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April 24, 2010

Virginia Satir and Requests

Posted by Nathen under advice, communication, Couples and Family Therapy, directness, going meta, marriage and family therapy, relationships, talking, Virginia Satir, vulnerability
[7] Comments 

I’m reading Virginia Satir’s Conjoint Family Therapy. She was this amazing, giant, super-loving woman, one of the founders of the field of family therapy–kind of the Julia Child of family therapy. I’m learning her style of therapy, possibly in part because I was introduced to her work very young, maybe 11 or 12. My mom bought me Elgin’s The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense. It was my first introduction to going meta on communication–thinking and talking about communication, a very useful skill, possibly the central skill of a therapist.

I’m really enjoying reading the original Satir. One of her (many) assertions is that pretty much any time you say anything you are making a request. It could be a request for any number of behaviors, but ultimately they are all requests for some kind of validation. The difference between functional and dysfunctional communication is how overt your requests are. Here’s one of her examples (p. 86):

Functional:

“Let’s see a movie,” or even better, “I would like to see a movie with you.”

Dysfunctional:

“You would like to see a movie, wouldn’t you.”

“It would do you good to see a movie.”

“If you want to see a movie, we’ll see one.”

“We might as well see a movie. It’s Saturday night.”

“There’s a new movie house down the street.”

“My voices are ordering me to see a movie.”

Dysfunctional requests require decoding. If both the sender and receiver of the communication are clear about the codes they use, this is fine, but in general, the more decoding required, the more trouble you get into.

The problem is, if you make a clear request, you can be clearly denied your request. You make yourself vulnerable by saying “Let’s see a movie,” or “Do you like me?” because the answer could be “No.” Unless your self-esteem is quite high, a “No” hurts.

If you send a code, say, “There’s a new movie house down the street,” you can pretend that you’re not putting yourself out there. If your receiver says, “I don’t want to see a movie,” you can say, “What do you mean? I was just commenting on the new building.” Or your receiver can say “No” in code, maybe, “Yeah, that place looks like a dump.” Then things are really fuzzy. You don’t know if they decoded your message accurately, and they don’t know if your message was coded in the first place. It might feel like protection–it might even be protection–but it’s confusing and it lacks intimacy.

Why do we code our requests? We learn to. Maybe we’ve learned not to trust our receiver with a vulnerable request–the way they responded to such requests in the past have been painful. Or maybe it’s just habit, left over from accumulated painful experiences from our younger years. It could be part of your family’s culture, and uncoded requests seem harsh or demanding.

Try watching your communication. How coded is it? How do you feel when you imagine speaking in less coded requests? And try being vulnerable. Try to do even better than Satir’s, “I would like to see a movie with you.” Unpack it more. If you can say with honesty, “Hey, I really like you and I’d like to spend time with you tonight, watching a movie. What do you say?” then do it!

 

April 11, 2010

No Email for Six Months

Posted by Nathen under abstinence, blogging, cell phones, crisis line, email, graduate school, long-distance relationships, marijuana, questions, Reanna, relationships, texting
[3] Comments 

My parents forwarded me an email from a family friend, Lauren (musician and poet), who is going off email for six months. She’s concerned about distraction (including in her email the quote “It’s commonly believed and understood that it takes about 4 minutes to recover from any interruption. If the computer dings at you and you look 30 times, that’s 120 minutes of recovery time. That’s the crisis.” —Marsha Egan, Author of Inbox Detox), concern over what seems like addictive behavior, valuing face-to-face or at least voice-to-voice communication, and this article about a study which found that emailing reduced productivity more than pot.

She had a series of questions about it email and her project, which I answered. By email. I think she’s starting on April 14, but if she’s already started,she can read my answers in six months.

1.     How many times a day do you check your email?
I don’t know. It varies between one and many–20?–depending on the style of my day. There have been days that I don’t check–camping, procrastinating. If I need to concentrate, I do not check email or even keep a browser open until I’m done.
 
2.     How many times a day do you send or receive a text?
Zero. I sent one text in my life, just to try it out, and I strongly encourage my friends not to text me. It doesn’t appeal to me. I’m also vaguely offended by the use of “text” as a verb.
 
