Dr. Deborah McNally, Clinical Psychologist

2013-04-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

SETTING LIMITS AS A BUILDING BLOCK OF SELF-ESTEEM

Deborah J. McNally, Psy.D.

Parents often feel reluctant, disinclined or even unwilling to set limits for their children. They feel guilty. They don’t want to be too harsh. Or sometimes they just don’t have time to establish and enforce a limit, and decide to just let it go or even give in to their child’s demands.

Furthermore, limit setting is taxing on parents. Sometimes it’s difficult to think about what an appropriate limit is. Parents can feel they are being too harsh or, worse yet, hurting their child’s feelings or emotional development. Parents may not know why limits are important. Understanding the importance and value of setting limits with their children, can help them feel confident in doing so.

So why set limits? Yes, limits control behavior in the here and now. But what else do they accomplish?

First, let’s take a look at exactly what are limits.

A limit establishes a behavior as unacceptable. A limit could be a simple “No” when a child does something he should not like throwing a bottle of water on the carpet or reaching to touch a hot stove. Sometimes “No” is not enough to curb the existent behavior or there is a continued pattern in which the child repeats the behavior. For example, whenever the parent turns her back, the toddler tries to hit his baby sister. This might require a different kind of limit, i.e., a consequence for hitting his baby sister. A “Time Out” such as sitting on the stairs for 2 minutes would be an appropriate consequence for a toddler in this circumstance.

But what are these limits really accomplishing? And why should a parent feel confident about setting appropriate limits with their child?

1. A limit controls a child’s behavior in the here and now. It stops him from touching a hot stove or throwing his food on the floor or hitting his sister.

2. Limits help to socialize a child. Establishing limits is a form of teaching your child the proper behavior that will allow him/her to function well in society according to societal norms and expectations.

3. Limits serve to habitualize the behavior. It makes the desired behavior a habit and it minimizes or extinguishes the unwanted or inappropriate behavior.

4. Limits helps develop self-regulation and internalization. The child begins to internalize these limits meaning he/she incorporates them as an attitude, value, norm or behavior into one’s own identity and sense of self. The limits provide a necessary structure which then creates an internalized structure for the child by which he learns to control his own impulses and resulting behavior (soon the toddler no longer hits his baby sister). This begins the development of self-regulation. Self-regulation or self modulation is the skill of being able to control one’s behavior and one’s emotion.

5. Therefore, good limits are a building block of self esteem which is the individual’s own evaluation of his/her self-worth. All children want to please their parents. Pleasing their parents along with being able to exert control over themselves provide a sense of self-control, mastery and behaving in the way parents approve of. It is an achievement of control over one’s behavior. This all builds a child’s sense of self worth. It creates a positive feeling in the youngest of children and as they develop it creates a more complex feeling of “I can do this! I can act in accordance with my parents wishes. And I can exert control over myself” Many of these behaviors become routinized (internalized) for the child and the sense of self worth grows accordingly.

Setting limits is an extremely important part of parenting. It helps control behavior in the here and now as well as teach children self-regulation and appropriate ways to function successfully in the world as part of the development of a positive sense of themselves.

2013-04-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

2012-07-30T09:43:00.002-07:00

This is a thoughtful piece on anger and it's expression. While it is often thought that expressing anger is the best for commuication and personal health, in fact it is quite the opposite.

Beat anger by imagining you're a fly on the wall

Anger is "the elephant in the room in mental health" according to The Mental Health Foundation. In a survey they conducted in 2008, a third of respondents said they knew someone with an anger problem. Anger is often made worse by misguided folk wisdom that says it's a good idea to reflect on your feelings and vent them. In fact, past research has shown that ruminating and venting anger make it worse.

A new study tests the idea that anger can be dissipated by mentally distancing oneself from the situation - as if viewing proceedings from the perspective of a fly on the wall. There's evidence that this is beneficial, but before now this was derived from studies that merely asked people to imagine frustrating scenarios. Now Dominik Mischkowski and his colleagues have ramped up the realism levels, deliberately winding up their participants in the lab.

Ninety-four undergrads signed up for what they thought was an investigation into the effects of music on problem solving and creativity. They listened to some intense classical music and attempted to solve a series of anagrams against the clock. Part of the procedure involved them reading back the correct answer to the researchers over an intercom. This is where the wind up began - the experimenter repeatedly said that they weren't speaking loudly enough. After the twelfth anagram he went as far as saying "Look this is the third time I have to say this! Can't you follow directions? Speak louder!"

