tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80175452455225424182024-03-08T08:10:39.830-08:00Healers and FeelingsHealers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-45926849427237547592014-09-20T18:53:00.000-07:002014-09-20T18:53:49.376-07:00Could You Help This Family?<a href="http://www.amazon.com/By-Side-Road-Jules-Feiffer/dp/0786809086/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411263307&sr=8-1&keywords=by+the+side+of+the+road">By The Side of the Road</a> by Jules Feiffer tells about a family with child management issues. Basically, the father threatens to stop the car and let Richard out if he doesn't stop fooling around. He does so, and Richard decides to live there permanently. Richard develops his own way of living, which other members of the family sooner or later embrace. The outcome is usually different, I have found, in the real world. The parents seem not to have consulted a professional in the matter, and you wonder how the book would have been different if they had. If you know or read this book, and are a behavior management expert, how would you handle the case? How could the outcome have been better, or would have it been worse, if a counselor had been involved. What about spanking? As a parent do you think that any of these <a href="http://time.com/35496/how-to-raise-happy-kids-10-steps-backed-by-science/">scientifically proven</a> methods would be helpful? What role do school employees have in suggesting counseling for such a family? Does Richard qualify for any diagnosis (risky to say, I realize, without all of the pertinent information)? What other good books do you know for parents, children and/or professionals that deal with such issues?Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-78192094190976420592014-05-25T05:06:00.000-07:002014-05-25T05:06:27.427-07:00Dr. Bronte on HypochondriaYou're right, Charlotte Bronte had no medical training. Nor did Currer Bell. She did, however, provide a good description of how it feels to think that you are ill (and be depressed I suppose), given by her male character in <i>The Professor.</i> One paragraph ends with the sentence, "I was temporarily a prey to Hypochondria." Here's the next paragraph"<br />
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"She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest once before in boyhood. I had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she would discourse to me of her own country - the Grave - and again and again promise to conduct me there ere long; and drawing me to the very brink of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal with mound, monument and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary than moonlight. "Necropolis!" she would whisper, pointing to the pale piles, and add, "It contains a mansion prepared for you."<br />
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It goes on for a couple of more paragraphs. It is all near the end of Chapter XXIII. You can't make up stuff like this, but she could.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-21823209716282038802014-03-09T09:12:00.003-07:002014-03-09T09:12:41.375-07:00Naomi Norsworthy on BullyingThis is well written, not to mention the fact that it was written 100 years ago!<br />
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"Bullying is possibly the one original tendency that seems wholly bad. It is difficult to discern in it any element of good, and its uprooting, or the substitution of one of the kindlier, more helpful tendencies for it must be one of the duties of every teacher. Its persistence in adult life results in much harm and unhappiness. The brutality of the strong towards the weak, the misuse of power by governments, the refinement of cruelty shown in sarcasm and covered taunts, all find their explanation in this original tendency. Children cannot be held responsible for its existence in them, for it is part of their inherited equipment. They are not degenerate when they tease or bully,but for the good of society these tendencies must be modified and changed."<br />
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The book from which this is taken is titled<i> The Psychology of Childhood. </i>Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-21798603080996216852014-02-15T06:09:00.000-08:002014-02-15T06:09:40.000-08:00Virginia Woolf and Octavia WilberforceOctavia Wilberforce was a healer, who became one despite great discouragement from her family. Her father apparently wrote her out of his will because she decided to get medical training. In 1939, she was Virginia Woolf's doctor. Despite Wilberforce's effort, Virginia Woolfe wrote a letter to her husband which began, "I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate." Her nephew, Quentin Bell, described what happened next:: "She put this on the sitting-room mantelpiece and, at about 11:30, slipped out, taking her walking-stick with her and making her way across the water-meadows to the river. Leonard believed that she might already have made one attempt to drown herself; if so she had learnt by her failure and was determined to make sure of it now. Leaving her stick on the bank she forced a large stone into the pocket of her coat. Then she went to her death, "the one experience," as she had said to Vita, "I shall never describe." A decade, or so, earlier she had described the treatment of her fictional figure, Orlando, who had (it seems) been catatonic for a week this way. "But the doctors were hardly wiser then than they are now, and after prescribing rest and exercise, starvation and nourishment, society and solitude, that he should lie in bed all day and ride forty miles between lunch and dinner, together with the usual sedatives and irritants, diversified, as the fancy took them, with possets of newt's slobber on rising, and draughts of peacock's gall on going to bed, they left him to himself, and gave it as their opinion that he had been asleep for a week."Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-22650404101880311752013-09-14T11:03:00.000-07:002013-09-14T11:03:34.889-07:009/11 Babies and BCBA therapyI'd love to hear if anyone else has had any experience with these two phenomena. The first is the cohort of children born in 2001 or 2002 (give or take). Their prebirth and early experience happened around the time of 9/11. Whether they externalize or internalize, they seem to have trouble handling stress, and there are a high percentage of them, it seems. I can remember how unsettled I felt at the time. I wonder if their early experiences have made it hard for them to cope. The second phenomenon is the use of a BCBA as a therapist, rather than a traditional therapist or a psychopharmacologist. In the situation I've encountered, a previous therapist was seen as not giving explicit enough help in how to deal with specific situations, and a medication provider was seen as not considering the whole child. Getting help for your child has become more complex, if nothing else. Please leave a comment if you can enlighten me on either of these situations.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-1022193265300056612013-07-04T07:52:00.000-07:002013-07-04T07:52:15.402-07:00The Shape of the EyeThis book is by George Estreich. It tells about the first dozen years or so of his journey with Laura. He makes a very good argument for just thinking of her as Laura, as opposed to a child with Down Syndrome, or a Down Syndrome child, or a child with Down's Syndrome, or anything other than Laura. It would be worth reading if it only told about their lives, but it also has some good food for thought. He hopes that it will come that we have no more need or desire to mention how she is different in her number of chromosomes than in her hair color. I couldn't put the book down ( I assume I'm able to say that if I ate supper between the time when it came in the mail and when I finished it). There is interesting information about Dr. Down, the Special Education process, and what the extra chromosome does (effect how proteins are manufactured in the body). There was a short passage on the meeting after the School Psychologist tested her. Here's a quote: "I knew nothing about Down syndrome except that it was bad, and that it meant Laura was different from me. I no longer believe the first - Down syndrome is simply Laura's way of being human. As for the second: Laura <i>is </i>different, but the differences are superficial. This may seem an odd assertion, since the extra chromosome pervades her, and its effects texture our days. And yet these altered forms, eye and face and word, have come to contain and absorb what I know of love. Or love learned to alter itself, to accommodate the forms. She is no less my daughter, no less a person, for having an extra chromosome."Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-31569863187262356752013-06-16T13:40:00.000-07:002013-06-16T13:40:25.863-07:00DSM WheelDSM-5 is here, and praise is a little hard to find. I would use one of my favorite cartoon lines, spoken by one Eskimo to another with the Northern Lights in the background, "It's not Broadway, but it's what we've got." I use the framework in my attempts to understand the factors (internal and external) that are leading to problem behaviors for elementary school students and others. How the students can be helped to minimize the disruptions which accompany the behaviors is a next step; understanding the behaviors is key. I use my <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22859883/DSM5_wheel%20(2).pdf">graphic organizer</a> to remind myself of the important possibilities for diagnoses. Any condition for which the person meets the criteria can be checked (for the diagnoses on the left) or shaded in according to how strongly the diagnosis applies for the diagnoses that "made" the circle on the right. All diagnoses are not listed, but all categories of diagnoses should be included. I'd be happy to hear from anyone that believes that a category has been missed, or that an additional specific condition should be named. For me, the sections that have been most helpful so far are those on Specific Learning Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. What I don't see is an example of everything that is needed for a "complete" diagnosis. It can't be listing the five axes, as they no longer exist! Can anyone point me to a source that tells what you need for a written diagnosis, which covers all the bases?Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-52621701957727068982013-02-02T11:42:00.001-08:002013-02-02T12:44:17.091-08:00Healing YourselfI've just been asked to comment on a list of self-help books I tweeted about. I pulled a few I've recommended before off the shelf and discovered that none of them were on the list! Here they are (Goodreads better come through for me):<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/271249.How_to_Meditate">How to Meditate by Lawrence LeShan</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26332.Destructive_Emotions">Destructive Emotions by Goleman and the Dalai Lama</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/541154.What_to_Do_When_You_Grumble_Too_Much">the books for kids by Dawn Huebner</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6053700-smart-but-scattered">Peg Dawson and Richard Guare's books on executive functioning</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242299.The_Relaxation_Response">The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3986845-if-only-you-would-change">If Only You Would Change by Luciano and Merris</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13932.The_Noonday_Demon">The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/320142.Straight_Talk_about_Psychiatric_Medications_for_Kids">books about how those medicines work</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66321.Finding_Flow">Finding Flow by Csikszentmihalyi</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249042.Darkness_Visible">Darkness Visible by William Styron</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9759723-reading-my-father">Reading My Father by Alexandra Styron</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36434.Touched_With_Fire">Kay Redfield Jamison's books</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1098486.The_Center_Cannot_Hold">The Center Cannot Hold by Saks</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6584510-in-her-wake">In Her Wake by Nancy Rappaport</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2357943.When_Someone_You_Know_is_Depressed">When Someone You Love is Depressed by Rosen and Amador</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7816284-just-like-someone-without-mental-illness-only-more-so">Mark Vonnegut's memoirs</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4885274-imagining-robert">imagining Robert by Jay Neugeboren</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8590747-a-mind-that-found-itself">and the classic...</a><br />
I like the books by individuals who have been through it and relatives because they combine good information and something you want to read.<br />
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<br />Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-35552513427237156462012-12-25T09:19:00.002-08:002012-12-25T09:19:23.344-08:00Healing Relationships<i>The Spontaneous Gesture </i>is a collection of letters from D.W. Winnicott. As collections of letters go, it is good but not great. It is certainly a good enough collection of letters. Winnicott worked with such ideas as transitional objects and the good enough parent. He worked with Melanie Klein and Anna Freud. Along with these letter recipients, there are James Strachy, Edward Glover, Ernest Jones, David Rapaport, Harry Guntrip. Joan Riviere, Jacques Lacan, A.R. Luria and Wilfred Bion. There aren't letters to Winnicott, which I think makes such a book much more engaging. Many of the letters are reactions to papers and presentations by the person who got the letter. There is a little bit of personal information, but not much. From a letter to B.J. Knopf, who had reacted to a letter of his in the <i>Observer: "</i>Perhaps you will do best to give up trying to work at all this, and just go on naturally enjoying your experiences. Later you may like to go back over what you experience with a book or two to guide you, but while you are having a child I think you may do best to follow your natural feelings." Here's a good biography of Winnicott: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/791141.WinnicottHealers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-57471136212211947532012-11-17T06:45:00.000-08:002012-11-17T06:45:08.410-08:00Healing the Self<i>Constructing The Self, Constructing America: A Cultural History of Psychotherapy </i>deserves to be on your reading list. In the book, Philip Cushman (<a href="http://www.vashonwellness.com/Alphabetical.htm">on this list of providers</a>) covers a lot of areas. He advocates a hermeneutic stance in therapy, in which the social/political status quo is given its due. He gives some examples of his own patients, who he helped to broaden the "clearing" which they could view, and construct their world in ways which were more positive for them. He also talks about the changing role and nature of healers and healing over time. Our current situation is seen as one in which consumerism is the response to the empty self. Several past times and therapies are explained. One is the social forces present in the 1960s, and the therapies which stemmed from that. It is, of course, interesting the read history and compare it to what you experienced when you were there (ouch)! Mesmerism is covered well, as is the controversy surrounding Melanie Klein. Cushman explains self and object relations theories in ways that help with an overall understanding. Winnicott and Sullivan are also covered quite extensively. From the philosophy side, Gadamer gets his say. This book provides some perspective for anyone who functions as a healer.