3.     Have you ever had a miscommunication via email or text?
Yep, at least a few. It took a while to realize that the pragmatic (i.e. non-verbal) context of communication really does not come across in email.
 
4.     Do you feel anxious over the thought of not having email for
six months? Do you feel anything negative at all? Happy? Just tell me
how you think you would feel.
Hmm. It would be tough. First of all, I’m in grad school and email is how all of my profs and peers communicate important info. We often get our reading over email, and turn in our papers, too. Second, I’m in a long distance relationship, and email is helpful in keeping a sense of connection. We depend mostly on Skype, which is allowed in your plan, but I wouldn’t want to give up email before Reanna and I are living in the same house. Plus, she emails me mp3s of her reading articles I’ve been assigned, so I can “read” while cleaning my kitchen. Plus, she edits my writing over email. Third, I’m so busy that losing the super quick, no-strings-attached communication ability would mean isolating myself even more from my geographically dispersed family and community. Last, as I understand it you are going off of Facebook, blogging, texting, messaging, and chatting as well as email. That all sounds fine except for blogging. I’m pretty attached to my blog. It’s my most consistent form of creative expression these days.
 
On the other hand, I feel relieved and relaxed when the power goes out, and a big part of that is losing the computer. I went to a lecture years ago by a woman whose name I can’t remember who said “You’re not ‘connected,’ you’re ‘tethered.’ She recommended taking vacations from the leash–phone included. That appeals to me. When I climbed Mt. Whitney, ten years ago, two behaviors really confused me, seeming to miss the point: At the summit, a few people lit up a cigarette and many people immediately called home. It seemed like in sharing their moment they were also missing it. At least they weren’t texting, I guess.
 
 5.     Do you think there is anything important to be learned/gained
by not having email for six months?
Yes.
 
6.     Do you use email more for work related messages or for
family/friend correspondence?
Mostly school. Family and friends second. Work a distant third.
 
7.     How do you feel about me not emailing you for 6 months?
Well, we haven’t communicated in years, so I don’t feel much about it. If we were close I might have feelings.
 
8.     Are you sitting with a Bluetooth in your ear, reading and
sending a text with one hand, eating soup with the other, glancing
frequently at your To Do list, all on your twenty minute lunch break?
Don’t feel bad. While writing this letter I checked my email 3 times,
ate handfuls of dry Panda Puff cereal, and listened to my sweetheart
talk about his online class.
No, actually, I’m sitting at my first shift on the University of Oregon Crisis Line, waiting for someone with a crisis to call me. I do have my cell phone with me (and will almost certainly use it at least once), I am (obviously) using email, and have a to-do list that you wouldn’t believe, but I doubt that I’ll check my email more than three times today. Mostly I’ll be reading about counseling gifted children, assessing families, and conducting group therapy.
 
 

March 31, 2010

Comps

Posted by Nathen under CFT cohort, Couples and Family Therapy, graduate school, learning curves, marriage and family therapy, relationships, school, secrets, tests, typing
[2] Comments 

At 8 o’clock tomorrow morning, I am taking my first round of comprehensive exams for my couples and family therapy program. The purpose is to make sure we understand all of the theory we’ve been learning before we start seeing clients. If I don’t pass, I will be given another chance at it in the summer–I won’t be able to see clients this summer, but I could start in the fall.  I feel good about it. I am ready.

We will be graded Pass, Fail, or Pass With Distinction. I expect to get a Pass. I know the material quite well, but we’re supposed to write 3-4 single spaced pages on each of three questions, all in five hours. With citations. That’s a lot of typing. I’ve done three dry runs through the test, and the most I’ve been able to type, even with my outlines in front of me, is 7 1/2 pages, total. I’m not a fast typist, and I still have to think some about what I’m going to write. I’m fine with a “Pass.” Part of my learning curve is learning how to stop at “good enough.”

We’re allowed to bring food, drinks, ipods, and our reference lists with the references in any order. (I’ll paste in my list below). I’m also bringing my own keyboard (Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite) and mouse (Logitech TrackMan Wheel). Five hours of fast typing–I need to be comfortable! I’d like to bring my chair, too (Herman Miller Aeron), but it’s difficult to bike with.

