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Wear and Tear Syndromes

2011-02-20T14:50:00.000-05:00

It is more accurate and less stigmatizing to identify the symptom clusters we each experience at some point as "wear and tear syndromes" rather than "psychological disorder" or "psychiatric illnesses." The brain is an organ just like the heart, liver, stomach, or lungs. We will be objects of curiousity to our great grandparents and great great grandparents as they wonder why we made such a big deal about wear and tear syndromes, were afraid to admit to experiencing such symptoms, petrified to take medicine or talk about things that bother us. For the time being, we will do our best to minimize the lunancy that characterizes the double standard between medical and psychological symptoms.

I encourage people to view their symptoms as manifestations of the wear and tear that invariably occur as we get older, deal with the daily hassles of life, and the things witnessed and performed on the job. Stress hormones can be nastly. There are approximately 35 different stress hormones, each released when we experience an "andrenaline burst" during near accidents and stressful calls. These hormones float around in our bodies for 36 hours after each release. These stress hormones create problems for every system in the body. Stress hormones impair our immune system functioning, throw our endocrine systems off kilter, and gravitate to the brain to disrupt all neurochemical and neuroanatomical functioning in the central nervous system. Think of stress hormones like little Pac-men gobbling up neurotransmitters that regulate our mood, energy, anxiety, sex drive, etc.

Wear and tear syndromes are unavoidable. It's time to call them what they are and stop making a big thing out of the fact our brains can get injured like any other organ. We hope looking at things with a different perspective helps get beyond stigma and humiliation. I consider the antidepressant I take to be no different than the synthroid I take for my thyroid. Let's put the lunacy to rest. We have identified the most common "wear and tear" syndromes You can use this list to guide your search for detailed information in the mental health links listed below.

It is essential to identify and capitalize on personal strengths to get through rough patches in life

Depression

Anxiety

Panic

Acute Stress Reactions

Exhaustion

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Alcohol Misuse

Substance Abuse

Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD)

Professional Background and Experience

2011-02-20T14:39:00.000-05:00

I completed my undergraduate study at the University of Delaware earned an Honors degree with Distinction with a major in psychology and minor in philosophy. I earned a Doctor of Psychology degree in clinical psychology from Baylor University. I served a one year clinical internship at the University of Massachusetts Division of Mental health. I worked in a state hospital and a juvenile prison following graduation from Baylor University. I spent 4 years working in different psychiatric inpatient units prior to graduate school.

I practiced as a self-employed licensed clinical psychologist 7.31,1992 --- 12.2007 delivering comprehensive psychological services through the Marriage and Family Center of Delaware (MFCD) and the Police Psychology Consultation Center (PPCC).

The MFCD established in 4.1993 was a private practice and accredited training site for master's and doctoral counseling psychology students from area universities with focus on teens, young adults, couples, men, "treatment refractory" patients, people with chronic medical conditions, community gatekeepers,power brokers, and those with increased risk for violence.

Comprehensive initial evaluations, development and implementation of solution-oriented treatment plans that included identification and management of medical conditions and medications that mimic psychological disorders, coordinated medical and psychiatric care with family physicians and psychiatrists, maintained admitting authority to local psychiatric hospitals;

Additionally, I consulted with area businesses including DuPont, MBNA, Blue Cross,etc., local churches, community groups, schools, employee assistant consultants; served as Chair of Delaware Psychological Association's political action committee; taught AP Honors Psychology course at local high school; political advocacy endeavors for mental health parity.

I established the Police Psychology Consultation Center in 7.1995 to provide comprehensive psychological services including assessment, training, operational, organizational and personal consultation and interventions; pre-employment psychological evaluations, special unit assignment and fitness for duty assessments, critical incident debriefings, consultation with all police personnel from patrol officers to departmental administrators, active ridealongs, program development;

In a nutshell I provided adverse and innovative consultation and interventions to more than a dozen public safety departments in Delaware with administrators and first responders.

Reporters Suffering Migraines On-Air: What We Can Learn

2011-02-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Reporters Suffering Migraines On-Air: What We Can Learn

No country for old men - Intro voice over

2011-02-14T03:03:00.000-05:00

Stanislav Grof: The Cosmic Game (excerpt) -- A Thinking Allowed DVD w/ J...

2011-02-14T02:55:00.000-05:00

Stephen Levine: Conscious Living, Conscious Dying -- Thinking Allowed DV...

2011-02-14T02:51:00.000-05:00

Search for Meaning in Life Today with Viktor Frankl

2011-02-14T02:41:00.000-05:00

Alan Watts Higher Self

2011-02-14T02:39:00.000-05:00

"Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality" Official Trailer

2011-02-14T02:27:00.000-05:00

How to Write a Journal

2011-02-14T02:24:00.000-05:00

Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia - The Power of Rhythm

2011-02-14T02:16:00.000-05:00

Alec Baldwin on Parental Alienation Syndrome

2011-02-14T02:11:00.000-05:00

Divorce in a Child's Eyes

2011-02-14T02:06:00.000-05:00

Selling Social and Emotional Learning: An Interview with Daniel Goleman

2011-02-14T01:56:00.000-05:00

What makes marriages last?

