Nathen's Miraculous Escape

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 15, 2010

Alexithymia

Posted by Nathen under alexithymia, emotions, mystification, parenting, psychology, somatization
[5] Comments

Alexithymic describes someone who can’t talk about emotions. They also have trouble knowing when they or others are experiencing an emotion, and trouble distinguishing which emotion it is, if they do notice one. It is not a considered a clinical condition, but it can produce clinical conditions, like somatization, where people develop various body conditions instead of feeling emotions. It becomes a problem when somatizers insist on one medical test or procedure after another for a problem that will never yield to biological intervention. I read one estimate that 20% of money spent on medical services is for these kinds of concerns. (!)

There are social consequences, too, of course. If you can’t recognize that you’re in the grip of an emotion, you can be hard to understand and hard to deal with. It’s also hard for an alexithymic person to relate to others who are having emotions–it’s more difficult to take their perspectives and to have empathy.

It’s not a black-or-white condition, of course. Everyone is somewhere on the spectrum of emotional fluency. It’s not an intractable state, either. You can learn emotional fluency, and most people do, to some extent. It’s part self-awareness, part self-acceptance, and part vocabulary. It’s something you continue learning throughout life, given a supportive environment. Parents can stifle the learning curve in their children by how and when they give them attention. Somatizing children, for example, can come from parents who give them attention for physical pain but not emotional pain. Another problematic parenting technique, called “mystification” by psychologists, works to slow the emotional learning curve; when a child is angry, for example, a parent might say something like, “You’re not angry,” or “You shouldn’t be angry.” That kind of thing goes a long way to confuse people about emotions.

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
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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 30, 2010

Headlines From Psychology, Part 3

Posted by Nathen under Americans, antidepressants, depression, drugs, exercise, headlines, healthcare, homosexuality, mental illness, prefrontal lobotomy, psychology, psychopathology, psychotropic medication, rants, schizophrenia, sleep deprivation, Thorazine, World Health Organization
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This is part 3 of a series of things I learned during my Bachelor’s degree in psychology that I thought should have been headlines in the mainstream news. If you missed them, here’s part 1 and part 2. Again, if you’re interested or skeptical, leave me a comment with a specific question and I’ll give you my references.

Egaz Moniz Was Given the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1949 for Developing the Prefrontal Lobotomy: This “psychosurgery” involved slicing or scrambling the front part of the brain, and tended to produce more manageable behavior in “patients.”

40,000 Human Beings Were Lobotomized in the United States Between 1936 and 1977: These were men, women, and children with “illnesses” like schizophrenia, PTSD, depression, anxiety, homosexuality, criminal behavior, and being hard to manage.

Antipsychotic Thorazine Hailed as “Chemical Lobotomy”: Yes, this was meant as a compliment.

200,000,000 Prescriptions for Antidepressants in the US in 2007: That’s quite a few prescriptions.

80% of Antidepressant Prescriptions in the US Not Written by Psychiatrists: Consider that it may be a good idea to at least see a specialist in mental illness before taking psychotropic drugs or giving them to your kids.

Some Psychopharmaceuticals as Effective as Exercise in Treating Depression: But who wants to exercise when you’re depressed?

Sleep Deprivation the Most Effective Treatment For Depression, By Far: Never heard of this one? Maybe it’ll hit the news when someone figures out how to make money from sleep deprivation.

The World Health Organization Found That Schizophrenics Recover, But Only in Countries Without Easy Access to Psychopharmaceuticals: Schizophrenics can recover? Well, yes, it looks like they can. And yes, the WHO data shows a correlation, not necessarily causation, but an interesting correlation!

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 22, 2010

Landfill 2009 Project Complete

Posted by Nathen under Americans, Canadians, composting, landfill, projects, recycling
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I documented all of my landfill contribution for the year 2009. There is a little write-up of the project and photos of all my trash on my Landfill page. The short version of the story is that I generated 57 pounds of non-recyclable, non-compostable garbage in 2009. That’s a lot more than I had anticipated, and when I look at the photos I get embarrassed. Very little, if any, of that trash was necessary. Still, it’s a bit better than the average American’s four pounds per day, according to the Clean Air Council’s page on American waste. How do people do that? I’m not sure I could keep up that pace if I was getting paid to. That’s 1,460 pounds per person per year. Canadians are whupping us here, by a lot. All of the estimates I came across for Canadian landfill per person per year were less than half of that. Even in Alberta.

January 16, 2010

Headlines From Psychology, Part 1

Posted by Nathen under advice, babies, decisions, headlines, normalcy, psycholinguistics, psychology, psychopathology, school, science, sleep
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Going though my undergraduate degree in psychology, I was often surprised about information that was well known by the field that should have hit the headlines but never made a dent. In the end it was one of my reasons for going into therapy instead of experimental psychology. At one point I asked my social psychology teacher for an example of basic social psych research that had had a real impact on mainstream society. He could not give me one. I know that basic research is done to find stuff out, not to directly help people, and I support that. I also know that psychology is a baby science, and tackling a very complex set of phenomena, and doing a pretty good job. Still, I was disappointed. It is too bad, because a lot of useful and sometimes very important stuff has been discovered by experimental psychologists, and it is mostly just ignored.

