A moment of appreciation. Billy Collins' Litany by Samuel Schelpka

1 on 1 time Helps Protect Against Mental Health Concerns?

PsychCentral published a short article about a new study out showing that the 1 on 1 time you spend with your kiddos may be acting like a preventive measure, a vaccine of sorts, against future mental health concerns, specifically personality disorders.
All that individual attention lost to video games, texting, iPhoning may end up costing your child a more sound, individuated, stable personality formation.
Check out the article below.

Adult Interactions Protect Kids from Later Personality Disorders

By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 9, 2010

A new study discovers the interaction between a child and trusted adult while learning a hobby or some other complicated task appears to provide a protective effect for the youth’s mental health as they age.
Researchers say the interpersonal connection may help guard against the emergence of a personality disorder later on in life.
Spending time with a child by reading with them, helping with homework or teaching them organizational skills helps to foster better psychological health in adulthood.
“The strong interpersonal connectedness and social skills that children learn from having active, healthy engagements with adults fosters positive psychological development,” said lead study author Mark F. Lenzenweger, distinguished professor of clinical science, neuroscience and cognitive psychology at Binghamton University.
“With it, a child develops his or her affiliation system — their connection to the world of people. Without it, the way a child connects with other human beings can be severely impaired. And as I found out, it is this impairment that predicts the appearance of schizoid personality disorder symptoms in emerging adulthood and beyond.”
Lenzenweger says that the real importance of his findings is that it underscores the value of actively engaging a child during his or her formative years – which is particularly relevant in this age of day care, TV, videos, and web-based virtual reality games.
“Through a rich degree of proximal processes, or more simply put, interactions generally associated with a caring and strong interpersonal relationship, a significant adult — typically a parent but who could also be a caregiver or role model — can help a child to progress to a richer, more differentiated, and fuller psychological experience,” said Lenzenweger.
These relationships foster a willingness to engage with others, the psychological foundation of the human experience.
But for some PD sufferers, this willingness to connect with other people is markedly absent. Along with the question of why those connections weren’t happening, Lenzenweger asked an even more probing question: what happens when they do.
“For years, researchers have speculated whether elements in the environment could create or elevate risk for a personality disorder,” he said. “For example, childhood trauma has been seen as important.”
However, the critical wild card in all of this was genetic influences – our inherited tendencies that shape our psychological and behavioral responses to the kind of situations and stress that life constantly throws at us.
Could the experience of a rich proximal process in early life foster the development of a strong affiliation system and healthier personality adjustment in adulthood? Lenzenweger’s study suggests that this is indeed the case.
“Even when we factored in temperamental features such as anger, fear and distress, which are suggestive of a difficult or challenging child and which might make connecting with other people difficult, we still found that having a strong relationship with a significant adult has a huge impact on development,” said Lenzenweger.
“This means that the role of proximal processes in the development of the child did not simply mean that he or she was easy to relate to and therefore, the recipient of engaged attention of adults.”
By drawing data from his own Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders (LSPD) study, which began in 1991 and was the first of its kind funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, Lenzenweger was able to conduct a multiwave analysis that enabled him to use time as an important research lever.
By using the scientifically powerful multiwave approach to studying people over time, Lenzenweger’s LSPD is able to account for how individuals change during that period. He is also able to pinpoint what kind of elements are important in determining final outcomes in adulthood, particularly in respect to personality disorders.
According to Lenzenweger, not only is this study breaking new ground in personality disorder research, it also represents a sea change in research methods. Prior to the inception of the current study, previous studies had simply used test-retest methods — where people are studied once and then again at a later point.
Lenzenweger’s approach tracks subjects for a longer period of time and uses a range of measurements, which offers a better understanding of the link between childhood and adulthood. He plans to assess all of these subjects again in the next few years, tracking the group as they enter their late 30s.
Lenzenweger also hopes to secure genetic DNA data from all of the subjects to help further the understanding of the genetic factors that might be predictive of change and stability in personality and personality disorder over time. This kind of data collection would also be new to the study of PD, allowing Lenzenweger to once again probe uncharted territory in the field.
“This new approach, which would include genetics, will give us a much better idea of how subjects are doing as they encounter the complex things that happen further along in the course of life,” said Lenzenweger.
“This includes marriage, divorce, sickness, health, childbearing, career, unemployment, and economic challenges. A focus on these factors, both biological and social, will provide a clearer window on how personality and personality disorder changes across the lifespan, and give us a clearer insight into territory that remains largely unexplored.”
Findings are reported in the current issue of the journalDevelopment and Psychopathology.
Source: Binghamton University

