TresSugar

The How-To Lounge: Finding a Therapist

DearSugar — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:00:00 -0700

As you already know, I’m a huge supporter of therapy and often suggest it as a means of working through a specific issue - some problems are best solved with professional, and specifically, unbiased help. But finding someone who can meet your specific needs and whom you can trust is not an easy task. I’ve compiled a list of things to consider when seeking a therapist. To check them out read more.

Since you really are looking for someone you can both confide in and count on to provide real help, it’s important to do a little research before choosing someone. The first step is making sure that whoever you consider is certified with the proper credentials - don't be afraid to ask them.
You also want to consider the specific issues you’re looking to address. While one therapist might be known for dealing with victims of abuse, he/she might not be as successful working with patients who have anxiety disorders. It's incredibly important that they can meet your needs so inquire about their particular strengths before going in.
Similarly, if you’re looking at treating a specific mental illness you may want to widen your search to include psychiatrists who have the ability to prescribe medication if needed.
Since some people might be wary about sharing a therapist, try turning to the Internet instead of relying on a referral. One quick search will give you access to a myriad of resources like Psychology Today’s Therapy Directory.
Before you make any appointments, make sure to get the details on what your insurance provider does and does cover. If you can only use an in-network therapist, ask for a list of names in your area.

Don't be afraid to try out a few people before settling on one; it seems like a lot of work, but it really will be worth it in the long run.

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Britney's New Do: But What Does It Mean?

DearSugar — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:00:00 -0800

The pictures are everywhere: Britney Spears shaving her own head. At the young age of 25, she's famous, wealthy, accomplished in the music industry, twice divorced and the mother of two young children. Lately, she's raised eyebrows with her questionable fashion choices, missing panties and inelegant photographs, and constant clubbing. She now seems to be flirting with rehab, which means she may not be honestly in touch with the gravity of her situation.

We all surmise she's lost, out-of-control, and in need of real and serious help. But there's still the question of why Britney would shave her head, what the significance or motivation behind such a decision might be.

To read more read more

In this brief editorial, one therapist suggests it's an act of rebellion against her mother and management, after over a decade of control:

And Britney has the biggest job of all, she needs to learn to love life again. This is a massive act of rebellion and if it isn’t caused by the puppeteered life she has had, then you can bet your bottom dollar that she is wanting to escape, to break out of the body of Britney. The trouble with the act she has made is that is that the real problems are only ever within, that is the place where there work must be done.

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And in this longer article, psychoanalyst Bethany Marshall delves into the ways in which Britney may be acting out because she hasn't developed the skills to express herself in healthy, assertive ways:

"This is a major form of acting out," she said. "She's not using words and language as a way to express what's going on. She's doing things - the crotch shots, shaving her head, the tattoos. It says that she hasn't learned to assert herself and become independent through self assertion rather than through acting out.

"The hair represents the stylists, the handlers, people who are in control of her life and manage her looks," Marshall added. "Now she's saying, I'm in charge of my looks."

Marshall also suspects that the shearing and the tattoos could have been Britney's rebellion against the insistence she go to rehab. Sadly, she may have left in order to assert personal control of her life. Marshall also suggests that "psychotherapy would be the best thing for her," and hopes Britney will "seek therapy, have her own autonomous life . . . step out of the limelight for a while."

Things can only get better or worse for Britney. We here at DearSugar hope she puts down the scissors and grabs the chance to become an independent, responsible, and self-aware woman. Then she can shave her head again, just because she wants to.

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Clash of Cultures Puts Latina Teens in Danger of Suicide

TresSugar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:50:13 -0700

According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, one out of seven Latina teenagers attempts suicide.

Psychologist Dr. Luis Zayas of Washington University, who has spent the last 25 years studying Latina teens, believes that this rate is so high because of the teens' troubled relationships with their mothers. Usually the child of poor immigrant parents, the troubled teen is caught between her parents' values and the ones she sees growing up in the US.

American teens, says Dr. Zayas, have "very different models about what girls should do, can do and are permitted to do." For Francisca Abreu, now 15, clashing with her Dominican mother led to depression, a suicide attempt, and pregnancy at 14. Her mother Isabel wanted Francisca to stay home, clean the house, and learn to cook. Not surprisingly, Francisca wanted to go out with her friends.

"Teenagers have certain freedoms; they don't need to consult with their parents to make certain decisions," Dr. Zayas says. "That's the culture that's here, and inserted in that is the Latino family that says the family is much more important than the individual."

After giving birth to her daughter Destiny at 14 and lots of therapy, Francisca says she finally understands what her mother went though. "All she did was be a good mother, sacrifice her life for us," Francisca says. "That's all she did."

Did you grow up in an immigrant family and deal with the clash of cultures as a teen?

