Every few weeks, I will post my thoughts from various books, articles, and discussions – as an extension of my desire to understand better the relationship between human behavioral health and counseling/psychotherapy. This blog is NOT intended to diagnose, treat, or replace person-to-person psychological, medical, or legal professional consultation.
The Slavery of Shame
While some moviegoers will not see a movie until they’ve read the book, I did the opposite this Spring. I saw the movie 12 Years a Slave (Academy Award for Best Picture), then read the book. Ira Berlin, in the Introduction (2012) writes:
“For sheer drama, few accounts of slavery match Solomon Northup’s tale of abduction from freedom and forcible enslavement. Lured to Washington in 1841 from his home in upstate New York . . . Northup was drugged and beaten and sold into slavery within sight of the nation’s capitol. He then joined the mass of black humanity–some one million in number–that was forcibly transported south to reconstruct the plantation economy on new ground, as the center of tobacco and rice in the seaboard states to that of cotton and sugar in the interior. In Louisiana, Northup labored as a slave for twelve years until, in 1853, a dramatic rescue returned him to freedom and his family in the North.”
As a native Louisianian knowing the general whereabouts of Northup’s enslavement, I admit watching and reading 12 Years a Slave with great intrigue – and horror. Berlin continues a paragraph later: “Northup makes clear that the slave owner’s authority could be maintained only by terrorizing black people with relentless physical and psychological violence. Whips, paddles, shackles, and stocks make repeat appearances, especially during the process of reducing the newly kidnapped free man a slave. Stripped of his clothing, nailed to the floor, Northup endures blow after blow to his naked body, with his enslavers pausing only to ask if their prisoner accepts his new status. When Northup demurs, the beatings are ‘renewed, faster, and more energetically, if possible, than before.’ When at last the paddle breaks, his enslaver picks up a rope and continues the assault, until Northup is reduced to silence by the threat that if he ever suggests (he is a free man), he will be a dead man.”
Continuing later in the Introduction, Berlin excerpts Northup’s descriptions of slavery’s domination of personhood: “Ever alive to the nuances of domination, Northup is especially good at revealing the everyday slights designed to demean slaves and cow them into submission by denying their manhood or womanhood. He reports how slaves learned to lower their eyes, take off their hats, and bare their heads in front of a white man–the ‘down-cast eyes and uncovered head – in the attitude and language of a slave’–and to step back on the sidewalk to allow a white woman to pass. He tells of how slave men were ‘boys’ and slave women ‘girls,’ diminutives ‘applied indiscriminately to slaves even though they may have passed the number of three score years and ten.'”
Always thinking as a therapist, the words of the preceding paragraph about “downcast eyes”, “uncovered head”, and shaming “diminutives” embellished, for me, the “physical and psychological violence” that Berlin alluded to earlier. I thought about Pepperdine psychologist Louis Cozolino’s (2010) observation about shame: “Behaviorally, people in a shame state look downward, hang their head, and round their shoulders. This same state (submission) is shown by your pet dog when he hunches over, pulls his tail between his legs, and slinks away as you upbraid him for some canine faux pas. Similarly, this posture in humans reflects social exclusion, loss, and helplessness.”
In no way do I mean to equate the horrors of American slavery with one’s “shame state”; or, naively use it as a springboard for psychological discussion. But, I can’t help but think, after watching and reading 12 Years a Slave, how a sense of “shame” can enslave a person – “with relentless physical and psychological violence.”
While “guilt’ and “shame” are very similar emotions, they are also very different. Clinical psychologist Joseph W. Ciarrocchi (1993) observes that “Guilt results from a failure of doing which leaves us with a sense of wrong-doing. Shame results from a failure of being and leaves us feeling inadequate and worthless. Using a football field analogy…guilt (is stepping) out of bounds on the sidelines – trying to circumvent the rules. Shame, on the other hand, results from falling short of the goal.” Ciarrocchi credits Freud in helping us understand this distinction. In Freudian theory, personality includes a moralistic “superego” which involves a sense of right and wrong, ostensibly influenced by parents and/or primary caregivers. The superego, as Freud conceptualized it, is twofold. It involves “conscience” (where one may experience guilt from wrongdoing), and, what Freud called the “ego ideal” or “ideal self” (where one aspires to become all they can, or should, be). Ciarrocchi writes: “If my parents teach me to be an honest citizen, then I feel guilty if I swipe my neighbor’s juicy garden tomatoes without asking. This negative feeling represents conscience. On the other hand, I can live alone and yet feel uneasy about the messy condition of my apartment if my parents emphasized cleanliness and orderliness. In this latter situation, I violated no ethical rule but failed to achieve an ideal.”
Notice the difference between guilt and shame? Notice how easily and inexorably we can feel “shame” – even if we haven’t done anything wrong? Guilt says: “I did something bad.” Shame says: “I am bad.” Guilt requires amends. Shame requires something very different, and may include the need for therapy to help “repair the ruptures” of earlier life experiences.
See my February 6, 2012 blog post for further information about shame.
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
Avoiding Avoidance (Part 2)
I begin Part 2 by including verbatim my final paragraph of Part 1 (see previous blog):
“Earlier, I mentioned Steven Hayes, PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Dr. Hayes is one of the key developers of what is known as “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy”(ACT), which is very much in line theoretically and therapeutically with David Barlow’s approach. In the “Men’s Health” article, Hayes is cited as saying: “Your ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions is probably the broadest single psychological concept we know how to change, and with the biggest impact I know of. People’s willingness to sit with uncomfortable emotions and find some meaning in them–feeling, learning, moving on–predicts positive outcomes in their ability to lose weight, quit smoking, stick to an exercise program, learn new software, do well at work, and survive burnout. And it correlates with all these other things like reducing depression and anxiety.” Dr. Hayes has MUCH to say about the problem of “avoidance”; so much in fact that I’ve decided to talk more about it in my next blog: Avoiding Avoidance (Part 2).”
After seeing the book and passing it by at my local Barnes and Noble numerous times, I finally broke down and bought it; on sale, in fact, for about $10. The book is Get Our Of Your Mind and Into Your Life; The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (2005) by Steven C. Hayes, PhD. To my delight, it has become one of my best–and most economical–book purchases. It’s actually a workbook, and now ranks in my top five most recommended readings to clients. For anyone with a few extra dollars and desiring some life skills help, I strongly recommend its purchase. It wasn’t long before I bought and read Hayes’ more academic treatment of ACT – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; The Process and Practice of Mindful Change; Second Edition (2012).