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-37324015521737744002012-09-02T12:35:00.001-07:002012-09-02T12:35:26.848-07:00A Pre-HealerAlthough Wilhelm Dilthey is seen more as a Philosopher than a Psychologist, he stressed interdisciplinary cooperation. In <i>Wilhelm Dilthey: Pioneer of the Human Studies</i>, H. P. Rickman lists nine ideas on Psychology that were apparent in Dilthey's (early) work. Many of these are relevant to how we function as helpers. He anticipated <a href="http://www.massgeneral.org/bhi/">mind-body</a> medicine and psychotherapy, in his understanding of people as psycho-physical beings. He stressed the expression of mental life through facial expressions, gestures, and postures. His stress on the importance of analysis of writing and other similar expressions has led to use of journaling, diaries and other such methods in therapies. Dilthey thought a lot about the ways in which people fit into their social relationships and cultures. Rickman mentions that he anticipated Freud's idea that factors that are not within our awareness can help to produce our meaningful expressions. He knew that we, as researchers and therapists, needed to understand behavior and reactions in terms of the meaning that situations have for the person themselves. All in all, this was an impressive analysis for someone who was born in 1833. Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-25769272594154183522012-08-11T19:08:00.000-07:002012-08-11T19:08:33.432-07:00Healing DepressionIncredible as it may seem, I'll share another book that I picked up at the dump Swap Shop. There was a copy of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13932.The_Noonday_Demon">The Noonday Demon</a> there, and I picked it up. Rather than reading it, I'm listening on Audible (almost 24 hrs. worth!). So far, it is a strong combination of literature and science. The subject of the book is depression. The first sentence in Chapter I is, "Depression is the flaw in love." The author is writing a book now <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13547504-far-from-the-tree">(Far From the Tree...)</a> about when children are different from their parents and from other people. There is a Newsweek article about his <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/01/30/meet-my-real-modern-family.html">nontraditional family</a>. He is in a program now, according to his Wikipedia page, to learn to be a healer, "<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> working on attachment theory under the supervision of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliet_Mitchell" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;" title="Juliet Mitchell">Prof. Juliet Mitchell</a>." I get the impression that both this book and the upcoming one can be very useful and supportive for people.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-65815456099025990232012-07-04T16:31:00.000-07:002012-07-04T16:31:08.014-07:00Healing SocietyIn addition to working with individuals and trying to help them, healers also learn about characteristics that people have in common, and try to draw conclusions that will help everyone. In the fifty or so years since Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiment, it has been widely discussed and conclusions have been drawn about ways in which the dangers of blindly following authority can be avoided. <a href="http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1050682548&searchurl=an%3DDAVID%2BKRECH%252C%2BRICHARD%2BS%2BCRUTCHFIELD%2BAND%2BNORMAN%2BLIVSON">The Psychology textbook</a> I used in college, written about five years after the experiment, focused on the pressure from the peer group (even though the pressure seems to have come from one person) as a factor in causing subjects to (as far as they knew?) inflict an electric shock on another person. About a decade later, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/676723.Obedience_to_Authority">Milgram's book</a> (including further experiments) was out, and a <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3792945-essentials-of-psychology">textbook</a> from that era focused on the factors that reduced the obedience to authority (proximity of the victim, status of the victim, etc,). In 1991, Thomas Blass wrote <a href="http://www.stanleymilgram.com/pdf/understanding%20behavoir.pdf">a paper</a> discussing personality factors and their interaction with situations in determining level of obedience. The early 2000's saw Blass's book about Stanley Milgram and a book by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/639076.Opening_Skinner_s_Box">Lauren Slater</a> detailing her investigations about several famous psychology experiments. She interviewed two of the subjects in the original study. One stopped shocking the "learner" fairly early and the other did not. Given the circumstances of their lives, it would have seemed like they would have done the opposite of what they had done. Slater focused on the effects that the study may have had on the participants. I'll mention two recent developments. Jerry Burger did a <a href="http://www.scu.edu/cas/psychology/faculty/upload/Replicating-Milgrampdf.pdf">partial replication</a> the original study and produced similar results. Within the past month, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-sommers/when-good-people-behave-b_b_1572762.html?ref=tw">Sam Sommers</a> cited the study as an indication that starting off with a small lapse can lead progressively to larger and larger ones. Stanley Milgram lived about fifty years; fifty years after his death, people are still trying to use what he learned to help others.