As the summer of 2014 is coming to a close, most teens are back into the swing of classes, clubs, athletics, and various extra-curricular events. Many teens are excited to be back in their old routine. Returning to school is a time they get to see their friends, make new ones, and plunge into another great year. To others, the school year is not met with much excitement.  This is especially true for the teen who struggles academically, who would rather be any place but in a classroom.  While the new school year may be marked with anticipation, it may also be a time of apprehension and sadness.  

Think about it… Many teens have had to say goodbye to dear friends, as they have either moved away or moved on (i.e., going to college or the military). Saying goodbye to friends is hard and creates a sense of sadness and loss. And what about that teen who has graduated to the next level of school; middle school or high school?  This transition in and of itself can create anxiety and stress. Yes, the new school year can bring with it a whole host of emotions.  But to teens, one thing is for certain, they've got to face the change all while saying farewell to the magic of summer.

Summer is a season for change.  It can be a time of social growth and maturity. Without the burden of due dates, papers and projects, tests, and other academic pressures, teens get to explore who they are and how they fit into this world. They get to experiment with social situations, learn invaluable life lessons, practice what it means to be an adult (e.g., skills that they'll use in adulthood) and have more time for driving their parents insane! 

We all have memories of summer's gone and past. Many great novels, blockbusters, and Billboard hits have been made about the magic of summer.  The entertainment industry capitalizes on teen’s free time during the summer months. Yes, summer, a time for building relationships, sleeping in late, hanging out at the beach, pool or lake, attending camps (academic, athletic or adventure), and most importantly no homework, deadlines, projects, tests, or quizzes. Ahhh the bliss of pure freedom...  Those were the days!

Summer is a time of fun, socialization, and family vacation. It's a great time for personal growth and social development - a time to experiment, try on new personas, and see the world through a different lens. Though short, summer holds some true treasures just waiting to be explored. What was one of your favorite summer memories? What did summer teach you? Were you one of those teens who couldn't wait to get back to the classroom or was it the last thing from your mind?  Switch gears… What about your teen?  What kind of memories will he/she will take with him/her from Summer 2014? Well, there's only one way to find out...  Just ask.

Take the time to speak with your teen about his/her summer experiences.  Ask about his/her favorite summer memory, what he's/she's going to miss most about summer, and how he/she feels about the school year. You may find that your teen's experience isn't all that different from your own. If your teen is struggling with the new school year, help him/her find a way to work through uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.  How do you do that?  You can begin by listening.  It is okay if you can't fix all problems or even take away fears, sometimes just having someone who cares is all our teen really needs.  Also ask if there's something that you can do to make the transition a smooth one. 

The end of summer brings with it closure and a time for change. As life gets back into a normal routine, don't forget to slow down to bid summer a fond farewell. For as we all know, once you're finished with school and are no longer on an academic calendar, summer loses some of its magic. Help your teen learn from and cherish the true treasures of summer experiences.

As a counselor, I am always amazed at the growth that happens to teens during those two short months. When they return to school, I walk down the hall in awe of the maturity and growth that summer has brought. But I know, I too, was once affected by summer's magic. Yes, summer has a magical quality about it. It's a season of change and growth and it marks the beginning of another school year. So, until we meet again in 2015, "Goodbye Summer 2014."

On a personal note, it's been over four years since I began blogging  for Psychology Today.  Each blog challenges me to reach deeper and farther than before.  I started this venture with one simple thing in mind "To help people transform their lives from the inside out."  That very statement has become my mission statement.  My goal is simple to help educate about current trends, emotions and problems facing today's teens. 

So in celebration of my four year anniversary, I am continuing to say goodbye to that special time of year; Summer. The calendar officially marks September 21 as the final day of Summer. Hopefully, you’ll take some time and reflect on what your summer held. For soon a new season of life will begin. I look forward to continuing to bring you relevant and helpful information on parenting and top issues facing today’s teens.  Thank you to all of my readers for your continued support.  I hope that Summer 2014 brought you something magically special.

National Football League star Adrian Peterson was indicted recently for child abuse after disciplining his 4-year-old son by hitting him with a switch. The beating was so severe that it left welts on the child's body, including his genitals. Peterson's indictment has unleashed a hailstorm of controversy about the appropriateness of hitting children as punishment for bad behavior.

Here are six things you need to keep in mind about physical discipline.

Our parents and grandparents accepted many things that we no longer find acceptable today: Jim Crow laws, smoking and drinking when pregnant, advertising jobs as "Help wanted: Male; Help wanted: Female", and so on. We've come to see that many of these traditions and beliefs were wrong, and we quite reasonably reject them. It is possible to love your parents and reject their traditions or beliefs. It is possible to accept that they were doing what they believed to be right at the time while simultaneously choosing not to do or believe those things.

Parents are physically bigger and stronger than children. They also know more than children and, because their brains are fully developed, they are capable of greater self-control. When a parent tries to get a child to behave better by hitting them, that parent is telling the child that hitting people who are smaller and weaker than you is an acceptable way of getting what you want from them. Why should it surprise that parent when the child beats up smaller children at school or grows up to be a wife beater?

Giving yourself permission to physically discipline your children puts YOU at risk for becoming an abuser. Adrian Peterson is not an isolated case of an adult who lost it while inflicting physical discipline. As adults, we frequently come home frustrated, tired, and angry. We haven't the patience to deal with what our kids may be dishing out. Once you begin hitting the child who is pushing your buttons, you will experience enormous relief. And that pleasant relief can drive you to hit even more, even harder. Peterson admits that he went over line. Why believe you won't?

The likelihood is that you will go over the line. Pretty soon, you will be giving yourself permission to hit your child for even the slightest infraction because you will have become addicted to that rush of relief you get from hitting someone defenseless. And you won't want to face the fact that you are hitting your child because it feels good to hit them.

People who believe "sparing the rod spoils the child" typically dismiss the enormous body of research showing that hitting children turns them into angry, resentful adults with psychological and emotional problems. A large meta-analysis of studies on the effects of punishment found that the more physical punishment children receive, the more defiant they are toward parents and authorities, the poorer their relationships with parents, the more likely they are to report hitting a dating partner or spouse. They are also more likely to suffer mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, and substance abuse problems, and less likely to empathize with others or internalize norms of moral behavior.

A rational person changes his or her beliefs when reality turns out to contradict those beliefs.

The data show that punishment must be age-appropriate, and must be used when appropriate. Mild spanks may be acceptable for children aged 2-6, older children should be disciplined in non-violent ways, and parents with anger issues or abusive tendencies should avoid physical discipline entirely. According to national statistics, nearly 125,000 children were victims of physical abuse serious enough to warrant medical care in 2012, and 42% of those victims were under the age of 6.

Even when using physical punishment on a young child, you must be sure punishment is really called for in the circumstances. I once saw a father and young son (about age five) bicycling along a busy road, the father following the son. The father was beside himself with rage because his son simply would not keep his mind on the road. Everything seemed to distract him. The father finally erupted in rage, pulling up beside his son, pulling him off his bicycle, and swatting him hard on the bottom. "What you're doing is dangerous", he yelled, "You could be killed! You have to pay attention!" What the father failed to understand is that his young son was not capable of ignoring all of those distractions. His son was getting punished for failing to do something he was incapable of doing. What a child that age is better capable following someone on bicycle. The reason for this is biological: Self-control and focus is the function of the brain's frontal lobes, and the frontal lobes are not fully developed or fully connected to the rest of the brain until early adulthood.

Why are we so backward in thinking that aggression against children stamps out aggression in the long run? If hitting children is the surest way to reduce crimes and foster good behavior, then why do we also have the largest prison population in the world?

Former NFL star Charles Barkley defended Peterson's actions, claiming, "I'm a black guy ... I'm from the South…Whipping — we do that all the time. Every black parent in the South is going to be in jail under those circumstances." 

Yet a recent poll showed that eight out of ten black people and seven out of ten white people approved of physically punishing children. Here is a video of a southern white male judge beating his teenaged daughter while his wife looks on and approves. The good news is that the same poll showed approval ratings for physical punishment declining from 84% in 1986 to 70% in 2012.

Let's assume that you as a parent are more interested in shaping your children's behavior than you are in using physical punishment as a means of venting your own anger and frustration. Simply seeing how angry you are is usually frightening enough to a young child. You don't need to compound the fear by getting physical. Seven excellent means of discipline can be found here.

Even with young children, there is also an old adage that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. With respect to disciplining older children, it works this way:

If you do X, you will be punished. If you do Y instead, you will be rewarded. Which do you choose?

As long as the behaviors and consequences are specific and clear, this approach is a very effective means of shaping behavior. It allows children to feel they have some degree of control over what happens to them, and teaches them to seek and consider choices. It even can work with the oppositional child—children who are particularly defiant and difficult to control.

So do yourself a favor: Use your fully-developed adult brain to figure out clever, non-abusive ways of getting your children to do what you want them to do.

Copyright Dr. Denise Cummins September 19, 2014

Dr. Cummins is a research psychologist, a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and the author of Good Thinking: Seven Powerful Ideas That Influence the Way We Think.

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Almost every day new news stories and gruesome images appear of atrocities committed by ISIS (Islamic State), also referred to as IS. This does not seem to diminish the appeal of this terrorist movement, however.  Recent figures show that there are more than 3000 Western jihadists who have joined to fight in Syria and Iraq, mostly young Muslim men from Britain, Australia, France, Germany and the US. The mortality rates are pretty high (of the 140 Dutch IS fighters 15 are known to have died; so more than 10%). So this begs the question why any rational human being would decide to fight there?

