You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2008.
The first thing to consider when you have apparent physiological problems, is that you have a physical problem (a problem with your body). You want to have this checked out by a doctor. Even in cases where many doctors think that the problem is psychological, a significant percentage of case are actually a physiological problem.
Now, there are also a number of cases that have a psychological component. That doesn’t mean that the pain or the symptom is not “real.” Because it certainly is—all symptoms are experienced in the mind. If your finger is cut, it feels like it is in your finger where the pain is, but it is actually ‘felt’ in your mind. Pain signals are sent from the site of the injury to the brain.
It’s been estimated that up to 90% of doctor’s visits are for difficulties that have a psychological component.1 Perhaps that’s a bit misleading, because of the strong link between the mind and the body.
When I first started graduate school, I noticed that every break I had, I got sick! There are different theories as to why this happens. But I found the most important component was my thinking. Now that’s odd isn’t it? Now, during the time of year when people have more of the flu, colds, etc.. (winter), we all notice when others are sniffling, coughing, and blowing their noses. We think, “I hope I don’t get that.” But, we end up getting it anyway, a lot of the time. Oddly, as long as I thought, “I don’t have time to get sick,” and as long as it was actually true, I did not get sick. At times, an illness can perform a function. Such as a severe cold may force you to rest more than you would otherwise. You may have a personality type where you don’t rest enough, but if you are forced to rest, you will.
Now, another notion is that aspects of immune system activity may increase under stress, but then crashes after the stress is gone (I’ve simplified this greatly). This increases our susceptibility to infections of various types. One study found that Olympic athletes are more likely to become ill in the period after the competition is over. Studies have shown that the immune response tends to crash for these individuals after the competition is over. So there is a mind component, but there is also a body component to this. They are intimately linked.
There is a branch of psychology called, Psychoneuroimmunology.2 This is a branch that investigates the relationship between psychological variables, neurological variables, and immunological variables. It’s a fascinating field of study, and there is much to learn about the relationship between the mind and the body. We are only beginning to scratch the surface with our understanding.
1 http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/f/psychosomatic.htm
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneuroimmunology
The mind and the body are intimately interconnected. If we’re honest, we don’t understand how this works. Suffice it to say, we only understand some of the results.
One woman I saw was having marital problems. She developed severe hives. She and her husband had an intense argument and she felt the relationship was on the verge of ending. She could not put her feelings about this into words, so I asked her to put it into an image. She rubbed her hand against the bare wall behind her. She said, “This is it. It’s nothing! That’s what I saw for my life. Or stepping off of the edge of the Grand Canyon at night. You can’t see anything. You don’t know how far your falling. It’s just terror.” She showed me her hives when she first came in. I asked her to show me again at the end of the session (they were greatly reduced and she found this remarkable!). This is but a simple example of how emotions can be expressed in the body.
The interesting thing is, with hypnosis, a certain area of the body can be focused on. And while general immune system features may not change (such as circulation of killer T-cells), the immune response changes for the very specific area that is focused on. For example, let’s say a person has a wart on their finger. If in hypnosis, you have them visualize that wart shrinking and healing, there will be a very specific immune system response in that area only! So, how in the world can this happen? Warts are caused by a virus. But the immune system can be unconsciously directed to the very specific area in question by the mind!
I will continue this series in the future.
It’s now 80 years since scientists first claimed schizophrenia was genetic. Yet, no such gene has been identified. Some private genetic research firms are now abandoning their search for a schizophrenia blood test, and a senior psychologist says the quest for the schizophrenia gene has been biggest failure in medical history. Is it? (1)
I’ve always found claims the claims of psychological difficulties having a genetic basis to be dubious. And yet, this is emphasized in the educational system for psychologists, psychiatrists, and other counselors. I ran across an excellent writeup that examines some of the historical perspective and recent research that found no significant genetic association for schizophrenia. While schizophrenia has been looked at for years as a nearly purely biological problem, the tide seems to be shifting. There is some increasing recognition, at least in some cases, that schizophrenia is amenable to treatment with psychotherapy. The role of psychological trauma in the development of schizophrenia is beginning to receive increased recognition.
