Ve Have Vays of Making You Talk Part VI Post Hoc Reasoning

Reproduced from http://xkcd.com/552/

In Part I of this post, I discussed why family members hate to discuss their chronic repetitive ongoing interpersonal difficulties with each other (metacommunication), and the problems that usually ensue whenever they try. 

I discussed the most common avoidance strategy - merely changing the subject (#1) - and suggested effective countermoves to keep a constructive conversation on track. In Part II, I discussed strategies #2 and #3, nitpicking and accusations of overgeneralizing respectively. In Part III, I discussed strategy #4, blame shifting. In Part IV, strategy #5, fatalism.

This post is the second in a series about strategy #6, the use of irrational arguments.  Descriptions of this strategy have been subdivided into several posts because, in order to counter irrational arguments, one first has to recognize them.  I will hold off describing strategies to counter the irrational arguments until after I have describe some of the most common types.

Irrational arguments are used in metacommunication to throw other people. The other individuals either becomes confused about, or unsure of the validity of, any point they are trying to make or question they are trying to ask.  Fallacious arguments are also frequently used to avoid divulging an individual's real motives for taking or having taken certain actions. 

The fallacy I would like to discuss in this post is post hoc ergo propter hoc, which literally translated means "after this, therefore because of this." Under this fallacy, two events that occur in sequence are merely assumed to be causally related. That is, if event B follows event A, then an assumption is made that A caused B, even though many other environmental events were also going on during the time between A and B that could have caused B, either individually or in some combination.

This sort of fallacy can be funny when it is obvious but difficult to detect when subtle. No one would believe a doctor who claims that headaches are caused by a deficiency in the body of aspirin, but the debate rages on over whether the effects on assailants of por­nographic movies caused them to become rapists.

I frequently see this fallacy used in arguments made by the anti-psychiatry crowd.  If some psychiatric symptom developed by a patient occurred after he or she either started or discontinued a drug, they argue that it simply must have been caused by the medication.  Well, sometimes it is, but often it is not.  The further removed in time from when the medication was started or discontinued, the less likely it becomes that the drug had anything to do with the symptom. 

There are a very limited number of drug-induced symptoms that, once started, never go away, and those usually involve a situation in which a drug actually grossly damaged an organ.  Some dyes used in X-ray procedures, for example, may physically damage the kidneys. Tardive dyskinesia, a long-term neurological problem in the central nervous system caused by antipsychotic medication, is one obvious exception.

Withdrawal symptoms from addictive drugs almost always go away after a relatively short period of time.

With patients in psychotherapy, the post hoc fallacy is most frequently seen with during conjoint marital or family sessions. When spotted, such a fallacy may reveal the presence of a family myth.  A family myth is a false belief that assists family members in suppressing those thoughts, feelings, preferences, or behavior deemed to be unacceptable and in allowing one or more family members to continue playing a spe­cific role. The myth may be believed by an individual, a sub­system of the family, or the entire family.

Family myths may take the form of a causal explanation of a family member's be­havior that is not the true explanation. In order to be believ­able, the myth often makes use of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. In such a myth, the belief in a causal connection is based solely on a sequence of events that takes place in a certain period of of time. If the behavior to be explained begins after a certain event, the behavior is blamed on the event. As with other mechanisms used by people who are attempting to hide their true feelings and beliefs, the proposed cause often re­veals clues to the real cause, even though the proposed cause is meant to be a smokescreen.

One example occurred in a family being seen under duress from a probation officer. A young teenager was caught shoplifting. He lived with his father and his siblings. The mother ­had not only divorced the father but abandoned the family, entirely abdicating any family responsibility in order to pursue a career. The father could rarely spend time with the boy because the firm that he worked for was demanding more and more overtime. The father ­routinely worked fourteen-hour days; he expressed disappointment· that the boy could not take better care of himself without supervision.

The post hoc fallacy was expressed in the session following an incident in which the son picked a fight with another boy who was twice his size. The father theorized that the son had engaged in this rather dangerous activity because he had not had a good night's sleep the night before the inci­dent - and was therefore overly irritable.

This seemed to me a rather odd explanation. When provoked, overly irritable people will sometimes unthinkingly do or say things that they other­wise might keep to themselves, but they seldom go out looking for trouble.

The father appeared to be attempting to veer away from any explanation of the boy's odd behavior that might involve family dynamics, but he unwittingly revealed something about himself. It was he, the father, not the son, who was irritable from lack of sleep.

I later guessed that the boy's acting-out behavior was a feeble attempt to force the father, who was utterly ex­hausted from working so much, to work less. The probation officer had in fact required the father to be at home more in order to supervise the misbehav­ing youngster. The boy was also bidding for more attention, as many therapists would theorize, but I believed that he was genuinely concerned about his father’s mental health.

When I suggested to the father that the boy was, at great per­sonal sacrifice, attempting to indirectly demonstrate his concern by forcing the father to insist on more time off, the father never really bought it. However, soon Dad was spending more time home, and the patient stopped acting out. No causal connection between my intervention and the boy’s subsequent im­provement was ever established. 

You tell me The Emoticon

Ah, the emoticon, a few keystrokes that come together to form some approximation of a facial expression.

No one knows who actually invented the emoticon, but its first use online was apparently in 1982, by a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He suggested the use of ":-)" to indicate a joke was being made.

And now? THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. They've gone way beyond ASCII symbols, too. Now we have faces that hug or wink or leer or drink whisky and fall over. On the Absolute Write boards, my particular favorite is one that eats popcorn while wearing a wide-eyed expression, signifying the poster is a avidly watching whatever argument is going on. We have dancing bananas, too. You name it, and it probably exists as an emoticon somewhere.

My friends, we are writers. We're supposed to be able to move people with our words alone. So here's my question (ok, if you know me, you know there's actually going to be more than one):

What are your thoughts about emoticons? Do you use them?

If you do, are you unabashed about it, or do you feel a bit sheepish?