Analysts and politicians break their heads over the apparent popularity of IS among foreign fighters, and they come up with all sorts of explanations such as discrimination and prejudice at home, an aversion to Western culture, and the influence of the imams. I do believe that all these factors play a role, but they ignore a deeper underlying cause. For many young men engaging in warfare is just an adventurous journey. And for many it is a way to increase their status among their peers.

The American philosopher Jesse Glenn Gray fought in World War II and described his experiences as a member of a platoon in the memorable book The Warriors: "Many veterans who are honest with themselves will admit that the experience of communal effort in battle was a high point of their lives. Despite the horror, the weariness, and the grim hatred, participation with others in the chances of battle had its unforgettable side which they would not want to have missed. "

Are the Western jihadists seeking such highlights? It could well be. We have done quite a bit of research on what we call "male warrior' effect. This describes the strong fascination among men in particular with anything to do with warfare. We find significant differences between men and women in watching war movies, reading war books, and in their political support for armed conflict as a solution to international relations. Men also participate more in intergroup aggression, are more prejudiced, and like to wear the colors of their favorite tribes, for instance, the sports team, motorcycle club, and religious tribe. This warrior psychology is probably deeply ingrained in the biology of men. There are several indications.

In different places in the world archeologists have found the mass graves with the skulls and skeletons are of men, women, and children who are clearly the victims of organized violence. Some of these graves are several tens of thousands years old.  In today's hunter-gatherer tribes – such as the Yanomamo in the Amazon – we see that male warriors enjoy high standing. The more enemies a warrior slains the higher his status in the group. Status translates into reproductive success, because good warriors sire more children. In recent research, we have through scenarios looked at the attractiveness of soldiers. Historical research (yet unpublished) shows that American soldiers who had earned a Medal of Honor  in World War II had more children on average than the average war veteran surviving WWII.

In our genetic relatives, the chimpanzee, we also find evidence for something that looks like warfare. Males of one community work together to guard the borders of their territory and if they see a male intruder then they grab him, pulling his limbs from his body and bite off his genitals. Female intruders tend to be left alone. It is a cowardly and sadistic spectacle reminiscent of some of the IS videos. Primatologists believe that the cause of these killings lies in weakening the other community so that the females choose to migrate to the stronger community. A recent study in Nature indeed shows that chimpanzee violence is not a result of human interference because it occurs even in areas in which there is no chimpanzee human interaction..

There may be several evolutionary advantages for young men to join a war party despite the chances of death. It gives young men a platform to acquire hero status for themselves and their family, and thus access to fame, women, and sex. The 72 virgins for Jihadis who are slain in battle is a metaphor of this reward. Sometimes however bride theft is a direct cause of warfare, think of the two hundred Nigerian girls were recently kidnapped by Boko Haram. Furthermore, participation in warfare ensures a memorable bonding experience with like-minded young men, similar perhaps to joining a street gang or a group of hooligans. Probably there is also a hefty dose of the "love" hormone oxytocin involved in the male bonding that occurs during fights. This mix of excitement, elevated status, and the surge of powerful hormones is the real reason why so many young Western men choose to join IS.

What should Western governments do about this? I have watched the anti-IS video of the American government showing clips of public executions by IS, and suicide bombs going off in mosques. The message is that you're crazy if you're going to fight fellow Muslims. But that's not the solution, I believe. Muslim communities around the world should stand up and make clear that it is not cool to become a Jihadist fighter and that you are absolutely not a hero but a loser who is rejected by their local community, by the mosques, the imams and women if they join this war. Those young men who stay home should be considered the true heroes of this terrible story.

Romance and dimly-lit settings are so closely associated in our minds that we automatically think a date or evening with a special someone will go better in the dark. If it weren’t for the belief that love requires darkness to bloom, modern-day candle producers would go out of business. As it turns out, however, there are some people who are particularly likely to benefit in night’s shadows. Ironically, those individuals with some of the so-called “dark triad” personality traits may be the ones who have better luck with finding a partner when the lights are in fact turned down.

The dark triad in psychology refers to the combination of Machiavellianism (the tendency to coldly manipulate people), psychopathy (lack of empathy and remorse) and narcissism (excessive self-focus). People high in all three of these qualities are dangerous characters indeed. As you might imagine, not only do they use people but they are exceptionally good at getting others to swallow their bait.  In terms of your mental health, you want to stay away from people with the dark triad personality, but you may find it difficult to resist their superficial charm and appeal.

In an intriguing hypothesis, Humboldt University of Berlin psychologist John Rauthmann and his colleagues (2014) proposed that you’re most subject to the influence of the dark triad when the environmental conditions themselves are dark.  These tendencies in general lead men, they maintained, to be particularly likely to use women for their own sexual purposes.  What's more, under cover of darkness, exploitative men are better able to engage in the so-called “shady operations” that would allow them to avoid detection because they’re literally less visible than they are under the bright glare of the sun.

Dark days and stormy nights make us feel more vulnerable in general. What better frame of mind to bring an unsuspecting woman under the guise of your protection? As Rauthmann and his team hypothesized: “dark personalities should be able to take advantage of less light to successfully lure mates into their fangs” (p. 58).

To test their hypothesis, the research team devised an ingenious experimental field study in which they observed their darkly-personified men as they approached possible dates on the street. The 59 men in the study went up to nearly 1400 women on the street (only 1/3 of whom were single) while the research assistants unobtrusively followed them.  The men’s task was to obtain the women’s contact information.  The weather conditions were not even as extreme as night vs. day but instead involved either dark/cloudy vs. bright/sunny skies. 

If the “veil of darkness” hypothesis were correct, the men with dark triad personalities should have better luck with their intended targets under cloudy than sunny conditions.  To test the hypothesis, the women approached on the street rated the man on his attractiveness, likeability, and adept he was at gaining the information he sought. The observers also rated the interactions, as did the male would-be suitors.  

As it turned out, the hypothesis was partially correct: Of the three dark triad traits, only Machiavellianism served to allow the men to gain greater advantage over their unsuspecting prey.  To explain this finding, the researchers propose that men high in Machiavellianism (but not psychopathy or narcissism) feel somehow more self-confident and attractive under the cover of a dark afternoon sky. 

In the statistical model they developed to parse the effect, Rauthmann and his collaborators reasoned that Machiavellians in general tend to feel pretty good about themselves, but especially when the light is dimmer and softer. Because they probably have done better in the past under cover of darkness, the low light brings out their self-assurance and confidence. They then become more likely to approach their potential target with self-assured smiling and physical aplomb. Under cover of darkness the women, for their part, may be less able to detect the signs perhaps of insincerity their radar might otherwise pick up.  Notably, the authors controlled for the men’s attractiveness, so these effects occurred regardless of whether the men were handsome or plain.

The Machiavellian man profits from the cover of darkness, then, but not the psychopath or the narcissist.  The unique combination he represents of immorality, cynicism, exploitation of others, and the ability to manipulate people makes him the ideal stealth Romeo. Emboldened by lighting conditions that disguise his coldness and desire to use people, he becomes even more appealing than he might otherwise be.

One fascinating angle of this study is the fact that it was carried out in a naturalistic setting. There was no reason for the female “participants” to fake their responses because they didn’t know they were being observed. Ethically, of course, the researchers were required to debrief them (inform them afterwards about the study’s purpose). Furthermore, the women could choose not to have their data included, and about 30% made that decision.

It’s possible, given the voluntary nature of the participation after the fact, that the effects of the study were even underestimated because those were in relationships may have been afraid to let on that they’d given out their contact information to a male stranger.  Another proviso is that the men in the study could only approach women they truly wanted to get to know. Also, the observers placed safeguards on the situation by interrupting any interactions they thought were inappropriate. When you move psychology research from the lab to real life, ethical controls become particularly crucial.

The upshot of the study is clear. If you’re a woman, you’re more susceptible to the advances of a manipulative male when the environmental conditions are gloomy rather than cheerful. The next time a man steps out of nowhere and presents himself as honestly interested in you, it may be worth stepping into the light to see if that suave veneer can indeed withstand your scrutiny.

Follow me on Twitter @swhitbo for daily updates on psychology, health, and aging. Feel free to join my Facebook group, "Fulfillment at Any Age," to discuss today's blog, or to ask further questions about this posting. 

Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. 2014 

Reference:

Rauthmann, J. F., Kappes, M., & Lanzinger, J. (2014). Shrouded in the Veil of Darkness: Machiavellians but not narcissists and psychopaths profit from darker weather in courtship. Personality And Individual Differences, 6757-63. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.01.020

Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Candlelight_dinners.jpg

A new report by the Pew Research Center shows that all parents, regardless of political views or educational background, agree that “hard work” is a trait they want to see in their children. But a deeper look into the report shows that parents differ on how they rank other traits known to encourage hard work. 

In the Pew survey, a total of 815 parents were asked to rank the top three qualities that they thought were the most important.  Hard work was one of the top three.

However, in highly educated households, 13% of parents ranked “persistence” as the most important value in child-rearing.  Yet only 8% of non-college graduates ranked it as an important value.  “Persistence” in pursuance of a goal, regardless of the challenges, is also known as “grit”. 

In the area of obedience, only 5% of parents with a college degree ranked it as the most important value, compared to a staggering 16% of parents without a college degree.  Obedience is connected to a child’s compliance with demands. 

Additional research from The Learning Habit research found that children with “grit” (persistence with long term goals) are 40% more likely to have emotional balance and 60% more likely to get good grades. That translates into overall happiness, educational and career opportunities, and greatly increased chances for strong relationships. 