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-52684427322732632082012-06-09T19:05:00.000-07:002012-06-09T19:05:15.137-07:00A Healer's StoryI picked up <i>The Man With the Beautiful Voice</i>, along with Foucault's <i>The Order of Things</i>, at the dump Swap Shop this morning (no kidding; in this UNH student and professor bedroom town we have a very cultured dump). In TMWTBV, Lillian B. Rubin gives a good picture of how she works as a therapist. For her, the relationship is most important. She talks about being responsive to your own feelings, as well as those of the person with whom you are working. She talks about teaching skills for self-awareness and managing ourselves and our world more effectively. She gives examples from the therapy experiences of herself, her brother, and several people with whom she has worked. For her, a diagnosis only tells part of the story. There are good discussions of forgiveness, insight, and the limits of what therapy can be expected to do. If you see people for therapy, you should read this, even if you can't find it for free at your local dump.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-62611973837669162852012-04-25T08:00:00.000-07:002012-04-25T08:00:21.232-07:00A New Way of HealingI've just finished reading <i>Connectome </i>by <a href="http://hebb.mit.edu/people/seung/">Sebastian Seung</a>. The basic idea is that we need to map the connections between the neurons in the brain, in the same manner that the Genome was mapped, to gain a full understanding of what it is to be us. The problems of technology and method are rather awesome. The author does provide ideas about how they could be overcome. He has a good way of dividing a problem or process into parts. The ways in which neurons might change to produce new learning and understanding are to reweight, reconnect, rewire and regenerate. The tasks we need to accomplish to decode the connectome are to carve, codebreak, compare, and change. In terms of healing, the hope is to provide means to prevent connections between brain cells that cause problems, or means to change the connections when they have already been made. The suggestions for living forever are interesting; the discussion of death is interesting in terms of the way in which it is taken for granted. I hadn't ever considered having my body frozen or pickled before the precious connections in my brain degenerated. Here are some <a href="http://www.lnao.fr/spip.php?rubrique18">other people</a> studying the connectome. All in all, a beneficial read.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-42351748620938730832012-03-04T10:36:00.000-08:002012-03-04T10:36:25.559-08:00Healers' MagazineActually, it's the Psychotherapy Networker. <a href="https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/">here is the web site</a> I just read the current issue and got two CE credits by taking a test on it. You can read it on line, and if you can stand the sound that they use to make you think you are actually turning pages (it didn't fool me) it gets you the information pretty efficiently. It is also useful to be able to go to other web sites while you are reading it. Here are a dozen healers who figure in the issue and an idea from each:<br />
Terry Real - we should help men more with their depression and other issues<br />
David Flohr - groups in which parents support each other are useful<br />
Jonathan Baylin - parents' neuro-biological reactions influence how they parent<br />
Stephen Porges - the polyvagal theory is important (he proposed it)<br />
George Engel - psychosomatic reactions are important (he was early in the study of this)<br />
Dan Hughes - attachment and trauma need to be taken into account in helping children<br />
Michael Ungar - resilience is an important idea in helping children<br />
Etienne Wenger-Trayner - people learn best from each other while working on what they do<br />
Ron Taffel - you <u>can</u> improve your relationships in your family<br />
Jeffrey Kluger - a journalist actually, but wrote a book about the importance of siblings<br />
Claire Berman - when a sibling dies, it is very important for us<br />
Andrew Weil - the medical model may be hurting us<br />
Google any of these people and you can access more of what they have to say about being a helper.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-64861641829823645272012-02-11T13:51:00.000-08:002012-02-11T13:51:02.321-08:00Healers' SchoolsI think that to try to make some progress in writing the Healers and Feelings book that I'm writing, I'll map out the chapters. Each chapter will have some information about a person in one of the mental health healing fields and a condition that is in DSM-IV, or thereabouts. I'll send them out from the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thinkers-and-Thinking/139863549362859">Thinkers and Thinking Facebook page</a>, and they will go to Twitter, also. William James will be first (depression is the condition) along with the University of Geneva. Apparently he attended a school briefly, which was related to that institution. His first person account of his depression related experiences, and also his father's account of his "vastation" and his sister's account of her mood problems, in her diary, are all amazing accounts of psychological experiences. If there are combinations of therapist types and treated conditions that you think would be good for me to investigate, leave a comment please. Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-83032711771312715612011-12-30T19:56:00.000-08:002011-12-30T19:56:08.369-08:00Healers Named Green(...)I've been researching healers for <i>Healers and Feelings</i>. My strategy is to print out a web page for people who are involved in the helping professions and/or who are doing research in this area. It has helped me to sort out who is whom; there are a lot of us. <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22859883/healers%20named%20green....pdf">Here</a> is a list of people whose last name is or starts with Green. There are nearly fifty on the list, with links to information about them on the web. There are some heavyweights. Ross Greene and Joshua Greene are well known young researchers/practitioners. Joanne Greenberg wrote a classic in the field. Stanley Greenspan and Ralph Greenson were well known, during their time. There is an intuitive counselor (Beth Green), a person who uses about ten descriptors for herself (Faith Green), a heavy duty schizophrenia researcher (Michael Green), and someone heavy into Positive Psychology (Suzy Green). A few more corners of the fields represented are rapid resolution therapy (Tim Green), someone who directed the Minuchin Center (David Greenan), an object relations guy (Jan Greenberg), an Educational Psychologist (Jeffrey Greene), somebody at the University of Miami (Daryl Greenfield), and a school counselor (Felicsha Green). It turns out to be a pretty good representation of the work being done. Are you eligible for the list, or do you know of anyone who is? If so, let me know.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-45515173648870241652011-12-29T15:34:00.000-08:002011-12-29T15:34:20.171-08:00Counselors/Therapists/Life CoachesI've been tweeting the web page of a "randomly" selected counselor/therapist/life coach most days. A (the?) reader of my tweets responded with the idea that there are important differences between these types of people. So there are. Here are some observations about that. I'm rounding up information about people like these to decide who to include in my book which will be called <i>Healers and Feelings.</i> Not all of the people who are counselors or therapists or life coaches would like being called healers. There are plenty of healers who are not in any of those categories. There is the category of helpers (as in Helping Professions), but I suppose most everyone wants to be thought of as a helper. When I started out, everyone knew what a therapist was, but "counselor" and particularly "life coach" were less well known terms. What we used to mean by, "you need therapy" is almost always said as. "you need counseling", now. The issue of the difference between psychologist, psychiatrist, and social worker is also relevant, but somewhat dated. I'd say that one important difference is the position of a helper on the dimension that has medical point of view on one end and a more varied end that includes humanistic, behavioral, pastoral, and cognitive points of view. Another important difference is the amount of training and experience that the helper has, ranging from little training and a month of experience to an advanced degree and fifty years of experience. Maybe you are best off in the middle of that bell shaped curve. Beyond that, finding an interaction that will move you towards your goals is a function of your ability to judge the person you are interacting with, and probably some good luck.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-56113392996502331652011-11-23T18:32:00.000-08:002011-11-23T18:32:58.640-08:00I'm in Charge<a href="http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/~gazzanig/">Michael Gazzaniga</a> recently wrote a book called "Who's in Charge". This book covers a number of issues. The author's work on split brain individuals is covered, including his reaction to the first data to be gathered which spoke directly to what was going on. There is a lot of information about the ideas of modules in the brain, and the way in which they work and solve problems. Consciousness is seen as constructed from theses modules, with an interpreter which fills in what needs to be filled in to make sense of what has happened. A lot of information is presented which shows that our intentions and plans are put together after the relevant behaviors happen. Levels of functioning, and emergent properties and processes at the various levels are part of the mix, as are applications to legal proceedings. Five modules are presented relevant to moral decisions: reducing suffering, participating in give and take, respecting elders and authorities, being loyal to a group, and pursuing purity and the positive. Evolutionary theory is relied upon quite a lot. I got a lot out of this book.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-37129874561706892492011-11-13T08:57:00.000-08:002011-11-13T08:57:00.365-08:00Sybil ConsideredThe book "<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/10/20/141514464/real-sybil-admits-multiple-personalities-were-fake">Sybil</a>" came out just about when I started my career in psychology. It is interesting to reflect on how it would be different to be starting out now,with "Sybil Exposed" to process as well. It was a lot easier back then to know what to believe. There is so much more information about people, the brain, and what has happened in the past, now. What a job it is to know how to help people, and yourself, I guess. "Sybil Exposed" tells a lot about the three women who worked together to produce the book "Sybil". Personality theory is changing a lot, and DSM-V will treat it much differently than DSM-IV has. The Healer to focus on here is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_B._Wilbur">Dr. Cornelia Wilbur</a>. She worked hard to help people. I'm always concerned when a healer focuses too heavily on one diagnosis. Breadth of experience and focus seems important to me. It's worth the time to read this book, particularly if "Sybil" was an important book for you at the time it came out.