When you think of them, do you feel like this?



Or like this?

I'll be posting my thoughts about emoticons on Wednesday.

And of course, because it's Monday, go check out Lydia's blog and enter her 900 followers contest, and then peruse Laura's Mental Health Monday post, where she's talking about good mental health!

You should not have told me I can put GIFs on here

Just spent the last hour looking at the Bangor uni videos. Standard September night really. UCAS -> English Language -> Same courses I always look at -> Oh look the same unis -> Funny, I recognise that bedroom I'VE LOOKED AT IT SO MANY TIMES.

I seemed to finish my Personal Statement this morning. That was, er, weird.

No doubt it will get ripped to shreds by a trillion people before I submit it, but writing the last line felt good. I'm not stressed about uni really. What? What do you mean you don't believe me? Verging on mental breakdowns constantly? You've received 5 emails of distress from me? Oh.

Honestly though, September's been ace. I'm 18. EIGHTEEN!

Did somebody say September? I'm sure I heard that. It's not July is it? S e p t e m b e r? The Autumn month? Yes I thought so. SO WHY IS IT 30C today??? No am I not happy about this. I have a new coat. It's burgundy. It has a very furry hood and I look like an eskimo. LET ME LOOK LIKE AN ESKIMO. I'm sure I heard my legs screaming in horror at being let out into the light today. Gorgeous red leaves, newly fallen on the ground, were shouting, "BUT IT WAS MY TIME. MY TIME TO SHINE IS NOW. WHY AM I NOT CRUNCHING? HELP ME UP, FFS. GET ME BACK ON THAT TREE." Even the slugs fell victim to the chaos. Thinking everything was dark, wet, and cold. Poor souls. They're the ones all crunched up on the ground, not the leaves. The only ones getting away with this are the daddylonglegs. Gliding around like they own the effing place. Spiders I can deal with. But daddylonglegs unleash emotions and actions I never knew I had. 

So yeah being 18's involved going out A LOT. Going to pubs, clubs, parties, buying cigar...*fades to black and silence. head pops into shot, and body shuffles in* Hahahahahaahaha...oh, you thought I was SERIOUS?

I've been fangirling the hell out of Doctor Who, geeking out over Stephen Fry's Planet Word, adding copious amounts of books to my Amazon wishlist, and voicing the tripod in War Of The Worlds in French with my friends, consequently crying with laughter and doubling over in stomach pain. 

The only remotely 18 year oldish thing I've done is click "I am over 18" boxes on websites with TRUTH. My 18yo life > your 18yo life.  

AND, EXIT

Guest Post Are You Inadvertently Shaping Your Childs Future with Labels

Today’s guest post is by Rachel Cherry. She discusses how parents may inadvertently induce their children to create what I call a false self or persona - a recurrent theme of this blog - by verbally pinning labels on them. These labels or pet names are sometimes just meant to be "cute," but, depending on other things that parents may say or do and the entire social environment of the family, may take on added meanings for the child and set up behavioral expectations for them. When this occurs, it forces them to try and hide their true nature, preventing what experiential therapists refer to as self-actualization. 

Labeling people is quite common in the world we live in. While many of the names that we call each other have respectful undertones or are shrouded in warmth and concern for  the other person, others are used as digs at a person and are clearly derogatory. When it comes to parents and children, such names can affect childhood development when the actions of the parent reinforce any behavior of the child that is consistent with the label. While most parents do not intentionally try to mentally scar a child in such a fashion, their behavior in a variety of contexts has the potential to solidify certain beliefs children begin to form about themselves and about how they are supposed to behave in various social situations.

There are two parts to any given individual's personality: outward demeanor and inner nature. Your demeanor is how you act around others, and this can be contradictory to how you are truly feeling inside. The demeanor aspect of your self-image is usually centered around how you want people to view you, and it can sometimes completely overwhelm your true, private personality. Inner nature is how you truly think and feel inside. For instance, someone's demeanor may outwardly be cold and calculating - as seen in some company CEOs for example - but his or her nature could secretly be nurturing and caring towards friends and family. Many people feel vulnerable whenever they show their true nature.

Labels and name calling whether good or bad can, when reinforced by certain actions by the parent, alter children’s perception of what sort of demeanor they believe they are supposed to present to the outside world. The child's outward behavior then assumes the qualities inherent in whatever the name signifies to them. Instead of being proud of their own true nature, the child may believe that the outward perception of others is the most important indicator of their validity as a person - especially if the actions of the parent strengthen that belief.

Reinforcing Demeanors:  When someone calls a child a "little princess" or "little prince," he or she could take it as a sign of affection. After all, what child doesn't want to be a part of royalty? However, when parents reinforce negative aspects of that label with actions such as providing various lavish gifts and succumbing to every whim and demand of the child, the child could begin to form a mental correlation between being thought of as royalty by the parents and demanding everything he or she wants. This may easily create a sense of entitlement that children can easily take with them as they develop into adults and interact with outsiders.

Family Sarcasm: Creating an altered persona of the child can be unintentional when the parents think of a label they apply to their child as mere humor. This could inadvertently provide a framework by which a child internalizes the label in a negative way. If jokes go too far, the parents may simply be unaware of how much damage they are truly doing. Taking a jocular stance concerning a child's shortcomings is quite common, but it could create for the child a like-minded negative demeanor as he or she begins to live up to the expectations implied by the comment. For example, jokingly pointing out the failures of a child while sarcastically calling him or her a "loser" could not only make the child feel worse, but it could also create the idea in the child that he or she will always be a failure.

Ignoring Aspects of a Child’s Behavior That May be Related to a Label:  Interestingly, not addressing certain behaviors while using labels can be just as deleterious to the child’s self-image as the labeling itself. If a parent ignores certain of the child’s related behaviors, the child may assume that those behaviors are justified as being part of what the label suggests. While it may be cute to watch a young child plot and scheme in order to get his or her own way in regards to minor situations, if the parents starts to call the child an “evil genius,” the behavior could easily develop into a demeanor for the child that is not so cute in other contexts.