The Learning Habit research study found that parents who focus on compliance are the more likely to “lash out” at their kids by yelling and punishing.   When parents demand obedience and limit choices, children do not develop an emotional attachment to their goals, making it unlikely that they will persist when faced with obstacles. 

Taken together, these results capture the intensifying disparity between college graduates and non-college graduates in the area of parenting style.  While all parents may value hard work, college educated parents are focusing on a key traits which contribute to hard work in children. 

These findings spotlight the need for parents to ask themselves a simple question when a child begins their formal education.  “What is my educational goal for this child?”  If college graduation is a goal, parenting styles may need to be adjusted.

Rebecca Jackson is the co-author of The Learning Habit: A Groundbreaking Approach to Homework and Parenting that Helps Our Children Succeed in School and Life 

Ever since I was a child, I've loved the season of fall most of all. Perhaps because while living in New England as a child, the changing leaves offered a range of beautiful colors. Or maybe it was the crisp Northeast sweater weather (that demanded clothing that hid some of my figure flaws -- which I was admittedly concerned about as an extremely overweight kid). Or it could have been that autumn acted as an annual sign that Christmas was on its way. Whichever. Suffice it to say, I consider autumn to be a golden time of year.

Today, living in Los Angeles, there's not a lot of autumn to be had. Sure, there are a few maple trees (with changing leaves) in Beverly Hills. And every now and then we get a cooler day that requires a sweatshirt in the morning hours (before the temperature gives out to LA’s warm sunshine by noontime). Thus, one must be creative when it comes to feeling like it's autumn. Some of you may be familiar with warm-weather-autumn drill: plastic fall-leaf wreath hanging on the door, a mini Styrofoam pumpkin or two lying around the house, an autumn-scented candle burning in the evening (even as the air conditioner blows), etc.

Those who know me won't be surprised that one of my go-to items for a "hit" of autumn is an edible (well, drinkable) one. For years now, I've been addicted (potential 12-step-group-addicted) to Pumpkin Spice Lattes (or, as I refer to them, "fall in a cup"). And as someone who once weighed over 450 pounds, I was risking the encouragement of my past food addiction by ordering an extra large size and drinking down every last autumn-y (read: sugary) drop.

I was not only committed to downing this drink throughout the fall season, but virtually every day of the fall season. Needless to say that even before Thanksgiving, the results of this annual endeavor would start to show themselves in the form of tighter jeans and more pronounced love handles. In other words, my love of fall was adding up (calorie-wise) fast.

Thus, one sad day, I decided I had to abandon my love of "fall in a cup" and simply make do with the plastic wreath. But as usual, the denial of something led to the over-consumption of it. It did not matter that I'd lost over 250 pounds of excess weight over a decade before and had kept it off ever since. When it came to "fall in a cup," I was going down. Or my weight was going up as it were. As usual, denial led to obsession and obsession led to... Well, let's just say I feel like I have personally funded many of the more recent coffee places that have opened up in my area.

Then I hit upon an amazing, original, highly innovative idea... To treat these magical and seductive Pumpkin Spice Lattes as a treat (yeah, that's right -- categorize them in an appropriate way). I decided I was going to indulge -- but was going to do so in a fashion that wouldn't harm my psyche or extend my waistline. 

So I blew out my autumn-scented candle, hopped over the Styrofoam pumpkins, trotted past my plastic wreath, and marched into my nearest coffee joint, where I ordered up a small Pumpkin Spice Latte.

As I pressed the smaller sippy cup-like lid to my lips, I wondered if I'd get the same autumnal rush that I did from lifting the larger size to my mouth. And, to my surprise, I did. The smallest Pumpkin Spice Latte was just as delicious, just as tasty, just as soothing -- and offered just as much "fall in a cup" as its giant predecessor had before it. In fact, I didn't even suck out the last sip like I usually did with the larger size (as if I were Sandra Bullock’s astronaut character in Gravity, trying to get a last gasp of oxygen in space). Instead, I enjoyed most of the drink, decided I was finished and tossed it.

Of course, the next day, I wanted another one. And here's where I tried out another innovative tactic. "Sure, Gregg... You can have another one... Next week." Yeah, that's right. I acknowledged I wanted it, let myself know when I could have it, and then gave myself several days to anticipate it. And when that "lucky day" rolled around, I got another small one and enjoyed every reasonable ounce.

It turns out what I'd always heard was true: Less is more. And I marvel at this fact as much today (at around 175 pounds) as I did when I weighed over 450 pounds. I guess there will always be lessons we can learn and new adaptations we can make (to the way we consume treats) no matter what end of the scale we find ourselves at. And this is good news. Because it means we can treat ourselves, when appropriate -- as long as it's with portions that are equally appropriate.

Now, one should keep in mind that even the small Pumpkin Spice Latte has a bunch of calories in it (even when made with 2 percent low-fat milk, as I have mine made with). But when these approximately 200-300 calories are consumed just once a week (or even less often), they're not going to hurt your weight loss or weight maintenance plan one bit. Again, it's all about moderation. This means not denying one's self as much as it does not overdoing it. (Win-win for "moderation," y'all.)

At long last, my love of autumn (and devotion to "fall in a cup") can be celebrated without worry -- even here in hot n' sunny Los Angeles. And this means whatever food or treat obsessions you have can be handled in the same way. Less is more. But not too much less. Get it?

(Feel free to insert your own seasonal "horn of plenty" reference here.)

While ISIS (or ISIL or the Islamic State, take your pick) is on the world’s mind, recent research is giving us better insight into the terrorist mind. Simplistic ideas about naïve souls being brainwashed or indoctrinated into fanatical beliefs are giving way to more empirically-grounded theories stressing group commitment and “engaged” followership.

Every psychology student is familiar with Stanley Milgram’s famous obedience studies. The results indicated that ordinary, decent people could be compelled to induced harm on innocent others when they perceived a legitimate authority figure was commanding them to do so. Under the right circumstances, any of us could succumb to the “I was only following orders” rationalization.

Recently, psychologists Alexander Haslam and Stephen Reicher have re-analyzed Milgram’s findings, re-examined some of his unpublished notes, and conducted their own variants on Milgram’s studies. Their work suggests something different was going on. Rather than reluctantly dutiful minions, Milgram’s “teachers” (subjects who seemingly inflicted electric shock to a “learner” when the learner gave incorrect responses on a simple memory test) may have been far more willing collaborators. Haslam and Reicher paint a picture of a teacher who strongly identified with the experimenter and experimenter’s goals. Teacher and experimenter were partners in the advancement of science. Failing to fulfill one’s responsibilities was both a personal betrayal as well as an impediment to scientific progress. Loyalty to a perceived greater good justified the means used to achieve the goal.

Their work dovetails nicely with that done earlier by psychologist Jeremy Ginges and colleagues who studied whether it was religious belief or ritual participation that accounted for support for suicide bombings. They surveyed people regarding frequency of prayer (used as the index of belief), worship attendance (used as the index of ritual participation), and support for suicide attacks. Surveys were conducted among Palestinian Muslims (both West Bank and Gaza residents), Indonesian Muslims, Mexican Catholics, British Protestants, Russian Orthodox, Israeli Jews, and Indian Hindus. In every sample it was attendance at worship services that predicted support for suicide attacks and not prayer frequency. Indeed, in at least one subsample (Indonesian Muslims) prayer frequency was negatively correlated with support for suicide bombings – that is, more devoted Muslims were more likely to opposed suicide attacks.

Ginges et al. concluded that it was the ritual formation of strong group identities and the powerful emotionally bonding of people to those identities that were important driving forces behind support of terrorists’ methods. While religious ritual is a highly effective group-bonding mechanism, it is not unique in this respect. Fraternities, military services, and social/political movements make use of the same basic principles and processes. Ritual and group bonding are fundamental to human community and all the positives associated with that. This research highlights the dark, dangerous side of our highly social nature.

Putting these studies together we have a potent recipe for extremism. First, get people to believe deeply and sincerely in the righteousness of their cause using reason, persuasion, emotional appeals, whatever works. Second, embody that cause in a compelling, charismatic authority figure with whom people strongly identify and are loathed to betray. Finally, use emotionally engaging rituals to bond people into a cohesive, committed group. Note well, however, that this recipe applies not only to groups such as ISIS, but nearly all the soldiers from any nation (including the US) who have been sent off to war over the millennia and presumably those we are currently training to battle ISIS.

Refs:

Haslam, S.A. & Reicher, S. “Just obeying orders?” New Scientist, Sept 13-19, 2014 28-31.

Ginges, J. et al. (2009). Religion and support for suicide attacks. Psychological Science, 20, 224-230.

Fifty Shades of Grey has now sold over 100 million copies. That means worldwide 100 million women have read it. The coming movie will be the blockbuster of the decade.

Fifty Shades is not just a curious sociological phenomenon to be mused over in academic seminars. With this kind of impact, it is like throwing a hand grenade into the sex garage. What has been the real impact of Fifty Shades on the sexual scene?

The novel, of course, is about sadomasochism. Ana is a bottom. That means she has transferred power to Christian, who tops her. Tops and bottoms are the two insider phrases for dominant and submissive.

Many people have never thought about these concepts. They have not considered that it might be interesting to transfer power, just for Saturday afternoons, just in the bedroom, so that one partner gives the orders, and the other does what he is told. This is called roleplaying.

Roleplaying may be a cohort phenomenon. This morning, I asked the thirty undergraduates, largely female, in my seminar if any of them had ever read Fifty Shades? One hand went up. Had any of them every heard of roleplaying? None had. They go into their relationships with the expectation that things will be 50/50 and that neither person will order the other about in bed. Many of them would find the notion, in fact, horrifying.

