December 8, 2015

I finally saw Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar”, which has been described as epic and visionary by some critics, and panned by others.  I’ve been mostly avoiding blockbusters for a while now, favoring independent and relationship-oriented films over special effect-laden megamovies that increasingly seem to sport shopworn, formulaic plots, shoddy writing and dialogue, and shallow emotional resonances.  I’ve enjoyed, in recent months, films like The Tale of Princess Kaguya, A Letter to Momo, Ask This of Rikyu (Japan knows the kinds of films I like!), as well as the 1939 John Ford classic The Grapes of Wrath, as well as a host of documentaries and film-festival selections.  I do love science fiction, though, especially movies that push at the envelope technically and thematically.  I decided to see Interstellar to see what all the fuss was about, and also because an online friend, the insightful and prolific Jenn Fang of Reappropriate.co, recommended it (“Interstellar captures the essence of science fiction”).  However, this is one of the rare instances where I’ll have to disagree with my esteemed colleague.

For me, the best science fiction does all the things that all great movies do (plot, character, dialogue) – and then ups the ante by projecting a contemporary drama or question into an imagined space and time, where it can be reconfigured to provide guidance on our current human dilemmas.  And a rip-roaring ride with special effects and a soundtrack to boot.  Yes, please!  The trailer for the new Star Wars movie brought back my youthful glee at watching an intense human drama in space, good vs. evil, humanity vs. power pushed to menacing, inhuman ends.  Star Trek always gives a boost to diversity and exploration as fundamental human needs.  Terminator and The Matrix were about humanity vs. technology, or humanity’s own creations.  Bladerunner imagined a future where man-made beings struggled for existence and meaning alongside humans.  Alien highlighted survival against deep space predatory threat, kind of like Jaws in outer space.  Science fiction and fantasy take us to some imagined extreme so we can ask meaningful, even existential, questions.

At first look, Interstellar seems to deliver on much of this.  There is an existential threat, and the need to push off for a “new frontier”.  There is a family drama at the core, a father’s love for his daughter that turns into the literal ghost in the machine of the universe.  Interstellar speculates about human evolution beyond space and time in a way that movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey hinted at.  And the movie was visually extravagant, a feast for the eyes in alien worlds and anomalies.  So why was I dissatisfied?  Instead of losing myself in the movie, it lost me early on. 

Mostly, I was disappointed that Nolan sidestepped the issue of climate change by making the existential threat to life on Earth a planetary blight that threatened farming, a blight that seems to have arisen independently.  While the hearkening back to the dust bowl Midwest was important (as that led to further migrations to the west), it was a convenient way to sidestep moral responsibility for humanity’s predicament.  The film was essentially an example of boosterism, of can-do optimism, Chris Nolan a kind of Jack Kennedy-as-director challenging us to achieve a transcendent and bold vision – colonizing space.  Only a new frontier can save us, resuscitate our defeated, grounded, Earth-bound spirit. 

Contrast this to the aforementioned movie about dustbowl challenges, The Grapes of Wrath.  In this movie, there was a clear – and embattled – moral center throughout.  The Joad family has to get past greedy opposition in both Oklahoma and California.  They find a habitable oasis in a government run work camp, but other “planets” are unlivable and unconscionable.  Tom Joad makes a powerful statement on responsibility and the struggle for ethical human life:  “Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there... I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'—I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready. An' when our folk eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build—why, I'll be there.”  Needless to say, Joad’s (and Steinbeck’s) spirit lives on in our daily lives, from news about police aggression to our economic disparities.  But in Nolan’s movie – not so much.  Nolan substitutes technological solutions for spiritual or moral ones; I wish he would have combined them more fruitfully.  He makes a nod towards love tying the universe together, in a quasi-Richard-Linklater-dialogic attempt to be grandiose and philosophical, but it felt like too insubstantial an engine to achieve orbit. 

The primary morality embodied in the movie was sheer survival.  Dylan Thomas’ villanelle “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is repeated time and again to hammer the point home.  But survival of what?  Other than their technological ingenuity and perseverance, I didn’t find the characters engaging enough to make me really root for them.  Sandra Bullock in Gravity was powerful in her humanity, vulnerable, strong and pushed to her limits.  I didn’t get that sense from any of the characters in Interstellar.  The “fistfight at the end of the universe” almost made me want to walk out of the theater.  This episode just didn’t make sense to me.  Giving Nolan the benefit of the doubt, I guess Dr. “Mann” had to symbolize man’s selfishness that must finally be overcome, or that eventually destroys itself, in the process imperiling the survival of all.  That alone could have been a much bigger and more compelling theme of a science fiction spectacular.

While there was some diversity of casting (a woman scientist does, after all, save humanity; and arguably the sharpest astronaut is an African American man) – this was a remarkably homogenous vision of the future.  I think we can ask our directors to do much, much better than this.

I guess that if we’re imagining the end of Earth, I would look for much greater soul-searching on the part of the characters – and director and writers.  Why are we facing the wall?  How much is because of our own nature?  What in our nature might save us?  Why are we worth saving?  I look forward to seeing that movie, or that reality, whenever we choose to make it.

Nolan uses the wormhole nicely.  But I don’t think a plothole is going to save us.

© 2014 Ravi Chandra, M.D. All rights reserved.  Subscribe by RSS above.  Sign up for a quarterly e-newsletter to be the first to find out about my upcoming book on the psychology of social networks through a Buddhist lens, Facebuddha:  Transcendence in the Age of Social Networks, at www.RaviChandraMD.com.  Facebook page: SanghaFrancisco-The Pacific Heart. Twitter @going2peace. Thanks for your shares on Facebook, etc.!  

To ensure that your children embrace the value of gratitude, you must immerse them in a culture of gratitude. You can do this by weaving gratitude into the very fabric of your family life.

Our family has a “Mo’ Grat” ritual every evening when we sit down for dinner. In this case, it means “Moment of Gratitude” during which we hold hands around the table, take a deep breath, close our eyes, and for a few seconds reflect on who and what we are grateful for. We then share a moment in the day in which we either expressed or received gratitude.

This ritual has several wonderful benefits. It allows us to put the busy day behind us and relax and be present at the dinner table. “Mo Grat” enables us to really focus on the good things in our lives. Also, at least once a week, My wife or I ask our daughters what they are grateful for and we share with them what we were grateful for. To our pleasant surprise, they almost always are able to readily come up with people to whom they are appreciative.

Patrick and Denise are devout Christians and use prayer at dinner and bedtime to teach their four children about gratitude. As a part of their dinner prayer, the family thanks the Lord for all that he has given them. At bedtime, their children express gratitude toward three people who helped them that day.

To encourage their son Arnie to want to help and become the recipient of gratitude, Ted and Betsy use his chores as opportunities to not only model gratitude, but also to turn the tables on him so he experiences and gains the benefits of being the receiver of gratitude. When Arnie does his chores, for example, makes his bed, Ted and Betsy say “Arnie, thank you for making your bed. We really appreciate it.” In turn, they have taught him to respond with “You're welcome.”

Renny is a no-nonsense father who was raised by a no-nonsense father with certain expectations of civility. He wanted his two sons to learn good manners just the way he did. Their family has a simple rule: You don't get anything until you ask for it rather than demanding it, ask specifically for what you want, and then express thanks after receiving it. For example, you know how kids are when they want something; “I want more strawberries!” Demands like that just don't fly in his house. If his boys utter such commands, Renny gives him a look and says” If you want something, what do you need to say?” His sons know the answer to their father's question: “Daddy, may I please have more strawberries?” and then, after receiving them, they must say, “Daddy, thank you for the strawberries.” (or some variation on that theme). And after they receive what they asked for, if his boys don't express thanks, he takes it away until they do. As his sons have gotten older, they have gotten the message and he is regularly complimented by others for their manners.

Terry knows how hard his wife Jaime works to prepare interesting and healthy dinners for their two children, Casey (age four) and Ivy (age two). From five to six o'clock every day, Jaime is in the kitchen, reading cookbooks and following recipes so her family can have a tasty and enjoyable meal together. Unfortunately, their children's response to what appears on their plates is sometimes a resounding – and hurtful – “Yuck!” And even when their kids liked the meal, they were finished in five minutes and their mother received no thanks for her efforts. And Terry had to admit that he didn't always thank Jaime either. After a while, Jaime told him that she felt unappreciated for all of the time and effort she put into making dinner.

Terry decided it was time to take action. At first, he said “Thank you, Jaime, for a wonderful meal” being sure his kids heard him. But even after several weeks of consistent gratitude, their children still hadn't gotten the message. He could have gotten heavy handed and demanded that they thank their mother for the meal, but he decided to see if he could make it fun instead. At the end of each dinner, Terry would lean toward each of his kids and, covering his mouth from Jaime's sight (giving the impression to his children that Jaime wouldn't be able to hear him and this was their secret), whispered “Would you please thank Mama for dinner?”  Casey, being older, got the message and would thank her mama immediately, often in a goofy voice with a funny expression on her face. Ivy was a little more reluctant and would resist Terry's whispered exhortations. But in a short time, she found her own way of expressing gratitude toward her mother. Ivy began to mimic her dad by leaning toward her mom, putting her hand on the side of her mouth, and whispering thanks to her mother. Then, a few weeks later, Ivy said thanks with sign language. Message of gratitude received, message of gratitude sent to their mom.

This blog post is excerpted from my third parenting book, Your Children are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You (The Experiment Publishing, 2011).

When bankers are reminded they are bankers, a new study has found, they are more likely to lie.

A team of economists at the University of Zurich has found evidence that banking culture encourages dishonest behavior. According to a study reported in Nature, bankers lied more than those in other professions when reporting the results of a coin toss. 

The researchers, noting recent scandals in the banking industry regarding manipulated interest rates, rogue traders and fraud, wanted to find out “whether the business culture actually renders bank employees more dishonest, or whether more-dishonest people simply choose to work in the banking industry.”