NPR: Families Fight To Care For Disabled Kids At Home

A significant part of my work at Denver Options, a local non-profit, involves helping families understand what the system can offer them as their children turn 21. The flip side is what the system will no longer provide. The scales seem to tip toward the latter. This proves to be one of the most difficult aspects of my work with families. The resources we can provide to families are already few and far between. When we then tell them that things will get tougher and less will be available when their child turns 21, the effects on everyone involved can be dramatic. NPR aired a piece yesterday about one such family with a daughter facing this transition. It is far from comprehensive, but sheds light on a situation happening daily across the country. This piece illuminates the extraordinary costs, the immense and passionate love, the complexities of the public policy, and the enduring fight to find the best way to handle such delicate situations. I strongly encourage you to listen - it's inspiring, uplifting, challenging and eye-opening. And I welcome your comments. 

You can click the title below to be taken straight to the story's page:

Families Fight To Care For Disabled Kids At Home

by JOSEPH SHAPIRO, November 8, 2010

Seeds of Truth Sprout Gardens of Growth

Many of our arguments and disagreements erupt at the precise but indistinguishable moment when defensive posturing takes hold. I've written about it in the past, but the importance of that moment can't be underestimated. In that moment, we undermine our own interests for some low-value need to be right and defeat criticism. Being right doesn't win us much: we forgo understanding, intimacy, and partnership for momentary sense of victory. Victory over someone we don't even really want to defeat.

A better alternative can be pretty challenging, but endlessly rewarding. If we can avoid those, "No I didn't" moments and the "How can you say that when I just...", we can listen to our partner for helpful information, pieces of truth in otherwise tough-to-hear comments. What else do we want in that moment than to deflect the criticism and prove our partner wrong - remind him of those so many times I did exactly what you asked of me! Exactly what you accuse me now of never having done!

And then it all falls apart, and no one comes out the better. The truth is, there's a truth in there somewhere. If we can just step back, step out, let down our guard, and listen for what is useful, what is right in there, we can pick it up and grow it. Find something he said that makes sense, and use it to grow our understanding. Use it to foster partnership in our relationship. Grow collaboratively and learn how to make things better in the future. Even if we disagree, even where we saw it differently, or that perspective never even occurred to me! I can take a moment to see it from his point of view, understand how that felt to him, and do it differently it in the future.

Finding that seed of truth will reveal itself to be a treasure trove. It just takes a bit of humility and a release of the fear of criticism. It gives you a useful way to move forward, to get back to working together. It's an invitation out of the negativity. Take it and grow with it.

You can learn more about effective listening skills in "The Power of Two" by Susan Heitler and by calling me to schedule a session to build your communication skills and improve your partnership.

NPR StoryCorps - Another Great Piece

StoryCorps is regularly one of my favorite radio segments to listen to. I always feel like it's just the teaser, wishing they could just play the full recording.
They regularly move me; and this one really jumped out.
What do you think? Share your thoughts with me.

http://storycorps.org/listen/stories/showaye-selassie-and-her-friend-susan-greenfield/

And you can find their other wonderful segments, and find out how to record your own at their website here:

http://storycorps.org/

Speak about yourself, Ask about your partner, Reap the benefits.

The most frequent sign of poor communication habits I hear is something like, "My wife wants us to talk about..." Or, "I feel that my husband ignores me..."

The first phrase is a comment about the partner, using an assumption, and a cross-over: us. The speaker misses opportunities here to invite his wife to share with him, to express herself, and to support each other as individuals in partnership. Instead, he could ask, "What would you like us to discuss today?" Or, "What's on your mind today?"

The second phrase sneaks in because it sounds like it's a feeling, but it actually is a shrouded statement about the other. This partner could be more effective with a statement like, "I feel misunderstood when my husband..." Or, "When you don't let me explain myself, I feel dismissed and unimportant." Better yet, "When you're patient as I express my frustration, I feel validated and important."

So often, people make statements about other people - how they feel, how they behave, the impact this has on oneself. It is less often that I hear people make a statement about their own feelings and then ask their partner something like, "I felt overwhelmed in that conversation. What was your perception of that situation?" Or, "How did you feel when that happened? When he acts that way, I get agitated" "How would you have done that differently?" "How can I help you avoid that in the future?"

It may be easier, it may feel like second nature, it may be ingrained in us to state our perceptions and emotions as fact. This really just backfires on us. Our partners feel misheard, misunderstood, and overwhelmed when we do this. We're better served, even when we 'know' how they feel, to ask them. Let them share their version of events, their perceptions, their emotions and reactions. We can learn so much. And then, we can support them, let them know we've heard, and comfort them by just recognizing their experience.