Tonight I’m treating myself to some food someone else made and getting into bed early.

Here are the questions. I’ve had them since December. Below them is my reference list. Wish me luck!

Question 1

Describe in detail systems theory, contrasting it with modernism (aka positivism). Be sure to include central concepts of both epistemologies and explain them fully. Also detail the main concepts of communication theory, and the connections between communication theory and system theory. Describe a family problem in detail using a specific model of family therapy (Structural, Strategic, Solution Focused, Experiential, EFT, Bowen) to describe the relevant associated concepts to understand the situation. What are the model specific concepts you will use to understand the family? How will it direct your treatment? What interventions might you utilize to help this family? Why are these interventions systemic? How will you evaluate outcomes based on this model of therapy? How will the common factors research influence your view of intervention with this family?

Question 2

Research ethics includes principles of social justice and dictates competence at each of the following levels: a) conducting research, b) consuming research, and c) utilizing the research literature.

Describe the key social justice considerations when conducting research, when evaluating the merits of a research study, and when utilizing research data as a clinician. In your response include notions of consent, validity, and the characteristics of a well-constructed qualitative and quantitative research designs. Finally, specifically describe how you will incorporate your knowledge of research and its relationship to social justice while a clinician at the CFT.

Question 3

Please describe a process for how you will develop a systemic diagnosis and treatment plan for the client system depicted in the vignette below. Carefully describe how your diagnostic impression and treatment plan are informed by your knowledge of (1) diversity, (2) empirically validated treatments, (3) relational ethics, (4) the diagnostic and statistical manual and (5) CFT theoretical frameworks (systems and communications theories). Finally, based on the vignette below, talk about your treatment approach and how it is informed by the five areas mentioned above. Clearly articulate your systemic diagnosis and treatment plan for this client system.

Kelly (39) and Kris (26) presented for couples therapy. The couple reports they have been together for about two years and are very serious about their future together. Kris reports they have “problems understanding each other. We just can’t communicate.” Kelly agrees and reports it’s been that way for several months. Every time they try to talk with each other about their problems they don’t get along and often engage in escalating verbal arguments. The arguments often lead to Kelly leaving the house very upset and not coming home until the next day. Each partner is hoping for it to get better and want to engage in ongoing couples therapy. Kris reports feeling down and “out of sorts” most of the time and has had difficulty in getting out of bed and making it to work on time the past few months; however, is able to have some good days feeling happy and energetic. After the third session, Kelly discloses to you over the phone that he is thinking of engaging in a sexual relationship with another partner but doesn’t want to bring it up in therapy yet, and doesn’t want you to, either. He states that he feels having another partner will help the relationship because he will “be able to get my needs met.” He further reports to you that they both occasionally seek out partners outside the relationship and feel an open relationship works for them, though made the decision years ago to just not talk about it when it is happening.

Comps References

Becvar, D. S. & Becvar, R. J. (2006). Family therapy: Systemic integration. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Burbatti, G. L. & Formenti, L. (1988). The Milan approach to family therapy. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Fisch, R., Weakland, J. H., & Segal, L. (1982). The tactics of change: Doing therapy briefly. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Gehart, D. (2010). Mastering competencies in family therapy: A practical approach to theories and clinical case documentation. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Haley, J. (1993). Jay Haley on Milton H. Erickson. New York, NY: Brunner Mazel.

Madanes, C. (1991). Strategic family therapy. In A. S. Gurman & D. P. Kniskern (Eds.) Handbook of family therapy (pp. 396-416). Madison, WI: Routledge.

Nichols, M. P. & Schwartz, R. C. (2008). Family therapy: Concepts and methods. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Sandberg, J. G., Johnson, L. N., Dermer, S. B., Gfeller-Strouts, L. L., Seibold, J. M., Stringer-Seibold, T. A., Hutchings, Andrews, J. B., & Miller, R. B (1997). Demonstrated efficacy of models of marriage and family therapy: An update of Gurman, Kniskern, and Pinsof’s chart. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 25(2). 121-137.

Sprenkle, D. H. & Blow, A. J. (2004). Common factors and our sacred models. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 30(2), 113-126.

Watzlavick, P., Bavelas, J. B., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication: A study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes. New York, NY: Norton.