In devising the test, the researchers reminded the bankers of their professional identities before tossing the coins, a technique that is called “priming.”

So one would have to wonder – and worry – if their identities as bankers had that effect on a coin toss, what about when real money was involved? A tendency to be morally soft when faced with hypotheticals can become far more serious when the temptation of a deal involving millions or an important career opportunity is at stake.

Can anything be done about this? Alain Cohn, who is now with the University of Chicago, suggested banks should take a page from medicine and require their own version of the Hippocratic oath. “It is very important to let employees know exactly what desired and undesired behaviors are . . . . Then we could use a professional oath to activate these norms.”

Not so simple, I think. The power of the Hippocratic oath derives in part from its venerable age and universal acceptance. When a doctor takes the oath he or she knows that over the years hundreds of thousands of doctors have taken it before, and they stand as witnesses to it importance. Moreover, he or she knows that the oath is part of what it means to be a doctor. Before they start their training, they grasp their obligation to subscribe to it.

On the other hand, getting bankers to change would not be a simple matter. Businesses that want to change their cultures to make employees more engaged and assertive are finding just how hard that is.

The profession itself would have to rebalance its priorities, not just ask new members to be more honest. New bankers, clearly, will do what they see being done by old, established, successful bankers – and that is not just a matter of “talking the talk.” There would have to be reflection on the temptations to be dishonest, and serious penalties for violations. And it would be a good idea to start with self-policing, the kind of ethical boards that investigate consumer complaints, not just rely on government investigators to find the miscreants and prosecute.

Frankly, it is not a promising sign that this study was initiated by academics. Universities have a long and honored tradition of scholarship – going back almost as long as medicine’s link to Hippocrates. As a result, academics understand they are accountable for their work, but they may overestimate the ability of other professions to be ethical.

Establishing an oath is not a bad idea, but that would have to be just the first step in an arduous and prolonged process.

Why do we find natural scenes like green fields, trees and rivers beautiful? Why do people have an urge to gain wealth and power? Why do human beings fight wars? Why are human beings creative?

According to evolutionary psychology, the answers to these questions are linked to survival and reproduction. Evolutionary psychology explains present day human traits and characteristics in terms of the survival value they possessed for our ancestors. These traits have survived because the genes they are linked to were ‘selected’ and have remained part of our genetic heritage. So in terms of the above examples, we find natural scenes attractive because for our ancestors they represented survival – lush vegetation, trees laden with fruits and nuts, rivers. People have an urge to gain wealth and power because, in prehistoric times, they enhanced their chances of survival and increased their reproductive possibilities. The instinct to wage war is so strong because prehistoric tribes of genetically similar people were in constant competition for resources with other groups. The creative instinct can also be seen as a way of increasing our reproductive possibilities – successful creativity increases our status and so makes us more attractive to potential mates…

It’s clear from these explanations (all of which have been put forward by evolutionary psychologists) that evolutionary psychology has a great deal of explanatory power - seldom has such a simple idea been used to explain such a wide variety of human behavior. This is probably the reason why the theory has become very popular, especially in the media and amongst non-scientists. As human beings, we have a strong need for explanation, to make sense of our behaviour and of the world around us. (This is part of the reason why religions are appealing to many people too.) However, the negative side of this is that, when theories do have explanatory power, we tend to become over-enthusiastic about them, and to over-estimate their validity. And I think is the case with evolutionary psychology. Seldom has a theory gained such widespread support whilst being based on such shaky foundations.

Evolutionary Assumptions

As many observers have pointed out, evolutionary psychology is largely based on assumptions rather than evidence, and as such it is debatable whether it should be referred to as a 'science' (since its hypothesese are generally unfalsifiable). Its explanations of human behaviour are conjectures based on assumptions about what human life was like in prehistoric times. Evolutionary psychologists pick certain aspects of what they believe is ‘human nature’ and create stories to justify their development, based on the supposed benefits these traits would have had in early human history. Tellingly, these stores usually employ many qualifying terms such as ‘could have’ or ‘may have’, or adverbs such as ‘probably’ or ‘possibly.’ For example, the ‘innate’ selfishness of human beings could have been selected because, in prehistoric times, life was extremely hard, and the people who were most ruthless and least compassionate were more like to hold on to food and resources themselves, and therefore more likely to survive. Compassion and a desire to share would have probably decreased the individual’s chances of survival. In a similar way, racism could have been ‘selected’ as a trait because altruism towards another group would have decreased a group’s own chances of survival. It was beneficial to deprive other groups of resources and power in order to increase our own access to them.

One fallacy of this is that ‘human nature’ is extremely nebulous and can be interpreted in a variety of ways. It’s easy to cherry pick the characteristics which you think constitute human nature and invent your own ‘evolutionary psychology story’ to interpret them. Human beings are often collaborative rather than selfish and competitive; we are often benevolent rather than ruthless. There are many racist individuals, but there are also many people who feel empathy and inclusiveness towards other ethnic groups. Some evolutionary psychologists have even suggested that rape has an evolutionary basis: it can be seen as desperate attempt to replicate their genes by men who cannot attract willing sexual partners. However, what about the vast majority of long term single men who would find the idea of rape barbaric and unthinkable? (As I write this, I’m thinking in terms of an ‘evolutionary psychology’ board game, with picture cards showing different human traits and squares moving upwards to selection and survival, and downwards to the evolutionary scrapheap.)

The latter example highlights another problem with evolutionary psychology: its underlying assumption that any human traits which have survived must have had some survival value. (This is referred to as 'panadaptionism'). If they hadn’t had any value, the genes related to them wouldn’t have been selected. This is why evolutionary psychologists feel obliged to make absurd and offensive justifications of behaviours such as rape and male domination. However, there are many prevalent human traits which don’t necessarily have survival value.

For example, perhaps the most striking aspect of human beings, in relation to other animals, is our consciousness. There have certainly been attempts to explain its development in adapationist terms. The British philosopher Nicholas Humphrey, for example, suggests that having our own consciousness may have been evolutionary advantageous because it makes us feel that we are significant. We feel that we are ‘special individuals’ and that our lives have meaning, and so must have encouraged our desire to survive. Also, according to Huimphrey, having our own consciousness may have helped us in terms of survival by giving us insight into other people’s thought processes, helping us to guess what they might be thinking or feeling. This helped us to compete against them, to ‘second guess’ or ‘out-guess’ them.

However, there are serious problems with this interpretation. Why should the feeling of being a ‘special self’ be advantageous when most other species survive well enough without (apparently) possessing it? And as the German philosopher Thomas Metzinger has pointed out, consciousness can easily be seen as a disadvantage. Firstly, self-consciousness causes psychological suffering, makes us liable to suffer from anxiety, frustration and self-hatred. And on a wider scale, it can be seen as maladaptive, since we as human beings can’t seem to live in harmony with the earth, and are in danger of destroying the life-support of our planet, and hence killing ourselves.

In terms of one of the examples I chose at the beginning of this piece, it may make sense to suggest that we find lush natural landscapes beautiful because they are associated with abundant resources, and therefore represent survival. However, many people also find desert landscapes beautiful, when such a landscape would surely represent death. Many people find clear skies beautiful, and gray skies dreary, when in terms of survival gray skies would have been preferable (since they promised rain). Many people find the sea beautiful, which (although it obviously contains resources) is extremely treacherous.

Prehistoric Fallacies

Perhaps the most serious problem with these interpretations, however, is that they are based on erroneous assumptions about the human race’s past. The underlying assumption of most evolutionary psychologists is that the early period during which human traits developed was a hard and bleak struggle for survival. What is referred to as the 'environment of evolutionary adaptedness' was a time when human life was ‘nasty, brutish and short.’ It was - so they assume - a period of intense competition for survival, a kind of Roman gladiatorial battle in which only the traits which gave people a survival advantage were selected, and all others fell by the wayside.

But this is a crude caricature of prehistoric life. Until around 8000 BC, all human beings lived as hunter-gatherers. They survived by hunting wild animals (the man’s job) and foraging for wild plants, nuts, fruit and vegetables (the woman’s job). When anthropologists began to look at how contemporary hunter-gatherers use their time, they were surprised to find that they only spent 12 to 20 hours per week searching for food – between a third and a half of the average modern working week! Because of this, the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called (in his famous paper of that name) hunter-gatherers the ‘original affluent society’.

Strange though it may sound – the diet of hunter-gatherers was better than many modern peoples’. Apart from the small amount of meat they ate (10%-20% of their diet), their diet was practically identical to that of a modern day vegan – no dairy products and a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, roots and nuts, all eaten raw (which nutrition experts tell us is the healthiest way to eat.) This partly explains why skeletons of ancient hunter-gatherers are surprisingly large and robust, and show few signs of degenerative diseases and tooth decay. Hunter-gatherers were much less vulnerable to disease than later peoples. In fact, until the advances of modern medicine and hygiene of the 19th and 20th centuries, they may well have suffered less from disease than any other human beings in history. Many of the diseases which we’re now susceptible to (such as colds, the flu, measles and smallpox) only actually arrived when we domesticated animals and started living close to them. In view of this, it’s not surprising that with the coming of agriculture, people’s life spans became shorter.

Prehistoric life was also relatively easy in the sense that warfare was uncommon. Although some observers (such as Steven Pinker) claim that war was rife in prehistoric times, many anthropologists dispute this, believing that warfare only become endemic once human beings switched to farming and began to live a settled life, leading to the formation of villages and towns. Before then, there was little sense of territory to protect, and populations were so small that there was little need for competition over resources. (1) Even modern day hunter-gatherers are generally not territorial – they don’t think of a particular area of land as belonging to them and them alone, and don’t aggressively resist anybody who encroaches on it. (As the anthropologists Burch and Ellanna put it, “both social and spatial boundaries among hunter- gatherers are extremely flexible with regard to membership and geographic extent.”) It seems very unlikely that different groups were in continual conflict with another of resources. In fact, rather than being in conflict, contemporary foraging groups interact with each other a good deal. They regularly visit each other, make marriage alliances, and often switch membership. (For a longer discussion of this issues, see my book The Fall.)