Yet somewhere out there are these 100 million women who have now heard of roleplaying, and don’t find it horrifying. The trailer for the Fifty Shades movie had, as of last week, been downloaded 36 million times.

So somebody out there is paying attention. I suspect the center of gravity is older married women for whom sexual relations have lost their luster but who for a thousand reasons want to keep their marriages intact. And here Fifty Shades has lit a spark.

So, the novel puts roleplaying on the table. Many women may wish to be Ana’s, and be sexual submissives. Fair enough.

But there is now good evidence that a number of women would like to be dominant, that they would like to take control in bed, and even dress up in domme clothing, and establish their dominance, and his submissiveness, by putting the handcuffs on him. Or maybe there’s a flogger hanging in the closet.

In other words, female dominance is coming into style. Sales of sex toys are booming, The take-up has stunned the manufacturers, and their excitement is reflected in various Adult Entertainment insider newsletters. Not a lot of adult content is pitched at women, but industry insiders say that the content-providers are now waking up to this new market of 100 million potential customers who have never downloaded “porn,” and who find the whole concept offensive.

But all of a sudden, these newly dominant women want to know, how you do it? What do your wear in bed? What do your order your partner to do? And where do you get the gear? (Sex shops, please no; there’s all this stuff on line, but what do you do with it?)

Sexual pleasure entirely oriented to the woman’s desires and needs is what female dominance is all about, and many women have never experienced this. But a buzz is now zizzing about the concept of the woman on top and male submissiveness. In the treat bags at the recent Emmy’s were included “male chastity” devices, which the dominant woman applies to her partner with the pretend rationale of “making sure that he doesn’t masturbate.” (Of course the submissive male, though appearing to protest mightily, is secretly thrilled at this emblem of his partner’s control.)

These dominant and submissive roles used to be a dirty little corner of the male stroke market. Men would lust after submission, which they would find at the boots of a professional dominatrix. But thanks to Fifty Shades, the pro-domme trade is now falling on hard times. Do it yourself at home is the wave of the future.

This morning, I read yet another piece on how technology erodes the quality of our lives.  This piece was in the New York Times, a conversation with Michael Harris about his book on how the constant chatter of social media cuts out silence in our life and makes it difficult to listen to what is truly important in our lives.  

I was struck by this passage:

When he took a complete break from technology . . .

"It was crushingly lonely at first. I had withdrawal feelings for two or three weeks. Though I was quickly more present and I became the best boyfriend ever to my partner. Then, the moment I went back online, I did it in a whiplash way, and — quickly — I became the worst boyfriend I had ever been."

I want to point out some irony here that may not be immediately obvious to you.  I was reading this piece on-line in the New York Times, having just clicked on a link in my e-mail.  I flipped there from my Facebook account.  The radio was playing.  My sons were loudly discussing a video game.  I had previously logged my breakfast into an online program for monitoring weight and had just checked the delivery time on the iPhone 6 I just ordered.   And I am, of course, writing a blog about my thoughts and experiences.

Technology? Multitasking?  Oh yes, I know those sirens' songs.

Novelty and Intermittant Reward

The psychological attraction of technology is well established: old wine in new bottles.  

Novelty attracts our attention. We automatically look at anything new.  A text alert.  The change from 3 to 4 notifications on our email account.  We evolved to look for changes in our environment as harbingers of danger.  It both increases our anxiety and grabs our attention.  

Intermittantly rewarded habitsare the hardest to unlearn.  If you are rewarded every single time you do something, you will learn that task quickly.  However, if you suddenly stop being rewarded, you'll try the behavior a number of times, and then just stop.  If you aren't rewarded when you do something, you won't learn to do it.  

Intermittant reward is the hardest habit to break.  You learn the task a bit slowly.  But once you've learn it, you keep doing it.  Sometimes you're rewarded, sometimes you're not.  So the next time, it just might be there . . . Gambling works like that.  The longer the losing streak, the more you are convinced that the next time it's going to pay off.  

Facebook is the same.  If you keep checking, you know someone is going to post an update.  

Novelty and intermittant reward together and you're constantly connected.  The prompt is completing a task or any break where you aren't otherwise occupied. Or you hear a little 'ping' from your pocket or a flag on your screen. You briefly check your tech (your learned behavior).  Most of the time you're rewarded by seeing something new.  It's not that good or that exciting and it doesn't make you that happy, but it's enough to keep you going back for more.

Why You Should Stop

A lot of other people have written long, excellent, well-documented pieces showing that:

• Multitasking reduces efficiency.  You become less efficient (for four minutes on average in complex tasks) every time you flip from one thing to another.  This is particularly true if you are working on complex tasks that require deeper thought and keeping multiple ideas in your head at the same time.

• Multitasking causes stress.  Both because it increases cognitive load and because you do all the tasks less well than if you concentrated on them.  Working and checking texting a friend?  You neither work as well nor enjoy your chat as much as if you did either alone.  

• Creativity flourish in downtime.  People make their most creative breakthroughs when they've been working hard at a project and then just empty their minds.  Exercising, going for a walk, painting, rolling around on the floor with kids, just staring into space . . . When the foreground of your mind is only minimally occupied, the background keeps working away at that problem.  That's when many truly creative breakthroughs occur.  Personally, I like knitting.

Cutting Back Not Cutting Out

We all know we should use tech less, but never get around to changing.  There is an in-between ground between internet celibacy and constant disruptive connectivity. Some strategies to consider:

• Savor the media you use.  Just as people eat less when they really focus on what they're eating and savor it, you will enjoy the time you spend relaxing on media and be more satisfied by it if you really focus on it.  
• PS: If you find yourself enjoying an article but starting to skim a paragraph or two in and unable to finish, you may be having the kinds of trouble concentrating that are symptomatic of a lot of multi-tasking.

• Pick a few forums you really like and drop the rest.  Before I went on a recent trip where I had limited connectivity, there were four or five places I habitually checked throughout the day.  When I got back, I found I missed one of those, but the rest I could just let go.  Drop your least satisfying media.  See if your life satisfactin has gotten better or worse.  Odds are, you are just as happy as you were before.  If you find yourself reaching for that button, ask yourself - is this habit or do I really want it?
•  This is like eating from habit.  Are you really hungry, or are you reaching for that cookies just for something to do?  

• Consolidate your time.  One of the most effective ways you can use technology to enhance your life instead of degrate it is to cluster similar tasks together.  When you're walking, walk.  When you're writing, write.  When you want to take a break, spend 10 minutes NOT working and just browse Facebook or check your Twitter feed.  When you relax, RELAX.  Be mindful of what you're doing.  As Yoda said of Luke, "Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things." This was not a compliment.  The problem wasn't that he wasn't serious or wasn't studying, it was that he was not focusing on that task at hand.

• Stretch out time between media breaks.  I have not seen research on this subject, but I have a strong hunch (read 'hypothesis that could be productively tested') that what is most critical about media use is not how often you check it, but how much time there is BETWEEN checking.  In other words, you might check out Twitter, Facebook, texts, and XKCD every hour.  But if you do all those close together and then spend 50 minutes without checking them, I bet you are much less stressed and much more productive than if you check out the same number of outlets spaced out over the same amount of time. 

Decades of research have been conducted on the negative effects of spanking and corporal punishment on children. However, many parents continue to use spanking to discipline their child. In the wake of the abuse allegations that have been in the media do to Adrian Petterson, NFL player for the Minnesota Vikings may are discussing if spanking should be allowed.

Recently, an article suggested that given studies on spanking the US should ban it. According to Dan Arel, author of Parenting Without God, religion has a lot to do with why many continue to use spanking.  Arel states that, “many religious groups condone and endorse corporal punishment techniques”. As a child psychologist, I have worked with many parents who use spanking to discipline their child. For those parents who use spanking and physical punishment, their goal is to decrease bad or problem behavior. However, long-term spanking typically increases aggressive behavior in children.

When Does Physical Punishment Become Abuse?

According the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, physical abuse is injury as a result of punching, beating, hitting (with a hand, strap, or object) or harming a child. Furthermore, abuse does not include spanking or physical discipline as long as it is reasonable and causes no bodily injury to the child. In an interview by the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010), Dr. Alan Kazdin states that even moderate-to-severe physical punishment can have long-term negative consequences for the child such as poor academic performance, mental and physical health. Given these concerns it is important to use alternative ways to discipline your child.

Signs that may indicate abuse among children

• Has unexplained burns, bites, bruises, broken bones, or black eyes
• Has fading bruises or other marks noticeable after an absence from school
• Seems frightened of the parents and protests or cries when it is time to go home
• Shrinks at the approach of adults
• Reports injury by a parent or another adult caregiver
• Abuses animals or pets 

Effective Discipline Strategies 

Spanking and physical punishment are not effective ways to discipline your child. This is supported by years of research. According to a study published in Developmental Psychology, spanking is less effective for changing behavior and parental warmth does not appear to decrease the negative effects that spanking have on child development (see Lee, Altschul, & Gershoff, 2013). Below are a few suggestions to improve your child’s behavior.