Should Psychologists Treat Patients For Being Gay?

CitizenSugar — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 06:00:37 -0700

Reading through Slate this week, I came across a challenging piece about treating homosexuality with therapy. According to a new study, one-in-six mental health professionals have tried to change their patients' sexual orientation.

BMC Psychiatry, which published the study, found the results troubling because treating homosexuality as a mental illness can be dangerous. But the Slate piece sees the issue as more complex than this. Personal feelings of sexuality can vary, and perhaps a therapist is in a best position to decide whether to intervene, or not intervene, on an individual basis.

If a person wants to change their sexual orientation in order to fit in with his or her faith, family, or society, should a therapist help?

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Politicians, Narcissism and Cheating - Oh, My!

TresSugar — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:00:00 -0700

There's been no shortage of politicians in the news who cheated on their wives (Sanford, Spitzer, Clinton - we're talking about you), and the television show The Good Wife is even dramatizing this all-too-familiar story. Most social scientists and psychologists are not surprised; many of the traits that are required for political leadership are prevalent in narcissism: ambition, risk-taking, and charisma. You don't need to be a narcissist to be a political leader, but it doesn't hurt.

So what is narcissism exactly? We all have self-love on some level, but in the '80s, the American Psychiatric Association argued that it can become pathological enough to be considered a personality disorder. They claimed that one percent of the population has NPD (narcissistic personality disorder); it's since been revised by The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, which said that 6.2 percent of the population has NPD. To find out about NPD, read more

According to the DSM-IV, here are the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

"A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love (megalomania)
3. Believes they are 'special' and can only be understood by, or should associate with, people (or institutions) who are also 'special' or of high status
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement
6. Is interpersonally exploitative
7. Lacks empathy
8. Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes"

Most of us will never date or marry a narcissistic politician, but some of us will have the misfortune to date narcissists, who have a tendency to cheat. "Infidelity," says Stanley Renshon, a political psychologist at City University of New York and who writes about psychology and political behavior, "is a byproduct of narcissism."

Do you know any narcissists or have you ever dated one?

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Are You a Fan of the Surreal? It May Make You Smarter

TresSugar — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:00:00 -0700

Franz Kafka, David Lynch, and Rene Magritte were my Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas as a teenager. (Yeah, I was a weirdo.) So imagine my delight when I read a study that claims that surrealism may be good for the brain.

Research psychologists at UC Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia concluded that exposure to surrealist art, film or literature, because it puts you in worlds whose elements don't make sense, drives you to look for structure and sense elsewhere, hence raising "the cognitive mechanisms that oversee implicit learning functions." Want to hear the details of this study? Then read more.

To reach this finding, they had two groups of people read Kafka. One group was given Kafka's story "The Country Doctor," which in typical Kafkaesque fashion, goes from normal to weird in no time at all. The other group was given a rewritten version so that nothing was odd about the plot or narrative. After they finished their respective Kafkas, they were asked to find patterns hidden in strings of letters. Those who read the original Kafka stories were both more motivated to find patterns and more accurate in their findings than those who read the normalized Kafka.

It's their second experiment that is almost more interesting to me - they divided groups between those who felt alienated by things they'd done in the past and those who didn't. "You get the same pattern of effects whether you're reading Kafka or experiencing a breakdown in your sense of identity," said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB and co-author of the article. "People feel uncomfortable when their expected associations are violated, and that creates an unconscious desire to make sense of their surroundings. That feeling of discomfort may come from a surreal story, or from contemplating their own contradictory behaviors, but either way, people want to get rid of it. So they're motivated to learn new patterns."

So, basically, feeling alienated and consuming alienating art and literature drives you to make sense of things, giving your brain a workout. That would finally explain my motivation to find meaning in the world after watching The Hills, a surrealist masterpiece if I ever saw one!

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What Is Stockholm Syndrome?

TresSugar — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:05:37 -0700

News this week that Jaycee Lee Dugard, 11 years old when she was abducted in 1991, was discovered living in her abductor's backyard, prompts reactions both of happiness and horror. Happiness that this poor young woman, raped and twice-impregnated by her abductor, is finally free. Horror when you think of what her life must have been like these past 18 years. How is she going to fare now that she’s been reunited with her family and will finally be able to see a doctor, and hopefully, a therapist? Clues about her mental state were revealed by her stepfather Carl Probyn after talking to Jaycee’s mother: "She told me that Jaycee feels really guilty for bonding with this guy. She has a real guilt trip."

We hear this counterintuitive detail in many cases where kidnap victims and people in abusive relationships feel sympathy for their captors/abusers, identifying with them and even bonding with them. Natascha Kampusch, the young woman who only three years ago escaped from the man who abducted her at age 10 and kept her in a windowless cellar for eight and a half years, was distraught after hearing that he had committed suicide. Some psychologists say that this sympathy is, in part, what keeps abused women so psychologically attached to their abusers.