Egalitarianism

There are many aspects of the typical ‘evolutionary psychology’ narrative which make no sense in terms of this anthropological evidence. The idea that human beings are naturally competitive and selfish makes little sense in view of the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer groups. The anthropologist James Woodburn speaks of the “profound egalitarianism” of hunter-gatherer groups, while another anthropologist, Tim Ingold, speaks of their ‘moral obligation’ to share everything. Foraging peoples are also strikingly democratic, with no different classes or castes, which makes it difficult to imagine how an instinct to gain power and create hierarchy could have developed. Most societies do operate with a leader of some kind, but their power is usually very limited, and they can easily be deposed if the rest of the group aren’t satisfied with their leadership.

This egalitarianism extends to women too, which makes nonsense of the idea that male domination is somehow ‘natural.’ The fact that women provided the majority of a group’s food (as much as 90% according to some estimates) strongly suggests that they had equal status, since it’s difficult to see how they could have low status while performing such an important economic role. As Tim Ingold notes, in ‘immediate return hunter-gatherer societies’ (that is, societies which live by immediately using any food or other resources they collect, rather than storing them for later use), men have no authority over women. Women usually choose their own marriage partners, decide what work they want to do and work whenever they choose to, and if a marriage breaks down they have custody rights over their children.

An Alternative Evolutionary Psychology?

In fact, it’s easy to imagine an alternative form of evolutionary psychology, based on a more evidence-based view of the human race’s past. This type of evolutionary psychology would explain why altruism, sharing and collaboration have become instinctive to human beings. The ‘story’ to explain this might be that the hunter-gatherer group’s ethos of egalitarianism was so strong that anyone who showed a strong desire for personal power or property would be ostracised from the group (which is actually the practice in some groups), and therefore be less likely to survive. Altruism was necessary as a way of demonstrating egalitarianism, to reduce one’s chances of being ejected from the group. Egalitarianism and altruism could therefore easily have been ‘selected’ as favourable traits. The difficulty with this kind of evolutionary psychology would be explaining why human beings are also prone to selfishness and status-seeking…But perhaps these could be explained away as forms of ‘disguised altruism.’

This sounds absurd of course - but only as absurd as evolutionary psychology as it is normally interpreted is.

As I hinted above, the reason for the popularity of evolutionary psychology is probably the same reason why religions have been so popular throughout human history - a psychological need to make sense of the world, to possess an ‘explanatory framework’ which tells us who we are, where we are, how we came to be here and why we behave as we do. I’m not seriously suggesting that evolutionary psychology is a kind of religion - at least it has its roots in evidence-based science, even if it strays too far into conjecture and erroneous assumptions. But due to its simplicity and reductionism, evolutionary psychology is very appealing as an ideology or belief system. It is also appealing because its narrative of competitiveness and individualism fits with the values of our society. The picture of early human life as a struggle for genetic success, with individuals and groups competing for access to limited resources, is a good metaphor for competitive capitalist societies - and was no doubt created in their image. A more egalitarian culture might well have come up with a more collaborative and benevolent model of human behavior – and would certainly have found evidence to justify this view. 

(1) Lawrence Keeley’s book War Before Civilisation suggests several examples of prehistoric violence and warfare, but all of these are dubious, and have been dismissed by other scholars. For example, Keeley sees cut marks on human bones as evidence of cannibalism, when these are more likely to be the result of prehistoric funeral rituals of cleaning bones of their flesh. He also interprets highly abstract and stylised drawings in caves in Australia as depicting battles, when they are open to wide variety of other interpretations. In this way, as the anthropologist R. Brian Ferguson remarks, 'Keeley’s rhetoric exceeds his evidence in implying war is old as humanity.'

Steve Taylor, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He is the author of Back to Sanity and The Fall. www.stevenmtaylor.com

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Many parents feel pressure to create the “perfect holiday” for their children, whether this involves matching holiday outfits, Kodachrome moments with extended family, or extravagantly perfect gifts. However, holidays and kids do not always mix well, as they often involve an incendiary mix of intense anticipation, painfully dashed hopes, the anticlimactic post-holiday blues, and often too much togetherness for families that typically spend too much time apart.

Keeping the risks of holiday burnout in mind, following are a list “gifts” that parents can offer their daughters not just during the fever pitch of December holidays, but throughout the year. The best part is that these gifts pay off big in return dividends that last a lifetime as you raise a responsible, mature, and appreciative daughter.

Following the typical organization of popular “Gift Guides,” below is an age-by-age compendium of gifts for your growing daughter.

Infants and Toddlers

Tell your daughter you love her every single day and show her you love her by appropriately responding to her needs and her requests.

Let your toddler make some small decisions about her day – the clothes she wears, the activities she chooses, and let her know that you accept her choices and her unique character.

Set healthy boundaries and limits for your daughter and don’t be afraid to enforce them! Learning self-regulation takes years, so your daughter relies on you to help her recognize her limits.

Elementary School

Accept that your daughter won’t like the same things you do at her age – she may not want to play soccer even though you have a box of your old soccer trophies in the garage – and let her become her own young woman. Embrace the amazing young woman that she is!

Help her to see the world clearly and to know how to make good choices – this has to be taught early and it is a skill that has to be learned. Practice when she is young will help her now that she is growing older.

Make communication a focused part of each day – and reassure her that she can talk to you about anything and everything! Even the bad stuff or the scary stuff. If she doesn’t have the opportunity to share what’s going on in her life now, she might not open up when she’s older.

Respect her need to express herself, but respectfully enforce boundaries and limits.

Middle School

Communicate, communicate, communicate!

Don’t be afraid to talk about sexuality, alcohol, drugs, money, skipping school, and any other risky behaviors – no matter how difficult these topics might be for parents, not having these important conversations now can create even more difficulty later.

Let your daughter know that her choices have consequences and be clear in what those consequences might be. Expectations and guidelines at the start make following the rules much easier.

High School

Communication still remains at the top of the list of relationship priorities. As daughters move further afield, positive and open communication can be the channel that keeps them close.

Accept that your adolescent daughter may make bad decisions, but rather than focus on the error of her ways, focus on helping her enhance her decision-making skills in the future.

Help her imagine the woman she would like to become as she sits at the crossroads of so many choices as the high school years come to a close. Encourage her dreams, but help her to temper them with reality, too.

Adolescents believe that boundaries and limits were made to be broken, however a mother knows that consequences were made to be enforced. Use respectful discipline that is grounded in love and support of your daughter.

Accept your daughter’s need to become an individual and to move emotionally away from the family – if you’ve raised her with unconditional love, mutual respect, and healthy boundaries and realistic expectations, she will always find her way back to your arms and your heart, no matter how far afield she seems to wander.

Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giving_a_gift.jpg

When I was 26 years old I fell in love with a tall, blond, and witty guy who had loyal friends and a likable family. He owned a growing business and I liked his take-charge style. We had fun together. 

Early in our relationship there were signs of trouble, but I explained them away. I saw his occasional fits of jealousy as expressions of love. I interpreted his tendency to point out my shortcomings as helping me to be my best self. I considered his moodiness the result of a stressful day. Nothing could corrupt my idea that I found my Prince Charming.

After we married, the trouble got worse. Sometimes he appeared to be the caring and generous man I thought I married. At other times, he made me feel like I couldn’t do anything right. He was argumentative, critical, and demanding. He seemed to take pleasure in putting me down in front of other people.

When I tried to talk to my husband about his upsetting behavior, he stepped over my words and twisted the blame on me. “You’re too sensitive,” he would say. “You’ve got to change.” I struggled to figure out what I could do to gain his approval. I tried being more attentive to him, more tolerant and more understanding, but nothing worked. I kept my feelings to myself and clung to the idea that we were facing the normal ups and downs of marriage.

After the birth of our child, my husband discovered a new way to ridicule me. One day at a shopping mall, he pulled me behind a corner to hide from our two-year-old son. My son couldn’t see us and began to cry. When I ran to my son to comfort him, my husband said, “You pamper him too much. You’re going to spoil him.”

My husband showed only his best behavior when we were among friends and family. I couldn’t explain the dramatic change in his conduct toward me. Isolated in my confusion and self-doubt, I lost weight and found it harder and harder to calm the critical voice in my head. “If you were smarter or sexier, he would treat you better,” the voice said.

We had been married seven years when my husband pushed me against a wall during an argument. Right then, I knew I had to leave him. Although my self-esteem and confidence were at an all time low, I still had enough self-respect to draw the line at physical battering. I wouldn’t raise my son in a violent household.

After our divorce, I returned to the city where I had lived most of my adult life. I got a new job and bought a home. Loving and nurturing a child that loved me back helped me to heal from my emotional pain and anguish. I gravitated toward people who honored my feelings and opinions; people who did not have a need to reduce me to bolster their sense of self-worth. As I worked on building my self-esteem, I saw the distinction between mutually respectful relationships and controlling, abusive ones.

At a birthday party, an acquaintance told me she wanted to introduce me to her boss. One blind date with Jay and we became inseparable. We married two years later. Happy and secure in my second marriage, I returned to graduate school to become a psychotherapist. I wanted to help victims of emotional abuse and better understand what had happened in my first marriage. 

In school, I realized how my military family’s numerous moves in the 1950s and '60s affected my first marriage. At the many schools I attended, I learned to be a people pleaser to make friends. Characteristic of that era, my parents handled problems by pretending they never happened. As a result, I didn’t acquire the skills to confront and resolve thorny issues. They discouraged me from expressing anger, hurt, and sadness, leaving me with little understanding of how to articulate those feelings.

I learned why my first husband had a controlling personality. His father used shame and physical aggression to discipline him, and his mother acquiesced to her husband and didn’t protect her son. As a result, he developed a profound sense of personal inadequacy and suppressed anger. Insecurity and fear of abandonment drove his need to take control over me, and he did that by attacking my self-esteem.