First, a word about the dual theme of “acceptance” and “commitment.” From the workbook (2005), Hayes writes:
“ACT draws a clear distinction between pain and suffering. Because of the nature of human language, when we encounter a problem, our general tendency is to figure out how to fix it….In the outside world this is effective 99.9 percent of the time….(But) we try to use this same ‘fix-it’ mentality when it comes to understanding our internal experiences. When we encounter painful content within ourselves, we want to do what we always do: fix it up and sort it out so that we can get rid of it. The truth of the matter (as you have likely experienced) is that our internal lives are not like external events….The ‘acceptance’ in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is based on the notion that, as a rule, trying to get of your pain only amplifies it, entangles you further in it, and transforms it into something traumatic….(The) alternative is to accept it. Acceptance, in the sense it is used here, is not nihilistic self-defeat; neither is it tolerating and putting up with your pain. It is very, very different than that.” Later in the book, Hayes equates “acceptance” with “willingness”: “willingness and acceptance mean to respond actively to your feelings by feeling them, literally, much as you might reach out and literally feel the texture of a cashmere sweater. They mean to respond actively to your thoughts by thinking them….To be willing and accepting means to respond actively to memories by remembering them, much as you might take a friend to see a movie you’ve already seen. They mean to respond actively to bodily sensations by sensing them, much as your might take an all-over stretch in the morning just to feel your body all over…The goal of willingness is not to feel better. The goal is to open up yourself to the vitality of the moment, and to move more effectively toward what you value. Said another way, the goal of willingness is to feel all of the feelings that come up for you more completely, even–or especially–the bad feelings, so that you can live your life more completely. In essence, instead of trying to feel better, willingness involves learning how to feel better.”
The theme of “commitment” in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is based on the notion that “we often put life on hold, believing that our (psychological) pain needs to lessen before we can really begin to live again. But what if you could have your life be about what you want it to be about right now, starting this moment?” ACT embellishes the “commitment” theme further by distinguishing between the “pain of presence” and the “pain of absence.” The “pain of presence” refers to current issues we wish would go away. The “pain of absence” refers to the life we’re not living because of current, painful psychological issues; activities we would engage in were matters different. For example, we think of the socially phobic person who declines that party invitation for fear of being evaluated by others. Hayes writes: “You have pain on top of pain, suffering on top of suffering. Not only must you deal with the immediate pain of your thoughts, feelings, and physical ailments, you also must deal with the pain caused by the fact that your pain prevents you from living the kind of life you want to live….Generally, the more you live your life trying to ward off the pain of presence, the more pain you get, particularly in the form of the pain of absence.”
Sound good? Absolutely! Hard to do? Absolutely! To illustrate this hardness, Hayes (2012) uses the imagery of Odysseus in Homer’s classic tale, The Odyssey. As the story goes, Odysseus and his men are returning to their homeland of Greece after the Trojan War. To get there, they must sail past the treacherous island of Sirens; creatures whose melodious songs entice travelers to their death in the depths. To hear the Sirens’ songs but not die, Odysseus instructed his men to tie him to the ship’s mast. Hayes’ point? “AVOIDANCE” IS ONE OF THE SIRENS’ SONGS! “Experiential avoidance is the process of trying to avoid your own experiences (thoughts, feelings, memories, bodily sensations, behavioral predispositions) even when doing so causes long-term behavioral difficulties (like not going to a party because you’re a social phobic, or not exercising because you feel too depressed to get out of bed). Of all the psychological processes known to science, experiential avoidance is one of the worst” (2005).
To illustrate the almost irresistible, but deadening effects of avoidance behavior(s), Hayes (2005) offers a “Coping Strategies Worksheet” with the following four column headings:
Painful Thought or Feeling Coping Strategy Short-Term Effectiveness Long-Term Effectiveness
Under both the short-term and long-term columns, rate the effectiveness of your coping strategy(ies) on a scale from 1 (not effective at all) to 5 (incredibly effective). Chances are that your short-term effectiveness number will be higher than your long-term effectiveness number. In other words, your coping strategy(ies) temporarily works and gains momentum, but diminishes over time – showing the powerfully impotent Sirens’ song of avoidance. Stated differently, some of our coping strategies turn out to be nothing more than avoidance strategies that threaten our quality of life.
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
Avoiding Avoidance (Part 1)
An article in the December, 2011 issue of “Men’s Health” magazine begins: “I am Neurotic,” and proceeds to explain how the brain possesses “the key to perhaps the single most powerful change a (person) can make to increase (positivity in their life).” Yawning at these grocery store check-out headlines, I overcame the impulse to toss the article aside – and I’m glad I did. The article quickly became more substantive as I began noticing familiar and credible names from the research literature. The magazine article continued:
“What is this life-changing step? Facing your fears.” (Anticipating my yawn, the writer quickly regained my attention) “Hey, stick with me, because this isn’t what you think it is….No, this is about facing something less obvious than fear, but more insidious. It’s about facing the way you avoid fear and other negative emotions, or how you distract yourself from them, or how you comfort yourself in the face of them….If you are doing anything to escape having a feeling you don’t like, you will fear that feeling even more the next time around. And research shows that you will also lessen your chances of success in a host of measures of well-being, from health to work to relationships.”
Okay. The writer had me at “hello”; I mean “avoidance.” “Avoidance” is a different subject – and an important one in the literature. But, I began to yawn again at the next line: “To tap this potential wellspring of life improvements, you need only commit to a five-step action plan.” Really? Just 5 steps? Like Curly in the movie “City Slickers” telling Billy Crystal’s character that he needed to know just “one thing,” I felt my intelligence insulted. I momentarily felt myself back at the grocery store check-out line. But, the writer was obviously anticipating such reactions because he continued: “Smirk if you must, but follow along. You might just pick up a life skill that starts out feeling seriously strange and ends up feeling strangely serious.” Swallowing my pedantry – and my pride – I yawned for the last time. The author behind the “five steps” was David Barlow, PhD, and Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Boston University; also Founder and Director Emeritus of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. In the words of the article author, “David Barlow is a towering figure in psychology.”
My reticence became attentiveness. “What are the five skills?”
Skill #1: Name Your State and Focus on Your Place
“First, you need to be able to identify your state of mind without labeling it or judging it, and that means fixing your attention on what’s actually happening (in the present moment). This can be complicated because our anxieties can exist as thoughts, physical sensations, or behaviors – or a combination….Say, ‘My heart is racing, but I’m actually sitting here and I am okay.’” Dr. Steven C. Hayes at the University of Nevada, Reno calls this “looking at your emotions (memories, thoughts, body sensations) rather than from your emotions” (2005).
Skill #2: Use Simple Questions to Puncture Negative Thoughts
Basically, skill #2 is about “catastrophizing”; all that worst case scenario stuff. So, “Ask yourself a few questions before you decide you’ll be homeless or single: What’s the evidence for that thought? What would a friend tell me to do in this situation? Is there another way to look at the problem? You may find that the beliefs that make you miserable can’t survive rational answers to the simplest questions.” This is basically what cognitive therapy teaches.