Sells, S. P., Smith, T. E., & Newfield, S. N. (1996). A clinical science for the humanities: Ethnographies in family therapy. In S. Moon & D. Sprenkle (Eds.), Research Methods in Family Therapy (pp. 25-63). New York: Guilford.

National Institutes of Health (1979). The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. URL http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/belmont.html

National Institutes of Health (2010). The Nuremberg code: Directives for human experimentation. URL http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/nuremberg.html

Sue, S. (1999). Science, ethnicity and bias: Where have we gone wrong? American Psychologist 54(12), 1070-1077.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.

Aronson, E., Ellsworth, P. C., Carlsmith, J. M., & Gonzales, M. H. (1989). Methods of Research in Social Psychology. Columbus, OH: McGraw-Hill.

Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Corey, G., Corey, M.S., & Callanan, P. (2011). Issues and ethics in the helping professions (8th Ed.) Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.

Fisch, R., Weakland, H., & Segal, L. (1982). The tactics of change. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.

American Psychological Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.-TR). Washington, DC: American Psychchological Association.

Bettinger, M. (2006). Polyamory and gay men: A family systems approach. In J. J. Bigner (Ed) An introduction to GLBT family studies (pp. 161-181). New York, NY: Haworth.

LaSala, M. C. (2001). Monogamous or not: Understanding and counseling gay male couples.

Families in Society, 82(6), 605-611.

 

February 17, 2010

The No-Secrets Policy

Posted by Nathen under CFT cohort, countertransference, Couples and Family Therapy, graduate school, infidelity, marriage, marriage and family therapy, no-secrets policy, relationships, secrets, statistics
[5] Comments 

Yesterday, I participated in my master’s program’s OSCEs–Objective Structured Clinical Exercises–for the students in the year ahead of me, who are about to graduate. My cohort played clients in specific, challenging scenarios for the second-year-cohort therapists. The activity was adapted from a medical school test of clinical ability.

My scenario was the most challenging of the day. The therapists came in expecting to be doing a goal setting exercise with a couple but found that only one of us (me) had showed up. I was to immediately disclose an affair and request that the therapist not tell my wife about it. I had ended the affair, felt very guilty about it, and was certain that revealing it would destroy our relationship. I was to try and get the therapist to help me with the “things that pushed me to do this.”

I am not a good actor, so it took all my attention just to get my part across in a semi-believable way. When I watched my cohort-mates play the same part, though, it was heart wrenching. They did such a good job showing remorse, almost crying, showing the fear of losing their husbands, and over “a stupid mistake.” (Well, three stupid mistakes with one person.) I really felt for them–and they were just pretending! I can see how much preparation I will need to do to handle this kind of situation effectively. I am certain to have clients who have affairs. I just looked up the statistics, and the lowest numbers I found are that about 15% of married women and 25% of married men have sexual affairs. That means that at least one out of four couples I see will have had or are heading towards an affair.

Our clinic has a “no secrets” policy for couples counseling. It’s something we bring up on the first day of therapy. If one member of a family has an individual session, what is said in that session is not going to be confidential to the rest of the family. The idea is that for this work, it is the relationship that is our primary client, not the individuals, and that secrets (differentiated from privacy) are toxic to relationships. Also, if the we are brought into one person’s secret and keep it, we can no longer serve the relationship without bias.

I think that the no-secrets policy is a good idea and I have been planning to use it in my work, but now, seeing it in practice, I see that it’s not just a matter of having a policy. I will need to thoroughly wrap my head around how it will apply in different scenarios. I will need to talk it through with a lot of people so I feel comfortable and confident in my thinking. I will also need to remember to remind clients about the no-secrets policy the moment I see that a couples client has come in alone. We introduce the policy during the first session, but that may not be what a client is thinking about when they disclose an affair. They may think that I have trapped or betrayed them if their disclosure is followed by, “Remember that no-secrets policy we talked about during our first session?”

Ideally, in this case, we would work together with the client on a palatable way to reveal their actions to their partner and then work with the couple to heal the rifts. We don’t automatically tell the partner about affairs, either. There are some things that we are required by law and ethics to report, like death threats or the abuse or neglect of a child, but affairs are not one of them. If the cheating partner refuses to allow revealing the secret, I would have to refer the couple, for suitably non-specific reasons, to another therapist who could be unbiased, if in the dark.

