Thanks to the success of the King’s Speech movie, most of us are familiar with the ‘developmental’ kind of stammering that begins in childhood. However, more rarely, stammering can also have a sudden onset, triggered by illness or injury to the brain. Far rarer still are cases where a person with a pre-existing, developmental stammer suffers from brain injury or disease and is subsequently cured. In fact, a team led by Magid Bakheit at Mosley Hall Hospital in Birmingham, who have newly reported such a patient, are aware of just two prior adult cases in the literature.
Bakheit’s patient, a 54-year-old bilingual man, suffered a stroke that caused damage to the left side of his brain stem and both hemispheres of his cerebellum – that’s the cauliflower-shaped structure, associated with motor control and other functions, which hangs off the back of the brain. The man’s brain damage left him unsteady on his feet, gave him difficulty with swallowing and his speech was slightly slurred. But remarkably, his life-long stammer, characterised by repetitions of sounds, and which caused him social anxiety and avoidance, was entirely gone – an account corroborated by his wife. By the time of his discharge from hospital, the slowing of his speech was much improved and yet thankfully his stammer remained absent.
New Model for Probing Antidepressant Actions
ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2011) — The most widely prescribed antidepressants — medicines such as Prozac, Lexapro and Paxil — work by blocking the serotonin transporter, a brain protein that normally clears away the mood-regulating chemical serotonin. Or so the current thinking goes.
That theory about how selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) work can now be put to the test with a new mouse model developed by neuroscientists at Vanderbilt University.
These mice, described in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), express a serotonin transporter that has been genetically altered so that it does not respond to many SSRIs or cocaine.
In addition to testing the theory about how SSRIs work, the new mouse model could lead to the development of entirely new classes of antidepressant medications, said Randy Blakely, Ph.D., Allan D. Bass Professor of Pharmacology and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt and senior author of the PNAS paper.
Read in Full: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110218165259.htm
Depression Tends to Worsen Over Time for Addiction-Prone Women
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 21, 2011
Although some health behavioral problems can decline with age — such as alcohol problems and antisocial behaviors — the risk of depression among women at risk for substance abuse and associated disorders increases.
A longitudinal analysis led by University of Michigan Health System researchers examined the influences of the women’s histories, family life and neighborhood instability on their alcoholism symptoms, antisocial behavior and depression.
The investigation covered a 12-year period including the earlier years of marriage and motherhood.
The research, published in Development and Psychopathology, is part of an ongoing project focusing on families at high risk for substance abuse and associated disorders that has already collected more than 20 years’ worth of data.
Among the study’s other top findings:
- *The women’s partners’ struggles with addiction and antisocial behavior, such as run-ins with the law, worsened the women’s own symptoms and behaviors.
- *Children’s behavior also had a negative impact on their mothers. When children exhibited behaviors that included acting out and getting into trouble, their mothers’ alcohol problems and antisocial behavior tended to worsen. Meanwhile, when children were sad, withdrawn or isolated, their mothers’ depression increased.
- *Living in an unstable neighborhood, where residents move in and out frequently, also had a significant effect on the women’s alcoholism symptoms and level of depression.
“Our findings demonstrate the complexity of the factors affecting changes in alcohol problems, antisocial behavior and depression for these women,†said the study’s senior author, Robert Zucker, Ph.D.
Read in Full: http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/02/21/depression-tends-to-worsen-over-time-for-addiction-prone-women/23723.html
Is What The Depressed Patient Prefers In Term Of Treatment Relevant To Outcome?
Article Date: 22 Feb 2011 – 1:00 PST
This study demonstrates that patients’ relative preference for medication versus psychotherapy should be considered when offering a treatment to depressed patients because receiving the preferred treatment conveys an additional and clinically relevant benefit in outcome.
In the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, a group of German investigators presents new data on role of treatment preferences in the outcome of depression.