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-59218640740920373352011-11-10T19:13:00.000-08:002011-11-10T19:13:57.636-08:00Seven Steeples and a "Peculiarly Saddened Life"I just finished reading "From Under the Cloud at Seven Steeples." It was published in 2002. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">There are several important characters in the book, Anna Agnew herself, the author of this book (Lucy Jane King), and the hospitals in which Anna Agnew spent time. Anna Agnew's book, published in 1887 (From Under the Cloud) is available free on Google Books. It is an early example of a person's description of their psychological problems and treatment. There are some good descriptions that show her state of mind and reactions to the changes in treatments and hospital personnel. In this (King's) book, there is a summary near the end of the changes in psychiatric treatments, which is straightforward and clear. The various support groups and legislative supports for people with psychological problems are described. The differences between how men and women fare in the system are described. All in all, these books are worth reading. Lucy Jane King has written a lot about the history of psychology.</span>Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-14699421272112792502011-10-26T18:24:00.000-07:002011-10-26T18:24:13.468-07:00A Good First Hand Account of SchizophreniaI've just read <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/226438381">The Center Cannot Hold</a> by Elyn Saks. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I listened to this on Audible. It is very good. It is among the better first person accounts that I have read. It drives home the idea that serious psychological problems don't put you in a position of making a decision to do the wrong thing, but instead in a position of not having the power to make any kind of decision. This is when the thinking problems have you in their grip, of course. There is the idea of the shattered personality rather than the split personality. There is a good comparison of several healers and their styles (one of them Kleinian - I've just read a Melanie Klein biography by chance). There is the struggle to keep from taking medication despite many instances of going backwards when stopping taking it. There are good videos of the author on YouTube, so you can hear the author there. I wish she had recorded the book for Audible herself.</span>Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-87764880736625354592011-10-09T08:21:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:21:08.576-07:00Healers' Basic ProceduresI've been thinking that there are about six basic procedures that I carry out in my work. These are <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/frankwspencer">gathering and sharing information</a>, <a href="http://www.iqscorner.com/">measuring learning skills</a>, <a href="http://www.dsm5.org/Pages/Default.aspx">making DSM diagnoses</a>, <a href="http://www.divisionofpsychotherapy.org/">performing psychotherapy</a>, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5589466-frank-spencer?shelf=ethics">following ethical standards</a>, and <a href="http://www.nasponline.org/resources/principals/nassp_probsolve.aspx">consultative problem solving</a>. Three additional basic procedures carried out by people in the mental health field might be teaching, managing organizations, and carrying out basic research. This makes nine, and I love round numbers. Can anyone add a tenth basic procedure, or it's also OK to completely revamp the list. I'd love to hear what others think about the list of basic procedures that Healers carry out.Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8017545245522542418.post-53839242049267346232011-09-24T11:00:00.000-07:002011-09-24T11:00:11.944-07:00Healers of Intelligence<a href="http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news-impact/tag/kurt-fischer/">Kurt Fischer</a> and <a href="http://www.cast.org/about/staff/trose.html">Todd Rose</a> wrote the chapter in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10661687-the-cambridge-handbook-of-intelligence">The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence</a> about Intelligence in Childhood. They present a theory of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2145838.Dynamic_Assessment_in_Practice">Dynamic Assessment</a> and Dynamic Skill theory of intelligence. The idea is that the way in which children solve problems is very influenced by the situation and the specific demands of the task. They introduce other theories of intelligence, as well. They are certainly of the opinion that there is a lot you can do to help students to be better problem solvers. They give information about a study by Fischer and Catharine Knight that shows different routes a child might take to becoming a reader. I quickly found a link to the article involved. It is <a href="http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~ddl/articlesCopy/Knight%20Fischer%20learning%20to%20read%20words.pdf">here</a>. That never would have happened in 1971. I'd still be looking for the article. Anyway, they also expand their theory to emotional problem solving in an interesting way. Check this stuff out!Healers and Feelingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16147858077035478281noreply@blogger.com0