counseled many couples who find themselves in a quandary about their marriage because they are having difficulty becoming a “we” as opposed to “me.” Perhaps the reason is that some fear dependence on another person with whom they are called upon to share money, power and decisions. Perhaps some of them marry too young and have not outgrown the adolescent striving for independence from parents. These are speculations. Basically, many couples experience difficulty with the transition from being an individual to being a team.
I have often pointed out to couples that being a team or a “we” does not imply the loss of independence. We all too often hear the word “dependence” being used in the most pejorative ways possible. Its as if we are all supposed to be totally self sufficient and have no need for others. Perhaps this comes from our (American) frontier heritage where we value staunch individuality. However, there is no real conflict between teamwork and individuality. Yes, we sometimes need to subordinate our individual wants and preferences to the needs of the group, family or marriage. However, we also derive a great sense of security, being loved and loving within the context of “we.” Being in relation to is an essential human need. We are not hermits. If we try to live too long in “Walden” we feel increasingly isolated and depressed.
Of course, people come to my office when their individual or marriage lives are in trouble. How many times have I winced in pain when a couple sits in front of me, angry, distant, brooding and, when they each begin talking the pronoun “she” is hurled at the wife, or the pronoun “he” is hurled at the husband. No longer are they Sally, Paula, Martha or George, Henry, Mike, if they ever really were to one another. If there ever was a sense of “we” it is long gone now into the painful “him,” “she.” Ouch!
Source:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=35592&cn=289
What makes for a happy marriage?
In order to best understand how a marriage can come apart, it is helpful first to understand some of the ways that healthy marriages are structured, and how they function.
Healthy marriage partners are compatible partners
In a marriage that is to stand the test of time, romance is important, but compatibility is critical. By and large, partners in healthy marriages come to agree upon common agendas regarding the directions their marriage will take, and the way each partner will behave. These common agreements may never have been discussed, but they will be present implicitly in how each partner chooses to act.
Areas of agreement that partners will have dealt with will generally include:
- *Friendship. Successful partners develop a significant friendship at the core of their relationship. They genuinely like one another, amuse and comfort one another, and prefer to spend time with each other. This friendship and mutual liking is somewhat separate from other aspects of the relationship (sexuality, for instance), and can survive the loss of these other aspects of the relationship. A strong friendship and mutual liking is often the basis for repair of troubled relationships.
Successful marriages tend to be populated by partners who come to their marriage with pre-existing significant compatibilities (of personality, temperament, goals, etc.) that make it easier for them to reach agreement because they frequently end up wanting the same thing. They may share commonalities with regard to personality, temperament, or preferences for volatile or conflict-avoiding interactions, as well as goals, religious and ethical ideals, etc.
While these areas of agreement do tend to be present in healthy marriages, we should note that no marriage is perfect, and that many perfectly good marriages harbor disagreements with regard to some of the domains we’ve discussed. In general, however, the more domains you and your partner are in agreement on, the better are your chances for a healthy marriage.
Background factors play a minor role in determining marriage success.
Personality, temperament and goal compatibility is very important in determining whether a marriage will be strong. Other background factors are also important, however. Better marriages are reported by people who chose to marry later in life as opposed to younger, by people who recall being very intensely in love with their partners prior to getting married, and by people who maintain close family relationships and whose parents’ approved of their marriage. Also, people identified with more traditional sex-role and religious values tend to report having higher quality marriages overall (although it isn’t clear that such people aren’t just reporting positive outcomes based on their desire to present themselves in a positive light). When all factors relating to marital adjustment are considered together, personality and life-goal compatibility seems to be of paramount importance, and background factors such as whether partners come from similar family, religious or economic backgrounds or whether they have similar dating histories appear to be of lessor importance.
Source:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=4397&cn=289