Skill #3: Stop Dodging Your Feelings
“You’re probably doing all kinds of things to distract yourself from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. These efforts are what are known as ‘safety behaviors,’ and they make you their prisoner over time. So stop it – now.” (Dr. Barlow calls this skill the essence of the five skills.) “The next time you feel tempted to escape an antsy feeling, hang in there. Take stock of it. Name it. Watch it for a while. Admire the way your body reacts to the chafing reality. Then ride it all out, like that rafting trip that has you praying first and then smiling later. The discomfort always ends. You survive.”
Skill #4: Stop Letting Bad Feelings Dictate Worse Actions
“Feeling shy and want to cancel your social plans for the night? Go through with them anyway….The idea isn’t to fake positive thoughts. You don’t have to tell yourself you are going to love the party; you might not….Disconnect feeling blue from staying home. Disconnect feeling bad from frowning….Feelings don’t have to motivate what you do, and that’s especially true for negative ones. They’re just feelings, not mandates for action.” Reminds me of a statement by renowned psychiatrist William Glasser in his book Choice Theory (1998): “We choose all our actions and thoughts, and indirectly, almost all our feelings and much of our physiology.” We do indeed choose our actions, but we also choose our thoughts in that we interpret and even dispute them; for example, a physically exhausting workout at the fitness center (for a healthy person) can be thought of as good and healthy, or interpreted as signs of a heart attack. As Glasser observes, these choices indirectly influence our emotions and our physiology; an extremely important matter to consider when we opt for avoidance.
Speaking of physiology, the magazine article reads: “Don’t try to stifle the way your body expresses emotions you don’t like. And you shouldn’t try to override your emotions with drugs or alcohol either. Your body’s fear-response system is just doing its job, and those reactions have evolved over millennia….Breathlessness, light-headedness, sweating, or a twisting feeling in your stomach are all legitimate physical reactions to anxiety; evidence that your body is trying to give you extra energy and focus for the task at hand. Sure, it’s called the fight-or-flight response, but from now on, you’re going to stand and fight.”
Skill #5: Visit Your Anxieties Every Now and Then
“It’s not too many emotions that cause mood and anxiety disorders. It’s our relationship with our emotions….Just place yourself in the situation you dislike most, without your safety net. This goes straight to the heart of the (five-step method). If you satisfy your need to feel safe, you grant undue power to the circumstances you’re seeking protection from….If Barlow is right, it’s not emotions that create clinical problems…much less everyday distress….What allows those problems to take hold are all the desperate attempts we make to protect ourselves from the emotions that make us feel bad.”
Earlier, I mentioned Steven Hayes, PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Dr. Hayes is one of the key developers of what is known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which is very much in line theoretically and therapeutically with David Barlow’s approach. In the “Men’s Health” article, Hayes is cited as saying: “Your ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions is probably the broadest single psychological concept we know how to change, and with the biggest impact I know of. People’s willingness to sit with uncomfortable emotions and find some meaning in them—feeling, learning, moving on—predicts positive outcomes in their ability to lose weight, quit smoking, stick to an exercise program, learn new software, do well at work, and survive burnout. And it correlates with all these other things like reducing depression and anxiety.” Dr. Hayes has MUCH to say about the problem of “avoidance”; so much in fact that I’ve decided to talk more about it in my next blog: Avoiding Avoidance (Part 2).
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
Stepfamilies: What Works and What Doesn’t
Last September, I travelled to Shreveport, Louisiana (the city of my birth) to attend my nephew’s wedding. Seated in a fast food restaurant thumbing through a USA Today newspaper, I became intrigued by an article about remarriage and stepfamilies. Because therapists must address stepfamily issues on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, I paid closer attention. Two new books surfaced in the article of which I was unaware. One book, The Remarriage Blueprint; How Remarried Couples and Their Families Succeed or Fail (2013) is authored by Maggie Scarf, a fellow at Yale University. Having addressed the subject of divorce and remarriage for several years—via several books–, Scarf explains how second (or, third) families do not often anticipate the unique challenges facing them. Their assumption, including the assumptions of some therapists, is that whatever works for first-time families will work for next-time families. Such is not corroborated by the research, nor the fact that remarried couples divorce at a higher rate than first-time couples – “often blindsided by the obstacles they face in combining families, bank accounts, and long-held habits and routines” (2014). The core of Scarf’s new book involves extensive interviews with stepfamily couples.
The USA Today article led me to Scarf’s new book, but my search did not stop there. While perusing her book, I soon noticed that Scarf referenced the research of another author extensively (also mentioned in the USA Today article): Patricia Papernow, Ed.D; a nationally recognized expert on stepfamilies, blended couples, and parenting after divorce. The book by Papernow, Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamilies Relationships: What Works and What Doesn’t (2013) became my purchase of choice; a book the likes of what psychologist Alan S. Gurman, PhD (University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, and Harvard University) calls “the best clinical book ever written on the topic. Period.” The deal was sealed for me. I read it quickly and began implementing its research with clients immediately. There are affordable divorce solutions for you if you are ready to end your marriage.
Perhaps the heart of Papernow’s book/research involves the five major challenges that recoupling partners and stepfamilies face. These five challenges are as follows:
1. THE FIRST CHALLENGE: Parents are stuck insiders in a stepfamily. Stepparents are stuck outsiders. This is to say that the first and oft unanticipated challenge is the impact of insider/outsider forces, expressed in this brief exchange between partners: “When your kids are here, it’s like I don’t even exist.” (Sigh) “There you go again. How many times have I told you? Please. Don’t make me choose!” Obviously, one partner (the outsider stepparent) often feels left out—even rejected—when the partner’s children are present. The insider parent feels torn between his children (often exacerbated by guilt), and the partner s/he has fallen in love with. Since I referenced my Louisiana roots earlier, the insider parent is caught between what southerners call “a rock and a hard place.” And, in stepfamilies where both partners bring children, well, you can extrapolate from there.
2. THE SECOND CHALLENGE: Children struggle with losses, loyalty binds, and too much change. Papernow writes: “The new stepcouple relationship is a wonderful gift for the adults. However, for children, becoming a stepfamily can launch a cascade of loss and change. When things go well, warm, empathic, and moderately firm parenting supports children’s wellbeing. However, at a time when children need caring connection to make a difficult transition, parents are often unaware of their children’s feelings, confused by their behavior, and at a loss about how to respond.” “Loyalty binds” often explain a child’s “aloof”–even “acrimonious”–behavior toward an outsider stepparent; for example, the following comment by one child: “If I care for my stepmother, I have betrayed my mother.”