I think that I need to rid myself of some countertransference when it comes to affairs. That is, as it stands, I think I might favor cheat-ee over cheating clients, because it’s harder for me to relate to cheating. I walked out of our role plays thinking, “Wow, it’s so much simpler and less painful to avoid an affair than it is to deal with the aftermath!” Can anyone recommend a good book or movie that could help me empathize with someone having an affair–especially someone who feels like they are not in control of their actions, or just not thoughtful, in sexual infidelity?

This is interesting and sometimes painful work I am getting myself into!

 

February 4, 2010

Something I Loved About the Way I Was Parented

Posted by Nathen under communication, Darlene Lester, Ely Lester, family, food, Grace Llewellyn, Kyla, love, nostalgia, parenting, relationships, rituals, singing, Steve Lester
[7] Comments 

My friend Grace is flying to Ethiopia today to meet her adopted son, Yared, for the first time. What a journey to make! My thoughts are with her. Last Sunday I was at her baby shower, a moving ritual arranged by our friend, Kyla. There were lots of flowers and food, but instead of presents, we each brought a story–something we loved about how our parents were with us. We told them to Grace and wrote them down for a book for her to keep. It was lovely. I cried, off and on, hearing all of those beautiful, funny, endearing stories. Here’s what I wrote:

Hi Grace. Off the top of my head, I love how my parents sang a lot. My mom sang around the house, washing dishes or whatever, whatever song was in her head. I remember her singing the Oompaloompa song from the other room after we’d recently watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I remember thinking that she sounded so good–just right. My dad sang to us every night at bedtime. He’d come up  to me and Ely’s room after we were tucked in and sing us a few songs with his guitar. I had no idea how special that was–it was just something that happened, but it’s such a warm memory now. They were usually the same songs but I never got tired of them. One of them was Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Pony Man.” That was my favorite. One was “I Been Working on the Railroad.” He also sang an odd little song I’ve never heard anywhere else that went “What do you do in a case like that?/What do you do but stamp on your hat?/And your nail file and your toothbrush/And anything else that’s helpless.” Hilarious!

But writing about my bedtime made me think of a larger story about how I was parented. My days and weeks–my life–as a kid were punctuated with so many fun, comforting rituals. Bedtime was the best. My dad’s singing was the last part of a great time. My mom read to us from a chapter book every night. I could count on it. I could anticipate it with total safety. I loved it. And yes, sometimes I cried when she was ready to stop, because I wasn’t ready for her to stop, but I also looked forward to it the next night. We brushed our teeth together in our tiny bathroom, and my dad would call out the checklist of things we might need to do before bed, “OK, pee, poop, throw up, brush your teeth, go to bed,” and then, while brushing, the dental geography, “Bottoms of the tops, tops of the bottoms….” My mom would tuck us in, and gave us our choice of a back or head scratch.

That was just bedtime. We ate all of our meals together as a family. Each kind of meal had its own ritual. My dad’s dishes all had names that he announced with triumph: “Lentissimo Magnifico!” was one of his lentil dishes. He could be counted on (and still can, now that I think of it) to remind us that broccoli were miniature trees and that beans were miniature potatoes. On Saturday mornings we baked bread and Saturday nights we ate pizza on the homemade pizza crusts. On Sunday mornings we had pancakes. Every two weeks we’d all go out to the local dairy and watch the cows get milked. My parents bought the milk before they pasteurized it. We’d sit around the living room, shaking quart jars of fresh, whole milk until it separated. We made butter from the cream and (usually chocolate, s0metimes tapioca) pudding from the whey. We had regular nights with foot rides or crazy eights or The Muppet Show. There were great wrestling matches, the brothers against my dad. We’d apparently pin him every once in a while and he’d say “Now any normal person wouldn’t be able to move right now…” and that meant we were about to get (gently) tossed around the room.