Tone of voice is also important. If the parent uses a positive tone while labeling a child as a "little genius," the child could assume that this behavior is not only acceptable but expected. It could turn into something more elaborate as he or she develops into an adult. Instead of that cute little evil genius plotting to get a cookie, you could end up with a child who winds up spending a great deal of time behind bars.

Labels are Not Always Negative:  Not all labels have to produce negativity in a child. For example, when you call your child a "tough cookie" when he or she doesn't cry or otherwise expresses emotions when injured, it could help the child develop a sense of inner strength. As we all know, despite your best efforts to prevent your child from being injured, accidents frequently happen with the young. Children take their cues on how to react to those situations from the parents’ behavior. Most young children will wait to see the parents' response to an injury before reacting themselves. If you treat the situation light-heartedly, so will the child. This "tough cookie" demeanor could be beneficial throughout the child's life as he or she learns the value of inner toughness and self-reliance.

Labels in and of themselves do not usually create a child's entire demeanor. It is the actions of the parents and others that reinforce their concept of how to behave in interpersonal situations. If this behavior continues to be reinforced by the parents, the child's demeanor could overwhelm his or her true nature and reduce the child’s capacity to discover his or her true inner-self. If the child is constantly putting on a show for everyone by trying to be whatever he or she thinks others want, then there is less of a chance for the child to develop his or her potential. Your behavior as a parent is key to your child's development, and it is wise to monitor yourself closely when applying any label to your child.

Rachael Cherry is a wife, mother, and writer who is passionate about helping connect families in need with high quality caregivers. She has taken that passion and put it to work through NannyPro, a respected online nanny referral service. Learn more by visiting @NannyPro on Twitter.

Your Children Like to Give You What You Seem to Expect From Them

During the times when parents are making major parenting errors, they are often giving their children a double message in one way or another. The parents, usually because of their own ambivalence about rules they themselves learned in their own families of origin as they grew up, say one thing but seem to act in ways that contradict what is being said verbally.

In this situation, children make sense of their parents’ confusing expectations of them by taking into account the entire context of the family’s interactions. They use three rules to sort out and hierarchically rank double messages that are given on a consistent basis. These rules are described in detail in my post of March 8, 2011, How Children Respond to Double Messages From Parents, Part I.

The parents’ behavior may seem to indicate to children that the parents have certain expectations about how the children are supposed to turn out, and children will not want to disappoint the parents by defying their apparent expectations. This will happen in spite of the fact that the parents verbally instruct the children not to act in the way the parents seem to expect, and criticize and/or severely punish them when they do. Admonishments, especially verbal ones, will be disregarded. Actions speak louder than words (Principle #1 from the earlier post).

In this post, I am going to list several examples of frequently-seen problematic parenting practices, as well as the consequences that such practices frequently lead to. They may cause relatively mild problems, but often they cause major issues. These patterns have been described to me over and over again by my adult patients as they discuss their family’s behavior over time.

The problems I list all have a common theme: parents trying to micromanage their children's behavior in one way or another. Parents may protest: "I have to focus on my child's troublesome behavior because they won't stop it." They don't realize that it actually works the other way around: the child won't stop the behavior because the parent keeps focussing on it!

After one of these problems goes on for a while, the situation gets more complicated. The parents and children begin to feed into one another's anxiety and compulsive behavior simultaneously.

In order to solve such a problem, the parents have to be the ones who calm down about the issue first, or the children will be very unlikely to ever calm down and start behaving differently. When the parents do stop micromanaging, other difficult but solvable problems predictably ensue. These are discussed in the last paragraph of this post.

In discussing any problematic parenting issues, there is always a rather devilish and perplexing conundrum that makes any such conversation frought with peril. Many troublesome parenting behaviors are driven by a parent's guilt over their own thoughts and feelings concerning their role as parents, and if one discusses what they may be doing wrong, this adds to their sense of guilt. They therefore often become very defensive and, if anything, dig in their heels. Their problematic practices then get even worse than before!

On the other hand, if they do not really understand what they are doing wrong, they also continue doing it. 

A real lose-lose proposition this.

Parental guilt is often increased by negative comments about their parenting practices that come from their own parents, the children's grandparents. This in turn is caused by certain changes in western culture which have been rapidly evolving over the last few decades. I describe these cultural issues in more detail in my last book, in Chapter Two, Don't Blame Us.

Really, looking for someone to blame for family problems is a complete waste of time. The most important questions is, which would you rather do: find fault with people, or actually solve the problems? It is damn near impossible to do both. To naysayers I say, "Grow up!" 

The problems are created over several generations, so let's all just blame Adam and Eve, and be done with it.

And so I proceed.

Some additional points: Some psychologists and parenting experts intuitively understand the type of consequences that I list below, but IMO they miss the real reason why they occur. Most seem to think that the parents are somehow “gratifying” their children in a counterproductive way. However, in my experience, children who are in many of these situations are anything but gratified. 

They are almost always quite miserable, and behave in self-destructive ways to boot. Feeling good and being self destructive are for the most part mutually exclusive.

Rather than being gratified, I believe - as I have said many times in this blog - that the children are sacrificing themselves to give the parents what the parents seem, in the estimation of the child, to desperately need. 

Another frequent explanation, particularly by cognitive-behavioral therapists, is that the problematic parenting practices prevent children from acquiring certain social skills. While that explanation may at times have some truth, many of the "skills" such children are supposed to lack are not exactly rocket science. And these same children often demonstrate in other interpersonal and environmental contexts the very skills they are not supposed to have ever learned!

Critics of course will also point to examples in which the types of parental behavior described in the post do not or did not seem to be followed by the predicted negative consequences. As usual, I need to put in a disclaimer: The consequences of the parental behavior I mention do not alwaysresult in every situation in which the parenting problem is seen. They are not hard and fast. 