3. THE THIRD CHALLENGE: Stepfamily architecture polarizes the adults around parenting tasks. “Stepfamily architecture easily pulls stepparents toward a more authoritarian parenting style and pushes parents toward more permissiveness. Neither serves children’s needs. Stepcouples who meet this challenge collaborate to support the parent’s ‘authoritative’ (both loving and firm) parenting. Parents retain the disciplinary role while stepparents concentrate on getting to know their stepchildren. When things go poorly, stepcouples get caught in increasingly entrenched cycles of polarization as stepparents ever more desperately seek firmer boundaries and parents strive to protect children.” Papernow cites the parenting research of Diana Baumrind and her collegagues who identified the value of “authoritative” parenting (aka the “Leader/Guide parent) verses either “authoritarian” parenting (the “Boss” parent) or “permissive” parenting (the “Pal” parent). My clinical observations corroborate Papernow’s research. The stepparents I work with tend toward the “Boss” parent, while parents tend toward the “Pal” parent. Again, neither style serves children’s needs, and often serves to distance couples from each other.
4. THE FOURTH CHALLENGE: Stepfamilies must create a new family culture while navigating a sea of differences. “New stepfamilies encounter a multitude of differences over everything from whether Grape Nuts is a form of cardboard or a breakfast cereal, to the appropriate cost of a new pair of sneakers. Those who meet the challenge engage over differences with respect and curiosity while moving a step at a time toward a sense of “we-ness.” When this goes poorly, depleting struggles over “right” and “wrong” erode relationships. Some stepcouples rush forward too quickly, compounding the stress of children.” Toward the end of the book, Papernow addresses the question of how long it generally takes to create a new family culture. She writes: “In my experience, aware families (who meet their challenges most quickly and easily) move into action within about two years, and spend another couple of years solidifying, for a total of four or five years to mature stepfamilydom.” Other “patterns” (and she identifies six patterns total) often take longer. Obviously, rushing change is anathema to creating a new family culture.
5. THE FIFTH CHALLENGE: Ex-spouses, alive or dead (and their parents, sisters, and brothers) are an inextricable part of the family. Oh, if my office walls could talk, what they would tell about this fifth challenge. Papernow concludes her five-challenge synopsis: “Living parents affect everything from how much a partner’s mood dips after a conversation with an ex, to whether a child’s graduation is a celebration or a nightmare. Parents who have died, or who have been destructive, may disappear from the scene, but they leave a hole in children’s hearts. When ex-spouses handle this well, children feel centered and safe in their relationships with all of the important people in their lives. When the adults handle this poorly, children are caught in adult tension and conflict, with devastating results.”
There you have it. The five major challenges that recoupling partners and stepfamilies face, according to the book that one expert calls “the best clinical book ever written on the topic. Period.” Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships: What Works and What Doesn’t (2013) is most certainly intended as a guide for therapists, but also for reading by a general audience. Each of the five challenges follows a similar structure: a general description of the challenge (including what the research says about that challenge), followed by “easy wrong turns” and case examples, then “key strategies” for meeting the challenge. The “strategies” section is further subdivided into three levels: education about what works and what doesn’t, interpersonal skills necessary to meet the challenge, and intrapersonal skills when/where there is resistance to the previous two levels.
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
August: Osage County
Recently, my wife and I decided to take a couple of days respite out of town. The destination was Breckenridge, Colorado, about a two-and-a-half hour drive from our home. The snow-filled mountains were beautiful, as usual, and the skiers were out in plenty. After dinner the first evening we decided to see the movie: “August: Osage County.” The reviews intrigued us and we looked forward to being entertained. Little did we know how excruciating the entertainment would be. It is a difficult movie to watch.
Following the stage play by Tracy Letts, on which the screen version is based, the movie takes place over the course of several weeks in August inside the three-story home of Beverly and Violet Weston outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The following is a Wikipedia synopsis of the movie:
“The title designates place and location: an unusually hot August in a rural area outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard), a once-noted, alcoholic poet, interviews and hires a young Native American woman Johnna (Misty Upham) as a live-in cook and caregiver for his strong-willed and contentious wife Violet (Meryl Streep), who is suffering from mouth cancer and addiction to narcotics. Shortly after this, he disappears from the house, and Violet calls her sister and daughters for support. Her sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) arrives with husband Charles Aiken (Chris Cooper). Violet’s youngest daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) is single and the only one living locally. Barbara (Julia Roberts), her oldest, who has inherited her mother’s strong will, arrives from Colorado with her husband Bill (Ewan McGregor) and 14-year-old daughter Jean (Abigail Breslin). Barbara and Bill are separated and having marriage difficulties, but they put up a united front for Violet. Finally, middle daughter Karen (Juliette Lewis) arrives with the latest in a string of boyfriends, Steve Heidebrecht (Dermot Mulroney), a sleazy Florida businessman whom she introduces as her fiancé.
After five days, the sheriff shows up with the news that Beverly took his boat out on the lake and has drowned. Barbara identifies the body and makes the funeral arrangements. Mattie Fae’s and Charles’ shy, awkward son “Little Charles” (Benedict Cumberbatch), misses the funeral because he overslept, and is met at the bus station by his father. Charles loves Little Charles, though Mattie constantly belittles her son’s intelligence and calls him a loser. Ivy confides to Barbara that she is in love with Little Charles, and she cannot have children because she has had a hysterectomy.
The family sits down to an awkward dinner after the funeral (a considerable understatement; italics mine), fueled by Violet’s brutally honest “truth telling” which results in Barbara jumping on her mother. She decides she has had enough of the drug addiction, and confiscates all her pills. Later, after Violet has had a chance to sober up, she has a tender moment with her daughters, and reveals that her own mother had a cruel streak. Steve has been attempting to seduce Jean by plying her with marijuana; Johnna catches him and goes after him with a shovel, and Barbara smacks Jean. This impels Bill to take Jean back to Colorado, leaving Barbara. It is now clear that they are headed for divorce. Karen also leaves with Steve.
As Little Charles sings Ivy a song he has written for her, Mattie Fae walks in and berates him. This exhausts Charles’ patience with his wife’s lack of love and compassion for her son, and he angrily tells her he is taking Little Charles and leaving, with or without her. Mattie reveals to Barbara that she had an affair with Beverly, and Little Charles is in fact his son. Barbara promises to try to discourage Ivy from marrying Little Charles, while not revealing the secret.
Later, Ivy tries to tell her mother about her love for Little Charles. Violet, who has hidden pills Barbara wasn’t able to find, is high again and blurts out that she has known all along that he is Beverly’s son. This drives Ivy to leave, angrily promising never to return. In the last angry confrontation between Violet and Barbara, Violet admits she was contacted by Beverly, but did nothing to help him until after she removed money out of the couple’s joint safety deposit box, by which time it was too late. This is the last straw for Barbara, who leaves in a pickup truck left outside. Violet is left with only Johnna.”
There you have it. “August: Osage County” in a nutshell. I assure you this overview does little to communicate the emotional difficulty of actually watching the movie. The upside? A psychotherapist cannot help but have a field day with the relentless onslaught of dysfunction.