Immediately after the wind up, the participants were told a second experiment (on the effects of music on feelings) required that they reflect on the previous anagram task - either seeing the situation unfold again through their own eyes, or as if they were watching the situation from a distance, "as if it were happening to the distant to you all over again." A third of the participants acted as controls and were told to reflect on the anagram task without any specific instructions. Afterwards, all the participants rated their anger levels. The key finding was that the participants in the distancing condition reported feeling less angry and having fewer aggressive thoughts compared with participants in the self-immersion and control conditions.

A second study was similar but this time a new set of participants were given the chance to actually vent their anger. After the wind up and the reflection phase (from a distance vs. immersed in their own perspective) the participants were invited to take part in a competitive anagram task with a partner located in another room. Part of this involved the chance to blast their opponent with loud noise when he/she got answers wrong - taken as a sign of aggressive behaviour. The important result here - participants who reflected on the initial, frustrating anagram task as if from the perspective of a fly on the wall showed less aggression compared with the other participants.

Mischkowski and his team said their findings showed "how people can neutralize aggression while focusing on their emotions and the situation at hand—by adopting a self-distanced perspective." They added that this is important given that distraction is often not possible in real life situations, for example when it's necessary to carry on interacting with the provocateur.

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Dominik Mischkowskia, Ethan Kross, and Brad J. Bushmana (2012). Flies on the wall are less aggressive: Self-distancing “in the heat of the moment” reduces aggressive thoughts, angry feelings and aggressive behaviour. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.03.012

Post written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Shoes! What do they say about you!

2012-06-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

What your choice of shoe says about you

by Christian Jarrett

When you meet a stranger, look at his shoes (from Good Advices by REM)

The UK's fashionistas are abuzz after the Duchess of Cambridge was pictured at the weekend sporting a £300 pair of Le Chameau wellington boots. Does her shoe choice tell us anything about her? In a culture where so much attention is paid to the material we strap to our feet, a new study asks this very question more generally - how is shoe choice associated with personality and what assumptions do onlookers make about people based on their shoes?

The new research builds on an existing literature that's shown we form impressions of strangers incredibly quickly, discerning a surprising amount of information about their sexuality, background and personality. However, much of the past research on these thin-slicing abilities has involved participants looking at the faces of strangers, not their shoes.

Omri Gillath started by getting 208 undergrads (aged 18 to 55) to fill out numerous questionnaires about their personality and background, as well as submitting a photograph of "the pair of shoes they wear most often." Next, a separate group of 63 undergrads each looked at a sample of these shoes and gave their best guess as to the personality and background of the wearers.

The participants in the role of observer tended to agree with each other in their judgments, suggesting that we make consistent assumptions about wearers based on their shoes, regardless of whether those assumptions are accurate or not.

In decreasing order, observers were most accurate in identifying the shoe-wearers': age, gender, income, attachment anxiety (as measured by the wearers' agreement with statements like "I worry that romantic partners won't care about me as much as I care about them") and their agreeableness. Observers were unsuccessful at identifying other aspects of personality such as political ideology, extraversion and conscientiousness, despite tending to agree with each other in their ratings of these traits.

So what cues did the observers use to make their judgments? First off, let's look at some of their mistakes. The observers assumed that colourful and bright shoes belonged to an extravert person. In fact, the only shoe characteristics that correlated with wearers' extraversion were being worn out and being of greater height (the top part, rather than the heel). Observers thought that attractive shoes in a good condition probably belonged to a conscientious person. In fact, the only relevant factors here were that conscientious people tended to have higher-topped shoes and to photograph them against a colourful background. And they assumed wrongly that less attractiveness shoes, with less pointy toes, in relatively poor repair, and low value price, probably belonged to someone with liberal political views. In fact there were no significant associations between political ideology and choice of shoe.

On the other hand, the observers discerned correctly that more agreeable people tended to wear shoes that were practical and affordable (pointy toes, price and brand visibility were negatively correlated with agreeableness); that anxiously attached people tended to wear shoes that look brand new and in good repair (perhaps in an attempt to make a good impression and avoid rejection); that wealthier people wear more stylish shoes; and that women wear more expensive-looking, branded shoes.