Kids have minds of their own. Other adults in the house or even in the community may provide a counterweight. Some parents behave more consistently, others much less so. Some are consistently inconsistent. Parents might get sick and tone down their rhetoric for extended periods. A zillion other things may come into play.

There is a chaos effect: small changes in initial conditions can lead to big changes down the line. However, if parents make the kind of errors I describe, the odds are very high that the predicted consequences will indeed occur. We’re talking probabilities here!

So, without further ado, here’s a list of common parenting errors created by parental ambivalence about their own behavior. By no means is it a complete one:

If you constantly try to fix a child, the child will find different ways to keep being broken so you can continue in your efforts.

If you continually bail children out of their own messes, they will continue to make messes for you to bail them out of.

If you give your kids money whenever they ask and almost never say no, they will continue to ask you for money, and may seem to develop problems supporting themselves when they grow up.

If you constantly try to mediate disputes between your children, they will continue to fight one another so you can continue to mediate.

If you blame yourself for your children’s failings, your children will blame you for their own woes. (In a perverse and ironic way, their problems are partly your doing. But it’s your guilt about your own behavior that creates the problem, not your basic character or intrinsic worth).

If you repeatedly tear apart your child’s room looking for drugs when there is no evidence that he or she is using, just to make sure he or she is not using, the child is more likely to use drugs so you can find what you are looking for.

If you continuously help children with their homework instead of telling then to figure it out for themselves, they will continuously need your help.

If you keep making a huge deal about something your children do or say, they will keep repeating whatever it was so you can continue to obsess about it.

If you instantly replace any items lost by your child, your child will continue to lose things.

If you do nothing when your children disrespect you, or if you just whine and scream at them about it, they won’t ever respect you.

If you look uncomfortable getting presents on holidays and birthdays, your children won’t give you any, or will give you thoughtless gifts. (If you then question them about it, they will get angry or passive aggressive, and may start giving you things, but looking as if they are only doing so because you asked, not because they care about you).

If you seem to get a kick out of a child’s misbehavior, they will continue to misbehave, no matter what else you say about it.

If you set a low bar in your expectations for your child (academically, for example), they may meet the bar, but they will not exceed it.

If you compulsively pay more attention to your children's needs than you do to those of your spouse, they will make gallant efforts to regulate the amount of intimacy you have in your marriage by inserting themselves between the two of you.

Last - and this is perhaps the most pernicious of all - if you constantly give in to your children's demands out of guilt, but then get angry at them because they are too demanding, then they will fear for your mental stability. In response, they will try to regulate your emotions like a thermostat: If you start to get too angry they will try to make you feel guilty, but if you start to feel too guilty, they will try to piss you off royally.

Whenever you try to stop doing any of these things after having done them for a long time, expect a negative reaction, because you will be confusing your children. They thought they had you all figured out, and suddenly you are not performing to their expectations. Therefore, their behavior will get even worse in order to see if you really mean what you say and are going to continue to be different. Their behavior will, however, eventually get better if you stay the course.

How Do You Do It And How Do You Want It

I'm talking about beta-reading, of course.

I knew nothing about critiquing fiction when I hooked up with my first and primary crit partner, JD. I'd been a voracious reader all my life, but I'd never taken a writing course or spent time around writers. The only thing I knew about critique was from my years in academia. Guess what? People are harsh in academia.

The first time I got ahold of JD's writing, I think I frightened her. But she's really brave and totally open, and it ended up working out just fine for both of us. I've been a beta-reader for a few others, too ... with mixed results.

Every beta-reader has a different style. Here's mine: I do several things at once because I CAN'T ignore ... anything.

I line-edit:

• Surface stuff: missing words, simple typos and spelling errors.
• Simple mechanics: I have a low tolerance for grammatical errors. I have a lower tolerance for complacency about making them.
• Word choice and language precision: choosing the proper word, phrase, and image is key to strengthening a sentence, a scene ... and sometimes, I do not think that word means what you think it means. I mark clichés and things that just sound off to me.
• Unintended repetition: I mark words, phrases, and dialogue tags if they occur more than once in the same chapter or ... if they bug me.
• Sentence construction and flow: Variation is lovely, and precision is essential. A present participial phrase (if indefinite) must reflect simultaneous action, for example. I'll mark awkward/clunky constructions, flabby prose, say-nothing sentences.

I also mark all the turns of phrase and images I think work really well, passages that are particularly powerful, and lines that make me laugh or pause.

Next comes:

• Scene: it had better be necessary and multifunctional (e.g., not just to show me more about a character, but showing me more about the character while moving the plot forward). I might comment on length if it feels draggy or redundant and suggest a way to trim or rearrange so the scene is tighter. Sometimes I suggest deleting scenes altogether.
• Backstory: only when it's needed, and no more than is essential ... but enough so I can understand what the heck is going on. I comment on the timing and extent of the backstory.
• Setting: Must. Have. Sense. Of. Place. But it must be integrated into the story so the pace is preserved.
• Dialogue: stilted, redundant, boring and purposeless, cover for info-dump, inconsistency in vocabulary/voice/pattern of speech, or anything that just doesn't sound like natural conversation will get marked.
• Characterization: consistency within the character and with the character arc, including intensity of emotion, inner thoughts, mannerisms and other external behaviors, and relationships with other characters. If there are child characters ... I will comment on whether that child's behavior and language is consistent with what I know of child development. And if there is psychopathology or trauma, I will address it both from a technical perspective and a story perspective. For good or ill, I will describe how I feel about the character at any given point.
• Plot arc: I will comment on general plausibility and tension, and identify things that seem illogical or inconsistent (plot holes). I might make predictions for what I think will happen so the writer can see how I'm understanding and interpreting the story--and so the writer can get a sense of how predictable the story is.

I tend to leave a lot of red ink on the page. I thought this was how everybody did it. I was wrong (and

naïve).