Although it's probably impossible for most of us who have never been in such extreme situations to imagine that someone would have any positive feelings toward a person who abused them or imprisoned them, psychologists have a term for why it happens: Stockholm syndrome. To find out what this fascinating and disturbing psychological term means, read more.

Coined by Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist Nils Bejerot to explain why, in 1972, Swedish bank employees sympathized with the bank robbers who held them hostage for six days, Stockholm Syndrome can arise if the captor - in between his or her abuse - occasionally shows gestures of affection or concern, or gives them something they need. Experts say that what the victim doesn't consciously acknowledge is that these gestures tend to be self-serving, rather than genuine tokens of kindness.

Stockholm Syndrome became a household word in the '70s with the infamous Patty Hearst case. The millionaire heiress granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, Hearst was abducted at age 19 from her apartment in Berkeley, CA, by a fringe left-wing guerilla group that called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army. During her captivity, according to Hearst, she was blindfolded and kept in a closet, occasionally taken out to be beaten or sexually assaulted. After a time, the brainwashed Hearst succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome, according to psychologists who examined her, and began to sympathize with the SLA's agenda of creating a fairer society. She helped them rob a bank and later even said positive things about them to the press.

After Hearst's arrest and trial, her lawyer told the jury that she should not be charged in the case as a person who was operating in a normal capacity, of her own free will. They didn't buy the diagnosis of Stockholm Syndrome, however, and Hearst served two years in prison until Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence in 1979.

It's terrifying to think about the convolutions our minds are capable of when survival is the goal. What do you think about Stockholm Syndrome - do you buy it as a diagnosis?

Tall People Live It Up

TresSugar — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:00:00 -0700

Listen up! According to a new survey that included over 400,000 participants, taller people are more likely to experience joy and happiness and judge their lives more favorably than people of average or below-average heights. Psychologists think that because people of above-average stature are statistically more likely to have higher levels of income and education that they also have a more positive outlook on life.

These height advantages might explain why French president Nicolas Sarkozy (5 foot 5 inches) apparently wishes he was a little bit taller. Last weekend, the leader was accused of going to lengths to hide his shortness. Rumor has it that when the French president's on stage, he only allows people of the same size to stand next to him. And Sarkozy infamously wears shoes with heals higher than his wife's.

Has your stature had a big impact on your quality of life, or do you think height is just a number?

Are You a Compulsive People-Pleaser?

TresSugar — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0700

We've all done it before - offering to do a favor we later regret, or overextending ourselves when really we just need me-time. But for some people (and I imagine women outnumber men here because of social conditioning), chronic niceness can verge on the pathological and actually be hazardous to the people-pleaser's overall health.

According to Les Barbanell, psychologist and author of Removing the Mask of Kindness, there are many reasons compulsive people-pleasers turn out that way. They could have had emotionally distant, controlling or depressed parents who were also possibly overcritical perfectionists. As a result, their children grew up believing that in order to win their love, they needed to do whatever it took to please them.

If gestures of generosity to other people are not measured against what a person can reasonably give, the result is often depression, anxiety, and (not surprisingly) repressed rage. In its connection to narcissistic personality disorder, so-called "caretaker personality disorder" shows its not-so-selfless and not-so-nice face: it can often cover for the do-gooder's secret ego trip. Like people with NPD, CPDers "require excessive admiration and envy . . .have an overt sense of entitlement, and . . . are incapable of forming equal and mature relationships."

When flight attendants tell parents to put their oxygen masks on before they put them on their children, it's a hint for all of us: don't take care of others before you take care of yourself - or you may pay for it psychologically and emotionally.

Men Get Dumber Speaking to Attractive Women

TresSugar — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 02:00:00 -0700

In news that will surprise absolutely no one, researchers have found that men get so flummoxed when speaking to attractive women - using up most of their cognitive abilities trying to impress them - that they sometimes forget basic personal information like their own addresses!

Research showed that if (presumably straight) men spent even a few minutes with an attractive woman, they didn’t perform as well on tests that measure brain function than they did after speaking to someone they didn’t find attractive. Women didn’t seem to have this reaction in the presence of men they considered handsome.

Although psychologist Dr. George Fieldman of the British Psychological Society had a genetic/evolutionary explanation for this reaction, that men are “programmed to think about ways to pass on their genes,” I wonder how the study would have worked if they had gay men talking to men they found attractive. Would they be so flustered by their attraction they performed poorly on cognitive tests, too? Would researchers be able to argue that their distraction was “reproductively focused”?

Maybe men are just horndogs? (That's my unscientific conclusion.) What do you think?