When I opened my private practice, I quickly discovered that many others were having their own experience with emotional abuse. Like me, they didn’t understand the trouble in their relationships and felt they had nowhere to turn. Some told me I was the first person who understood what they were going through. 

I dedicated my practice to treating emotional abuse victims in both individual and group therapy. Over the years, I came to understand the subtleties and complexities of emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can be situational or characterological. Situational abuse is an isolated incident of emotional abuse ending with genuine remorse and attempts to improve hurtful behavior. In characterological abuse, the perpetrator takes control over others by using denial, deception, intimidation, minimizing, blaming and other psychological tactics to manipulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. There is a pattern of intent to undermine another’s self-esteem for better control. Often victims take the blame and feel defective in some way. They disregard their own needs and feelings and may lose their sense-of-self. Characterological abuse happened in my first marriage.

One evening during my therapy group, a member spoke out, “Amy, you’ve got to write about this. This is a phenomenon that hurts people and destroys families. The damaging effects are passed on to our children. But people don’t understand it and can’t protect themselves and their loved ones.”

I knew she was right. As a psychotherapist, writer, and emotional abuse survivor, I could take my experience and knowledge to a broader audience. I spent the next year writing From Charm to Harm: The Guide to Spotting, Naming, and Stopping Emotional Abuse. My mission is to help expose a social epidemic that thrives on secrecy. My objective is to encourage both perpetrator and victim to recognize and stop destructive behaviors, get help, and provide healthy relationship role models for their children.

The past decade or so has seen the development a worrisome trend in fertility studies—evidence that suggests the possibility of broad declines in male sperm quality. In particular, a French study released in 2012 found significant declines in sperm quality among French men over a 17-year period between 1989 and 2005. The average age of the men in the study was 34-36 years old over the duration of the study period. During this nearly two-decade timeframe, average sperm concentration fell an alarming 32%. This isn’t the only study to identify widespread decreases in sperm quality—other investigations worldwide have returnedsimilar results. But this latest research elevated the sense of alarm over the public health ramifications of potentially diminished fertility in men, and led many to wonder whether we’re facing a “sperm crisis.”

If the sperm studies are in fact representative of a downward trend in male fertility, the question becomes: Why? What’s behind the widespread decrease in sperm quality? There’s not likely to be a single culprit, nor a simple answer. Results of a newly released study suggest an intriguing possibility: could the “sperm crisis” observed in the French study and others be at least partially the result of sleep apnea?

Researchers in Spain have recently investigated the relationship between OSA and male fertility. They found that the intermittent disruptions to breathing that are the hallmark of sleep apnea may lead to a decrease in fertility among men. Researchers conducted the study using male mice. Scientists induced in the mice brief, repeated periods of hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation. Their intent was to stimulate in mice the episodes of interrupted breathing that people experience when they suffer from obstructive sleep apnea. The mice were exposed to short episodes of oxygen deprivation followed by re-oxygenation for 6 hours a day over a period of 60 days. Scientists then assessed the fertility by allowing the mice to mate, and measuring the number of pregnancies resulting from the hypoxia mice compared to a control group of mice that had not experienced daily episodes of oxygen deprivation. The results were striking. Male mice that experienced a daily pattern of hypoxia episodes demonstrated significantly lower rates of fertility than the normal mice in the control group. The cycles of oxygen deprivation and re-oxygenation created by researchers were almost identical to what happens in people who have undiagnosed or untreated sleep apnea.

It will be critically important to see additional research to support these results, and to investigate the link between sleep apnea and male fertility in humans. But these findings make a strong preliminary case that the interruption of regular oxygen flow that’s associated with sleep apnea may lead to diminished fertility in men.

We’ve known for some time that OSA can have negativeeffects on sexual function in men (and also in women.) Research has shown that a significant percentage of men—from 10% to 60% or higher—with obstructive sleep apnea also have erectile dysfunction (ED). Scientists are still working to understand the relationship between OSA and ED, and exactly how sleep apnea may interfere with normal sexual function in men.

This latest study highlights a significant trend in much of modern society: the delay of parenthood to later years, and its consequences to fertility for couple who want to have children. The risks of OSA increase with age. If in fact sleep apnea does play a part in reducing fertility, older men who seek fatherhood may be particularly vulnerable. The longer obstructive sleep apnea is left undiagnosed and untreated, the greater chance it has to do harm.

These results also may provide at least a partial explanation for the two-decade decrease in sperm seen in the French study. Sleep disorders, including obstructive sleep apnea, have been on the rise for decades. The rise in disrupted sleep may be contributing to fertility problems and may be at least one piece of the puzzle behind the “sperm crisis.”

All men (and women) who suspect they may suffer from obstructive sleep apnea or any form of sleep-disordered breathing should be evaluated and seek treatment to resolve their sleep issues. 

CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) is the most common and effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. Often, people have concerns about wearing the apparatus necessary to receive CPAP therapy. When using CPAP, a mouthpiece worn by the sleeper is connected to a machine that supplies a continuous stream of air that helps to keep the airway open and unobstructed during sleep. Often patients have concerns about discomfort, but they also sometimes harbor self-consciousness and concern about the CPAP device interfering with their sex lives and intimacy with partners. New research provides evidence to dispel the notion that CPAP has a negative effect on sex lives. Researchers at Illinois’ Rosalind Franklin University examined sexual quality of life among CPAP users, and found no negative impact on sexual satisfaction among people who used CPAP on a regular basis. When used consistently as directed, CPAP is highly effective at improving sleep apnea. When CPAP is used regularly, it also leads to improvements in erectile dysfunction.

So, let’s review: Obstructive sleep apnea interferes with sexual function, may diminish fertility, and is associated with a long list of other serious health problems. Treating OSA with CPAP is safe, effective—and doesn’t make you any less sexy or sexually satisfied. I’d say there’s a clear winner here.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

www.thesleepdoctor.com

I really wanted my daughter to change some plans we had so that I could fit in several other things I wanted to get done. I wanted her to make my life easier at some cost to her own plans. And she just did not think she should have to rearrange things to suit me. She calmly said, "Not my circus. Not my monkeys." I stopped in mid-protest and burst out laughing. 

What a lot of meaning in those two simple phrases! 

I thought about how it might be good if I took the implications to heart. I had to let go of changing her and just make my own decisions about what I could fit into my schedule. And I realized that those two sentences reflect the central problem whenever we try to control what is not ours to control.

Not My Circus 

I suddenly saw a ringmaster, directing so many different parts of a three-ring circus. Performers, workers, equipment, animals. The ringmaster has the whip and the authority to use it; with practiced ease he signals where people should be and what they should be doing. And those performers, equipment and animals all have agreed that they will pay attention to these messages. They are willingly part of the circus, accepting directions to make it work. 

But what if someone else walked into that circus and tried to take over? What a mix-up would follow! No smooth signals, nothing happening when it should, nothing happening as it should. Confusion reigning as the equipment goes one direction and the performers another. The lion is brought to the ring where the bareback riders are waiting to balance on a horse. Tightrope walkers are given little cars to squeeze into. Even the clowns can't make this funny. 

This is so like the frustration of depressed people who devote their energy to thinking and talking over problems over which they have no control. They are trying to be the ringmaster in someone else's circus. For example: 

- Celene is worried that her partner's attitude at work is too flip and he will miss out on a promotion. She tries to make him dress and act more "like a contender" on the job. The more she makes suggestions, the more he finds her condescending and resists the suggestions. 

- Hector is worried that his boss's mismanagement is wasting money. HIs depression deepens as he anticipates only negative outcomes - the store is going to close, he won't get a raise - his constant bad mood affects his colleagues who are now irritated by him and not by the boss. 

- Kristin wants her son to value good grades so she makes him re-do his math more neatly. She wants him to be a child to whom this effort is important. Jon won't let his daughter play a video game because he wants her to learn to like reading. Trying to change the child not just the behavior may be directing the wrong circus. 

When people are depressed they get ruminative: part of their brain that should function smoothly, like a gear shift between emotion and thought, gets stuck. Then old ideas go around and around. They can't shift gears to find new solutions. In a depressed state, you may feel out of control, which creates stress that feels unmanageable. You can get even more discouraged that you cannot improve situations such as your marriage, your job frustration, or your children's choices. Repeated failure to 'fix' what cannot be fixed intensifies stress and then depression gets worse. How do you break this cycle? 

"Not my circus" is code: you are not the ringmaster here. You can watch the show, and certainly decide whether you stay in that tent, but you cannot control what happens there. Learning which circus is yours can diminish your stress remarkably. 

Figure out if this is your circus. Ask: 

1. Am I, and only I, responsible for this situation? This is the very first stress-reducing thing to figure out. When you are the only responsible one, then it is time to take action. Depression can lessen when you take action instead of just spin in your mind around negative thoughts. 

2. Learning which action to take means asking, "If I am the ringmaster, what is going wrong here?" This is not to complain, but rather a question that leads to new ways of thinking. That stuck brain needs a new path to follow. 

3. Then, "What are the possible ways to correct what is going wrong?" You may need help figuring out what to do first, because your depressed brain is stuck, so talk to friends and colleagues about ideas of how to change. 

4. Next, consider, "What is going right?" If you are depressed, you are probably focused on what is negative, so you might not think of asking this. Sometimes everything is fine as far as the performers in the circus are concerned. Sometimes everyone else is happy and it is only you who suffers that distress of not getting what you want. (As in, maybe your significant other is happy with his job and does not need to “be a contender.”) Realizing "I do not like it this way," is not the same as identifying a problem. Try noticing how much is right - you might not need to change anything but your attitude! 

Giving up the role of ringmaster in someone else's circus might give you emotional space to find your own circus is much more manageable. Read my blog next week "Not My Monkeys" to finish this thought!

“A sweet disorder in the dress do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part.” (Poet Robert Herricks)

 This piece emerged from a session with my client Brianna and is paraphrased.