Now ... as I mentioned, I've had various reactions to my crits. Some were met with gratitude, and a few were met with radio silence or defensiveness. It was an important lesson: writers have different goals and needs, and different betas serve different purposes (you all probably knew that already).

There are lots of reasons writers seek beta-readers:

• Simple validation--they just need someone to tell them they're good
• Encouragement--they need gentle suggestions and a ton of positive feedback
• Tell-me-if-I'm-crazy or genre questions--they need someone to honestly tell them if an idea is crap (JD does this one for me all the time) or to help them decide the genre of the piece
• General impression/overall style--more of a broad review of theme, voice, style, plot, and/or characters/relationships
• Specific questions/expert review--review of smaller-scope issues like making sure something is correct from a technical perspective
• Getting the piece ready for agent or editor eyes--this would be the no-holds-barred crit

Which brings me to: BETA, know thyself (no such thing as being all things to all writers)

Followed closely by: Writer, know THYself (if you don't, you're going to get frustrated. Or hurt.)

I'll tell you where to shove
that red pen ...

When you are seeking a beta, ask yourself what you need (it may not be the same as what your writing needs), and be really honest in your answers (about both you and your writing, preferably). Then seek a beta who can meet those needs. Know which need you're meeting.

If you are the beta-reader, know what you can offer and communicate that to the writer. Know when to tell the writer you might not be the best match. It could save you some grief.

What kind of beta are you? What do you do well, and when are you not the best fit for a writer?

What are you looking for in a critique, and why? Do you have different beta-readers for different stages of your process, or who have different purposes? What makes you trust your beta(s)? What makes that relationship work?

On the Sisterhood front: be sure to check out Deb Salisbury's post on her writing goals for 2011!

8 Fabulous Fathers Day Gifts for the Man Who Spawned You

This Sunday is Father’s Day! Looking for a great gift for Dad, Father, Pater, Pa, Daddy-Wiggums, or That Man Who Spawned 'n' Spurned Me? I’ve rounded up some top choices that will make Dad cry and beat you quicklike, before retiring to the "teeth optional" dive bar on the corner for the remainder of the evening.

At "I am a stuffed animal" you can order a stuffed version of your daddy! It's better than the taxidermized version, because it has no feet, only stumps. Daddy can snuggle it while he watches football, which he invariably does. Then daddy can molest it, which he invariably does. (Note how they captured the model's thuggish cruelty hidden beneath the friendly smile? And the fat eyebrows that sit on his brow like malignant caterpillars? That is artistry, baby!)

Many people who come and go? Shouldn't father sort of come and...stay? What's with the father who "goes"? Isn't he known as a shithead and a deadbeat dad? You'd do better to break this stupid faux wooden plaque over his goddamn head!

The World's Largest Gummy Bear! When daddy eats it his insides will gum up and he will start to have a crazyass acid trip and he will eat his socks and wind up curled in the corner like a small bean, weeping. Why are they all STARING AT ME? They glisten.

This T-shirt is actually pretty awesome. But if you give it to your dad, you will have to include the infant in the gift package or else he won't get the joke, think the shirt is too small, and beat the living fuck out of you.

Jerky of the Month Club, jerky jerkface daddy who never showed up for my ballet recitals! I hope your blood pressure shoots up to salty heights of meaty badness.

This Is What the World's Best Dad Looks Like. He has BOOBS. Awesome.

Damn, this daddy must be hot because he is spawning children faster than we can make amorphous pawprints from them! Are Jordan and Caleb the total black sheep of the family, or what? Did we run out of K names?! What about Kaleb and Kordon?

The little hearts on the base of this figurine do nothing to eliminate the fact that you have given your father an image of himself as a wild and predatory animal, sitting on the shitter. Is that how you see your father? When he is done manhandling his beer, laptop, football, cell phone, crown, paper, and woolly balls, he will take a switch to you.

You might also like: All The Beautiful Ways To Say I Love You

You got your meditation in my CBT!

I've talked about meditation.

I've talked about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

From personal experience I can tell you both can be effective in relieving anxiety, depression, and whatnot. Together, it seems, meditation and CBT are two great tastes that taste great together. According to a recent study, the two are also notably effective when used in combination -- at least for depression:

People with severe and recurrent depression could benefit from a new form of therapy that combines ancient forms of meditation with modern cognitive behaviour therapy, early-stage research by Oxford University psychologists suggests.

The results of a small-scale randomised trial of the approach, called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), in currently depressed patients are published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy.

28 people currently suffering from depression, having also had previous episodes of depression and thoughts of suicide, were randomly assigned into two groups. One received MBCT in addition to treatment as usual, while the other just received treatment as usual. Treatment with MBCT reduced the number of patients with major depression, while it remained the same in the other group.

Can a website help you better manage your anxiety and panic

Maybe sometimes you get so scared you think you're going to die. Or maybe your head jitters with anxiety, or wondering whether life is worth living makes it hard to get out of bed.

What do you do? Steps taken by people with panic, anxiety, and/or depression include psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, SSRIs, benzodiazepenes, exercise, meditation, and biofeedback -- and that's just the start of the list.

But do any of them actually work?

Typically, at PANIC!, we've addressed questions of treatment efficacy via discussion of information from "official" sources -- published research studies, for instance.

Sites like CureTogether and patientslikeme offer a new and exciting source of information about what ails you, from the type and severity of the symptoms that others report, to the popularity and perceived efficacy and side effects of a wide range of treatments.

By submitting information about yourself (anonymously), you can help strengthen the database of knowledge about health problems -- and maybe learn about a treatment that could work for you.

If nothing else, these sites remind us that we're not alone. (On one of the sites, I actually found an example of someone who's also panicked while meditating!)

I will never kill you in a novel

This month's Sisterhood of the Traveling Blog question comes from Deb, who asked: "How do your pets/kids/plants (something you take care of) influence your writing? Do they help you, or distract you? Do you include them in your stories?"