Because the movie offers so many themes (and the blog so little time), I’ve chosen to focus on three generations of women in the movie: Violet (Meryl Streep), her mother, and Barbara (Julia Roberts). Following the wrenching dinner scene after the funeral, Violet briefly offered insight into her abusive childhood. In a quasi-vulnerable moment with her three daughters, she shared a story involving her own mother. As a young teenage girl, Violet liked a boy who wore cowboy boots. Desiring a pair of boots for herself, her mother gave her every impression that Violet would receive those boots as a Christmas present. Violet tore into the gift on Christmas day only to find a pair of old, used work boots caked with mud. Violet recalled her mother’s gleeful and sinister laugh.
In the book The Family Crucible (1978), renowned family therapists Augustus Napier, PhD and Carl Whitaker, MD chart their family therapy experiences with the Brice family (a family of five consisting of father, mother, teen daughter, teen son, and six-year-old daughter). The presenting problem mostly involved the conflict between Mrs. Brice and her teenage daughter, Claudia. In a chapter called “Grandmother’s Ghost,” chronicling a particularly difficult therapy session, the teen daughter was exceptionally angry and verbally abusive to her mother – who seemed to be giving up hope for improvement. When queried about the sadness and resignation, the conversation turned to Mrs. Brice’s relationship with her mother. Dr. Napier wondered what Carolyn’s (Mrs. Brice’s) sadness was really about. He asked: “Is (any of this about) you and your mother? Was it like this in your own family?” The following dialogue ensues:
(Carolyn): “My mother was a very – well, how to say it – controversial woman in our home. Nobody dared cross her, especially not my father. She had a temper….Why are we talking about my mother? She’s not involved in this with (my daughter)!”….”Of course she is,” (Dr. Whitaker) said firmly. “She is the only model you have for being a mother, and we’re talking about your being a mother to your daughter.” Carolyn, still cross: “But I’m not like my mother at all. I don’t think my mother has anything to do with this….I have always been afraid of my mother, I suppose….She can be very critical of me, just devastating at times, and it always tears me up”….(Dr. Whitaker): “Does what happens between you and (your daughter) make any sense now, when you think about what has gone on with you and your mother?” Carolyn: “No. It seems very different. I would never talk to my mother the way Claudia talks to me.” (Dr. Whitaker): “That’s what I mean. It’s so different….(Y)ou’ve become your mother in this dance, and Claudia becomes like the part of you that wanted to stand up to Mother and didn’t dare to….It may be even more complicated than your having a vicarious rebellion through your daughter. It may be that when Claudia starts degrading you, in your head she becomes your mother – you know, running you down, criticizing you. And you feel the way you did when you were a kid – defeated.” (Dr. Whitaker turned to Claudia (the daughter): “You didn’t know you could be your own grandmother, did you? Your own mother’s mother.”
While we may or may not disagree with Drs. Napier and Whitaker’s analyses and interpretations, we know that the ghosts of our past can surface in the most subtle and hurtful ways; what one therapist calls “the old present.” Murray Bowen of Georgetown Medical School, one of the founding fathers of family therapy, called it the “multigenerational transmission process” – where, using the old King James parlance: “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” Sad and sobering to think about, but true. It’s exactly what we see in “August: Osage County.”
Oh yes, I did mention “three” generations of women in the movie, didn’t I? In another wrenching–and family secret disclosing–scene at the end of the movie, oldest daughter Barbara (Julia Roberts) says to middle daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson), “I didn’t tell you, Mom did!” To which Ivy tearfully shouts back: “There’s no difference between you and Mom!” And the beat goes on.
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
P.S. The book Parenting from the Inside Out (2004) by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. wonderfully addresses the residual effects of our growing up – on the next generation.
It’s a Better Life
“Controlling people are anxious people; that’s how they go about reducing their anxiety.” Rarely does a week go by that I don’t repeat those words to clients.
When I think about “controlling people”, I think about Mr. Potter in the 1946 Christmas classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart (as George Bailey), Donna Reed (Mary Bailey), and Lionel Barrymore (as Mr. Potter). I’m writing this blog three days after Christmas which gives you some idea what I’ve been watching on TV in the past week. You know the story well. George grows up in Bedford Falls, New York and dreams of travelling the world. He reluctantly agrees to run the Bailey Building and Loan Association until his younger brother, Harry, graduates from school and replaces him at the helm. It never happens. George gets stuck occupationally, and becomes increasingly depressed. He never leaves Bedford Falls. He never travels the world. On Christmas Eve George becomes so depressed that he contemplates suicide. Heaven assigns Clarence Odbody, Angel 2nd Class to save George, thereby earning Clarence his wings. The movie ends with a redeemed George realizing he’s lived “a wonderful life.”
My synoptic focus in the preceding paragraph is not George Bailey, but the controlling, rapacious slumlord Mr. Potter, who is bent on reducing his anxiety by controlling (dissolving) his business competition – the Bailey Building and Loan. The formula is simple. Eliminate the competition and Mr. Potter can settle back to being the richest, most powerful man in Bedford Falls. Anxiety gone.
While “controlling behavior” is anathema, some degree of control, or predictability, is desirable. For example, while Mr. Potter was ever-trying to reduce his anxiety at the expense of others, the altruistic George Bailey was understandably trying to reduce his anxiety by importing some measure of predictability into his depressive episodes; thus the difference between “controlling” and “control.” Reminds me of my October 8, 2012 blog, where I cited Stanford University professor Robert Sapolsky, and his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (3rd ed., 2004). There, Sapolsky identifies five “stress-reducing research principles – two of which are “predictability” and the closely related “control.”
Let’s shift the focus from Mr. Potter’s controlling behavior to the control available to George Bailey – had he utilized it (which, of course, would have altered the Christmas classic substantially). If I was counseling George during his slough of despondency, I could have introduced him to four behaviors drawn from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). DBT was developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan (1993) at the University of Washington. It is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) aimed at teaching emotionally dysregulated individuals some measure of control in their relationships, emotions, and stressful situations. George Bailey was most definitely dysregulated at times in the movie. Remember his behaviors at home with the family after Uncle Billy’s loss of the bank money? On the phone with Zuzu’s teacher? In Martini’s bar? Contemplating suicide on the bridge? As the plot thickened, so did George’s emotionally dysregulated behavior. Just prior to the movie’s denouement, George resembled a trapped animal posed to fight or flee. His eyes were downright scary.