Read in Full: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/217090.php
Article Date: 19 Feb 2011 – 0:00 PST
That feeling of being in, and owning, your own body is a fundamental human experience. But where does it originate and how does it come to be? Now, Professor Olaf Blanke, a neurologist with the Brain Mind Institute at EPFL and the Department of Neurology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, announces an important step in decoding the phenomenon. By combining techniques from cognitive science with those of Virtual Reality (VR) and brain imaging, he and his team are narrowing in on the first experimental, data-driven approach to understanding self-consciousness.
In recent unpublished work, Blanke and his fellow researchers performed a series of studies in which they immersed subjects, via VR settings, into the body of an avatar, or virtual human. Each subject was fitted with an electrode-studded skullcap to monitor brain activity and exposed to different digital, 3D environments through a head-mounted stereoscopic visor or projections on a large screen.
Blanke and his colleagues then perturbed the most fundamental aspects of consciousness in their subjects, such as “Where am I localized in space” and “What is my body?” by physically touching their real-life volunteers either in or out of sync with the avatar. They even swapped perspectives from first to third person and put their male subjects inside female avatars, all the while measuring the change in brain activity. Use of electrical brain signals meant subjects could stand, move their heads, and (in the most recent experiments) walk with the VR on. Other techniques such as fMRI would have required them to remain still.
Read in Full: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216860.php
Feb
22
The Guardian Monday 21 February 2011
When Tate Modern opened, it shouted inclusivity. Now it makes my disabled daughter enter through the back door
There’s a major cultural institution my family can only enter through the back door. We pass buckets of cleaning materials, staff health and safety notices and piles of cardboard boxes. We’re checked in to the building at the same desk at which a stationary package arrives, and are handled as if we were one. This place is Tate Modern. And my family have been relegated to accessing this high-minded cultural institution through the tradesmen’s entrance because my daughter is disabled.
We used to be able to enter by the same door as every other visitor. But when work on the Tate’s £215m extension began last year, overnight all the disabled parking bays were removed. Instead, if there’s room, disabled visitors and their families can park at the rear and use the staff entrance. If, like my family and many other disabled people, you can’t use public transport, this is your only option.
When Tate Modern opened 10 years ago, the disabled community cheered. Here was a building of national and international significance whose entry was a whopping great ramp. No other building of such importance shouted inclusion quite as loudly.
It’s particularly disappointing when that same building lets us know families like mine don’t matter. In another place, when one section of society was condemned to a different, less attractive, unseen entrance it was called apartheid.
Tate Modern isn’t the only cultural powerhouse to treat its disabled visitors differently. The National Gallery boasted that it was lowering some of its collection, “enabling visitors in wheelchairs to examine the paintings at close distance”. Just three of the gallery’s 2,300 works were lowered – Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Constable’s The Hay Wain and Monet’s The Gare St-Lazare – and for one night only, just two and a half hours, which had to be booked in advance. By the next morning, these iconic paintings were at full height again – inaccessible, along with 2,297 others.
Read in Full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/21/disability-galleries-theatres-access-tate
February 19th, 2011 4:31 am CT
Valuable marketable and specialized training for talented adults on the autism spectrum is available. Co-founders of the nonPareil Institute, Dan Selec and Gary Moore, discovered that current limited and under funded programs fell short in the effort to bring quality of life to the ASD adult. Both men have sons on the spectrum and not wanting their own children to settle for sub-standard existences on welfare or be forced into low paying, unfulfilling positions, they knew they wanted to make a difference. www.npitx.org
Recognizing that ASD people of all ages gravitate toward technology and seem to possess unique and superior technical abilities, and since both men had experience in the industry, they decided to put it to use. Using 3D tools to create, edit and customize content used in PC based games and on the iPhone and iPad, they realized they could empower ASD adults to a field of employment that is in high demand, spurring them on to meaningful lives. Initially they tested a workable model in Dan Selec’s home.