2011-02-14T01:52:00.000-05:00

Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson

2011-02-14T01:50:00.000-05:00

The Best Predictor of Divorce

2011-02-14T01:46:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Psych Alive

2011-02-14T01:38:00.000-05:00

The Pygmalion Effect in Everyday Life--Interpersonal Crimes

2011-02-07T18:19:00.000-05:00

The Pygmalion Effect in Everyday Life---Interpersonal Crimes

"Thoughts are like arrows; once released they hit their mark. Guard them well or one day you may be your own victim"--Navajo

It's time to initiate public discourse regarding the development of "interpersonal crimes", interpersonal ethics, and social sanctions used to deter violations of codified interpersonal behaviors known to cause harm to other people, and promote embodiment of "interpersonal integrity". Gradually, theoreticians are building on and extending the work of R.D. Laing and Robert Firestone as a guide to a fully developed system of types, degrees, and a listing of transgressive interpersonal conduct that currently lies beyond the rule of law-as commonly understood.

One of the more common and insidious types of interpersonal crime is known by social scientists as the "Pygmalion effect"; people routinely enact this set of interpersonal behavior believing it is nonsense to suggest their private thoughts about a person could have a (field) effect on them. Study after study demonstrates that our beliefs and expectations about any person have enormous influence on their future behavior. Invariably, we get what we expect. You've taken upon yourself the power and authority to judge what another person is capable of or not-- without input from anybody else---much less the views of those being "judged"

It occurs in the military, business, schools, organizations, and relationships. Surprisingly little has been written about the interpersonal politics of and individual fallout from this interpersonal phenomenon. The nature and degree of adverse effects are unknown but very consequential.

Given the ubiquity and power of the Pygmalion effect, related perceptual and cognitive errors, that can have a profoundly negative impact on "other" person's, people need to be aware of and take responsibility for the power and influence that go along with our expectations of others. I believe common sense and a sense of solidarity nudges us to take responsibility for the consequences of our expectations. This applies to all relationships.

Let's pretend you decide that I am unwilling or unable to function as a competent friend or partner. This assumption affects every interaction we have. You see and get want you expect. You create a self-fulfilling prophecy-literally. It would be impossible for a "judged" individual to do anything that to challenge this assumption because judgment had already been rendered isn't subject to change.

While we don't need a particular individual to believe in our ability to function as a strong friend or partner, it doesn't hurt if there is a whiff of suspended disbelief coming from another. For myself, I believe I have a responsibility to retract and dispose of assumptions about people that contribute to their undoing. It's not so hard once we get past the process of unlearning our lifelong practice of burdening people with out assumptions.

Ultimately your belief does not alter reality.

However, during our relationship I can mistakenly permit your beliefs (though the Pygmalion effect suggests it might not be all choice) to influence me. Now, all of my confusion is leaving. I don't need you to believe in me to believe that I could be a good friend for those who consider it a possibility. For my part, the cause of most interpersonal turmoil is a fundamental disconnect between your view of me and my experience of me and reports of others who interact with me.

The continual message that I am "not able to function as a real friend or partner" requires considerably more effort to move beyond your expectations. I am able to be a real partner no matter that you think. Your expectations make it impossible for you to see in me or in my thoughts and actions anything that might contradict a mistaken assumption you adopted long ago.

I believe we have a responsibility to keep our expectations to ourselves. We don't have a right to go out and tell people the way they fail to meet our expectations---how they are incapable of such a thing. It isn't a smart way to win friends and influence people. We've no right to dump our expectations and beliefs on other people because it has such a negative impact on them.

We each have more power than we know to influence the lives of those around us. I want to be able to judge not and believe in everyone. We have no right to mess with another person's life by assaulting them with out assumptions.

The energy and presence of someone who lapses into a steady state of not believing in others is itself difficult to be around. Usually, we attempt to justify our error by citing a long list of how and who burned us, betrayed us, used us. So, everybody in the world becomes guilty by association------as soon as the association begins anyway.

You are playing a major role in all the difficult things in your life. And we mess with others lives when we throw our beliefs and attitudes on them. Usually humility is the best medicine to minimize the frequency of incidents of the Pygmalion effect "committed". Truth is that throwing our attitudes and beliefs on others is a violation of interpersonal ethics and law.

We've only just started to take seriously holding people within a community accountable for violating fundamental interpersonal agreements. Every step is a step along the way.

RDLaing Individualism Vs. Chemical Straight Jacket.wmv

2011-02-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

"Psychophobia" is behind our desire to homogenize human behavior and "experience". Our social contract permits us to remove or "treat" people whose behavior we find to be disturbing or potentially dangerous via "containment and treatment".

We live in a real world. If our conduct transgresses established norms and laws causing consequential disruption in our shared social world we oughtn't be surprised that we will get what is coming to us.

However, it is a disturbing to know that we feel quite free to "homogenize" experience of the world. Absent transgressive behavior one would think a man ought be permitted to have complete freedom in how he" experiences" the world. I don't want to become identified for "containment and treatment" simply because I experience the worlds differently than most people. Experience could be identified as a a type of personal space that deserves protection.

Perhaps it is best to think in terms of there being differences between people rather than people who are different.

Experience is to soul as vision is to the eyes.

Psychology Lessons : What Is the Fundamental Attribution Error?

2011-02-07T13:20:00.001-05:00

Awareness of the many and varied ways critical thinking deficits is the first step out of self-deception.

This clip demonstrates a core concept in social psychology called the "fundamental attribution error" or our tendency to favor internal attributions in explaining the actions of others.

"Defensive attributions" refers to our tendency to blame victims for their misfortune so that we feel less likely to be victimized in the same way.

The "self-serving bias" refers to our inclination to attribute our positive outcomes to internal or personal factors and our negative outcomes to situational factors.

This triad of self-deception can be seen in operation in daily lives. Feel free to confess your favorite examples of distorting reality to suit our purposes.

Fundamental Attribution Error

2011-02-07T12:17:00.000-05:00