The study is obviously limited by its use of a narrow sample of Western university students. The assumptions observers make from shoes could be completely different in another culture, as could the links between shoe features and the traits of wearers. Another shortcoming is the reliance on the self-report ratings of the shoe wearers. Perhaps, for some of the personality factors, the observers were "seeing through" the shoe wearers' idealised selves. "Do people buy and wear shoes strategically to portray an image, and can observers detect the 'acquired image'?" the researchers asked. "These are fundamental questions in personality and social psychology, and they play out in many domains - shoes are merely one attractive alternative to research."
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Omri Gillatha, Angela J. Bahnsb, Fiona Gea, & Christian S. Crandalla (2012). Shoes as a source of first impressions. Journal of Research in Personality DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2012.04.003

Character

2011-05-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

Psychology Today has an interesting article in this month's edition called "Six Clues to Character." It not only gives "clues" to help figure out if someone has character but also helps define what the attributes of character are. These are probably things you knew all along but never quite articulated in this way.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201104/6-clues-character

The Limits of Antidepressants

2010-10-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

This is an article written on the limits of antidepressants with suggestions for alternatives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com//christiane-northrup/the-limits-of-antidepress_b_654966.html

More on forgiveness

2010-10-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

"When you forgive, you in no way change the past, but you sure do change the future"

.....attributed to Bernard Meltzer

Forgiving vs. Forgetting

2010-09-26T06:17:00.000-07:00

When you have been hurt or betrayed by someone close to you, forgiveness is not an easy thing. And yet, people encourage you to forgive. And, at some point, the realization comes that without forgiveness you are unable to repair the relationship and you find yourself preoccupied with anger. Below is a link to a good article written by Dr. Pauline Wallin on the reasons to forgive and some tips on how to accomplish it.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/14965986/Forgiveness-A-Healing-Choice

Why We Need a "Practical Psychoanalysis"

2010-09-11T14:49:00.000-07:00

"Why We Need a Practical Psychoanalysis by Michael Bader, D.M.H. Published on The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bader-dmh/why-we-need-a-practical-p_b_682183.html

The Meaning of Dreams by Heather Catchpole

2010-09-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

"The Meaning of Dreams" on the ABC Science website on August 16, 2010.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/08/16/2984272.htm

New Testing will Make Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease

2010-07-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

This is a New York Times article about using brain scans for early detection of Alzheimer's Disease. This will increase the number of people with the diagnosis two to threefold. Is this a good thing? Or is it better not to have an early diagnosis? See what you think.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/health/policy/14alzheimer.html?hp

Quote for the Day

2010-05-20T04:46:00.000-07:00

"In the course of our lifetime, our personalities are to be transformed and reorganized in such a way that the Ego with its ambitions and goals is no longer the main reference point. Indeed, the guiding element in our personality is to be the will of God, which in psychological language, we call the Self or Center."-John Sanford

I'm Blogging for Mental Health-May 18, 2010

2010-05-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

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What is Good Psychotherapy?

2010-04-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

Below is an article by Dr. Marlene Maheu, editor of Self Help Magazine, an internet magazine written by licensed professionals who "bring you the science of psychology" (see Interesting and Helpful Links to the right).

I am posting the entire article here because it is a very good synopsis of what psychotherapy is. It gives the reader some ideas of what to expect will happen in a "good" psychotherapy. Generally, unless someone has had previous experience with psychotherapy or has had a close friend or family member who has, it's a mystery. One doesn't know what to expect and, therefore, how to judge whether what is happening is typical and will be helpful. Because therapy is a process and results are not immediate, it is often very difficult to judge whether what is happening is appropriate and whether, in the end, it will be helpful. I think Dr. Maheu does a good job of talking about what to expect and why.

How to Pick a Good Psychotherapist – Part I: What is Good Psychotherapy?

Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 by Dr. Maheu in DR. MAHEU, Online Counseling, Online Counselor, Online Therapist, Online Therapy

Someone commented on one of my blog posts about bad therapists today, and got me writing It's a few hours later, and I'm still enjoying myself, so here goes!

I'm writing this in part because the average person doesn't get exposed to plain information about what happens in psychotherapy.Â People don't generally even know the difference between psychotherapy and psychiatry, let alone what to expect once they get there.

Once started, new clients are often broadsided by their feelings and don't know what's going on. When they ask their therapists what's happening, the explanation can cost them a few hours of therapy time, thereby delaying the goal the client was seeking, a solution to problem X. It's often needlessly frustrating for both the client and therapist.

Here's a synopsis of my view of good psychotherapy, based on over 30 years of being a mental health practitioner of various types:

Depending on the orientation of the therapist and whatever problem you are experiencing or questions you have, in the normal course of your psychotherapy, you will develop a relationship with that therapist.

Some schools of psychotherapy teach therapists to examine their relationship with you for clues that can shed extremely valuable insight into what happens for you in the outside world, your experiences, and your expectations. Other schools of psychotherapy do not teach that and think it is irrelevant.