CLPsych has an interesting post on a study that found that among patients with Medicaid in Oregon who were prescribed antipsychotic medication, only a minority actually had a diagnosis of a psychotic disorder or bipolar disorder (15% vs 27%). The rest had diagnoses of depression, anxiety, or PTSD. I think I’d like to add to this the fact disorders are often diagnosed for the medication as I’ve written about before (On Diagnosis, Symptoms, and Medication; Diagnosing for the Medication). In other words, there are times when the diagnosis is given in order to justify the medication that is prescribed. This doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen.
http://clinpsyc.blogspot.com/2008/09/atypical-antipsychotics-for-all-oregon.html
I’ve written before on how to receive feedback (Part I and Part II). In this series, I will talk about giving feedback to others.
Many of my professors in graduate school were well-known for their inability to give positive feedback. For several of the professors, if you weren’t receiving negative criticism, then you were probably doing fine. My classmates and I thought this was ironic. In our day-to-day relationships, it is very important to compliment people at times. When you are in a relationship and your significant other does something that you like, it is very important to tell them that. Most people find positive feedback motivating. When we are complimented for doing something, it makes us want to do what we were doing at the time even more.
For many people, positive feedback is much more motivating than negative feedback. When giving positive feedback, we want to think about the message that we are sending.
Parent: “You’re such a smart kid. No wonder you get good grades.”
Now, the above example is good for boosting general self-esteem, and you may want to do that sometimes. But, other times, it may not be the message that you want to send. It credits the child’s abilities and not their effort. You don’t want a child to only tie notions of success to innate ability. That builds a fragile self-esteem. You want them to tie effort more to success than to ability. I don’t want to go into that too much, because the topic of self-esteem is worthy of a separate post.
Parent: “You’ve been doing very well at school. You must be working very hard at things. You’re a hard worker aren’t you?”
The second compliment is motivating in a more specific way, and it also teaches something that can be useful in life. It ties the notion of effort to performance.
Spouse: “Thank you for all the hard work you do. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate you.”
People will sometimes give you clues to when you would do well to provide some positive feedback.
Spouse: “I’ve been doing laundry and cleaning the house all day. I didn’t really feel like doing it. Sometimes I hate doing it.”
Response: “I really appreciate that you do all of those things. I know you do them sometimes even when you don’t feel like it.”
So, sometimes a clue may sound a bit like complaining to some people. So, the next time your significant other starts to talk like this, try giving them a compliment for what they are doing. It may not always be that it is this type of clue, it could be a different type, but you’ll find out by how they respond to your compliment. I’ll continue the above example in two different directions to elucidate the matter further.
Spouse: “I really don’t want appreciation right now. I would like some help!”
Oops. But at least you found out what was behind what appeared to be complaining.
Spouse: “It’s okay. I know you appreciate me. I appreciate everything you do too.”
That was on track, and the response confirmed that you successfully understood the clue.
In the second part of this series, I will address how to give negative feedback.
There will be no posting until the 14th or 15th. The Country Shrink is going on a much-needed fishing trip with a few of his shrink friends. Sitting out under the stars, marvelling at God’s glorious creation. Yes, there are some shrinks who actually do that. And, the conversations are always interesting!
I work with a lot of folks who have a great deal more ability than they ever utilize. I often find myself scratching my head….”This person is extremely capable, but they’ve gone for years only making minimum wage.” They never ask for a raise. They put up with mistreatment in their dead-end job. They are not assertive in their personal relationships (they make no demands on their friends or spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends).
Sometimes, they had a learning disability, and came to believe that they were incompetent. Sometimes they had a speech problem (problems learning how to talk). Sometimes they had problems in developing motor skills (problems learning how to walk, had medical conditions requiring braces on their legs, had an early high fever resulting in poor motor skills, experienced a lack of oxygen at birth resulting in poor motor skills, and so forth). Sometimes, they were viewed by a parent as being completely incompetent, and told that they would be a failure. The reasons are numerous and very personal to the individual.
But the upshot, is that a person’s self-perception becomes their reality. Be willing to fail. You’ll gain more wisdom from failure than you ever will from success. God didn’t give you the skills and abilities that you have for no reason.