1. Use positive reinforcement: Children greatly benefit from positive attention and praise of good or desired behavior. For example if your child has a problem with aggressive behavior, use positive reinforcement (such as verbal praise or rewards) when the child engages in non-aggressive behavior.
2. Consistently use consequences: Although no one is perfect, many parents do always follow their own rules. If you have a rule or consequence for inappropriate behavior always enforce it. The more children know that there is no chance of “getting away with something” they are more likely to not engage in undesired behavior.
3. Take feedback from your child: When creating rewards for desired behavior or coming up with punishment get input from your child. Often rewards or punishment don’t work because they seem important to you as a parent but they’re not to the child. By getting input from your child it increases the likelihood that the reward or consequence will motivate the child to change their behavior.

For more helpful suggestions, please visit the resource page on my website. If you feel that you need professional help, the APA and National Register of Health Service Psychologists provide a resource for locating a professional in your area.

© 2014 Erlanger A. Turner, Ph.D.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/drearlturner) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/DrEarlTurner). Join the conversation and discuss other topics related to parenting, mental health, wellness, and psychology. 

References:

Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2013). What is child abuse and neglect? Recognizing the signs and symptoms. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau. Retrieved from https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/whatiscan.cfm 

Lee,S.J., Altschul, I, & Gershoff, E. T. (2013). Does warmth moderate longitudinal associations between maternal spanking and child aggression in early childhood? Developmental Psychology, 49, 11, 2017-2028. doi: 10.1037/a0031630 

Image via Atlanta Black Star 

You stumble into consciousness from a foggy dream, staring at the black of your eyelids-- a sliver of light crawls through the legs of your lashes. Your eyes are glued to a squint and rattle with resistance as you strain to pry them open. You cannot move.  Your chest is sinking under a thick pressure. You sense a malevolent shadow looming in your periphery, watching, approaching.  You try to scream but barely a whimper escapes.

This is sleep paralysis. A phenomenon where a person awakens from sleep to find they are unable to move or speak. It often occurs during transitions from REM sleep, a paradoxical sleep stage where vivid dreams are coupled with complete muscle paralysis, to inhibit the body from acting out dreams. During sleep paralysis, the mind awakens from REM sleep before the body paralysis has subsided. This creates a terrifying experience: awakening in the darkness, helpless and paralyzed, and you cannot scream or fully open your eyes.

During sleep paralysis, the mind is still clouded from the sensory spill of the dream world, which may cause a person to perceive hallucinations. Sufferers describe certain peculiar yet consistent experiential qualities; the sense of a threatening presence, feelings of suffocation and pressure on the chest. Researchers call this experience “felt presence”, though cultures throughout history have identified their own culprits.

Commonly cited is “the Old Hag”, a figure from Newfoundland folklore of a wretched travelling spirit who sits on your chest while sleeping (Hufford, 1982); in the United States sleep paralysis has been linked to accounts of alien encounters (McNally & Clancy, 2005), whereas Chinese adolescents largely interpret their experience as ghost oppression (Ma, Wu, & Pi, 2014), and the Egyptian population identifies the “Jinn”, supernatural demons from Islamic mythology (Jalal, Simons-Rudolph, Jalal, & Hinton 2013).  Thus, different cultures provide their own socially acceptable symbols to explain the experience.

The telltale symptoms, though, are ubiquitous—feeling held down, fearing a strange presence. How can our waking minds be so easily foiled into such hallucinations?

It’s possible that our sense of threat plays a role in converting the physical experience of sleep paralysis into the illusory narrative it often becomes (Cheyne & Girard, 2007). For example, breathing difficulty is a true physical element of sleep paralysis, due to the controlled respiration of REM sleep. However, with growing fear, shortness of breath may be transformed into a malevolent shadow figure sitting or pressing on the chest. In other words, fear creates the perception that some one or some thing is culpable.

Whereas normally we wake up and recognize a dream as just that, a dream, when these hallucinations seep into wakefulness our ability to contextualize the experience grows thin. A matter of seconds in sleep paralysis is enough for the fearful mind to spiral illusions of being strangled or possessed. But, it is your fear that is the true menacing presence here.

So, if you find yourself paralyzed in the gap between parallel realities, relax. Allow the tension to retreat back into your eyelids, allow your fear to subside. The illusions will soon fade, and before long (often within 60 seconds), you will awaken. 

References:

Jalal, B., Simons-Rudolph, J., Jalal, B., & Hinton, D.E. (2013). Explanations of sleep paralysis among Egyptian college students and the general population in Egypt and Denmark. Transcultural Psychiatry 2014 51: 158

Cheyne, J. A. & Girard, T. A. (2007). Paranoid delusions and threatening hallucinations: a prospective study of sleep paralysis experiences. Consciousness and cognition, 16(4), 959-974.

Hufford, D. (1982). The terror that comes in the night: An experience-centered study of supernatural assault traditions. Vol. 7. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Ma, S., Wu, T. & Pi, G. (2014). Sleep paralysis in Chinese adolescents: A representative survey. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 12: 46–52.

McNally, R. J. & Clancy, S. A. (2005). Sleep paralysis, sexual abuse and space alien abduction. Transcultural Psychiatry, 42: 113–122.

There are times in life when things fall apart, when we lose something deeply important, something that makes us feel connected, grounded or safe. Sometimes a lot of things fall apart at the same time. There are times in life, for everyone, when it feels like all our safety nets get cut, and we are stripped of everything that we considered our foundation.

 A friend of mine recently went through a divorce. The end of her marriage came, as most do, with great misunderstanding and pain. The worst part for her was that she felt like her best friend, her ex husband, had turned into someone she didn't know and who seemed to hate her, which created great sorrow and feelings of helplessness. She was now a 50-something single woman with the sense that nothing in life could be counted on. If this rupture in her relationship could happen when her intentions had been so good, with someone whom she had loved so deeply, and been so honest, the world was surely an unsafe place. There was no ground to be found, nothing to root her to a sense of safety. She felt entirely untethered, terrified, as if she were floating in a space capsule that had lost touch with its earthly command center. As she saw it, the world was bleak and empty and she had no idea how to move forward.

What my friend did next is what so many of us do when we are in a situation of profound suffering, when we don’t know what else to do. She switched into action mode and started relentlessly making plans to meet the next man, to get back into life. She joined “meetup” groups, registered with dating sites, called everyone she knew to find out who they knew that she might like. She purchased subscriptions to magazines that listed social activities in her city, signed up for new classes, and got out there in every way. No “next” stone was left unturned.

How my friend reacted to her sadness and fear is very normal, very human. When we dive into fierce action as a response to intense suffering, we are really just tying to make the bad feelings go away, and thus to take care of ourselves. We want to feel better and so we set out to figure out how to make that happen. We feel powerless and so we empower ourselves with action steps. In fact, there is nothing wrong with and a lot right with doing things to make ourselves feel better when we are suffering.  And yet, my friend's very normal action approach misses one crucial ingredient: it does not allow our actual feelings (and thus our self) to be included in our experience. As we feverishly set out to change our feelings, what is left out of the process is feeling the feelings that we are actually feeling.

When we experience great loss and emotional trauma, we usually don’t know what to do, or how we are going to make the problem better—what the path to better will look like and how it will come about. In addition to allowing ourselves to feel the sadness, helplessness and fear that loss brings, it is also profoundly important to allow ourselves to feel what it is like to not have an answer, and not know how we are going to make the situation change, remedy our pain. We can remind ourselves that the situation and the feelings will change, as everything always does, but that right now, in this moment, we can give ourselves permission to not know what to do. For us type A-s, and even type B and C-s, allowing the feeling of not knowing how to help ourselves can be very hard and scary. And yet, permission to not know is a profound gift to ourselves and an act of deep self-caring. Sometimes, this act alone can ease the suffering, take care of our pain, without doing anything else whatsoever.

Suffering, as awful as it feels to walk through, is our teacher. But it can only teach us if we allow it to be felt.  Sadness, fear, not knowing, all the difficult emotions, when experienced, change who we are, which ironically is what we are trying to accomplish when we run around frantically trying to fix our painful feelings. When we allow our real feelings to be here, as they are, we offer ourselves a warm embrace and the kindness of our own compassionate presence. We agree to be with ourselves, keep ourselves company in what we are truly living.

While it is contrary to how we are conditioned in this culture to respond to suffering, the simple act of letting ourselves feel how we feel is the act that is indeed most helpful in both healing and generating change. Allowing ourselves to be sad soothes sadness. Allowing ourselves to be afraid calms our fear. Allowing ourselves to not know how to fix our pain soothes the anxiety of having to fix it. Allowing ourselves to be who we are, as we are, allows us to feel deeply self-loved, welcome in our own life, and not alone. When we allow ourselves to feel how we feel, we find the company of our own presence, which will always ease our suffering.

 Copyright 2014 Nancy Colier

The Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming

By Dylan Tuccillo, Jared Zeizel and Thomas Peisel

A Book Review by Dr. Lloyd Sederer

Here is your invitation to enter the rapture of lucid dreams, so say these authors and guides to expanding our nocturnal experience and adventure.

Do you know what a lucid dream is? It is not just another vivid dream in which intense images and feelings dominate your sleep and leave you feeling like you spent part of the night at the cinema. This guide defines a lucid dream as “…one in which you become aware you are dreaming (p6).” The lucid dreamer has “…a sudden self-reflective epiphany of, ‘Wait a second…I’m dreaming!’”

In a lucid dream, you are frequently in a strange or distant location. Images are typically bizarre. Many times you are moving about with great speed as you fly or find yourself traveling headlong in a train, car, or other form of conventional transportation. But the hallmark of a lucid dream is knowing you are dreaming. That, our guides tell us, is the ticket to the vast fortunes of lucid dreaming. They include improved physical and mental health, facing and overcoming your inner demons, problem solving, self-awareness, and creativity, not to mention fun-filled fantasy nights. Taken at face value, the book suggests Freud had it right when he said that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.