Regardless, in that relationship with the therapist, if that therapist becomes important to you, you can expect to re-experience the range of emotions you have felt toward the most significant people in your life, such as your parents, other authority figures and lovers.

That's why some therapies will ask you to talk about those relationships. They have direct bearing on how you have learned to understand people and what to expect from them.

You might think about it this way:

If you grew up in an very huggy southern or middle European family, you would expect everyone to know your business and have lots of skills for how to deal with people putting their noses in your private affairs. But if you grew up in northern Europe, like Scandinavia, you would most likely not likely enjoy having people's hands on you or their noses in your personal life.

And now suddenly, as an adult, you have to deal with people from all sorts of backgrounds who have even more ways of interacting with you – some huggy, some nosy, some aloof, some who tease, some who relate by competing, some who want to know everything about you and other who just want you for your opinion of how they look.

Then when you can't stand your wife, or your co-worker makes a pass at you and you go for it despite your marriage; or your child dies; or you have a drink too many and hit a teenage on the side of the road at night by the beach, or your sister has cancer, or you might have trouble finding a husband, or you are eating, drinking, drugging, spending, gambling, or having sex out of control. You might not know how to deal with it and don't want to talk to your parents or other people about it. You want a trained expert. Your world is topsy turvy and you want someone to lean on for a while, someone to give you direction and perspective.

Those are the kinds of problems that most people go to therapy to resolve.

Well, because therapists are people, most clients find themself having strong feelings toward their therapist. If you consider the range of emotions that you felt toward your parents or spouse, you know that anger, resentment, jealousy, hatred, revenge or love, lust, infatuation, delight, security, belonging, fear … are all part of the normal ebb and flow of feelings in any normal and healthy relationship.

You can expect that at least some of not all those feelings will surface in a strong therapy. When people get stuck in overly negative or positive feeling states, the task of the therapist is to try and teach the person how to have proper boundaries, hang onto the relationship and weather the intense emotions that surface.

If the clients weather these storms, the results are typically intense emotional breakthroughs that help the client deal with very strong emotions in the world, outside the therapy office.

This is the supreme goal of many therapies, regardless of the problem that brings people into treatment. The inability to identify, express and properly respond to our own strong emotions is, in my opinion, the most significant problem that most people have in our society, and the one that has directly leads to our divorce rate being over 50%.

However, if the client is seriously disturbed, cannot become truly attached to the therapist because of their own emotional baggage, or struggling with the chemical imbalances otherwise known as mental illnesses, they cannot properly attach emotionally, and will quit therapy for reasons they believe, but are in fact, inaccurate.

Or they will fall in love and lust, not be able to handle it. They might make a pass at the therapist or drop out of therapy. They might never stop running long enough to understand out why a relative stranger (the therapist) is triggering these intense feelings.

They won't stick around long enough to heal the old emotional wounds that may have more to do with their past than whatever the current therapist has done in that office. They might never get the medical treatment they need to bring their perceptions in line with reality.

After all, how many things can therapists do that are worthy of hatred, revenge, love or lust? We are so limited in our "allowed" behaviors that we just can't do that many things that deserve such intense emotions.

While it can happen that a therapist is just plain bad, or made a serious mistake, it is much more often the case that the client is caught up on the normal process of having a safe place to learn to experience their emotions, find words to express them and figure out how to move on with the other goals of their therapy (get on with life) rather than get stuck in those emotions.

The really sad thing is that our parents, teachers and friends are just as clueless about the real psychotherapy process as anyone else. Who is left to inform the public? Most psychotherapists don't write like I'm doing now. Most are people-people. (Some of us happen to like writing, too

Dr. Marlene

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/maheu/how-to-pick-a-good-psychotherapist-part-i-what-is-good-psychotherapy/

Developing Consciousness

2010-04-02T06:06:00.000-07:00

"Unless we engage in developing consciousness, we become what was done to us-or its opposite."

-Gregg Furth

Fear and it's Disguises

2010-03-31T09:19:00.000-07:00

I am reading a novel (Momento Mori by Muriel Spark)Search Amazon.com for Momento Mori and came across a passage about a new head nurse at a nursing home. All the nursing home residents felt was this new nurse mean. They were afraid of her. One morning this dialogue took place between two residents about the nurse:

"'But what's wrong with her?'
'Nothing,' said Miss Taylor, 'except that she is afraid of those old people.'
'She is afraid? I thought you said the patients were afraid of her.
'It comes to the same thing,' said Miss Taylor.'"