I don’t know if this is just bad reporting or bad science. But, if you believe it, you ought to have your man tested to make sure he is monogamous before you marry him. Although the title of the story states, “Possible Monogamy Gene Found in Humans,” it goes on to say that no such thing was studied.
In the prairie voles and marmosets, receptors for the two systems sit on adjacent cells, so social activity is highly rewarding, leading to monogamy.
It also says,
They found that variation in a section of the gene called RS3 334 was linked to how men bond with their partners. Men can have none, one or two copies of the RS3 334 section, and the higher the number of copies, the worse men scored on a measure of pair bonding.
Not only that, men with two copies of RS3 334 were more likely to be unmarried than men with one or none, and if they were married, they were twice as likely to have a marital crisis.
Okay, cute study. This is the problem with ethology, the study of animal behavior from a biological perspective, and then extending it to human behavior. This is often done in evolutionary psychology, and is junk science in my opinion.
“Sorry honey, I must have multiple copies of that RS3 334 gene.”
Yeah, that would fly. Good luck with that one.
Or how about this,
“Honey, I’d like to have you tested for the RS3 334 gene before we get married, because multiple copies make animals unfaithful.”
Good luck with that too.
Believe it or not, we all have self-defeating expectations at times. What do I mean by this?
“I wish I could meet someone to date…”
“What have you done to try to meet somebody?”
“Well nothing. Nobody would want to date me anyway.”
“Hmmm…”
A self-defeating expectation is different from outright self-sabotage. With self-sabotage, a person approaches a goal only to shoot themselves in the foot by something they do. For example, a person might drop out of college with only a class or two left to complete before achieving a degree. Secretly, they may fear that they will fail in their chosen career path, so it’s short-circuited before it even has a chance to start.
Most often with both patterns, there is an element of anxiety that is often subtly concealed. There can sometimes be a deep-seated belief, “Whatever I do, I am doomed to fail.” This often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A person brings about that which they fear.
Now, believe it or not, sometimes a self-defeating pattern brings about things that are more positive in a person’s life. I remember one lady whose grandmother wanted her to become a nurse. She had a very close relationship with her grandmother. One day, her grandmother was complaining about a pain in her leg. Her grandmother remarked, “Oh, I probably just pulled a muscle.” And she responded, “Yeah, probably so.” Two days later, the grandmother was dead because a blood clot in her leg dislodged and ended up in her heart. This woman felt tremendously guilty—that she had caused her grandmother’s death by not suggesting that she see a doctor. She felt she had to fulfill her grandmother’s dreams for her in becoming a nurse. But she struggled in college. She became more depressed. She kept flunking certain classes. It was not because she lacked intelligence—I tested her IQ level and she should have been able to get all A’s or at least A’s and B’s in every class she took. What we discovered was that she didn’t really want to be a nurse. Once she was able to resolve her feelings of guilt about her grandmother’s death, she was able to see that her grandmother would have wanted her to choose a profession that she wanted to choose. She switched majors and started getting the A’s and B’s that I knew she was capable of.
Sometimes the patterns of self-defeat run a little deeper and keep repeating over and over. Most often, this has to do with a pattern of experiences in childhood that leads the person to have deep doubts about the competence or effectiveness. These patterns take longer to resolve, because the self-defeating beliefs are very strong and resist change. Sometimes, these patterns take several years to resolve. There may be numerous subtle anxieties that keep a person in a repeating pattern of self-defeat. But, if you are truly motivated to overcome these patterns and have a shrink that you connect with, you can overcome these patterns with a lot of hard work. Unfortunately, there is no medication that will help you do this, and there is no quick fix. It is difficult to resolve these patterns outside of a psychotherapeutic relationship, because everyone has their blinders.
Race horses are fitted with blinders. The blinders restrict their field of vision to basically straight ahead of them. This is so they do not become frightened by other things that are going on around them. People have “mental blinders,” defenses that keep them from recognizing those things that frighten them. Psychotherapy can help people remove these blinders and confront their fears and anxieties.
Recent Comments