As an introduction to DBT, I might scoot my chair next to George and write the following four behaviors:
– Mindfulness
– Communication
– Interpretation
– Toleration
Regarding “Mindfulness,” I would urge George to stay in the present moment, hard as it is. Uncle Billy’s loss of the bank money understandably triggered George’s anxiety; a loss that could have easily sent him to jail. But, thoughts of his past and future exacerbated the situation. Consider again George’s behavior at home, on the phone, in the bar, and on the bridge. His regretfully perceived past and uncertain future tormented George’s thinking, and propelled him toward the bridge that night. Thinking about the past often triggers negative emotions; things that have happened, or not happened; things we’ve done, or not done. Similarly, living in the future triggers worry about what might go wrong. Living in the past or the future is the opposite of mindfulness. In therapy, I contrast mindfulness with “automaticity” (we’re on auto-pilot), while mindfulness implies awareness – and acceptance. Acceptance doesn’t mean we have to like it, just accept what is. Bringing ourselves back to the present tends to harness the energy needed to handle stressors. Preoccupations with the past and/or future dissipate that energy.
Regarding “Communication,” I would encourage George to share with me his feelings, thoughts, and needs (“I feel…I think…I need…”) – and continue to do the same with others – especially Mr. Potter. Although George’s communicative style in the movie was most often assertive (polite, but direct; never passive), several times he became aggressive, meaning there were indeed moments when George tried to reduce his anxieties in domineering and controlling ways. But, again, notice how often George’s aggressive/controlling moments were supercharged by his past regrets and/or future worries.
(Remember: We’re talking 4 behaviors that can bring us a measure of control/predictability.)
Regarding “Interpretation,” perhaps the most important consideration for George Bailey, I would challenge his automatic negative thoughts (ANTS!); specifically, his negative self-talk of personal worthlessness (where he had not travelled, what he had not accomplished, who he had not influenced). It is to be remembered that George only became aware of his “wonderful life” at the end of the movie. Prior to this eleventh-hour epiphany, it was “A Worthless Life” for George Bailey. Here’s where Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is such an important component of DBT. Our thoughts influence for better or worse our emotions and behaviors. CBT urges the importance of “disputing” negative thoughts. An example of this disputation would be the evidence for George’s worthless life? Where was the evidence? The evidence of worthlessness wasn’t there except for George, and Mr. Potter. It was the role of Clarence Odbody, Angel 2nd Class to prove George wrong. The interpretive component of CBT/DBT asks us to perform the role of Clarence on ourselves.
Regarding “Toleration,” I would help George inventory his “distress tolerance skills.” Even with enriched mindfulness, communication, and interpretation, life is still hard and distress tolerance is need. There were escalating moments in the movie when Mr. Bailey was obviously not tolerating stress well. Sometimes we need to distract ourselves from the intensity of certain moments. At other less intense times, we can “soothe our senses” by relaxing. For example, I might ask George to audit his five senses (sight? sound? touch? smell? taste?) and tell me how he currently relaxes? Or, how he’s relaxed in the past? Or, perhaps a relaxation strategy he’s not yet tried? Admittedly, there’s much about life we cannot control – and should not expect to. But, there are four behaviors that have the potential to improve our quality of life. They are: Mindfulness, Communication, Interpretation, and Toleration. Who knows? We might even conclude “”It’s a Better Life.”
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
“Three’s A Crowd”
“Two’s company, three’s a crowd.” The popular idiom implies that two people, usually a couple, want to spend time together; just the two of them. If an uninvited third person joins the couple, the presence of the third person is unwanted and often resented. While sometimes true in popular usage, it means something quite different in psychological usage; in fact, quite the opposite. Psychologically speaking, when relationship tension and anxiety increase beyond a certain level of tolerance, a third person (or, object) is often, unconsciously, “triangled in” to act as a buffer in the relationship, thereby reducing the tension. In other words, while a third person’s presence is sometimes resented by two people in popular usage, a third person’s presence is often solicited by two people in psychological usage.
In a previous blog, I wrote about and recommended the perennial bestseller by psychologist Harriett Lerner, PhD, The Dance of Anger (1985; 2005). In this blog, I specifically recommend the reading of her eighth chapter entitled “Thinking in Threes; Stepping Out of Family Triangles.” She writes:
“Recently I visited my parents in Phoenix. I made this particular trip because my father – who prides himself on having made it to age seventy-five without even a sniffle – suddenly had a heart attack. It was a wonderful visit, but after I returned, I found myself feeling intense surges of anger toward my children. During the next few days, Matthew began waking up with headaches, Ben became increasingly rambunctious, and the boys fought constantly with each other. My two children became the prime target for my free-floating anger.
As I talked my situation over with my friend Kay Kent, a sensitive expert on families, I began to make the connection between my anger toward my children and my visit home to my parents. The good time that I had had with my parents was a reminder, not only of the geographical distance between us, but also of how much I would miss them when they were no longer around. On this particular visit, I could no longer deny their age….Kay suggested that I address this new awareness directly with my children and parents, and so I did.
At the dinner table the following night, I apologized to my whole family for being such a grouch and grump and I explained to Matt and Ben that I was really feeling sad following my Phoenix trip because Grandma and Grandpa were getting old and Grandpa’s heart attack was a reminder to me that they would not be around forever and that one of them might die soon. ‘That,’ I explained, is why I’ve been so angry.’ I also wrote a letter to my folks telling them how much I had enjoyed my visit and how, after my return home, I had come in touch with my concerns about their aging and my sadness about my eventual future without them.
What followed was quite dramatic: Both boys relaxed considerably and the fighting diminished. Each asked questions about death and dying and inquired for the first time about the specifics of their grandfather’s heart attack….I stopped feeling angry and things returned to normal….
Underground issues from one relationship or context invariably fuel our fires in another. When we are aware of this process, we can pay our apologies to the misplaced target of our anger and get back on course: ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you, but I had a terrible day with my supervisor at work.’ ‘I’m scared about my health and I guess that’s why I blew up at you.’ ‘I’ve been angry at everybody all day and then I remembered today is the anniversary of my brother’s death.’ Sometimes, however, we are not aware that we are detouring strong feeling of anger from one person to another – or that underground anxiety from one situation is popping up as anger somewhere else.
It is not simply that we displace a feeling from one person to another, rather, we reduce anxiety in one relationship by focusing on a third party, who we unconsciously pull into the situation to lower the emotional intensity in the original pair. For example, if I had continued to direct my anger toward my misbehaving boys (who, in response, would have misbehaved more), I would have felt less directly anxious about the life-cycle issue with my aging parents . In all likelihood, I would not have identified and spoken to the real emotional issue at all.
This pattern is called a ‘triangle,’ and triangles can take many forms. On a transient basis triangles operate automatically and unconsciously in all human contexts including our family, or work setting, and our friendship networks. But triangles can also become rigidly entrenched, blocking the growth of the individuals in them and keeping us from identifying the actual sources of conflict in our relationships” (pp. 154-156). The chapter proceeds to give examples of triangulation both in the home and at work.