It got me to thinking about how fear comes disguised. In this instance it is disguised as meanness. It can be disguised as anger, arrogance, or aloofness. Sometimes, fear is disguised as withdrawal--withdrawal from another person or group of people. These are but a few of fear's many faces. There are others. All these behaviors are defensive reactions---they defend (protect) the individual from either showing his/her fear or most often of even experiencing his/her own fear So, the next time you see one of these behaviors in people, ask yourself if fear could be what is behind it.

When Anger is an Illness

2010-03-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

Below is an interesting article exploring the idea of anger management and whether or not it is a stand alone issue or is, rather, an indicator of some other underlying issue or diagnosis. The article covers both areas but the main idea here is that difficulty managing anger is not usually a stand alone issue but rather an indicator of other problems such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety. Anger can also be a defense against other feelings meaning that the person is more comfortable and finds it easier to express anger than, perhaps, sadness or fear. The bottom line is that while there is such a thing as Intermittent Explosive Disorder, don't assume that it is just a problem controlling anger. It could be an indicator of something else.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954904575109671604585094.html?mod=djemHL_t

COURAGE

2010-01-06T06:01:00.001-08:00

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

-- Ambrose Redmoon

What Happens in Psychotherapy?

2010-01-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

What happens in psychotherapy? How does it work?

Psychotherapy is a process. It is not like going to your internist, telling him/her what your symptoms are, taking the prescribed medication and then you're better. It is a process developed out of the relationship and connection established between the patient and the therapist. It is through this relationship that the patient and therapist work collaboratively to understand what is underlying the symptoms, issues, unhealthy patterns, and dissatisfaction. It is with this knowledge of what is underlying, that the process of change begins. This is the idea that "knowledge is power". Knowledge is the power to be used for the purpose of change. The therapist does not have the answers that are then given to you much like your internist prescribes you medication. But rather the therapist works together with you to discover what the answers are. The answers are found together. The therapeutic relationship that you and your therapist develop also becomes an important part of the healing process. While there are many factors that go into change and growth, this, in brief, is what happens in psychotherapy.

Quote for the Day

2010-01-04T06:32:00.003-08:00

"The aim of soul work is not adjustment to accepted norms or a statistical framework. The goal is a richly elaborated life connected to society and nature. The idea is not to be superficially adjusted, but to be profoundly connected in the heart." -Thomas Moore

2010-01-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

"The right way to wholeness is made up of fateful detours and wrong turnings." -C.G. Jung

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-03T07:26:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting essay in the Wall Street Journal by Jonathan Lehrer on willpower and it's limitations, "Blame it on the Brain". Among other things, he suggests that the best way to strengthen willpower is through self-awareness, i.e., through understanding what is creating the "flaw" in the willpower.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612052322122442.html

Is a medical illness causing your patient’s depression? — Current Psychiatry Online

2010-01-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

Is medical illness causing depression? This is always a consideration in diagnosing depression. Here is a good article on possible medical illnesses causing depression

Is a medical illness causing your patient’s depression? — Current Psychiatry Online

Why Psychotherapy?

2009-09-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

Why would you choose to begin psychotherapy?

The reasons one might want to begin psychotherapy are varied. It could be due to actual symptoms such as a general feeling of anxiety, or even panic, a sense of doom that comes and goes, panic attacks, symptoms of depression--crying for no reason, crying easily, difficulty concentration, sleeping excessively or not being able to sleep, irritability, angry outbursts, behaving in ways that you would ordinarily not or that seem unlike you. You could have obsessive thoughts or thoughts that keep playing in your mind but don't accomplish anything productive or move to some new conclusion.

Yet other reasons you might want to seek psychotherapy are that you have begun to notice patterns in your relationships in which you continue to repeat nonproductive behavior or choose the same types of people that are unhealthy for you. You may notice that you are not getting what you want out of life, don't feel like yourself, or find yourself unable to achieve your goals. You may feel that you are always trying to please people to the point that it is a detriment to yourself or that you cannot find or maintain your own voice in interactions with others.

Still other reasons you might enter psychotherapy may be due to certain life events that trouble you--recent divorce or break up, loss of a loved one due to death, recent diagnosis with a chronic illness such as cancer, diabetes, or an autoimmune disease Perhaps, you have had a recent miscarriage and are having trouble moving through and past it.

These are just some of the reasons one might want to begin psychotherapy. There are others-- too many to mention here-- but I hope this gives you an idea.