I think I was an extra-sensitive kid, so maybe I was a special case–I mean, I don’t know that this will apply to Yared–but I’m so grateful to my parents for all of the regular, predictable, fun, comforting moments. They created structure for my days, gave me things to look forward to, cushioned the blows when things didn’t go my way. They also created a culture for the family: This is what life is like for us. This is what it feels like to be a Lester. There were exciting times, too, of course.  Like ice cream once a year or so. Or Disneyland, or relatives visiting. Or the couple times that we moved. That kind of stuff made vivid memories, being so rare, but it is the predictable stuff that I feel so warmly about.

As I’m thinking about all that, too, I’m reminded of the communication theory I’ve been learning in my Couples and Family Therapy program. In it, human communication exists on two levels. One is the obvious, content level–what the words mean. The other is a higher level communication, a non-verbal assertion about the nature of the relationship. The non-verbal sets the context for all of the other communication, colors it. One thing about non-verbal communication is that there’s no negative term. You can’t say, for example, “I will not hurt you” with non-verbal behavior. All you can do is put yourself in a position where you could hurt someone, and then not do it. One book, Pragmatics of Human Communication uses the image of an animal communicating to another that it will not hurt them by taking their throat in its jaws and not biting down. It seems like being a parent (and maybe part of any relationship) is to be constantly in that position. It seems to me that love is like that. The words “I love you” do not convey love by themselves. I appreciate so much how my parents showed me their love–rather than telling me about it–in all of these little, regular, predictable ways, making me feel comfortable and cared for, giving me a safe physical and emotional space to explore myself and the world in.

Love,

Nathen

 

January 24, 2010

Headlines From Psychology, Part 2

Posted by Nathen under advice, anger, contempt, Couples and Family Therapy, decisions, defensiveness, disease, divorce, headlines, healthcare, helping, lists, marriage, marriage and family therapy, probability, psychology, relationships, science, statistics, video
[5] Comments 

Here’s part 2. (And if you missed it, here’s part 1.) Again, if you are either interested or skeptical, leave me a comment and I’ll point you to the evidence.

Statistically, Divorce is Not a Good Strategy for Getting a Better Marriage: 50 to 67% of first marriages end in divorce. 60 to 77% of second marriages end in divorce.

Your Brain Has Trouble Giving Information About Probabilities Due Weight, So Pay Attention to Base Rates: We have trouble taking the actual prevalence of events into account when making decisions. For example, people tend to be more afraid of dying in a plane crash (lifetime chance: 1 in 20,000) than dying in a car wreck (lifetime chance: 1 in 100) or even of a heart attack (lifetime chance: 1 in 5). One reason for this is that we confuse the ease with which we can think of an example to be an indication of how likely something is. Try this: What do you think is more common, words beginning with “r” or words with “r” as the third letter?

If You Test Positive For a Very Rare Disease, You Still Probably Do Not Have That Disease: This is a headline that should come from medicine, not psychology, but psychologists are better at probability than doctors, who are no better than laypeople, at least when it comes to thinking about this: Even with a very accurate test, if a disease is very rare, a positive result is still much more likely to be a false positive than an accurate positive. I’m going to explain this, but if you don’t get it, don’t worry. Just remember the headline. It’s true.

The table below shows a hypothetical situation with super-round numbers to make it easier to get. You have gotten positive results on a test that is 99% accurate for a disease that occurs only once in 10,000 people. Most people figure they are 99% likely to have the disease. They are wrong:

Test Results
Disease Present? Test Results Positive Test Results Negative Row Totals
Disease Present 99 1 100
Disease Not Present 9,999 989,901 999,900
Column Totals 10,098 989,902 1,000,000

Since your test results are positive, you are somewhere in the left-hand column. You are either one of the 99 who both have the disease and whose test results are positive, called “hits,” or one of the 9,999 who do not have the disease but whose test results are positive, called “false positives.” As you may see, even though your test results are positive, you still are 99% likely to be a false positive and not a hit, simply because the disease is so rare.

Yes, this is counter-intuitive. That’s why it’s important. And that’s why statistics are important. Again, if you don’t understand, don’t worry. If you don’t believe it, though, come up with a specific question, leave it as a comment, and I’ll answer it.