“Understanding triangles requires that we keep an eye on two things: First, what unresolved and unaddressed issues with an important other (not infrequently someone from an earlier generation) are getting played out in our current relationships? Intense anger at someone close to us can signal that we are carrying around strong, unacknowledged emotions from another important relationship. Second, what is our part in maintaining triangular patterns that keep us stuck? To find out, we must begin the complex task of observing our three-person patterns” (p. 162).
The subject of triangles is important to me for two reasons: one is professional, the other intensely personal. Professionally, I recognize its presence in my clients. Triangulation is brought to therapy in spades. Personally, “triangulation” was the narrative behind my family-of-origin. I especially resonate with Dr. Lerner’s statement: “It is not simply that we displace a feeling from one person to another, rather, we reduce anxiety in one relationship by focusing on a third party, who we unconsciously pull into the situation to lower the emotional intensity in the original pair.” Guess who that “third party” was in my first family?
So, is “three a crowd”? Not always. “Three” is also a “consolation,” or a “camouflage” for displaced emotions in hurting relationships. The sooner we recognize its potential for damage and deal with it, the better.
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
“River of Well-Being”
In their book The Whole Brain Child (2011), co-authors Drs. Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD offer a wonderful analogy that incorporates terminology I often use in couples counseling. Describing mental health as “our ability to remain in a ‘river of well-being’, the authors write:
“Imagine a peaceful river running through the countryside. That’s your river of well-being. Whenever you’re in the water, peacefully floating along in your canoe, you feel like you’re generally in a good relationship with the world around you. You have a clear understanding of yourself, other people, and your life. You can be flexible and adjust when the situations change. You’re stable and at peace.
Sometimes, though, as you float along, you veer too close to one of the river’s two banks. This causes different problems, depending on which bank you approach. One bank represents chaos, where you feel out of control. Instead of floating in the peaceful river, you are caught up in the pull of tumultuous rapids, and confusion and turmoil rule the day. You need to move away from the bank of chaos and get back into the gentle flow of the river.
But don’t go too far, because the other bank presents its own dangers. It’s the bank of rigidity, which is the opposite of chaos. As opposed to being out of control, rigidity is when you are imposing control on everything and everyone around you. You become completely unwilling to adapt, compromise, negotiate. Near the bank of rigidity, the water smells stagnant, and reeds and tree branches prevent your canoe from flowing in the river of well-being.
So one extreme is chaos, where there’s a total lack of control. The other extreme is rigidity, where there’s too much control, leading to a lack of flexibility and adaptability. We all move back and forth between these two banks as we go through our days….When we’re closest to the banks of chaos or rigidity, we’re farthest from mental and emotional health. The longer we can avoid either bank, the more time we spend enjoying the river of well-being. Much of our lives…can be seen as moving along these paths – sometimes in the harmony of the flow of well-being, but sometimes in chaos, in rigidity, or zigzagging back and forth between the two. Harmony emerges from integration. Chaos and rigidity arise when integration is blocked.”
The words “chaos” and “rigidity” resonate with me as a clinician. I often incorporate the research of David Olson, PhD (University of Minnesota) in my work with couples, but also with individuals in therapy. Dr. Olson and associates are the developers of the popular PREPARE-ENRICH relationship system (www.prepare-enrich.com). A key diagnostic component of that system uses what’s known as the “Circumplex Model” which plots interactions on a couple and family map. The model/map identifies three major relationship dimensions: adaptability (the ability to change when needed), closeness, and communication (“communication” being what facilitates movement on the other two dimensions). Picture the continuum below as Siegel and Bryson’s “river of well-being.” Based on what’s happening in your life right now, plot your canoe (your life, your relationships) on the continuum (the river) below:
Chaos——————–Adaptability——————–Rigidity
Where did you locate your canoe – at present? Where would you like to be?
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
LOSS
A person. A relationship. A job. A dream. Health. Security. Whatever the nature of the loss, it hurts. And,
“Nothing! No matter whether your grief seems too deep or too long-lasting or too shameful, you cannot make it go away any more than you can will a broken bone to knit overnight. And, like the shattered bone, a shattered heart needs two things before healing can happen: proper attention and sufficient time. In the meantime, it’s going to hurt a lot.” (Luebering, 1988).
Although we most often associate “grief” with death (the death of a person), I frequently remind clients that “grief is the normal, necessary response to loss” – whatever the nature of that loss. I do so especially to distinguish grieving from depression which also implies loss. The losses identified at the beginning of this blog resonate with some readers, but not others. For example, one reader may know the loss of a family member or friend, while another reader knows the loss of a relationship or job. For still another reader, it’s the loss of a dream, or health.
I’m reminded of the wonderful book by Judith Viorst, Necessary Losses (1986). Her name may ring a bell for some; especially readers of children’s literature. She is the author of the classic: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. In the “Introduction” of Necessary Losses (1986) she writes:
“After almost two decades of writing essentially about the inner world of children and adults, I decided I wanted to learn more about the theoretical underpinnings of human psychology….In 1981, after six years of study, I became a research graduate of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute….During those years….[it] seemed to me that wherever I looked, both inside and outside of hospitals, people—all of us—were struggling with issues of loss. Loss became the subject I had to write about.
When we think of loss we think of the loss, through death, of people we love. But loss is a far more encompassing theme in our life. For we lose not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on. And our losses include not only separations and departures from those we love, but our conscious and unconscious losses of romantic dreams, impossible expectations, illusions of freedom and power, illusions of safety – and the loss of our own younger self, the self that thought it always would be unwrinkled and invulnerable and immortal.
Somewhat wrinkled, highly vulnerable and no-negotiably mortal, I have been examining these losses. These lifelong losses. These necessary losses.”
Viorst then explicates these “developmental losses” in her book (a wonderful, helpful, very good read!) J
Much has been researched and written about “grief”. Certainly, one of the more prominent and respected bereavement specialists has been Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who identified five stages of grieving (the five stages being almost common knowledge):
* Shock/denial (the “not me” stage)
* Anger (the “why me” stage)
* Bargaining (the “what can I do” stage)
* Depression (the “who cares” stage)
* Acceptance (the “get on with it” stage)
There is, however, another grief model that I find particularly helpful with clients in therapy. Therese Rando, Ph.D (1993) identifies six processes of mourning (six “R”s), without which “complicated mourning” may result. Unlike many other grief specialists, Rando distinguishes “grief” from “mourning” (“mourning” encompassing not only grief, but active coping with loss). She uses the term “complicated mourning” to indicate some form of compromise, distortion, or failure of one or more of the six “R” processes of mourning (taking into consideration the amount of time since the loss).
The six “R” processes are as follows:
1. Recognize the loss
2. React to the separation
3. Remember and reexperience the deceased and the relationship
4. Relinquish the old attachments to the deceased and the old assumptive world
5. Readjust to move adaptively into the new world without forgetting the old
6. Reinvest
Although Rando’s use of the term “deceased” may imply physical death, I submit that “deceased” encompasses loss in general, whatever its nature; something has died, or is dying.
While commentary on each of Rando’s processes would require another blog, I have one observation which I sometimes share with grieving clients informationally. “Grief work” seems to shift between phases three and four in Rando’s model. As we give ourselves permission to feel and express the pain of loss (with appropriate self-soothing and support), we begin to move forward – without forgetting or minimizing who or what has died, or is dying.
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs, CO
Yes, Your Teen Is…Crazy!
“Your kid is crazy.” “Adolescents are temporarily brain-damaged.” “S[he]’s not a bad person…just brain-challenged.” These are the opening–and arresting–statements by psychologist Michael J. Bradley, Ed.D in the Introduction of his book, Yes, Your Teen is Crazy! (2003) – a book I’ve recommended to more than a few hair-pulling, at-wits-end parents of teenagers. The image is a familiar one to therapists: anxious, agitated, animated parent(s), accompanied to the counseling office by sullen, surly, slouchy teenager. What therapist in their right mind wouldn’t relish the opportunity to unite these warring parties in blissful harmony?
Utilizing research from the neuroscience revolution of the past fifteen + years, Dr. Bradley organizes the book into three parts: Part One: The New-Millennium Adolescent; Part Two: The New-Millennium Parents; and, Part Three: Field-Tested Strategies for Effectively Parenting Your Adolescent.
Part One: The New-Millennium Adolescent
First, a joke that psychologists have told for years:
Parent: “I want you to evaluate my 13-year-old son.”
Doctor: “OK. He’s suffering from a transient psychosis with an intermittent rage disorder, punctuated by episodic radical mood swings, but his prognosis is good for a full recovery.”
Parent: “What does all that mean?”
Doctor: “He’s 13.”
Parent: “How can you say all that without even meeting him?”
Doctor: “He’s 13.”
“The first step in retraining (parents for the new-millennium adolescent) is to learn how your kid’s brain works.” Dr. Bradley writes:
“Starting in 1991, Dr. Jay Giedd, chief of brain imaging at the Child Psychiatry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), started taking pictures of kids’ brains over a nine-year span. He was curious to know to what extent children’s crazy behavior is willful, and to what extent it is beyond their control. He and his colleagues at UCLA and McGill University in Canada used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study exactly how a child’s brain grows from ages 3 to 18. They studied almost 1,000 ‘normal’ kids at intervals ranging from two weeks to four years. What they found was nothing short of astonishing, and it completely rewrote our understanding of the adolescent brain.
First…they saw that throughout the teen years and into the twenties, substantial growth occurs in a brain structure called the corpus callosum. The corpus callosum is a set of nerves that connects all the parts of the brain that must work together to function efficiently, as in making good decisions….With amazement, they also found that the prefrontal cortex of the brain goes through a wild growth spurt that coincides with the onset of adolescence. In fact, they found that this part of the brain does the bulk of its maturation between the ages of 12 and 20. The prefrontal cortex is where the most sophisticated of our abilities reside. Emotional control, impulse restraint, and rational decision-making are all gifts to us from our prefrontal cortex, gifts your kid hasn’t yet received.” That’s worth repeating.
Emotional control, impulse restraint, and rational decision-making are all gifts to us from our prefrontal cortex, gifts your kid hasn’t yet received.
You can see where this is leading (swallow hard). Enter:
Part Two: New Millennium Parents
Once again from the Introduction: “These brain imagings of your kid’s head tell us that your parenting training is obsolete – that being what you thought was a good parent actually can create problems for your at-risk kid. We adults must now rethink who we are as parents in light of the new data.”
I’m reminded of a statement by neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, M.D., in her book The Female Brain (2006; see earlier blog): “As a parent of teens, you have the job of ignoring much of what they say. Don’t take any impulsive or emotional tirades seriously. Stay calm. Teens state their intentions—and feel them—with such passion – that you can be persuaded in spite of yourself. Just remember, your teen(‘s) impulse-control circuits can’t handle the input. Like it or not, you must provide the control while (their) brain cannot.” That last sentence is also worth repeating, and captures the essence of Bradley’s Part Two for parents:
Like it or not, you (parent) must provide the control while (their) brain cannot.
The extremely helpful chapters in this section include: “Grieving the Death of Your Sweet, Compliant Child,” “Parental Self-Examination: How Your Behavior and Personality Affect Who Your Adolescent Is”, and “Parent Teamwork, Divorce, Single Parenting, and Blended Families.”
Part Three: Field-Tested Strategies for Effectively Parenting Your Adolescent
It’s one thing to understand better what teens are capable of neurologically and therefore behaviorally. It’s another matter entirely to understand how to implement specific parenting strategies. This is one of the most helpful contributions Bradley makes, and is the essence of brain-based parenting in Part Three. Topics include: aggression, appearance, curfews, driving, the Internet, music, peers, religion, school, privacy, dating, sex, drugs, etcetera, etcetera; the usual easy and harmless issues parents of adolescents are faced with. I conclude with a book section called: “The Rage-Response System: Where Winning Feels a Lot Like Losing”:
“In the face of true rage from your kid, the first thing to do is decide not to do all those things that feel so right to you in the moment, like screaming back, tearfully pleading, or punching her lights out. The second thing to do is switch your control center from your heart to your head: Become that dispassionate cop….As your kid starts screaming, talk more quietly, and with very few words in very short sentences…..Confront her with the insanity of her own behavior by isolating and contrasting it with your own quiet responses. Dispassionately refuse to talk to her if she continues to rage, and try to withdraw from the room. Don’t try to handle an entire rage episode on the spot. There are many parts to this process, including eventual discussion and consequences, but that’s tomorrow’s work. Your immediate goal is to help your kid safely get his internal control back.”
(At this point, Bradley includes a sample dialogue (diatribe) that includes a lot of “F-words” by the teenager – which I’ll omit for the sake of a PG-blog rating.) Bradley continues: “If your child follows you and makes aggressive physical contact with you, look him straight in the eyes and quietly tell him, one time, that if the pushing continues, you must call the police. If it persists, make the 911 call without further warnings. DO NOT GET PHYSICAL IN RETURN. Leave the house, if you must. If he demands that you rescind that call, refuse, dispassionately saying, ‘I love you too much to have violence between us. If we’re this far gone, we need emergency help.’ The flashing red lights in the driveway are embarrassing, but you must make this dramatic statement to your child that if the family (not just your child) resorts to violence to settle differences, then it is truly out of control and needs help. If he calms down and asks for an explanation, repeat that you love him too much to have violence in his home, and that under no circumstances is violence acceptable. If is simply never, ever OK.”
An extreme example? Yes, thankfully, in most families. But, such adolescent aggression is common. More than a few parents know that. I know that too, as I have witnessed it recently in the therapy office.
Bill Bray, Colorado Springs