 “My eating habits are killing me. Not just as far as extra fat is concerned. That goes without saying. The wince and examination in the mirror, the glance at the flabby wide thighs in a store window reflection, that’s me. That’s my life; a generalized discomfort, a constant discomfort in myself.

 I don't believe in “love your body.” What does that even mean? Why don’t love I my body? Because I can’t feel that warm gush about my disappointing physique. I try to love it but it still bothers me. Maybe tolerance, acceptance, even embrace would be a better word. Find a way to work with flaws or even make them beautiful. If I were at ease with myself, I could forget about me, be less worried or self-obsessed. I am just not free, carefree. It isn’t that I don’t think about others, my family, friends, I do, so much. I just worry that I will be judged, criticized, laughed at like I was as a kid. I was plump for a while. I had bad skin. Someone told me I was “jerky” when I danced.

 Carol King, the singer, there’s a show about her now, says you are “beautiful as you feel” and “wake up with a smile on your face.” But it is hard when some people are clearly more beautiful than you as far as faces and thighs go. I mean isn’t there an aesthetic issue here, lines of a body like lines of - a house, a room, a sculpture, the Feng Shui; the flow? Some proportions work well and some do not, I think. Is it dictated by symmetry, the beholder, something slightly off that draws you in? What actually pleases the eye? Everyone disagrees. There is maybe no actual truth.

 If exceptional beauty stuns and grabs us and we are in awe, then beauty in a person, place or thing has power. My friend told me that of two candidates up for a job at her firm, they hired the better-dressed person. She packed a punch with her attention to detail, her perfectly cut suit, her highlighted hair and gleaming shoes. She was less of an intellectual heavy weight but her careful presentation apparently dazzled. First impressions and awesome appearance, it’s amazing what it actually means or conveys, how people are drawn to it, want to talk to you, negotiate. There is substance in the superficial!

 If there is beautiful and not beautiful how do you live, go on, feel pretty, feminine, like a woman if you do not measure up? I really struggle with this. Maybe grooming is everything, what you do with what you have. Even if you try to redefine beauty as something more alternative, you too may be taken aback by say, a perfect face or washboard abdomen.

 But then again, why are you moved when you are moved? I have noticed that some compelling people have this way of projecting attitude. It creates allure. It’s like, “I don’t really care what you think; I have something going on. ” We all need some of that.

 It is true that throughout history the concept of beauty changes: zoftic /emaciated, large forehead/small, straight hair/ wavy. Whatever. Can you say that beauty does not matter? Obsessional pursuit of it makes a person anxious. It feels futile and degrading. Even if some grooming is necessary just to not offend the world, it gets old and kind of boring to think about it too much. I mean where does that leave you as you age? There is some other bandwagon.

 I guess, just get interested in something; like life. Others. Their concerns. A project or even an obligation. A friend of mine says cooking for her family helps her eat less, feeding others takes away her hunger. Someone wrote about savoring, rather than scarfing. Maybe be a bit heavier than your ideal but enjoy your tiramisu. Why should worry about beauty and ten pounds rule your life?

 Once in a National Geographic magazine when I was a kid I saw a photo of an old woman; grinning, wide stance in black stockings, burgundy dress, rosy cheeks on a round face in the south of France. And to me, her smile said she might be the happiest person ever so I hung her in my bathroom.

 Sometimes, as a kid, I felt deflated looking in the mirror in the morning and I didn’t want to go to school. But, it’s hard to describe, inside I felt special even though I felt bad. Some weird little secret self-esteem deep down that drove me. Not vanity but okay-ness in spite of it all. Like, whatever, there is something to do.

 I hate to be cliché, but inner beauty, that which comes from within is somehow more sustaining, not just what people say to make you feel better. Brene Brown says that empathy is the antidote to shame, which is like saying if you are swept up in something other, self- consciousness slips away.”

 When the “way” is within, happiness, self-esteem and emotional sustenance are more likely. 

 http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en

Although women are still widely underrepresented in studies on addiction, we are gradually moving towards a culture that not only acknowledges their legitimate struggles with alcoholism, sex and love addiction and compulsive eating and/or spending, but also acknowledges the unique ways in which their behaviors and recovery patterns differ from those of men. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recognizes about one third of alcoholics are women, and Patrick Carnes, author of Don't Call it Love and Facing Addiction, estimates that female sex and love addicts are found in an approximately similar proportion.

Societal conditioning of women cannot be ignored when broaching this topic. Women's sexuality has long been demonized, repressed, ignored, fetishized and dichotomized by the media, the church and patriarchal society at large. As children, we all learn the Bible story that tells us Eve was a seductress who used her wiles to tempt Adam and thus bring about the couple's banishment from Eden. This is an enormous burden of guilt to put on half the population, and many similar stories about women's dual goddess/whore nature continue to be passed down through the generations. The double standards of promiscuous males being called "studs" and promiscuous females being called "sluts" only adds to the female sex addict's confusion and shame. Women are held up to be mothers, caregivers and nurturers, rather than just ordinary humans with the same needs and desires as their male counterparts. Historically, women who ventured outside of these expected roles have been called fallen women, witches, spinsters, hags, or old maids. Women who choose to love other women rather than men have endured a barrage of name-calling, ostracization and even violence.

While society warns women against becoming sluts, it simultaneously reminds them they need to show some skin. Images of women in advertising and the media are highly sexualized, and we are in constant contact with these images via the Internet, our phones, movies, or the supermarket checkout lane, which is littered with magazine covers. Women who experience a more subtle, internal sexuality may feel pressured to "act more like a man" and stop being such a prude. Trying to figure out the right number of sexual partners to have in order to be considered "normal and acceptable" can become a full-time job.

Compounding these difficulties is the fact that women experience sexual abuse, harassment, rape and sexual violence on a disconcertingly regular basis and in much higher proportions than men. Only one out of every 33 men has experienced rape, either attempted or completed, compared to one in every six women, according to RAINN. The Crimes Against Children Research Center has reported that one in five girls is a victim of childhood sexual abuse as compared to one in 20 boys, and a government survey shows that 20 percent of female adults recall experiencing childhood sexual assault. These are traumatic, damaging events for any gender, of course, but in regards to the genesis of female sexual addiction, abuse may play a much larger role than it does for men. Self-objectification can be so ingrained for many abused women, that they don't see their lifestyle as addiction, but rather simply "the way things are."

While there are many other issues not discussed in this blog, including the role of love addiction and co-dependency, it is clear that in order to recover, the female sex addict must receive counseling and support that addresses these issues specifically, rather than a cookie cutter version of addiction recovery in which one size fits all. Through increased awareness, self-love and connection with other women via support groups, the female sex addict can obtain a sexual identity that is strong, vibrant, and healthy; one that is entirely free from limiting external influences as well as all the harms and assaults of the past.

Click Here to Subscribe to our free daily email meditations focusing on healthy sex and sexuality from my book Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence.

The Art of Triangulation in Couples Counseling.

You can tell the state of the situation the moment they walk into the room. If they are sitting far apart on the couch or in different chairs, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Couples counseling is among the most difficult of processes for a therapist. While on one hand you want to be the glue that gets a team back together. You also do not want to encourage a toxic relationship. It is not our responsibility to make decisions for our clients, but to lead them down the correct path. Therapy cannot always fix relationships; it clarifies what is going on and that does not mean everyone walks out happy.

The first question I ask when confronted by a clearly out-of-touch couple is, “OK, which of you has one foot out the door and is just here to show you have made an effort?” And then I dive in. Recently, one partner just blurted out, “I never should have gotten married. I want an immediate divorce. I want you to move out now. This is over.” My other client felt like he was smashed with a baseball bat. He thought that after almost a year of marriage and three years of dating, things were going well. She was bored out of her mind and said so. What I find most interesting is that she said all this to me with him sitting in the room. It was easier to say with a witness who might interpret what was going on. This was fairly clear. He, an always calm, often silent partner, had no retort at all. Any questions about the relationship were answered negatively by her and got a shoulder shrug by him. He is currently packing up, preparing to return to Mom’s and still there has been no substantive conversation. Meeting with them separately she asked why he did not fight for her, even though she would not change her mind. Meeting with him, his response was that she was so definite and mean-spirited that he could not see a reason to “fight” for the relationship. He no longer wanted it. But neither could say that to one another. To stay together would have proven toxic for both which we discussed at a closing couples session. I felt it was necessary to get them to share their thoughts and see just where the relationship derailed. Again, they were not able to look one another in the eye, but talked through me. I was safe, unemotionally, only judgmental for noting that the initial demand was a surprise and really abrupt and perhaps unkind considering a 4-year relationship.

On a more positive note, I have recently sat with a couple, apparently estranged, and got them to talk through me and say the things they could not say to one another. A lot of this had to do with sex. Somehow, it stopped. They had moved into separate rooms, apparently due to snoring issues, and never had sex again. The woman was suffering from the natural after-effects of being post-menopausal; symptoms where intercourse can be painful (while easy to remedy) and her embarrassment at bringing it up. He, a 65-year old still very virile man, was unhappy. And rather than approach this situation with his spouse, went elsewhere for intimacy. Finally, through discussion, a visit to her gynecologist (I suggested he attend), the appropriate simple medication, and some lubricant, life was able to continue as it was. But the initial discussion was too painful for either to bring up with each other.

Asked often, so does therapy work? The answer is an overwhelming “yes.” It allows people to voice to a relative stranger what they cannot voice to one another. That is somehow more comfortable, less threatening or embarrassing, and more honest. The triangulated discussion of speaking through a therapist and allowing her/him to then lead a circular discussion can work.   Therapy sometimes can be that magic pill.  It is helping those give voice to what clients can never say to each other and help them through that process.

In our modern world, discomfort is considered a terrible thing. If not terrible, at least a thing of the past. Dishwashers, washing machines, computers, remote controls—yes, they add convenience, but also a level of comfort our forefathers did not enjoy.