If You Need Help, Ask Someone Specific for Something Specific: Bystanders generally do not help people who are in trouble. The bigger the crowd, the less likely someone will help. It’s not because they are bad or lazy. It’s a specific kind of well-documented confusion. Kind of like in the clip below. What you need to know is, if you need help, even if it seems like it should be completely obvious to anyone around, like you’re having a heart attack, falling to the ground, gasping, whatever, point to a specific person and give them specific instructions: “You, in the red shirt. I’m having a heart attack. Call an ambulance.” Do not assume anything will happen that you did not specifically ask for. A corollary of this headline is, if you think someone might be in trouble, don’t assume they would ask you for help, and don’t assume someone else is helping them. Help them yourself. It could mean the difference between them living or dying.

Get Help For Your Marriage When the Trouble Starts (Or Before): On average, couples wait 6 years after their marriage is in trouble to get help. The average marriages last 7 years. That means that most people who come to couples counseling are deeply entrenched in problems that would have been relatively easy to resolve earlier. It is not uncommon for a couple to come in to counseling with a covert agenda to use the counselor to make their inevitable divorce easier. We can do this, but believe me we’d much rather meet you earlier and help you stay together! Also, I’m not joking about “or before.” Couples counselors are well-trained to give “tune-ups” to couples who are doing well. It’s a good idea.

Anger Is Not Destructive of Relationships, Contempt and Defensiveness Are: Everybody argues. Everybody screws up their communications. It’s the ability to repair things that is the key, and contempt and defensiveness get in the way of that.

 

January 10, 2010

I Am Engaged!

Posted by Nathen under engagement, love, photography, Reanna, relationships
[11] Comments 

Reanna and I got engaged on January 3, 2010. I’m so happy!

Here are a couple of photos (taken by Maya) from our recent trip to Joshua Tree. Reanna made the quilt in the second photograph. It was my Christmas present.

Gussied Up

In Quilt

 

October 1, 2009

I Am In Love

Posted by Nathen under long-distance relationships, love, Reanna, relationships
[10] Comments 

I have fallen head-over-heels in love with Reanna, and she loves me back. I’m very happy. In my honest and totally objective opinion, she is about the best person ever. She is very, very smart, creative, brave, athletic, adventurous, loving, beautiful, sexy, and fun. She’s a great writer, rock climber, and conversation partner. Her family is amazing. She laughs at my jokes. She loves to dance with me. She loves how sensitive I am.

Unfortunately for us, we will live 425.6 miles apart for the next two years. We’re working out how to do that sustainably. I think we can.

Here are some photos and a video of us during our last few minutes together for nearly three months. We were trying out different facial expressions.

Pleasant

Pleasant

Sad

Sad

Surprised

Surprised

Terrified

Terrified

Angry

Angry

Disgusted

Disgusted

Ashamed

Ashamed

Kissy

Kissy

The video below was impromptu, and is, in Reanna’s (totally objective) words, “sick cute,” so watch at your own risk if you can’t hack that kind of thing. I wrote for YouTube, “Our last few minutes together for three months. ‘I love you.’ Gratuitous kissing. She stabs me in the eye with her glasses. Not for the faint of heart.”

 

June 9, 2009

I Am About to Move

Posted by Nathen under Big Bertha, community, moving, relationships, Suntop, Tilke Elkins
[6] Comments 

I’ve lived at the house we call Suntop for six years now, and I’m still living with the remnants of the community I helped start at our first house, Big Bertha, in Eugene, in early 2001. It’s been an amazing eight years and four months. I’ve grown a lot through it. I feel sad about leaving. I love it here, being so close to my dear friends, Tilke, Nick, and Joe, the Willamette River so close, the running trails, the woods, my bike-trail commute to school, the green property, the beautiful house, room for my office, my demo studio, my dance floor. This place and these people were a big part of the reason I applied only to the UO for graduate school. I never expected to live anywhere else in Oregon.

Perhaps I should have. When we moved here, I insisted on an upstairs room. I’m such a light sleeper, I couldn’t imagine being able to get to sleep with people walking on top of me. At that time, there were only two upstairs bedrooms–the sunny front room, that Tilke wanted (and it was she who was buying the house), and the master suite, with it’s own bathroom and everything. It seemed outrageous that I would get that room, and I said so, but there was a strong consensus that we liked the house and that it was acceptable that I lived in the fancy room. We were even splitting the rent evenly at that time. It probably helped that I was going to share the space with my girlfriend-at-the-time, and would for the next three years.