The authors also maintain that anyone can become a lucid dreamer, and reap its benefits. A select few arrive at it naturally. Much of the book is devoted to instructing everyone else on how to master the capability and technique, and using it for personal benefit. The path is not as simple as flipping on your TV remote at 2 o’clock in the morning. But our guides, like wilderness explorers, are upbeat, encouraging, and sold on the value of taking the journey. Their writing is clear, personal, and full of examples and how-to advice.

In the section called “Packing Your Bags,” for example, we learn about the stages of sleep and how to keep a dream journal. Unless you record your dreams, they vanish faster than the last rays of sunshine at the day’s end. I spent six years keeping a dream journal (when I was in classical psychoanalysis as a young psychiatrist) and have regularly recorded my dreams since then. I can assure you it is work to keep one: it means learning to recognize when you are coming out of a dream, rousing yourself despite your languor to put pen to paper with a legible scribble, then going back to sleep primed for the next cycle. Lucid dreaming takes much more than that.

The authors offer a prep for becoming “lucid,” which starts during the daytime with repetitive exercises to train your mind to distinguish dreaming from reality. A key next step is creating “intention” before conking out at night. If you want it, really want it, it will come. They describe a “Dream-Initiated Lucid Dream” (a DILD), in which you springboard to lucid by honing in on specific signs you’ve developed to recognize that you’re dreaming. If that is not enough, you can set your alarm to just before when you would enter the last two stages of REM (dream) sleep late at night, wake up and follow a suggested 20-minute routine, then go back to sleep knowing the time is ripe! Staying in the lucid dream, not letting it vanish, is another skill you too can master, with the training offered in this book.

The book also offers chapter after chapter on how lucid dreaming can be creative, artistic, relational (“interact with the natives you will find” or reconnect with people in your life), endowing of “superpowers” (Marvel Comics beware), healing, making you “whole”, and defusing trauma and nightmares. You can take your work to higher levels. You can realize the Coke commercial of universal connectedness (“I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing”). You can train to become lucid during the day, while awake, like shamans and yogis, though hopefully not while driving or performing surgery.

As a lucid dreamer for decades—I did not invite the capability, it just happened—I was curious about this book. While reading it I had a lucid dream in which I revisited an old traumatic situation from work, triggered by an event that took me back over 15 years ago. I knew I was dreaming. I used intention in the dream to try to direct the outcome to be more sanguine to my mental health than it had been. I was able to stay in the dream for an extended period of time and call upon reason, persuasion, and relationships to try to undo the past. But the outcome was no different. Sometimes, circumstances are just lousy and they can haunt you for a long time.

Moreover, when I awoke from this dream I was reminded about how exhausting both vivid and lucid dreaming can be. My dreams are alive most every night, and have been since I was in my 20s; as I have grown older my dreams are even more vivid, though fortunately lucid dreams seem to occur with no greater frequency. I usually awake in the morning needing to recover – as if a nap would come in handy.

So, after reading “The Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming” I thought two things: First, maybe the book should come with a package insert, a ‘black box’ warning, which identifies the risks of intensifying your dream life, as well as the time and effort needed to do so. The authors are enchanted with its benefits, but say not a word about the downside of ramping up your dream life. And second, the authors might consider another book about how to undo (or at least diminish) vivid and lucid dreaming for those who, without intention or having trained and crossed into the zone, might want to get a good night’s sleep.

…………….

Dr. Sederer’s book for families who have a member with a mental illness is The Family Guide to Mental Health Care (Foreword by Glenn Close).

www.askdrlloyd.com

The opinions expressed here are solely mine as a psychiatrist and public health advocate. I receive no support from any pharmaceutical or device company.

Copyright Dr. Lloyd Sederer

We long for intimate connections, which nourish our emotional and physical health. But oftentimes we don’t know how to create the connections we desire. Summoning the courage to reveal what we’re experiencing inside allows people to see us and know us. Showing our authentic heart rather than blaming, attacking, or shaming people allows them to feel safer coming toward us.

Yet, we often have blocks to moving toward the authenticity that would create a fertile climate for warm connections with people. Here are some obstacles I’ve observed in my work as a marriage and family therapist for over 30 years:

Protecting Our Self-Image

Being authentic means being and showing who we really are. Sounds simple, right? But we’re often up against a daunting history of not feeling safe to show our most tender and vulnerable self. Oftentimes we were shamed and rejected whenever we expressed our hurts or fears. Or we got the message that if we’re not sufficiently smart, attractive, athletic, or whatever, then we’re defective and unworthy and need a heap of fixing.

In order to feel valued and welcomed into the human community, we may spend a lifetime trying to change ourselves into a person who others want us to be. We fashion and peddle an image of ourselves that we think others will accept, respect, and love.

Languishing beneath these frantic efforts to be somebody is our authentic self, which is more vulnerable, childlike, and undefended. It takes a gentle mindfulness to affirm ourselves just as we are. And it takes courage to reach out from this more connected and authentic place.

Fear of Rejection

Disclosing our authentic heart can be scary. If we offer someone the gift of our tender and authentic self, they might drop it on the ground, leaving us to gather its splattered remains. Painful rejections may have trained us to keep our real feelings and wants hidden. This strategy may have kept us safe, but sadly, it also isolates us.

The good news is that we have the capacity to heal from old hurts and betrayals. Self-soothing, which are important aspects of Self Psychology and DBT, as well as mindfulness practices, enable us to find a self-regulating refuge within ourselves. Self-soothing means being gentle and nurturing toward ourselves — cultivating an inner refuge that enables us to heal, move forward, and face future challenges with greater equanimity.

The Shame of Being Seen

As much as we long to be recognized and loved, we may be afraid that if people really see, they may shudder in disgust. If we believe that there is something ugly or distasteful about us, we try to hide ourselves. We may tirelessly withhold our true feelings, thoughts, and wants because we’re convinced that we’re unlovable and undesirable— often without even being aware that we’re doing this.

Sadly, this shame of being seen holds us back from being and revealing our authentic self. But keeping things inside is a setup for isolation and depression. Toxic shame shuts us down and prevents us from moving toward the intimacy that we need and deserve.

Growing up, I remember rarely raising my hand in school to answer a teacher’s question. Fearful that I might be wrong and be laughed at, I took the safer route of staying hidden. But this “safe” path kept me isolated. I felt angry and disappointed with myself when others were praised for answers that I knew, but were afraid to voice. As the pain and isolation of remaining hidden became greater than the potential shame of being wrong, I began to take more risks--and slowly felt better about myself, even if was wrong sometimes.

Self-protection, fear, and shame operate in each of us. A path toward authenticity doesn’t mean we eliminate these obstacles, but simply become more aware of when they’re operating. It’s OK to feel anxious or shy to reach out or expose something about ourselves. An interpersonal awkwardness is a part of being human.

Bringing a gentle mindfulness to the anxiety, insecurity, or shame that arise in any moment allows these feelings to settle. We’re then better able to affirm ourselves as we really are and reveal our authentic heart to others.

© John Amodeo

flickr image by Emiliano

Continuing the theme of transitions from some of my previous posts, have you noticed that in times of transition (like when summer turns to fall, or winter turns to spring) you are particularly susceptible to feeling off balance? It seems to me that in months like September and June, when there’s a lot of change going on, I hear the phrase, “There’s just not enough time in the day to do everything I need to do…” even more often than most other times of the year.

Of course, if you’re a mom, working outside of the home or not, you may feel out of balance most of the time! By now at least you know you’re not alone. And, as a recent post on Time.com shows us, men are beginning to openly join the struggle to balance family and career. It’s great to read about successful men discussing their attempts to have quality time with their children while working at demanding, high-pressured jobs. 

But in today’s high speed, high pressure and high-stress world, it’s not just balance between work and family that’s hard to find. If you’re a “stay-at-home” mom, you very likely constantly struggle to find balance between the needs of your family and your own needs – for exercise, time to read or be alone, to visit with friends, even to take a long hot shower, and so on. And if you are not married or not a parent, you are very probably still struggling to find a good balance in your life. Are you a single who is working so hard that you have troubles developing a social life, or even finding some down time for yourself? Or are you so involved in the drinking and partying world that you fail to take care of either your physical needs or the demands of your job? Balance is an issue for all of us.

Even young children can have a hard time finding any kind of equilibrium. I recently heard about a ten year old who was only getting five hours of sleep a night. It turned out that after a day at a highly competitive, demanding school, this child went first to soccer practice and then to additional private courses in any of a number of different subjects – language, art, music, high level math. No wonder he wasn’t sleeping. I wondered when he even managed to eat, let alone have any down time to explore his own inner world? 

Obviously, while children who grow up this way may be learning how to work hard, they are not learning much about finding a balanced life; but how can we teach them when so many adults have difficulty finding it for ourselves?

There are so many things that we have to balance in our lives – work, family, play, leisure, relaxation, caring for others, caring for ourselves, social consciousness, political consciousness, environmental consciousness, religious beliefs and activities, physical needs…to name only a few of the issues most of us are balancing, often without realizing it, all of the time. “Finding balance” in our lives is so important, yet so hard, that there are mountains of books and articles about it. A Google search of “How to find balance in your life” brings up 332,000,000 results. It’s not at all hard to understand why we need balance and why we are searching for it; but why are we having so much trouble finding it?

There are a lot of answers to that question, including cultural and environmental ones that lead to fears about the world we live in and anxieties about taking care of ourselves and our loved ones in the here and now and in the future. There are also plenty of personal answers, having to do with self-esteem, expectations, and complex wishes to please someone else, prove ourselves to them (or to ourselves), and sometimes to surpass someone else.