Pain of any kind thwarts happiness, we tend to reason, and so anything that compromises our ability to feel good must be bad (who hasn’t seen a commercial for a pain reliever?) But that’s also particularly true for our careers. Success feels great, not lousy! Such a view, however, is in the eye of the beholder. And it may blind us to unforeseen opportunities.

"Suffering from the world"

Artists throughout history have consistently courted suffering, instinctively if not consciously, to produce works that explore the darker recesses of the human condition. This was done, in part, because pain is a reality of life for everybody in some form at some time. Pain is something everybody can relate to. And pain makes a person very present. For such artists, to ameliorate or to deny pain would be to block the creative muses, that which drives them to explore and express. In fact, Germans have a term for this melancholia, “Weltschmerz”, which means “suffering from the world.” Writers, from Lord Byron to Kurt Vonnegut, have used the term to describe the psychological pain encountered along life’s roller-coaster journey. It was not to be avoided: it was to be understood, investigated, employed.

When it comes to movies, box office receipts bear witness to the fact that we are drawn to brooding superheroes; the gleeful ones just don’t possess the adequate level of gravitas required to save the world or revolutionize it. (Think “Batman Begins”.) And while we may not want to feel anguish of any kind, we don’t mind seeing it in others, from the safety and comfort of the cinema or one’s own dreamy couch, if it evokes a profound revelation, or flashes of insight. When the pain can be viewed from a distance, one can more easily discern the value of the struggle. Yes, there is value.

So I propose that discomfort is good for us. Or, put another way, it tells us that something needs to be addressed. It stretches us by forcing us to view our circumstances through a wholly different lens. Because we’re drawn to safety and security, we do our best to create cushy comfort zones for ourselves and our loved ones through the cars we drive, the homes we live in, and the places we work. But by resisting discomfort, we deny ourselves an important opportunity: the chance to shake ourselves out of our predictable perspectives and allow ourselves to make astute observations we could not possibly have made before. Discomfort gives us fresh eyes.

Embracing ambiguity—and friction

On my first day as Director of Marketing for a product design firm, I found out during my welcome meeting with Human Resources about another Director of Marketing at the firm. When I asked who reported to whom, my HR contact said: “To be honest, we’re still trying to figure that out.” I admit I felt discomfort at this news, more than what I felt I could handle—but it also immediately prepared me for the firm’s unique culture of ambiguity. Seven wonderful years followed.

The creative ideas and innovative solutions that lead to coveted moments of illumination, and help to solve the thorny problems we encounter in life and on the job, don’t come from stasis. Harmony at work, for example, is good and can also spur productivity. But if it’s pursued purely for its own sake, it can function like blinders on a horse, directing our view—and our thinking—in only one direction. It can close us off to other possibilities. Sounds rather limiting, doesn’t it?

Creative thinkers aren’t afraid of discomfort because it gives them greater perspective. It opens the door to approaches they’ve never tried, or even thought of. It increases the range of their problem-solving arsenal.

Some simple ways to create moments of positive discomfort at work include: swapping desks or roles with colleagues; inviting a co-worker to lunch whom you’ve never met before; or improvising an ad-hoc voice-over on slides you have never seen before at a staff meeting. The point is: explore new methods and ways of thinking—constantly. This helps to normalize the feeling of discomfort, which stalls the inevitable pull of your comfort zone.

I’m not suggesting self-inflicted pain to inspire creative thinking or problem-solving. But I do think we’d be better off when we’re not so quick to qualify the spells of discomfort that inevitably come our way as “bad”. See the discomfort as the potential opportunity it is. It’s telling us something. Unless there is a chronic condition, discomfort comes and goes. A wave in the ocean doesn’t last forever—we all know this. But surfers see the ephemeral beauty of waves and make the most of them. So should we.

We cause ourselves pain when we compare ourselves to others, so why do we keep doing it? Because animals compare themselves to others, and we've inherited the brain that creates this impulse.

Animals are always checking each other out. Their survival depends on it, and their brain chemicals respond with life-or-death feelings. We have the same brain chemicals, and they give you the feeling that your life is threatened when you see someone with bigger antlers. When your own antlers have the edge, you get a nice safe feeling. Natural selection built a brain that rewards you with a good feeling when you see a way to promote your survival, and warns you with a bad feeling when you see any threat to your genes' survival.

You have probably heard that animals cooperate, and that life is warm and fuzzy in the state of nature. You should know the rest of the story because your serotonin depends on it. The mammal brain releases serotonin when it sees that it’s dominant. The good feeling motivates a mammal to do things that stimulate it. Serotonin is not an aggressive feeling but a nice calm sense that your needs will be met. I am not saying you should be a jerk. (Anyway, being a jerk doesn't free your inner mammal from this cage.) I am saying you must manage your  one-uppy feelings instead of blaming the world for them.

You may pride yourself on your sense of fairness, but your brain keeps comparing and reacting. When someone else has the edge, your brain releases cortisol, the chemical that tells an animal that its survival is threatened. Your brain looks for ways to stimulate that nice serotonin feeling, which leads to social comparisons that make you feel bad. What’s a big-brained mammal to do? 

It stops with me
You can manage your brain’s impulse to compare. To do this, you must recognize the comparing you are doing instead of blaming it all on others. Then you are free to make a new choice.

It feels scary at first. When you feel like the world is judging you, you want to judge back to feel safe. Your brain chemicals create a huge sense of urgency, and your verbal cortex rationalizes it with fancy theories.

You may sneer at earlier generations who competed to have the biggest hat or the biggest bustle. But we have  created new scorecards that works the same way. Today, many people condemn others for being insensitive in order to put themselves in the one-up position. You get a nice serotonin feeling when you applaur your superior sensitivity. But you are still busy comparing and reacting. You inevitably notice someone who rates higher on your personal scorecard, and your cortisol turns on. It will feel like your survival is threatened, so your brain will seek the one-up position again to feel safe.

You can do this all day without noticing it. No matter how well you’re doing, you always find someone doing better. Everyone has that cousin or neighbor who makes them feel like they’re missing out on something. But when you know how your brain works, you know they didn’t “make” you feel that way. You created the feeling, and you have the power to stop it.

A hilarious description of this thought spiral is James Altucher’s blog post I’m Completely Humiliated by Yoga. You can go to a yoga class with good intentions and end up spending it making social comparisons that leave you frustrated. You can go to a holiday party with good intentions and end up spending it making social comparisons that leave you frustrated. But you can also remind yourself that you are a mammal and your brain is making the comparisons. You can focus your mind to avoid that roller coaster.

For example, when I go to a yoga class, I choose a spot at the front where I won’t be able to see what the beautiful people are doing. When I can’t see what others are doing, I have to focus harder on the teacher’s instruction, and this is a welcome distraction from muscle strain. More on this in my post Every Day Is Independence Day, and Interdependence Day.

It’s easy to think the world is judging you, and hard to see how you are creating that feeling. When you understand your inner mammal, you can free it from the cage of social comparison. Sometimes you want help, but everyone you know is a mammal. Your friends and relatives tend to feed the idea that you are being judged. Trying to change them leaves you more distracted. Instead, you can structure your focus in creative ways. A complete program for ending the curse of social comparison is in my book, I, Mammal: Why Your Brain LInks Status and Happiness.  For an entertaining overview of your inner mammal’s dilemma, check out my slide shows, It’s Not Easy Being Mammal and The Nature of Hierarchy and the Curse of Social Comparison.

Your cortex finds the information your mammal brain tells it to look for, because your brain evolved for survival. If you are looking for people who are doing better than you, your cortex will find it. Your brain will torture you with social comparison because it worked for your animal ancestors. The curse of social comparison is hard to escape when you think others are doing it to you. When you know you are doing it to yourself, you have the power to stop it. You simply shift to another thought. In every moment, you have the power to focus on the pleasure of your moves instead of on the pain of presumed shortcomings. This feels scary at first because your inner mammal wants to guard against bigger critters. But you know how to train your inner mammal. You’ve trained it not to eat every pizza you see or mate with every attractive stranger you pass. You can train it to focus on your next step instead of on how the bigger apes view your last step.

If it’s so easy, why is it so hard? Because you have to do it again and again and again. Your inner mammal will start checking people out a minute after you’ve decided no to. If you don’t keep re-directing it, you will end up convinced that “they” are judging you.

Image credit:
1. Loretta Breuning
2. http://www.hungry-for-hunting.com/mule-deer-facts.html
3. Loretta Breuning
4. Photo: yobro10 / 123RF

Traveling with a child with special needs takes preparation and planning to help ensure that the trip is safe and enjoyable for not only the child, but also the parents. It is important to remember that part of that planning is not only making sure that your child has everything that they will need, but also that you as a parent are taken care of as well. Finding resources and strategies to remain calm, can not only make the travel experience more enjoyable for you, but also your child.   

#1 Identify Your Own Stress Triggers

You already know that learning more about your child’s behaviors and expectations is key to building positive skills and reducing potential problems. By proactively planning for foreseeable situations that may increase the likelihood of a problematic behavior, you have the opportunity to prevent challenges for your child. But, it is just as important to take the same approach with your own stress triggers. By identifying situations that may increase your own anxiety, you can plan for how to prevent these situations from occurring in the first place, and develop strategies for how to manage the situations if they do occur.  

#2 Plan Ahead: Your Sanity Depends on It 

Planning ahead is one of the best ways to succeed in less stressful travel. It is likely that your child’s regular schedule will be disrupted, which can be especially difficult for children with special needs, and particularly stressful for parents leading up to, and during your trip. Book a flight at the right time, and with the right seating arrangement (e.g., window or aisle) that works for your family, rather than trying to work your family around a flight. For example, if your child is used to having a snack or a nap at a certain time, try to plan your travel around these key events. It is much easier to have a snack while sitting in an airport or on the plane, than while trying to run with your family between gates or to the rental car. 

Also, make sure you plan with YOU and your kids in mind. You always remember to pack snacks for your children, but it is just as important to pack a little extra for yourself. There is nothing worse than trying to keep everyone else calm when you cannot hear your family over the grumbling of your own stomach.