Six years later, the community is mostly dispersed. (Marriages and breakups, mostly, plus a dash of failure of leadership–probably the undoing of most communities.) Tilke is married, and I’m still living in the master suite of her and Nick’s house. What had seemed like extravagent space and privacy when we moved out of Big Bertha is now uncomfortably close quarters for them. Tilke asked me to leave about a month ago. It was super hard at first. I still felt ownership of the house and what is left of the community. I’ve gotten used to the idea now. Some friends have been encouraging me to leave for years, now, some mildly (“Nathen, you are always the one to hang on. You should consider letting go.” -Maya) and some not-so-mildly (“Nathen, get the hell out of there. Get out of Oregon, too. That place is doing nothing but reminding you of hard times.” -Evan).

I’ve found a good place to live. It’s in Eugene, close to downtown, the best health food stores, music venues, and campus. I’ll be closer to a lot of my friends and family–Gabriel, Maggie, Grace, Mo’, Vangie, Miriel, Akira, Jessica. I haven’t seen nearly enough of them, living out here in Springfield. I hope to deepen my connections with all of them in the next couple years. I’ll be living in a studio attached to the house of one of my main dance partners, Emily Aune. I don’t know her well, yet, but I have long suspected that she is great and that we could be close friends. She is easily in my top five of fun people to dance with. She’s thoughtful, smart, creative, and hip. She’s a botanist, native-plant enthusiast, gardener and a co-counseler. I’m looking forward to getting to know her.

I recently attended a lecture by Adam Galinsky where he presented evidence that assimilating into new cultures makes people more creative. Maybe it comes from a widening of the self-image. I left that lecture thinking maybe it was time I live somewhere else. I like moving. I’ve enjoyed it every time I’ve moved as an adult: Redding, San Francisco Bay Area, Joshua Tree, Maui, Eugene, Springfield. I love coming back into contact with each possession and reconsidering it. I love how being in a new space brings back into focus each thing I do and each way that I am, so I can reconsider. This is going to be great.

 

March 29, 2009

Cell Phone Etiquette and Ethics

Posted by Nathen under Anna Fritz, community, ethics, etiquette, relationships
[3] Comments 

I have a cell phone for the first time in years. I like being able to talk to my family for ‘free’ (that is, for the cost of the monthly service) since we are on the same monopoly. When I travel, I like being able to update people who are trying to pick me up at the airport and who would otherwise be inconvenienced. I like how it reduces the psychological barrier to calling my friends, especially those who are spread around the country. If I’m thinking about Danielle, I can call and tell her I miss her while I’m walking between classes. Or if I have a Pro Tools meltdown in a recording session, I can call John to bail me out. It’s great! I think it strengthens my relationships and community.

On the other hand, it’s embarrassing to have my phone ring during a ‘live’ conversation. Sometimes I forget to turn the ringer off and even the vibrate function is audible. I wish it wasn’t. I want to be fully present with anyone I’m talking to. I know I can just keep it turned all the way off, but I do want to be available for my friends and family calling much of the time, and it’s been too much to keep track of so far. If I’m expecting an important call, I try to remember to tell anyone I’m in a conversation with that I may need to answer a call and that I’m sorry in advance. I don’t expect anyone else to behave like that, but I do sometimes wish that people didn’t just automatically answer their phones—that there was some commonly held etiquette to consider.

My friend Anna Fritz pays a lot of attention to social and environmental issues and has decided against having a cell phone because they use this substance called coltan, which is mostly mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the economics of which is perpetuating violent conflict there and displacing people. The mining process is also infringing on gorilla habitat. I haven’t looked into it much, but Wikipedia supports her claims. Ah, the moral ambiguity of leading a modern human life! It may be that if I witnessed what was going on in the DRC first hand, I would be so ashamed to be part of it that I would throw my phone away. It seems like that would just be a waste of this dearly-come-by resource, so I’ll keep it until I find out otherwise. Maybe there’s a business opportunity there—cell phones made with recycled coltan for the ethically sensitive.

 

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