As the institute grew, more space was needed and the founders accepted an invitation to move their model to SMU’s Plano campus. The training, designed to provide technical and job skills, is designed specifically for the individual with ASD. The monthly cost is $500 per student, a necessary concession for the institute to grow. They are currently looking for a 10,000 square foot facility to expand the operation to include approximately 200 people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqth4u-dJ5k&feature=player_embedded
Read in Full: http://www.examiner.com/special-education-in-garland/autism-and-asperger-s-hope-for-employment-part-2-2
First Published February 15, 2011
By April Scarlett, Special Writer
As a teacher’s assistant pointed to a pictured animal pattern on the bulletin board, a small group of special education preschoolers followed along, “pig, pig, monkey; pig, pig, monkey.”
The teacher then asked, “pig, pig, and what comes next?”
The children shouted out their answers. This kind of group interaction is something Taylor Parrish couldn’t have done a year ago. Teachers and family now know that it wasn’t because Taylor didn’t know the answer — it was just that he couldn’t communicate it verbally.
Taylor was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was 2 years old. Until recently, no one really knew what Taylor could do or the capacity of what he has been learning.
The pattern lesson switched to numbers. The assistant asked, “What number comes after the number six?” Some of the kids paused — and among the quiet — an electronic voice could be heard, insistently over and over again, “seven, seven, seven, seven, seven.” The answer was coming from the speaker of an iPad, held by Taylor, who was excited and a little impatient to be the first one to answer correctly.
Nicole Phelps is Taylor’s ECSC teacher at Pleasant Ridge Elementary School in Saline.
“We were so excited!” she said, describing the day she introduced the iPad to Taylor.
With a special voice-activated application installed on the iPad, it didn’t take long to figure out just what Taylor had been keeping inside.
“He knew his colors, shapes, letters and could count,” Phelps said. “We always knew he was bright, but had no idea how much he has been learning.”
Before the iPad, it had been very difficult to assess exactly what Taylor was retaining. He could point, or make minimal audible sounds, but otherwise really struggled to communicate. Suddenly, with the iPad — and an application supplied through the Saline Area Schools Instructional Technology Department — not only did Taylor have a voice, but he had an opinion.
For example, for a snack, the speaker could say, “I want yogurt” versus something else. Turns out yogurt is Taylor’s favorite food, and was one of the keys to figuring out his diagnosis.
Read in Full:
By Victoria Corbett
February 21, 2011
A couple have won an apology from social workers after suffering an “awful†investigation over allegations from a school they say had been mistreating their son.
A mother and father, who have asked to remain anonymous, complained about the care their son was receiving at The Coombes Primary School only to have social services contact them over counter-allegations.
Wokingham Borough Council has since apologised and told the family there was an “insufficient†investigation into their claims about what had happened at The Coombes, which last year received an inadequate judgement from Ofsted over pupil health and safety issues.
An investigation into the treatment of the family by the council has reached stage three, which will see a panel investigate the family’s complaints.
Two investigations conducted internally and by an independent investigator have upheld or partially upheld most of the father’s nine key complaints. The report on the second stage investigation urges the council to pay compensation for time wasted and distress caused.
Following the conclusion of the latest investigation, the council apologised to the family and has offered some compensation for time wasted by social workers failing to meet appointments.
The family’s troubles began in January last year when they complained about the treatment their child, who is autistic, had allegedly been receiving at The Coombes.
The family says the boy was carried around by staff by his hands and feet and that he was repeatedly left alone in a store room without any work.
The father said: “I understand teachers may need to restrain a child if they present a risk of hurting themselves or others, however these incidents were never reported back to me.”
The father says the school failed to respond satisfactorily to his complaints and calls for an investigation, which led him to contact social services at Wokingham.
Investigators have since upheld the family’s complaint about social services and its lack of investigation into the Coombes School complaints.
His frustrations led him to withdraw the child from the school and the boy has since started attending a different school in the borough.
Following this, the Arborfield school reported the family over allegations about the boy’s home life, however an investigation by police and social workers ruled there were no child protection issues.
The father said: “To get a phone call saying your family is being investigated, that was very disturbing and unnerving. I didn’t sleep for three days.”
A social worker investigated the claims and wrote a report without a visit to the family home.
The father said: “We said this was a blatant attempt to distract from what was really going on.”
The second stage investigation found there were “major weaknesses†in social services and communication with the family, as well as criticising the core assessment report from the social worker, labelling it “biased and misleadingâ€.
Wokingham council’s safeguarding team received an ‘inadequate’ judgement from Ofsted two years ago, however the department has since made progress with an improvement action plan, as has The Coombes School.
Read in Full:
Sex and Morality: A Debate Between Competing Neurons
Boomerang! The short story of a divorce, reconciliation, and remarriage
Staring out the window I cannot place my unrest and unease. After the years of doubt, turmoil, and the agonizing months leading up to it, I had wanted this divorce, and imagined that once it was enacted things would get easier, lighter, more fun…that I’d be happy.
As I stare into the dark night, I recall how I’d entertained doubts about my compatibility and chemistry with my ex-husband (we’ll call him Sam). On our first few dates more than fifteen years earlier, I’d known instinctively that with him there would be a real family, and bedrock of trust the likes of which I had never known. I’d fallen in love with the surefooted, devoted, adult way he’d loved me. But by the time of our divorce fifteen years later, our story didn’t sound so sweet. It had changed drastically to something more like this: We only stayed together back then because we were both young and naïve. We didn’t really know what we wanted. It felt safe, but not in a healthy way. Qualms that had surfaced over the long course of our partnership had catastrophically overturned our experience of our own reality. But I don’t realize this yet.
Instead, tonight, the dark outside mirrors a black sense of dread in my heart. Because tonight I’m finally starting to ask questions.
Right now, kneeling here, I have to believe that the doubts were true. My whole life and the lives of my children have changed because I believed those doubts: That we had serious problems in our marriage. That we no longer loved each other “like that.” That it was time to move on because we weren’t compatible and couldn’t find joy together. Yet for fifteen years we’d we strode forward together. We’d made substantial careers for ourselves, visited our families, had dates, made good food and friends, moved across the country twice, bought houses, took trips, had beautiful children.
Read in Full:
Stepfamily, Blended Family, Remarried Family or Married with Baggage Family?
What do you call yourselves?
What do you call the person who is married to your parent?
How do you refer to your spouse’s children?
What you call yourselves affects the way that you relate to others in your family.
Think about it. The term, “stepfamily†tends to have negative or evil connotations. How would you describe one of the most famous stepfamilies … Cinderella’s family? Most people automatically think of wicked stepmothers and stepsisters.
The term “blended family†has problems of its own. The dictionary definition of blending is “to create a harmonious effect or result†and in many remarried families, harmony might not be noticed very often at all! It is extremely difficult for many families to “blendâ€. Relationships are complicated and feelings, history and loyalties make blending impossible for a large percentage of stepfamilies.
Remarried family numbers are growing. In a nationwide Pew research study released recently, 42 percent of 2,700 adults polled said that they had at least one step-relative. Three in 10 have stepsiblings or half-siblings, 18 percent have a living stepparent, and 13 percent have at least one stepchild.
More of these newly constituted families also come from single adults with children who had previous relationships but never married.
Unrealistic expectations are common.
Setting unrealistic expectations, which the idea of “blending†seems to do, invites family members to expect that everyone will get along, like, and maybe even love each other … and be as happy as the two adults who fell in love and married.
Read in Full:
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41781&cn=51
Men More Likely To Stick With Girlfriends Who Sleep With Other Women Than Other Men
Article Date: 30 Jan 2011 – 0:00 PST
Men are more than twice as likely to continue dating a girlfriend who has cheated on them with another woman than one who has cheated with another man, according to new research from a University of Texas at Austin psychologist.
Women show the opposite pattern. They are more likely to continue dating a man who has had a heterosexual affair than one who has had a homosexual affair.
The study, published last month in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, provides new insight into the psychological adaptations behind men’s desire for a variety of partners and women’s desire for a committed partner. These drives have played a key role in the evolution of human mating psychology.
“A robust jealousy mechanism is activated in men and women by different types of cues – those that threaten paternity in men and those that threaten abandonment in women,” says Jaime C. Confer, the study’s lead author and a doctoral candidate in evolutionary psychology.
Confer conducted the study with her father, Mark D. Cloud, a psychology professor at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania.
The researchers asked 700 college students to imagine they were in a committed romantic and sexual relationship with someone they’ve been dating for three months. They were then asked how they would respond to infidelity committed by the imagined partner.
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/215074.php
The Influence Of Parental Choice On Mate Guarding
Article Date: 03 Feb 2011 – 1:00 PST
Mate guarding is classified as excessive or unwarranted jealous or protective behavior towards a spouse or mate. This is common among many different species and can be useful to defend territory, guarantee paternity, or prevent disease. The authors of a new study published in Personal Relationships have discovered that this behavior is more common in societies which practice arranged marriages or in cultures that place a high value on parental influence in the choice of mate for their children. Furthermore, the authors comment on the fact that mate guarding is not an exclusively male phenomenon, and women can be just as forceful in protecting their monogamous relationships.
In many cultures, rules, behavioral practices, and physical measures, including veiling and walled courtyards, have been applied to prevent contact between women and potential sexual partners. The current findings indicate that the occurrence of mate guarding is more prevalent in Muslim, Indian, Chinese, Turkish, Moroccan, and South Asian societies.
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/215466.php
Can Genetics Influence Romance?
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on January 14, 2011
A new laboratory study on fruit flies may lead to a new way of looking at social behavior.
Texas A&M scientists believe the discovery that certain genes become activated in fruit flies when they interact with the opposite sex can change the way human dating and courtships are viewed.
Their research shows that our romantic courtship behaviors may be far more influenced by genetics than previously thought.
In addition, understanding why and how these genes become activated within social contexts may also lead to future insights into disorders such as autism.
“Be careful who you interact with,†said Ginger E. Carney, Ph.D. “The choice may affect your physiology, behavior and health in unexpected ways.”
To make this discovery, the scientists compared gene expression profiles in males that courted females, males that interacted with other males, and males that did not interact with other flies. The investigators identified a common set of genes that respond to the presence of either sex.
Read in Full:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/01/13/can-genetics-influence-romance/22641.html
Marriage Good For Men Physically And Women Mentally, Both Live Longer
Editor’s Choice
Article Date: 29 Jan 2011 – 9:00 PST
Marriage does not only increase male and female longevity, but also tends to benefit wives mentally and husbands physically, researchers from Cardiff University, Wales, wrote in the BMJ (British Medical Journal. The authors include both the “smug marrieds” and those in long-term committed relationships.
Authors David Gallacher and John Gallacher wrote:
“. . . on balance, it is probably worth making the effort.”
The authors believe males benefit from long-term stable relationships because their lifestyles are conducive to better health, compared to other men, and. . . . :
“. . . . the mental bonus for women may be due to a greater emphasis on the importance of the relationship.”
True love does not necessarily run smoothly in all cases, the authors added, relationships during the teen years are linked to a greater risk of adolescent depressive symptoms, this improves as people get older.
18 to 25 year olds tend to enjoy better mental but not physical health if they are in a romantic relationship.
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/215132.php
Double-Dating Improves Romance
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 11, 2011
To get out of a romantic rut, a new study by a Wayne State University professor recommends that dating couples to integrate other couples into their social circle.
Richard B. Slatcher, Ph.D., found that couples that spend quality time with other couples are more likely to have happy and satisfying romantic relationships.
His study, “When Harry and Sally met Dick and Jane: Experimentally creating closeness between couples,†which recently appeared in Personal Relationships, investigated 60 dating couples in a controlled laboratory setting.
The study looked at how friendships between couples are formed, and how these friendships affected each couple’s romantic relationship.
Each couple was paired with another couple and given a set of questions to discuss as a group. Half of the groups were given high-disclosure questions intended to spark intense discussion, while the other half were given small-talk questions that focused on everyday, unemotional activities.
Read in Full:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/02/11/double-dating-improves-romance/23418.html
The Science of Romance: The Love Drug
On the comment box of my post “The Emotional Affair,†Beyond Blue reader Michael wrote:
I’m totally confused and caught up in this person. Some years go by without us speaking, but we always come back to each other. Convenience, you say, or possibly hoping for the best. I don’t now. The problem is that I’m hopelessly in love with this person and willing to give up all in every way there needs. But relationships are severely limited. You can justify anything in this world, especially the things you want most. The feeling of love is exceedingly strong and seductive, as is the feeling to be needed and to be loved. So I search spiritually, mentally …
If you read all the comments on the affair post and others like “12 Ways to End Addictive Relationships,†you might curse God for creating romance. After all, it’s like a drug (quite literally with all the dopamine and oxytocin that infatuation dumps into our systems) that drives us to do crazy things, like drive across the country in diapers (remember… the astronaut?).
Because I’ve read so many tales of heartaches from Beyond Blue readers, and I want to know what, if anything, I should say, I studied Time Magazine’s special issue awhile back on love and chemistry. The science of romance is fascinating to me because for some susceptible people, the rush involved in new love mimics a good buzz from drugs. Addiction is born very easily in the body of a person who craves the ecstasy created by elevated levels of dopamine and oxytocin in our blood.
Let me excerpt some important paragraphs from Jeffrey Kluger’s article “Why We Love†for people like Michael so he can learn about the different places inside our brains those idealizations and love fantasies make and how they infect his blood with potentially dangerous chemicals:
Read More:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/11/the-science-of-romance-the-love-drug/
Racial Divide for Online Dating?
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 14, 2011
On-line dating appears to be as segregated as the real world, say researchers from the University of California, Berkeley.
Researchers gathered information from more than 1 million profiles of singles looking for love online.
They learned that whites overwhelmingly prefer to date members of their own race, while blacks, especially men, are far more likely to cross the race barrier.
The Berkeley scientists analyzed the racial preferences and online activity of people from the United States who subscribed between 2009 and 2010 to a major Internet dating service.
In their profiles, the online daters stated a racial preference. Some said they preferred to date only within their race, others preferred someone outside their race, and yet others said they were open to dating someone of any race.
Researchers were then able to compare the online daters’ stated preferences with whom they actually contacted for a date, and they found profound differences between blacks and whites.
“Those who said they were indifferent to the race of a partner were most likely to be young, male and black,†said Dr. Gerald Mendelsohn, lead lead author of the study, which will soon be submitted for publication.
Overall, he said, “Whites more than blacks, women more than men and old more than young participants stated a preference for a partner of the same race.”
Read in Full:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/02/14/racial-divide-for-online-dating/23469.html
If Your Romantic Partner Recovers Well From Conflict, You Reap The Benefit: New University Of Minnesota Study
Article Date: 14 Feb 2011 – 2:00 PST
People searching for fulfilling and stable romantic relationships should look for a romantic partner who recovers from conflict well. Yes, it turns out that if your romantic partner recoups well after the two of you have a spat, you reap the benefits, according to results of a new study by the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development’s Institute of Child Development.
The research looks at how people recover or come down after a conflict with their romantic partner, said Jessica Salvatore, the lead researcher in the study “Recovering From Conflict in Romantic Relationships: A Developmental Perspective.” The article is set to appear in the journal Psychological Science, and has been released online. Co-authors of the study are university researchers Sally Kuo, Ryan Steele, Jeffry Simpson and W. Andrew Collins.