#3 Pack Only What you Really Need: 

With most airlines charging a hefty checked baggage fee in addition to the price of your ticket, it is understandable to want to carry-on as much as you can. However, there is nothing more stressful than lugging around and keeping track of a ton of bags while trying to make sure that your children are safe, calm and entertained. Keep the necessities with you (e.g., phone/tablet/game devise charger cords, snacks, clothes, diapers, favorite toys, etc.), but check everything else. 

Also, always remember to expect travel delays. Between winter weather, increased holiday travel, and frankly anything and everything, flight delays are inevitable. By expecting a delay, you will be more prepared if one occurs. If, somehow, you are not delayed, then your travel plans just became that much better. 

#4 Technology is your Friend (as long as it’s charged):

Let your smart phone be smart. You have enough to think about. Keep as many details about your travel plans as possible in one section of your cell phone. You can even use your cell phone’s camera to keep useful information such as where you parked at the airport, or what all your baggage looks like should something go missing. This will not only keep you more organized, but will save you the stress of having to rifle through all your travel documents and paperwork, all with one on eye your kids. If you are traveling with another adult, make sure they have the information on their phone as well. There is power in numbers, so you can divide and conquer responsibilities to distribute the stress.

#5 Inform Key Personnel If/When/How to Help 

Though, not all airport personnel are trained in assisting families with special needs, it may be helpful to let flight attendants or hotel staff know how/when/if they might be able to provide support. For example, if your child engages in any noticeable stereotypic or aggressive behaviors, consider letting the flight attendants know about what they might expect to see, and how they might help ahead of time. That way, you will be calm and able to thoroughly discuss options prior to an incident, and avoid a confrontation while in the middle of trying to help your child meet their needs. 

And, Always Remember: Keep Calm and Travel On

No matter how well you plan, no travel experience is perfect. Even the best trips have moments of frustration and worry. Though it may not feel like it at the time, the stressful parts of travel will pass. Just knowing that you made the effort to prepare your family during your trip can relieve the stress and inevitable guilt, even during the rough spots. And, focus on those fun and memorable moments with family and friends to help you to recognize that the trip was all worthwhile in the bigger picture. 

Dr. Darren Sush, Psy.D., BCBA-D, specializes in therapy for parents of children with autism and special needs. His office is located in Los Angeles, CA. For more information, visit www.drdarrensush.com 

Learn more about Dr. Sush: drdarrensush.com

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Back in the late 1980s, I stumbled onto one of the bigger stories of my young journalism career simply by asking some questions about the tax rates of the town I was covering. I was talking to the finance director for a municipality in central New Jersey one day, and when he candidly said he didn’t know the answers to my questions, I suggested I should go chat with the tax collector. My suggestion was met with a smirk. “You can try,” the finance director said. I tried. And tried. I failed to ever meet the tax collector. It turned out that he hadn’t been in the office in years. He had helped rewrite the local statutes long before, to turn his job into a sinecure that never actually required him to work or show up. Employees in his office gave me the same smirk when I sought him. They even had a nickname for him: The Phantom. My curiosity was thoroughly piqued. After some digging (and even staking out his house for hours), I wrote a series of stories about “the Phantom.” Community outrage drove the town leaders to negotiate his dismissal; my story was prime-time news for the Philadelphia television affiliates.

The trait of curiosity seems to be getting a lot of attention lately. A recent book by veteran TV journalist Ian Leslie, Curiosity: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It, argues that people with high “need for cognition,” or NFC, as psychologists say, tend to be smarter, more creative, and more successful than their less curious cohorts. Leslie quotes the comedian Stephen Fry saying, “The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care much. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is” (p. xxiii). In journalism, curiosity is essential. Show me a good journalist, and I’ll show you a person with high NFC. “Curiosity killed the cat; lack of curiosity killed the reporter,” said one newswriter (Reimold, p. 12). Every day, journalists driven by simple yet irrepressible curiosity turn up stories that are informative, valuable, and usually entertaining. “Unabashed, persistent curiosity is the wellspring of great journalism,” said New York Times reporter Binyamin Appelbaum. “Look for the things you don’t understand, and keep asking questions until you do” (Gammon, 2011). Journalism theorists such as Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel argue that high need for cognition among journalists is not only preferable, but critical: A dedication to pursue the news without fear or favor “speaks to an independence of spirit and an open-mindedness and intellectual curiosity that helps the journalist see beyond his or her own class or economic status, race, ethnicity, religion, gender or ego” (American Press Institute, 2014).

When you start looking for manifestations of curiosity in the news, they appear everywhere. In a recent study I conducted that asked selected well-respected journalists to talk about the challenges and triumphs in their personal and professional lives, most of them exhibited a deep streak of curiosity. One was Mitch, an editor at a Florida newspaper who recounted his flyover of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992:

I asked a question, after an over-flight of the area a couple of days after it got hit by the hurricane – we had all these aerial photos out there, and a lot of them were just rows and rows of roofless houses, and I said, ‘Here’s what I want to know: Was this a huge hurricane, or is this a lot of crappy houses?’ Turned out they were a lot of crappy houses. And we went out and got an engineer who went out and examined the houses, and in four or five days, we basically had a story that said these houses weren’t built to code, we dug down into the building code itself, and it really had a long-term impact on south Florida, and getting people to think about things like how long their roofing nails ought to be. It turns out, that’s an important calculation. How thick should your felt be, on your roof? That turns out to be important. Is it plywood, or something else? Is it quarter-inch plywood, or three-quarter-inch plywood? And those are things that people didn’t think about that turned out to be critical in how destructive that particular storm was going to be (Plaisance, 2014, pp. 109-110).

Those stories earned Mitch’s Florida newsroom staff a Pulitzer Prize.

While there are many things that might motivate people to be curious at different times, high levels of need for cognition may be linked to other, more enduring personality traits, such as “openness to experience” and “extraversion,” two traits that have been widely measured in social psychology research. This is the suggestion posed by the results of my exemplar study. All of the exemplars scored above average for several key traits – including Openness and Extraversion (Plaisance, 2014, p. 61).

Unfortunately, I see many journalism students who don’t seem to show a lot of curiosity about the world beyond their look-at-me social media bubble. But as Leslie argues, curiosity isn’t really a trait. It’s a muscle that requires use for good development. “If you are high in NFC, you are more likely to actively seek out experiences and information that make you think, challenge your assumptions, and pose puzzles,” he writes (p. xviii). Thankfully, we have countless good journalists doing exactly that for our benefit every day. My hope is the next generation will have the same.

References

American Press Institute (2014). “The elements of journalism.” Retrieved December 10, 2014, at: http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/what-...

Gammon, R. (2011, January 26). “’Curiosity is the wellspring of great journalism’ – NYT reporter.’ Retrieved December 9, 2014, at: http://businessjournalism.org/2011/01/26/curiosity-is-the-wellspring-of-great-journalism-nyt-reporter/

Leslie, I. (2014). Curiosity: The desire to know and why your future depends on it. New York: Basic Books.

Plaisance, P.L. (2014). Virtue in media: The moral psychology of excellence in news and public relations. New York: Routledge.

Reimold, D. (2013). Journalism of ideas: Brainstorming, developing, and selling stories in the digital age. New York: Routledge.

Recently, during his regular weekly address at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican, Pope Francis declared that all animals go to heaven. He made this statement while trying to comfort a boy who was upset about the death of his dog. While this may be a comfort for everyone who has ever mourned the loss of a beloved pet, it is a major point of controversy in the Catholic Church.

In early history there was no question that dogs had souls and would be allowed into heaven. Rameses III, who became Pharaoh of Egypt in 1198 BC, buried his favorite dog Kami with all the ritual ceremony due to a great man including a coffin, linen, incense, jars of ointment and the ritual scroll that he would need for his entrance into paradise.

The rise of Christianity seems to have ushered in the belief that dogs would not make it to heaven. Despite the fact that the word animal is derived from the Latin word "anima" which means “soul,” Christianity (particularly the Catholic Church) has traditionally taught that dogs and other animals have no more consciousness or intelligence than rocks or trees. According to religious doctrines at that time, anything that had consciousness also had a soul, and anything that had a soul could earn admission to heaven. To grant that animals had souls was simply unacceptable to the Catholic Church. In later years they would claim support from some scientists and philosophers, such as Rene Descartes, who would have described your dog as just some kind of machine, filled with the biological equivalent of gears and pulleys. This machine doesn't think, but can be programmed to do certain things. Machines have no souls and therefore one need not allow a Beagle-shaped automaton or a mechanized Maltese to pass through the pearly gates of heaven.

These views were strongly held, and Pope Pius IX who headed the church longer than any other pope (1846–1878) actually led a heated campaign to try to prevent the founding of the Italian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on the grounds that animals have no souls. Pius quoted Thomas Aquinas to prove his case, since Aquinas often noted that animals are not beings, but just “things.” However Aquinas seems to have had some doubts since he warned, “we must use animals in accordance with the Divine Purpose lest at the Day of Judgment they give evidence against us before the throne,” which would certainly suggest that animals would be around in the afterlife.

It is interesting to note that Pope Pius (who created the doctrine of Papal Infallibility) was contradicted in 1990 by Pope John Paul II who said "also the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with smaller brethren." He went on to say that animals are "as near to God as men are." Although the pope's statement was reported in the Italian press it appears that it was not widely discussed—perhaps to prevent the embarrassment of having two infallible popes contradicting one another, or to avoid a mass action suite that might be filed against the church by the spirits of animals that had been unjustly denied entry into heaven in earlier regimes.

Only three years after the death of John Paul II, his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, seemed to once again close the doors of heaven firmly to pets and other animals. Although he was personally a cat-lover, Benedict asserted the traditional doctrine that only humans have immortal souls. In a sermon he gave in 2008 he stated “For other creatures, who are not called to eternity, death just means the end of existence on Earth.” He would later point out that the Bible makes it clear in Mark 16:16 that only "he that believes and is baptized shall be saved." The implication was clear since it is certain that the apostles never baptized or preached the gospel to dogs or cats.

Following Benedict's short tenure, his successor was the current Pope Francis. Since he adopted his papal name in honor of the patron saint of animals, Saint Francis of Assisi, it is perhaps not surprising that he chose to side with John Paul II and to once again open the doors of paradise to animals. This can be justified in Scripture by citing the Old Testament passage Isaiah 11:6 which says that in the life hereafter "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fatted calf together," which would certainly suggest that a whole lot of animals might be residing in heaven. The statement made by Pope Francis is really quite unambiguous. He said "one day we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all God's creatures."

If the viewpoint of Pope Francis is accepted I am sure that the next round of questions to be debated by ecclesiastical scholars will be "If animals go to heaven, can they also go to hell?" In other words will the nasty dog who bit my young grandson suffer hellfire in perdition? Or, do all dogs have an automatic ticket to heaven since they lack the intellect to make rational moral decisions? And where does God draw the line? Is there a hierarchy of animal life forms that separates those eligible for entry into paradise from those who are not sufficiently evolved to benefit from the comforts a heavenly existence? What about insects, bacteria, and viruses? While we can draw pleasure from the fact that the Pope believes that we will share heaven with our beloved pets, it appears that the issue is still neither simple nor clear-cut.

Stanley Coren is the author of many books including: The Wisdom of Dogs; Do Dogs Dream? Born to Bark; The Modern Dog; Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? The Pawprints of History; How Dogs Think; How To Speak Dog; Why We Love the Dogs We Do; What Do Dogs Know? The Intelligence of Dogs; Why Does My Dog Act That Way? Understanding Dogs for Dummies; Sleep Thieves; The Left-hander Syndrome

 Copyright SC Psychological Enterprises Ltd. May not be reprinted or reposted without permission

Once in a class we were discussing happiness, and I mentioned that some celebrity (I think it was Michael Jackson, who had recently passed away) revealed to have had an in-house chef. I knew that might sound great, but I mentioned that this luxury was the kind to worry me. Surely it would get depressing to never be the one to experience the undeniable joy of cutting into a bright red tomato? Well, I got a note back from a student to the effect of "I'm sorry, cutting tomatoes is never going to do it for me. That actually sounds really boring. I can't relate to your example."

And of course it isn't the bright red that makes cooking a satisfying activity for *some* of us. It has to be more complex than that, as we are more complex than that.

After presenting the work of behavioral scientist George Ainslie to another class, I mused over whether, despite how nice it is to be treated, "doing things for yourself" might be a key to controlling your own (and your children's) moods. Why do we begin to feel bratty, after all, if it isn't because some treat is near that we are not getting for ourselves?

Or cooking for ourselves? 

Jeanne Whalen at The Wall Street Journal has published a nice article that makes me think there really is something to the idea that we sometimes need what we don't think we want. She writes about a treament center for depression and mental illness finding success in, among the other more standard therapies, teaching afflicted teens to cook. Read it here. 

From the article:

"Cooking and baking are pursuits that fit a type of therapy known as behavioral activation. The goal is to alleviate depression by boosting positive activity, increasing goal-oriented behavior and curbing procrastination and passivity.

If the activity is defined as personally rewarding or giving a sense of accomplishment or pleasure, or even seeing the pleasure of that pumpkin bread with chocolate chips making someone else happy, then it could improve a sense of well-being,” says Jacqueline Gollan, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago."

And more from the article: 

"Clinical studies on cooking’s therapeutic effects are hard to come by. But occupational therapists say cooking classes are particularly widely used in their profession, which seeks to help people with mental or physical disorders maintain their daily living and working skills.

In one study published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy in 2004, researchers in the U.K. found that baking classes boosted confidence, increased concentration and provided a sense of achievement for 12 patients being treated in inpatient mental-health clinics."

Cutting tomatoes might not "do it" for everyone, but, for some of us, that could be part of the problem. A problem that cutting tomatoes might actually help solve. 

Leo Strauss and his students:

On the educational/therapeutic relationship

There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech  ~Allan Bloom

Always assume that there is one silent student in your class who is by far superior to you in head and in heart. ~Leo Strauss

“One cannot refute what one has not thoroughly understood.”  ~Leo Strauss

Only Socrates knew, after a lifetime of unceasing labor, that he was ignorant. Now every high-school student knows that. How did it become so easy? ~ Allan Bloom

Prejudices, strong prejudices, are visions about the way things are. They are divinations of the order of the whole of things, and hence the road to a knowledge of that whole is by way of erroneous opinions about it. Error is indeed our enemy, but it alone points to the truth and therefore deserves our respectful treatment. ~ Allan Bloom

The most important lesson that a philosopher can bequeath to his students is that of his own nature. The philosopher’s books can be read in libraries, but the nature of the philosophical spirit, which alone gives meaning and value to those books, is accessible only through direct contact.  ~Stanley Rosen

Metaphysics 

The possibility of philosophy stands or falls upon the possibility of a philosophical madness more sober than sobriety ~ Stanely Rosen 

The soul divines something which it cannot express and this is truer than what the soul can say. ~Leo Strauss (paraphrasing Plato)

One may not fill the soul with wisdom. ~ Stanley Rosen

Peace and War

But what is the core of the political? Men killing men on the largest scale in broad daylight and with the greatest serenity. ~Leo Strauss

When people hear about my interest in online and computerized therapy, a common reaction is "Cool! Have you made any smartphone apps?". Smartphone apps are sexy. There are hundreds of mental health apps available for iPhones and Androids, and the number is growing by the day. Many of these are fantastic. However, I believe there is a key limitation.

Many of the best and most popular share the following:

1. They are ruthlessly goal oriented. The user interface is minimal and the designers aim for low cognitive load. The app allows the user to get something done as quickly and efficiently as possible.
2. They take advantage of the unique properties of a smartphone (mobility, GPS, cameras, accelerometers, internet connectivity, etc.) to allow the user to do something that would otherwise be difficult, cumbersome or downright impossible.

With that in mind, what are some ways that smartphones can be used for mental health? Here are a few examples of existing apps:

• Track symptoms and behavior over time, either through self-reported measures or automatically using sensors (e.g. GPS or heart rate monitors). This information can be analyzed and formatted into reports that are delivered to a therapist before sessions. Alternatively, the data can be processed by machine learning algorithms to gain insight into the user's mental state. For example, patterns may emerge that suggest triggers that precede depression or anxiety, and it may even be possible to predict episodes before they occur. 
• Keeping a food diary. For those with eating disorders it can be inconvenient to track every bite using a pen and paper. Apps are available that make this a breeze and help users monitor their eating patterns.
• Some apps allow people to manage stress or anxiety in real time. For example, an app can help those suffering from PTSD to deal with triggers at the moment they occur.

I think all of these ideas offer real value to users, and I suspect that the best app ideas are yet to come. However, note that while these can be used to enhance therapy, they don't necessarily take the place of therapy. I don't believe this is a fundamental limitation of technology (I'm a firm proponent of computerized therapy). Rather, it's due to the way we use smartphones. Recall the design principle mentioned above: low cognitive load. We don't necessarily want to think when we're using our phones. We want to get something done (e.g. tick items off our grocery list), or perhaps distract ourselves during the morning commute (e.g. Candy Crush). This mode of operation doesn't fit well with therapy.

Effective therapy is hard work that involves challenging deeply held beliefs. In order to do this we need a private setting where we can engage in self-reflection. Other types of computers, such as tablets and desktops, are more likely to be used in such an environment. For this reason, I see smartphones as playing an important role in the future of mental health treatment, but not a leading one.

Fjola Helgadottir, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and co-founder of AI-Therapy, a developer of CBT-based online treatment programs. Follow her on twitter @drfjola.

administration and its critics are at odds over the release of a Senate report detailing the use of “enhanced techniques” by the CIA following 9/11.

On the one side, there are those who argue that releasing the report is important because in a democracy it is important for citizens to be informed about actions taken by the government.

The other side argues that revealing this information will compromise American security.

The argument continues: enhanced interrogation techniques were brutal and may well rise to the level of torture, a morally abhorrent procedure that may well illegal.

The riposte: the report will inflame anti-American sentiment and put Americans abroad in immediate and grave danger.

How do you decide between two compelling but competing arguments?

I found a clue in a dilemma that is discussed in the ancient Jewish book, the Talmud. The quandary is summed up with one of the rabbis saying, “Woe to me if I speak; woe to me if I don’t speak.”

Yohanan ben Zakkai was aware of practices in the marketplace that some may construe as shady. If he publicized the matter, he ran the risk of giving some the idea of deceiving customers. If he didn’t reveal the practices, he ran the risk of rabbis being thought naïve about what went on in the work world, thereby undermining the respect of rabbis.

Rabbu ben Zakkai came down on the side of discussion the fraudulent practices. He reasoned that more harm would come from people losing respect for the rabbis than would come from providing information to people inclined to corrupt practices.

Sometimes we are faced with two bad choices. One way to think about which choice is least bad is to look beyond the immediate and think about long-term consequences.

It may be true that the Senate report will lead to less security in the foreseeable future. But from a long-term perspective, the war against fundamentalist terrorism will be won by democracies being true to their core values. And no value is more central to the American creed than respect for individuals.

The value placed of the sanctity individuals was violated by techniques used by the government in the wake of 9/11. In the understandable and justified anxiety following the attack, the government stepped over the line, a line that we should not cross again.

The Senate report is a painful reminder of the hard choices that need to be made in extreme circumstances. The lesson to be taken from it is that the integrity of the nation and its greatest weapon against its enemies lies in adhering to our central beliefs, the very thing that distinguishes us from those who want to kill us.

The war against terrorism is as much a war of competing values as anything else. We may win the battle but lose the war when we stray from our values and act no differently from those who oppose us.