But there is one key point that many of these books and articles seem to miss. When you take this point into account, almost everything else is easier to accomplish. But it’s a hard idea to accept, which is, I think, one of the reasons that it’s not always included in discussions of finding balance.

The point? Finding balance is a lifetime project. It is ongoing. It is not a finite goal at the end of which you will have a peaceful, calm and meaningful life. Balance is a way of living. It is a process.

 NYC yoga teacher Mindy Bacharach says this about balance:

The Equinox - a place of balance between day and night, dark and light, surge and subside, unfolding and enfolding.  Its marked as a day (2 if you include Spring) on the calendar and often observed that way.  The day of equipoise.

But in reality, its not a whole day.  Its not even a few minutes.  Its a fleeting moment.  The instant it occurs, the balance tips.  

I tend to take my cues from nature.  What nature tells me here is that balance is about navigating transition - rather than trying to 'nail' a spot and (desperately...er...um) gracefully hoping to stay in it.  

So, what can you do to find some balance in your life?

 Here are 5 suggestions culled from some of the more balanced people I know:

1. Keep in mind that, as Bacharach tells us, balance is not a final goal, but an ongoing process. Being balanced does not mean being calm, relaxed, and content all of the time. Balance often occurs only for a fleeting moment, but it can reappear over and over again. Rather than trying to stay balanced, think of yourself as practicing balancing, over and over again. I love that many yoga teachers talk about yoga as a “practice” – the goal is not to become great at it, but to keep practicing it. You often hear the comment that it’s good to fall – it means you were trying. The same is true in life. As long as we keep practicing finding balance, we will find one. Of course, we will lose it. But we will find it again.

2. Prioritize. In his book The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker talks about the importance of setting goals, deciding which are most important, and then, doing the most important things first. The problem is often figuring out just what is most important. On any given day, in any given moment, what is your priority? Is checking your email more important than calling your grandmother? Is taking a hot shower more important than talking to your best friend for the third time today? In order to stay on course, you may have to re-examine your priorities regularly. But Drucker’s point is that once you decide what’s important, focus on it and get it done.

3. Set both long and short term goals. In business, this is called “Tactics and Strategy.” Strategy is the longterm goal, the big picture. Tactics are the combination of short term goals that will help you get you to your longterm goal. For example, if you want to be to be a successful writer, your short term goals might be to get your first article published in any newspaper that will take it. Then you will need to break down that into even smaller steps, tactics to get to that first goal – for instance, taking a writing class, writing for 30 minutes everyday, joining a writing group, or submitting something you’ve written to a local newspaper.

 4. Be specific. It’s more useful to say, “I’m going to spend an hour alone with each child sometime this week,” than to say, “I’m going to have quality time with each of my children.” Quality time is a great concept, but it’s also a vague one. And since it’s so vague, it’s hard to know whether or not you’ve accomplished that goal, which makes it hard to feel in balance. The same is true if you say that you’re going to eat healthily or exercise more. Set something specific – for example, this week you’ll add kale to three meals, or you’ll have fruit with your breakfast every morning; or decide that you’ll run for thirty minutes on Wednesday and Friday mornings.

5. Remember that it's often easier to find balance with another person. Take a look at the photo at the beginning of this post. This incredible balancing act involves not only individual strength, but interactive support. The key word here is interactive -- if you're bearing all the weight, you can't get balanced. But if you're not carrying your share, you won't get balanced either. What's most important is not how much weight one person carries at any given time, but how you interact with one another, drawing from and giving energy to each other. That's balance.

6. Endgame versus process. In an interview on NPR, the actor Ki Hong Lee, who appears in the film, The Maze Runner, makes this point beautifully. He says a friend once asked what his goal was in life and he answered, “to win the Academy Award for my acting.” When asked the same question, his friend said,  “to be a working actor everyday for the rest of my life.” Ki Hong Lee was blown away by the realization that his friend’s goal was about the process of living. It was about balance.

In your own life, this can translate to a variety of things. For instance, if you haven’t been working out, your longterm goal might be to get into shape; but perhaps it would be more useful to say to yourself that you are going to try to find a way to live that allows you to maintain your physical well-being. Short term, you might think about starting slowly, in manageable ways that you can work into your life and gradually, as you get stronger, expand. Instead of saying that you’re going to the gym everyday this week (which might be unrealistic and also leave you so sore and overworked that you won’t go back for months; and if you don’t go, you’ll beat up on yourself and that will be the end of any potential sense of balance), think about what you can realistically expect of yourself and attempt to figure out how you can actually get yourself to follow through. For instance, it might be more realistic to start with a 30 minute walk two times this week. Or even, if it’s not too far away, simply walk to the gym and back. Yes, really! Once you see how you’re feeling, then you can set up another goal – but it needs to be one that you can accomplish and fit into your schedule and your lifestyle. The same is true for any other goal, whether it’s to lose weight, change careers, find a life partner, start a long-delayed project…really, anything you want to do.

5. Remember that both accomplishments and failures are part of balance. Most of us have plenty of both already in our lives, but we may not always pay equal attention to both. If you are someone who focuses on your failures, try to notice small moments of success. See what that feels like. See if you can figure out what you’re afraid of, why you have to focus on the negative instead of the positive. But don’t beat up on yourself if you can’t stay there. It’s normal to fall out of that awareness back into more familiar thoughts. Just go back to the positive when you can. That’s balance. 

The same is of course true if you always focus on your successes. It’s great to be proud of yourself!! But maybe try for a moment or two to pay attention to any failures you may have had in the last couple of days. You don’t need to stay there long. Just recognizing that they’re there will help you be more balanced! 

Whether you’re heading back to work or school, sending your kids off to a new adventure, changing jobs, getting married or divorced, moving to a new city, or just living life as usual, remember that you are always in transition. The trick to living a balanced life is, to quote once again from Mindy Bacharach, to always keep in mind that “Balance is the process of holding something(s) steady during change.” 

Teaser image source: Lesley Kennedy 

During the course of my illness, there were many times I felt as though my weaknesses — both the ones I had identified and the ones that had not yet come to my consciousness — were getting the best of me. I’d get overwhelmed, frustrated and feel like giving up. Some of the weaknesses were even masquerading as strengths trying to defraud me.

I used to feel that my ability to lose large amounts of weight whenever I decided to do so was a strength. Other people couldn’t do that. It seemed so simple for me. I’d want to lose twenty pounds and I’d cut my calories to 300 a day and the weight would come off. Fast. But then I couldn’t stop. And I’d get sick, both physically and emotionally. For a very long time I had blinders on. I couldn’t see that single minded disregard for my health as a weakness.

Now at 53 I am dealing with many of the physical consequences of twenty-five plus years of anorexia. I have spinal stenosis, a herniated disc and arthritis in my back and I am in pain every day. I only have about half of my teeth left and dentists have recommended that all my upper teeth be extracted and I get an upper set of dentures. I have no time or place for regrets. I did what I did to myself and now I must deal with the after-effects and get on with my life.

But I don’t starve myself any longer. I am learning to live with the weight that lets me live at my optimal physical and emotional health even if it makes me flinch when I look in the mirror when I am naked, and I am learning to see that ability as a strength.

When I set goals and didn’t achieve them perfectly by a specific time in my life, I viewed that as a weakness. I wrote a book that was not published by the time I thought it should be so I put it “on the shelf.” Now I am ready to take it down and revise it and I am able to see why it was rejected and why it was better to wait. Because the experience and the insight I have gained in the time that has ensued will result in a stronger book. So I am trying not to punish myself for lacking the credit as a published book author by the age of 50 and hope that if and when the book is published it will be a much improved version.

One of my biggest perceived “failures” or weaknesses was or is my inability to be part of a couple or have a healthy and sustained emotionally and physically intimate relationship with a man. My psychiatrist, Dr. Adena (not her real name) and I have explored this and turned it upside down and around numerous times (and we probably aren’t finished) and so far have come to the realization that this circumstance in my life is most likely due to a combination of factors.

One is that I didn’t have a healthy first relationship with a man — my father — as a role model setting the stage for all other relationships with men. My formative relationship with him was destructive and resulted in tearing me down rather than building me up. Another issue was I didn’t have a good parental relationship to emulate. My parents never showed affection or even animosity towards each other, it was more a relationship of indifference than one of love or anger. Also my upbringing was a breeding ground of emotional invalidation, something that Marsha Linehan talks about as a factor in creating a later diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

I’d be crying and instead of asking what I was crying about or validating that I must be feeling sad, my father would tell me to stop sniveling and say “Stop crying or I’ll really give you something to cry about.”

I also have inherited some schizoid traits. My father had (undiagnosed) schizoid personality disorder. He met all of the criteria. I’m not that extreme but I see some of him in me and it makes me shudder.

Dr. Adena and I discussed learning to accept myself the way I am and embracing the aspects of myself my more solitary lifestyle gives me the freedom to do —like concentrating on and enjoying my writing. This is a difficult concept because it goes outside the norms of society, never being married or in a relationship and being childfree. This is a fairly new phenomenon for me and I am still working on being okay with it.

I still get confused at times, but not as much. What masquerades as a strength initially may eventually turn out to be a weakness and what I perceive to be a weakness at first, I may be able to turn into a strength. It’s all a matter of perspective, but the change in perspective comes only with hard work in therapy and a willingness to turn the mind (a DBT skill).