Laura's answer is here, and Lydia's is here. Deb is up next week! As for me ...

First, let me get this out of the way. I don't put people I know in stories. Not family members, not friends, not colleagues, not clients. I've never even considered it, and it has to do with why I write. See, some of us write to express ourselves. Some of us write to process what we've been through. Some of us write because our heads are full of stories just waiting to be told.

I write to escape.

When I write, I am not here. I'm gone, lost in that story, dwelling within my characters. I tune everything out and go to that protected place in my head. When I am under the most stress, when I am under the most pressure, when I feel like climbing the walls--that's when my daily word count goes up (should I mention that I wrote over eight thousand words on Monday?).

That kind of escape would be hard to achieve if I took all the people I know with me. It's not that I don't love them or care about them; quite the opposite. It's just that I'm one of the most seriously introverted people you'll ever meet, and I need that time inside myself to charge up.

However ... part of Deb's question was whether something or someone I take care of influences my writing. The answer to that is yes. The people I care for, both personally and professionally, absolutely influence my writing.

They've taught me to ask a very important question: what's it like to be you?

I spend a lot of my work time, and a great deal of my at-home time, thinking about the possible answers to this question. To come up with the answer, you kind of have to shed yourself and go wear someone else's skin ... metaphorically speaking, of course (those of you who've read some of my manuscripts might be wondering).

I've learned to ponder this question whenever I butt heads with someone, whenever I'm trying to figure out why someone is behaving in a way that's hurting both herself and all the people around her, whenever I'm trying to understand someone's next move or how he might react to something I'm doing.

I've come to the realization that this question--what's it like to be you?--is incredibly useful. And not just for interpersonal interactions. For character development, too!  And I truly believe that whatever ability I have to crawl inside a character's head comes from the experiences I've had with the people I care for. I mean, if I bear some responsibility to a person, some power to change things for her, then I need to think about what it's like to see the world through her eyes. I'm grateful to every person who's been patient with me as I tried to figure that out.

How about you? How would you answer Deb's question? Do the things or people you take care of influence your writing? How?

splutters You what

I went to Devon on holiday with my famalam this week. It was full of oldies and was a teen nightmare. I survived. But I think there's something in its water...


1) I can shuffle cards. I've never been able to shuffle cards. I can now shuffle cards. 
2) I am addicted to Come Dine With Me which I previously couldn't stand.
3) I like to shout at the little pricks on My Super Sweet 16.
4) My mum sleeptalks.
5) I am very good at Pool.
6) I really like 70s music.
7) I have a new love for peppers. Including the Sam kind.
8) I like Billy Joel.
9) I want Adam Garcia.
10) 'He' is not entering my mind anymore. 


If they don't shock you, wait until you hear the next two whoppers...


11) I've gone from not caring about fashion, to being in love with it. I want everything new. I'm staring at passers by to see what they're wearing and contemplating whether I want it or not. I have to go in every single shop we pass. I go to the fashion pages in magazines first. I want every bag in every colour. I want 100 pairs of shoes. I want skinny jeans, bootcut jeans, boyfriend jeans, straight leg jeans. I want hats. I want a lot.


12) I have a new favourite magazine. More. (I know right, WTF, who's taken Louise Emily Jones? Can her body have her back please?)


What on earth has Devon done to me? Am I growing up? X

The Id Takes Over the Blog and OFFERS YOU A PRIZE

Hi, everyone! This is Sarah's id. This week has been INSANE at her day job, and on top of that, she has a terrible cold. While the rest of her is passed out somewhere, just trying to recover, I have taken on blog duty. And you know what? My mouth is stuffed so full of marshmallows that I can barely think past the pillowy-gooey-deliciousness.

So help me out here.

I cracked into Sarah's plastic, and I'll award a $20 Amazon gift card or a ten-page crit, your choice, to one of you (she'll be doing the crit, not me. The only thing I'm good for is watching Vampire Diaries, eating onion rings, and other activities of instant gratification).

All you have to do:

1. Ask a question (you could ask just about anything about her work as a psychologist, her writing, a psychological question about something you're working on, or a psychological question about something you've just kinda wondered about).

OR

2. Recommend a YA book that contains a character with a mental/emotional/developmental disorder or just involves interesting psychological issues.

That's all. Oh, and if you become a new follower of the blog or on Twitter, or if you RT the contest, or if you are a current follower and remind her of this fact in the comments, she'll give you extra entries. She's more organized than I am.

This giveaway thing will end next Wednesday, May 18th, at midnight EST. Winner (who will be selected randomly, cuz' that's how I roll) announced Friday, May 20th.

Fire away. I'm off to find me some fried food.

Oh, one more thing. Justine Dell is having her 300 followers contest HERE. It's extraordinarily easy to enter and there are tons of nifty prizes. I'm going to enter Sarah when she's not looking *crosses fingers for the Livia Dane short story* (psst ... if you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll want to find out!).

Mixed Messages in Your Family A Quiz You Can Take

I have been studying the families-of-origin of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) since the the late 1970’s. As readers of this blog already know, I discovered that the biggest and most common emotional conflict in the parents who produce offspring with the disorder is a conflict over the very act of becoming and being a parent.  As I described in a previous post, the parents think being great parents and taking care of children is the end all and be all of human existence, but secretly they wish, for a variety of different reasons, that they could be spending most of their time doing something else entirely.

Since they are conflicted about their parental roles, they constantly give off mixed messages to their children about what is expected from them. This leaves the children to try to figure out how to meet their parents’ contradictory needs to be both needed by their children and, simultaneously, for their children to just go away. The children solve this dilemma by adopting various versions of the spoiler role.

Children growing up with mixed messages from parents is, in fact, a hallmark of families producing children with any personality disorder.  The problematic mixed messages are often in regard to only certain behaviors or role functions – usually just one or two – while the parents respond to other roles and behaviors in a coherent, non-contradictory manner.

For those readers who are now adults, how does your family stack up in the continuing double messages department? My colleague Hillel Abramson and I designed an instrument to try to measure the amount and type of double messages adults perceived as receiving from their primary attachment figures, called the Family Interaction Scale or FIS.  While designed with only borderline personality disorder (BPD) in mind, it can be used more generally, and you can administer it to yourself to see what areas are problematic for your families.

But first, just a little background.

In order to see what is going on in families, one has to appreciate that conversations between family members have subtexts. A subtext is an underlying, implicit and often distinct theme in a conversation that is not perceivable if someone is only paying attention to the literal meanings of the sentences spoken. In order to understand a subtext, one also has to listen to an entire conversation before hidden meanings might become evident. Just a few sentences will not do. 

Furthermore, an understanding of the entire history of the relationship between the people having the conversation, not just the current interactions, is also required to tease out important latent themes.

Therefore, appreciating the subtexts of conversations between intimates involves thousands of variables that will be completely different for each dyad or group being evaluated. To think that subtexts of this complexity can be “measured” by standardized questions and answers on a psychological test is ludicrous. For this reasons, truly “empirical” studies are impossible.

But in today's world, one must try. Some people insist that observations of subtexts are just “anecdotal.”  They can therefore just dismiss it as an object of scientific study. To get around this just a wee bit, we chose 9 of the most common themes in the families of those with BPD that I had observed over the years, and asked four different groups to rate their parents’ ongoing, current communication in these 9 “domains.”

The four groups were patients with the disorder, those who were subthreshold for the disorder (that is, who met 3 or 4 of the criteria for BPD rather than the required 5), non-psychotic patients being treated in our clinic who did not have BPD, and normal controls who exibited no psychiatric disorders at all.

The domains are:

1.  Praise and criticism

2.  Comments to friends and relatives about the subject

3.  Reactions to advice given by the parents

4.  Blame for the parents’ problems

5.  Frequency of advice giving by the parents

6.  Degree of parent’s preoccupation with the subject

7.  Relationship of a parent’s mood to the subject’s mood

8.  Parental reactions to the subject’s work failures and successes

9.  Parental reactions to the subject’s romantic failures and successes

For each domain, we provided 6 to 7 options. Since no human relationships are completely consistent all the time, we wanted to avoid saying anything that implied that the parents were “always” one way or another.  So we asked subjects to please check only the one item in each domain rating that "came the closest to describing the parent's current behavior towards you most of the time."

For each domain, there was one response pattern that we deemed appropriate. Another response pattern we originally deemed “neglectful.”  However, in thinking about it as the results came in, it seemed to us that it would be more accurate to say that these items reflected the fact that the issue in the domain did not seem to matter at all to the parents.

There were two response patterns that we deemed polarized – the parent acted most of the time at one extreme or the other without much in between.  There were also two response patterns that were indicative of  the pattern in which we were most interested: double messages. The parents either were perceived as blatantly contradictory in their behavior, or they said one thing but seemed to mean something that was contradictory to what they said. 

In reading the items below, you should be able to easily figure out which item corresponds to which response pattern.

Subjects in the original research were asked to choose and rate up to three attachment figures from their childhoods who were still alive, still interacting with the subject in the present, and not senile.  “Still in contact" could mean in person, by phone, by letter, or even by word of mouth.

These figures had to have served in the parental role when the subjects were between the ages of 5 and 15.  We provided the following list:

1.  Natural Mother

2.  Natural Father

3.  Adoptive Father

4.  Adoptive Mother

5.  First Stepfather

6.  Second Stepfather

7.  First Stepmother

8.  Second Stepmother

9.  Father's Father (only if he lived with you)

10.  Father's Mother (only if she lived with you)

11.  Mother's Father (only if he lived with you)

12.  Mother's Mother (only if she lived with you)

13.  Brother at least 5 years older than you

14.  Sister at least 5 years older than you

15.  Other (Specify)

Here were the test items:

DOMAIN 1

1.  This person consistently praises me no matter what I decide about how I run my life

2.  This person consistently criticizes me no matter what I decide about how I run my life.

3.  This person consistently goes back and forth between praising and criticizing me for the same decisions.

4.  This  person is consistently fair in praising and criticizing me for my decisions.

5.  This person rarely  praises or criticizes my decisions about how I run my life.

6.  Regarding my decisions, this person consistently says one thing but really                  means another.

________________

DOMAIN 2

1.  This person consistently brags about me to their friends and relatives.

2.  This person consistently bad mouths me to their friends and relatives.

3.  This person says contradictory things about me to friends and relatives.

3.  This person is consistently fair in making remarks about me to friends and relatives.

5.  This person consistently does not talk about me with their friends and relatives.

6.  This person consistently says one thing about me to friends and relatives but really means another.

________________ 

DOMAIN 3

1.  This person acts happy only if I follow their advice.

2.  This person acts happy only if I ignore their advice.

3.  This person consistently acts unhappy with my reaction to their advice no matter if I follow or ignore it.

4.  This person accepts my reaction to their advice even if I disagree with it.

5.  This person consistently does not react to how I respond to their advice.

6.  Regarding my reactions to their advice, this person consistently acts one way but really feels another.

________________ 

DOMAIN 4

1.  This person consistently blames themself for their own problems even when they are not at fault.

2.  This person consistently blames me for their own problems even when I'm not at fault.

3.  This person consistently goes back and forth between blaming me and themself for their problems.

4.   This person is fair in assigning blame for their problems.

5.   This person consistently blames others rather than me or themselves for their problems.

6.    This person rarely blames anyone for their own problems.

7.     In assigning blame for their problems, this person consistently says one thing but means another.

_______________ 

DOMAIN 5

1.  This person almost never tells me what to do, even if I ask for their advice.

2.   This person almost always tells me what to do.

3.  This person consistently goes back and forth between telling me to make my own  decisions and telling me what to do.

4.    This person usually tells me to make my own independent decisions but will offer advice if asked.

5.   This person is unconcerned with who makes the decisions in my life.

6.    Regarding telling me what to do, this person consistently says one thing but really means another.

________________

DOMAIN 6

1.   This person  consistently expresses worries  about how I am doing even when they know I'm doing well.

2.    This person never expresses worries about me even when they know I'm in trouble.

3.     In expressing worries about how I'm doing, this person goes back and forth between expressing worries and saying nothing.

4.    This person is consistently reasonable when expressing concerns about how I'm doing.

5.    This person doesn't even bother to find out how I am doing.

6.    In regards to worrying about how I'm doing, this person consistently says one thing but really means another.

________________

DOMAIN 7

1.    This person only acts happy when I am happy.

2.     This person only acts happy when I am miserable.

3.     This person goes back and forth between acting happy when I'm happy and acting happy when I'm miserable.

4.     This  person shows sympathy with how I feel but their mood does not depend on how I am feeling.

5.     This person almost never reacts to how I am feeling.

6.      When I'm happy or unhappy, this person  consistently acts one way  but really feels another.

_________________ 

DOMAIN 8

1.     This  person does not act happy unless I am succeeding in my career.

2.     This person usually acts unhappy about my career accomplishments and relishes in my failures.

3.       This person goes back and forth between acting happy about my career successes and relishing in my failures.

4.      This person expresses satisfaction with my career successes and sympathizes with my career failures.

5.      This person almost never reacts to my career successes and failures.

6.      When reacting to my career successes and failures, this person consistently acts one way but really feels another.

_________________

DOMAIN 9

1.     This person does not act happy unless I am having a successful romantic relationship.

2.     This person usually acts unhappy about my successes in romantic relationships and relishes in my failures.

3.     This person goes back and forth between happy about my romantic successes and relishing in my failures.

4.     This person expresses satisfaction with my romantic successes and sympathizes with my romantic failures.

5.     This person consistently does not react to how I am doing in romantic relationships.

6.     When reacting to my love life, this person consistently acts one way but                   really feels another.

_________________

The results of the study were published in 2005 in the psychiatric journal Comprehensive Psychiatry, volume 46, pages 340-352, and were highly significant and in line with most of our predictions. The fact that they were so significant was even more impressive considering the fact that the number of subjects in each subgroup was relatively small. Discovering small differences usually requires larger samples, so this means that the differences were probably quite large.

We found there were significant differences between groups in regard to appropriate and contradictoryresponses for the first attachment figure rated. BPD patients endorsed fewer appropriate responses than did the patient controls (p=.001) and than did the normal controls (P=.011). There were no other significant differences among groups regarding appropriate responses for the first rated individual.

BPD patients reported significantly more contradictory responses than did patient controls (p=.004) and normal controls (p=.003). In addition, Subthreshold subjects reported more contradictory responses than did patient controls (p=.009) and normal controls (p=.005).

Contrary to prediction, there were no significant differences in the mean number of polarized responses among any of the groups. The polarized responses were indicative of something called splitting: the tendency of people to think of others as all good or all bad.  BPD patients are thought to be unable to see shades of grey, but they were no more likely to endorse polarized response patterns than anyone else. In other words, this was evidence that patients with BPD do not split, at least when thinking about these issues. This was also shown in another way described below.

There were also no significant differences in what we first called neglect responses among any of the groups. This was a bit of surprise since neglect is often present in the parenting styles of those with BPD.  However, even when prominent, it tends to oscillate with overinvolvement.  But if these items measured lack of interest rather than neglect per se as described earlier, the fact that the parents of subjects with BPD were not characterized as uninterested should have been no surprise. That is because-  clinically - even when parents of future BPD patients are neglectful, they tend to blame it on the child!

When chronic unhappiness (dysthymia) was controlled for in comparisons of subject groups, the pattern of significant effects remained the same.

The number of subjects rating two parental figures (N=59) was considerably smaller than the number of subjects who rated at least one (N=93). No significant overall effect between the groups on the way they responded to the FIS regarding person B was found – possibly because of the much smaller sample size. However, the trends were the same.

Normal controls reported significantly more appropriate responses than did BPDs (p=.002), Subthresholds (p=.004), and patient controls (p=.024). BPD patients reported significantly more contradictory responses than did normal controls (p=.002) and trending toward reporting more than did patient controls (p=.064), while subthreshold subjects reported significantly more than did normal controls (p=.038). There were no significant between group differences in polarized or neglect responses.

Every contradictory item on the questionnaire was endorsed for person A by at least two of the BPDs (5%) with a range of 5% to 32.5%. The most commonly endorsed contradictory item was, “This person consistently goes back and forth between praising and criticizing me for the same decisions.” 

When we examined the FIS by domains, the most commonly endorsed domain in which either contradictory response was endorsed by BPDs for person A was domain 1, with 40%. The corresponding percentages were domain 2, 27.5%; domain 3, 25%; domain 4, 20%; domain 5, 32.5%; domain 6, 22.5%; domain 7, 20%; domain 8, 27.5%; and domain 9, 20%.

The fact that the pattern in the various domains was all over the place within the BPD sample also indicates that each item was considered separately and there was no pattern of items being  rated globally in one consistent way. Such global ratings might be expected in "splitting" subjects who were unable to look simultaneously at both good and bad characteristics in an individual.

Furthermore, although the mean number of contradictory responses of BPD subjects within the varius domains was considerably higher than the mean for patient controls for person A, it was still quite small—only 2.24 (range 0 – 8 out of a possible 9). The mean for the normal controls, however, was only 0.46.  In other words, the normal controls perceived almost NO double messages from their parents. 

So readers, go ahead and use the FIS to rate your own families on how often they drive you to distraction with double messages. You don't have to share the results with anyone unless you want to. But please feel free to share your general reactions to the FIS items in the comments section.