Salvatore and her colleagues’ research digs into a new area. In the past, marriage researchers have focused on how people resolve conflicts, but they never looked at what happens after the conflict ends and how people recover, Salvatore said.
“What we show is that recovering from conflict well predicts higher satisfaction and more favorable relationship perceptions. You perceive the relationship more positively,” Salvatore said.
The interesting finding is that you don’t have to be the one who recovers well to benefit.
“If I’m good at recovering from conflict, my husband will benefit and be more satisfied with our relationship,” Salvatore said.
The study’s participants were 73 young adults who have been studied since birth and their romantic partners.
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216388.php
Couples In The UK Are Happy In Their Relationship, Study
Article Date: 15 Feb 2011 – 3:00 PST
Whether you are married or cohabiting with your partner, the vast majority of couples in the UK are happy in their relationship. Initial findings from Understanding Society show that around 90 percent of individuals who are living with a partner are happy with their relationship.
Researchers at the Institute for Social and Economic Research asked both individuals in the couple to rate their happiness on a seven point scale; from the lowest score of ‘extremely unhappy’ to the middle point of ‘happy’, the highest point being ‘perfect’. The self-reported happiness rating revealed that 90 percent of married women and 88 percent of cohabiting women are happy in their relationships. Ninety-three percent of married men and 92 percent of cohabiting men said they were happy in their relationship.
The findings indicate the happiest couples are those in which both are educated to degree level, have no children, have been together for less than five years and the man is employed. Factors such as being married or cohabiting, age of the individuals and duration of the partnership all have an effect on the level of happiness in a relationship.
Professor John Ermisch, one of the authors of a book due to be published later this month that showcases a range of findings from the survey, commented: “Understanding Society has opened up many new avenues of research in studying both marriage and family life across the UK’s population and will continue to do so over the years to come.”
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216513.php
A Story of Healing from Infidelity
In continuing my work to share stories of couples who sit on my couch, it is my goal to provide hope and encouragement out there to those who are struggling in their marriage.
Infidelity is one of the most painful and difficult challenges for a couple to work through because it pulls the floor of safety and security right out from under you. But the marriage can be restored. In fact, it can be better than before. It’s been said that time heals all wounds. When it comes to infidelity, time is certainly a factor, but it’s not the only one. There is work to be done in that time to restore trust, emotional safety and connection to the relationship. Time alone won’t solve those problems.
This story is about a young couple I’ll call Tom and Suzanne (fictitious names, of course). Suzanne had lost her father at a young age which left her feeling abandoned. She grew up never having felt “good enough”. When she married Tom, she had a lot of insecurities and needed a lot of approval. Because of this she avoided conflict like the plague. She was afraid if Tom got upset with her, he would abandon her. He would see the qualities that she saw in herself and he would not want to be with her any longer. Because of this fear, she manipulated herself to please him, never really being authentic. As some years past, she felt a loss of her sense of self.
Along came an older, attractive co-worker who showed her a lot of positive attention. With him she could really be herself because there was no fear of loss. With him she didn’t have anything, so she had nothing to lose and in that, she felt free. The relationship progressed into a physical affair.
In counseling, along with healing from the affair and rebuilding trust, Suzanne had to do a lot of individual work to understand her pain and fear and how it created problems in her relationship.
Read in Full:
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=42074&cn=289
Friday 18th February, 2011.
FILM stammerer Michael Palin has met six youngsters being treated for the condition as part of a new BBC1 show.
Michael, 67, played speech-impaired Ken Pile in the 1988 comedy A Fish Called Wanda.
And after meeting the children for My Life: Stammer School, to be aired next Saturday, the Monty Python star said: “My father had a very severe stammer.
“His life might have been so different if he had had this therapy.”
On the kids, he added: “If children can leave here with their stammer reduced and confidence restored, it’s the best feeling you can have.”
Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/3418438/Michael-Palins-a-class-act-at-talking.html
Feb
18