This process is a work-in-progress and I don’t believe that there is one day where I will say that “I’m finished with this work. I’ve accepted that this is who I am and where I am in my life.” I believe that I will always be moving, refocusing, shifting my perspective and my point-of-view because where I am in life will constantly be changing.

Life only ends when we pass away, and this work hopefully, will end only at the same time.

A patient of mine took a seat in my office. Before Sally said anything, I could tell something was wrong. She was hunched over and her expression was full of sadness. As always, I asked how she was doing.

“My mother died this week, I've been so distraught,” she said.

Sally's body language that day demonstrated the mind-body connection. No doubt, the way we think and feel affects our physical bodies.

Researchers from the University of California Berkeley recently looked into the mind-body connection. In the 2010 issue of Emotion, they reported how people who have been practicing meditation for two years or longer were skilled at making the mind-body connection. The meditators' interpretations were more accurate than that of non-meditators and, in particular, that of dancers.

The researchers studied dancers because these individuals spend hours mastering their bodies. They train their bodies to be stronger, more resilient, agile, and functional. The scientists tracked which two groups—meditators or dancers—were better at making the mind-body connection.

As part of their study, they created three groups: Group one comprised 21 dancers that had at least two years of training in modern dance or ballet. Group two consisted of 21 seasoned meditators who had at least two years of Vipassana practice. (Vipassana, or mindfulness meditation, is a technique focused on observing one’s breathing, heartbeat, thoughts and feelings without judgement.) Group three was a control group that included 21 non-meditators and non-dancers.

All three groups were exposed to emotionally charged movies. As they watched the films, they were asked how they were feeling. In addition, they were hooked to electrodes, which allowed the scientists to measure how the participants' heart rates responded to the movies. The researchers sought to measure whether the participants’ perceptions of how they were feeling matched their physiological responses.

The researchers found no correlation between the dancers’ stated responses and their measured reactions. On the other hand, the researchers found a very strong correlation between the meditators reported responses and their heart rates.

So why does this matter? I believe it demonstrates if we are more in tune with our bodies, we can  better respond to them, listen to them, and make choices that keep us healthy. If, however, we are not in tune with our bodies, then things can go awry without us being aware of what’s taking place inside.

Being aware—in other words, awareness—is my favorite word in the universe. We can’t change something unless we are aware of it.

I believe meditation heightens our awareness. It’s not that meditating means our lives will go perfectly and never veer off course. But we are probably going to be more aware of what's taking place within and around us rather than be filled with confusion. 

By being more in tune and aware of our bodily sensations and of how we are feeling physically and emotionally, we can then make better choices to fix what’s happening inside of us. But if we’re not aware, we’re more like puppets; individuals who allow life to happen to us. Meditation cuts the puppet strings. It empowers us to identify what in our lives requires change. It helps us to be more aware and in the long run, healthier and happier.

So let’s start taking the time to meditate. I recommend twice a day: Once in the morning when you first wake up, and once in the evening just before going to bed. I believe this pattern is the most wonderful way to practice. Over time, you’ll improve your mind-body connection.

Why do we laugh? It’s a helluva question. Two recent books look at that issue from interesting angles.

In The Humor Code, Peter McGraw and Joel Warner go on a wide-ranging, globe-trotting adventure to see what makes things funny. Their work centers on the benign violation theory, which basically means that things are funny when they violate some sense of normalcy or decency, but the violation occurs in a context that makes it OK. This book discusses as astounding variety of humor from around the world, and the authors make a stong case.

In Comedy Writing For Late-Night TV, Joe Toplyn—former head writer of The Late Show with David Letterman and a multiple Emmy winner for writing—provides one of the most practical guides to comedy writing ever written, drawing on his extensive experience. If you want to write for late-night TV or any related comedy genre, this is the book for you. For Toplyn, the main element of humor is surprise, though he also cited superiority as a primary reason for laughter. We laugh at what we don’t expect, and we laugh at things that make us feel better about ourselves.

Toplyn recently debated McGraw and Warner, and it was pretty damn interesting to see people who have given more thought to laughter than 99.9999% of the population talk about my favorite subject.

As for the comedic common denominator—the Holy Grail of humor scholars, if you will—I have to side with Louis CK who doubts there’s any one theory that can cover every funny thing, much less every joke. In McSweeney’s, I recently looked at Louis and Mitch Hedberg, and while surprise and benign violation could explain a lot of their jokes, I noticed something even more powerful: an enlightenment of sorts.

In the case of Hedberg, his jokes can make you see everyday details in a new way. In particular, his escalator joke contains the observation that an escalator can never really be broken, it can only be "temporarily stairs." As Hedberg gleefully says, this should result in a sign saying "Sorry for the convenience." What I love about this joke is how it takes an everyday circumstance—a broken escalator—and makes you look at it in a fresh way, turning annoyance into amusement.

Louis, on the other hand, has the ability to take you so far into his own head that you end up deep in your own: for example, Louis describes a conversation with an annoying neighbor that paints Louis as a witty hero, only to reveal the whole conversation was a fantasy. It stunned me to see the lame, mean, horrible processes of my own mind portrayed on stage.

I guess both those examples could easily fit under the old chestnut, “It’s funny because it’s true,” but that seems inadequate. I guess “It’s funny because it changed the way I look at the world” doesn’t quite have a ring to it.

Earlier this month the Peregian Springs State school, a grammar school in Australia, gained international noteriety by banning cartwheels. To be fair, the safety conscious school didn't actually say that kids cannot cartwheel on school property. Rather, their spokesperson said, "students participating in these activities at the school must do so under the supervision of teachers in an approrpiate, controlled environment where safety equipment such as gym mats are available. " Yes, after properly warming up the children can queue to be spotted on a mat by a qualified supervisor. Playground time at Peregian sounds like an absolute blast, doesn't it? 

The impulse to keep children safe is, without question, a well-intended behavior. All reasonable parents and teachers would prefer children be safe rather than injured. A study conducted by Australian researchers showed that 55-60% of the increase in parents driving their kids to school was based on perceptions of risk for children who had previously walked or bicycled. Oddly, statistics reported in the same study show that accidents involving bicycling children are declining (and not simply becuase fewer of them are on the road). 

In another study, Catherine Warner looked at "emotional safeguarding" (parents just want their children to be happy). Warner found that middle-class parents, especially, wanted their kids to be intellectually challenged in the classroom but not challenged socially or emotionally. It was as if these parents had a collective blindspot in which they could not recognize that the same confusion, frustration, and doubt that are critical to academic learning might also have a place in social development. 

Taken together these two studies are suggestive of the ambivelance many parents have with safety of the physical and psychological variety. We all want our chidlren to be happy, to be smart, to believe in themselves and to be accepted by their peers. But we must come to terms with the fact that failure, hurt feelings, playground gossip, and intellectual struggle are important components of how kids learn, develop social skills and become more effective adults. So what's the alternative? What can parents and teachers do differently?

The answer might be found in another study, conducted by Anita Bundy and her colleagues. The researchers placed loose items around a school playground: cardboard, plastic barrells, hay bales, and car tires. Supervising teachers reported worrying more that the children would get hurt. But they also reported an increase in vigorous play, creative play, and social play and a decrease in aggressive play. Perhaps it is adults who need to take the risk of letting our children face risk. 

Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener is a research and trainer. He is fascinated by "comfort addiction" and the way people avoid the difficult aspects of human psychology despite their benefits. He has written about these topics in his new book, co-authored with Dr. Todd Kashdan: The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why being your whole self—not just your “good” self—drives success and fulfillment is available from Amazon , Barnes & Noble , Booksamillion , Powell's or Indie Bound.

 Bipolar disorder can have dramatic impacts on the social lives of people who live with it. Previous research has shown that, as the disease progresses, patients have increasing difficulty in their social interaction with family and friends. They can also become more isolated as their social skills decline.

Online social interaction, especially through social media, offers a different way of communicating. Scientists have found that people who have anxiety or other difficulty interacting in person can benefit from social media, texting, and other online communication because it is asynchronous and less intimidating.

But new research shows that people with bipolar disorder have problems in their online interactions that echo their difficulties offline [1].

Researchers studied 30 patients with bipolar disorder (BD) and compared them to 30 control subjects. They found that patients with BD had fewer friends offline compared with the control group, and they also had fewer friends online. Not only did BD patients have fewer Facebook friends overall, but they had fewer close friends on Facebook. This shows that it's not just that BD patients restrict their connections in online social networks to their stronger relationships; they have weaker social interactions online overall.  

BD patients also had poorer knowledge of social media terminology and less internet experience. BD patients used the internet less than would be expected for people of a similar age. This suggests the benefits online socializing offers some people, like those with social anxiety, are not helpful to BD patients. 

The researchers' online results echo previous offline research that showed BD patients had lower satisfaction with life and poorer relationships.

I am a computer scientist, and these results are interesting from a technology perspective in a few ways. First, it shows that interaction online is echoing problems these patients are having offline. That is not always the case – as I mentioned, for some people with social problems, online interaction is a safe haven where they interact more successfully. Unfortunately, social networking websites do not help DB patients with their issues.

This can serve as a motivation to social network designers to create new tools or interfaces that will support these patients. Now that we know that there are problems for these users, the next step is to study what features could help them interact more successfully. Then, those features could be built in to sites like Facebook or into sites designed for these types of patients to use. Understanding the needs of different user groups is always a goal of social network researchers, and this research gives us a starting point to potentially help BD patients.

[1] Martini, Thaís, et al. "Bipolar Disorder Affects Behavior and Social Skills on the Internet."PloS one 8.11 (2013): e79673.

Image Credit Bill Strain