Here are a few things I came across in my classes and reading that I thought should have been mainstream headlines. If you are interested in references, leave a comment and I will get them to you.

It Is Important to Talk to Your Baby, Even in the Womb: Your baby can hear and recognize your voice in your womb, is already learning your language, and wants to hear your voice.

It Is Important to Sleep With Your Baby: Babies are not born fully self-regulating. One way this shows up is that babies do not breath out enough carbon dioxide–sleeping with parents provides them with a pool of carbon dioxide that keeps the baby breathing deeply enough. Another benefit is that their 90 minute hunger cycle (waking and nursing each 90 minutes) helps establish their 90 minute REM sleep cycle, which they are not born with, and also keeps them from getting into deep, delta wave sleep, which is dangerous for babies because they can stop breathing.

Don’t Worry Too Much About Your Decisions: Your brain has mechanisms to ensure that you will think you made the right decision, regardless of what you decide. This can be undermined, however, by thinking of reasons for your decision before you make it. In many cases, your coming-up-with-reasons ability can get in the way of your decision-making ability. As long as you get all the relevant information, you may have a better chance making a good decision without deliberation.

It Works to Ask People to Watch Your Stuff: People who you do not specifically ask to watch your stuff will do nothing while your stuff is stolen. People who you do ask, will go to great lengths to keep your stuff from being stolen.

The Normal Are Not Detectably Sane: The methods of this study were not well laid out, so I do not know how strong this evidence is, but it was quite clever. Normal people got admitted into mental hospitals by saying they had heard a voice say the words “empty,” “hollow,” and “thud.” Other than that they behaved as usual. None were discovered to be sane by the staff, no matter how long they stayed hospitalized.

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

January 8, 2010

Winter Term Begins

Posted by Nathen under being kind to myself, graduate school, reading, school, writing
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I’m back from a wonderful vacation with Reanna and my family in Joshua Tree and hunkering down for my winter term. I’ve heard that my last term had the most intense workload of the program, but now that I’ve compiled the list of reading and assignments, I wonder if that’s true, especially considering that we have our comp exams the first week of spring term, which includes writing four 6-8 page papers from memory. I’m thinking of ways to take it easier on myself this term because I lost some of my near-focus vision during fall term and I’m not cool with that. (Yes, I was taking breaks, looking up frequently etc. Reading 30 hours a week is reading 30 hours a week.) Anyway, here’s my reading and writing list for the next 10 weeks. The number codes are for the classes: 610 is my second Family Models class, 620 is my Psychopathology (read DSM and deconstruction of such) class, 621 is Professional and Ethical Issues in Family Therapy, and 632 is Medical Family Therapy. I’m excited about all of them.

620 “Remembering Masturbatory Insanity” (URL) 1/6/2010

620 “Mental Disorders are Not Diseases” (URL) 1/6/2010

620 “The Myth of the Reliability of DSM” (URL) 1/6/2010

620 “On Being Sane in Insane Places” (Blackboard) 1/6/2010

620 “Patient Autobiographies” (Blackboard) 1/6/2010

621 Corey ch 1 1/11/2010

621 Corey ch 2 1/11/2010

621 Woody ch 1 1/11/2010

621 reflection paper 1 1/11/2010

610 Nichols ch 6 1/13/2010

610 Nichols ch 9 1/13/2010

610 BB Bobrow & Ray 1/13/2010

620 Munson: Look at Visuals section. 1/13/2010

620 Munson: Read: Introduction, 1/13/2010

620 Munson: Ch. 3 (for overview), 1/13/2010

620 Munson: Ch. 4 (focus on structure of multiaxial system). 1/13/2010

620 Munson: Skim Ch. 21 1/13/2010

620 Munson: Skim Ch. 23 1/13/2010

620 DSM: Introduction, Use of the Manual, Multiaxial Assessment (through p. 37) 1/13/2010

620 Skim “APA Guidelines for Providers…” 1/13/2010

620 D’Avanzo & Geissler: Read Foreword 1/13/2010

620 D’Avanzo & Geissler: Preface 1/13/2010

620 D’Avanzo & Geissler: Appendix 1/13/2010

620 D’Avanzo & Geissler: look at index. 1/13/2010

620 D’Avanzo & Geissler: Look up people of your ethnic heritage, country(s) of origin, or with whose culture you are familiar in order to evaluate strengths and limitations of this resource 1/13/2010

632 Sapolsky ch 1 1/15/2010

632 Sapolsky ch 12 1/15/2010

632 Sapolsky ch 16 1/15/2010

632 Medical Family Therapy ch 3 1/15/2010

632 Medical Family Therapy ch 6 1/15/2010

610 BB Shields & McDaniel 1/20/2010

610 Tomm part 2 1/20/2010

610 reflection paper 1 1/20/2010

620 Munson: Ch. 19, 11 1/20/2010

620 DSM: Adjustment DOs (p. 679-683), Anxiety DOs (p. 429-484) 1/20/2010

620 Kessler 1/20/2010

620 Barrett 1/20/2010

620 Ung 1/20/2010

620 Burroughs 1/20/2010

620 Munson 14 1/20/2010

620 DSM: Dissociative DOs (p. 519-33), 1/20/2010

620 DSM: Eating DOs (p. 583-595) 1/20/2010

620 Schreiber 1/20/2010

620 Knapp 1/20/2010

632 Rolland part I 1/22/2010

632 Rolland part II 1/22/2010

621 Corey ch 3 1/25/2010

621 Corey ch 4 1/25/2010

621 Woody ch 8 1/25/2010

621 reflection paper 2 1/25/2010

621 reflection paper 3 1/25/2010

610 BB Tomm part 1 1/27/2010

620 Munson: Ch. 10 1/27/2010

620 DSM Bipolar DOs (p. 382-401) 1/27/2010

620 DSM: Mood DOs (p. 345-382 1/27/2010

620 Styron 1/27/2010

620 Jamison 1/27/2010

632 Rolland part III 1/29/2010

621 Corey ch 5 2/1/2010

610 Nichols ch 13 2/3/2010

610 BB carr 1998 2/3/2010

620 reading to be assigned 2/3/2010

620 quiz 2/3/2010

620 summary of small group discussion 2/3/2010

632 Gawande 2/5/2010

632 Patients from different cultures ch 2 2/5/2010

632 Patients from Different cultures ch 4 2/5/2010

621 Corey ch 6 2/8/2010

621 Woody ch 7 2/8/2010

621 reflection paper 4 2/8/2010

621 professional disclosure statement 2/8/2010

610 BB Gergen 1985 2/10/2010

610 quiz 1 2/10/2010

620 Munson 9 2/10/2010

620 Munson 16 2/10/2010

620 DSM: Schizophrenic spectrum DOs (p. 297-338) 2/10/2010

620 Alda mother 2/10/2010

620 Love mother 2/10/2010

620 Steele 2/10/2010

620 Hunt 2/10/2010

620 “lobotomies” coleman 2/10/2010

620 Dully and Fleming 2/10/2010

620 El-Hai 2/10/2010

620 Grand Rounds 2/10/2010

632 Shared experience ch 1 2/12/2010

632 Shared experience ch 14 2/12/2010

632 Shared experience ch 15 2/12/2010

632 Medical family therapy ch 4 2/12/2010

632 Medical family therapy ch 11 2/12/2010

632 Sherret 2/12/2010

632 health genogram due 2/12/2010

621Corey ch 7 2/15/2010

621 Woody ch 3 2/15/2010

621 reflection paper 5 2/15/2010

610 Nichols 12 2/17/2010

610 BB Molnar & DeShazer 1987 2/17/2010

620 Munson 20 2/17/2010

620 Munson 16 2/17/2010

620 DSM: Personality DOs (p. 685-729) 2/17/2010

620 Wurtzel 2/17/2010

620 Levine 2/17/2010

620 Miller 2/17/2010

620 Crimmins 2/17/2010

620 DSM: Alzheimer’s (p. 147-158) 2/17/2010

632 psychotherapist’s guide to psychoparmacology 2/19/2010

621 Corey ch 8 2/22/2010

621 Corey ch 9 2/22/2010

621 Woody ch 4 2/22/2010

621 reflection paper 6 2/22/2010

610 reflection 2 2/24/2010

620 review readings 2/24/2010

620 Exam 2/25/2010

632 LBL chapter 1 2/26/2010

632 LBL chapter 3 2/26/2010

632 LBL chapter 7 2/26/2010

632 Candib 2/26/2010

621 Corey ch 11 3/1/2010

621 Corey ch 12 3/1/2010

621 reflection paper 7 3/1/2010

621 legal statutes and rules summary 3/1/2010

610 Nichols 11 3/3/2010

610 BB Goldner 1992 or so 3/3/2010

610 OSCR reflection 3/3/2010

620 trans readings TBA 3/3/2010

632 LBL chapter 8 3/5/2010

632 LBL chapter 9 3/5/2010

632 Becvar 3/5/2010

621 Corey ch 10 3/8/2010

621 Corey ch 13 3/8/2010

621 reflection paper 8 3/8/2010

621 Take home final due 3/8/2010

610 Nichols 14 3/10/2010

610 quiz 2 3/10/2010

632 interview project due 3/12/2010

610 final paper due 10 am 3/15/2010

December 8, 2009

Meta-Worry Man

Posted by Nathen under Couples and Family Therapy, going meta, ideas
[2] Comments

Doing therapy is all about “going meta,” which basically means taking a one-level-up perspective. In my couples and family therapy program that usually means talking or thinking about the process couples or families are involved in (are they, for example, acting out a pursuer-distancer pattern?) versus the content of their conversations (the specific complaints, “He never takes out the trash,” “She’s always on my back,” etc). Talking about talking is “meta-talking.” Thinking about thinking is “meta-thinking.” This is an idea I had during a lecture: