A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Daniel Brezenoff, LCSW

It has long been known that depression increase the risk of heart disease by as much as 50%. A new study of Veterans in San Francisco indicates that the reason for this may be surprisingly simple: depressed people rarely exercise, and lack of exercise is well-known contributor to heart ailments.

Doctors at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco tracked the behaviors of 1,017 patients with heart disease, and about 10 percent of depressed heart patients had additional heart problems, compared with only 6.7 percent of other patients. That relatively small difference became a 31 percent higher risk of heart problems among the depressed people once confounding variables were removed. However, once the variable of exercise was removed, the difference vanished. Patients who didn’t exercise had a 44 percent higher risk of heart problems, whether or not they were depressed. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Jolyn Wells-Moran, PhD, MSW

A new study at Howard University, Washington, DC, has discovered that having a purpose in life may protect against the potential psychological effects of trauma and be helpful to recovery for those who do develop a trauma-related psychiatric disorder (Alim, Feder & Graves, 2008). Principal investigator, Tanya N. Alim, MD, said the findings show a significant relationship between purpose in life prior to trauma and resilience — lack of development of a psychiatric disorder related to the trauma, and between development of a purpose in life and recovery from psychiatric disorder related to trauma (Cassels, 2008). Study participants were 259 African-Americans who had experienced at least one major traumatic incident in their lives. The study was conducted in order to address the lack of evidence for effective treatment of trauma-related psychiatric disorders. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Daniel Brezenoff, LCSW

Several studies demonstrate the profound benefit of meditation on emotions, the brain, and mental health. The use of sophisticated technologies has made it possible to prove empirically what many therapists have believed for years – and what Buddhists, Hindus, and other religious and spiritual schools have taught for millennia.

Regular meditation in particular has a measurable effect on a several brain structures related to attention, and can actually change the physical structure of the brain.

In September, a team of Emory University researchers reported that people using Zen Buddhist techniques were much better than control subjects at refocusing their attention on their breath. The study, “‘Thinking about Not-Thinking:’ Neural Correlates of Conceptual Processing During Zen Meditation,” was published in the Internet journal PLoS ONE. Its conclusion that “meditative training may foster the ability to control the automatic cascade of semantic associations triggered by a stimulus and, by extension, to voluntarily regulate the flow of spontaneous mentation,” added force to similar findings at Emory last year. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“The task is to recognize our interdependence, honor boundaries and differences, and remember connectedness.” – Dyrian Benz

“Find the optimum closeness/distance to enable you to experience your OWN unique center of aliveness and awareness, as well as the other’s unique center.” – Mukara Meredith

Good boundaries are a centerpiece for safe and successful relationships. Boundaries are, as well, the space that people consider part of their identity. Skin is the physical boundary. People also have energetic and emotional boundaries. Inadvertent boundary crossings can be very upsetting. Boundaries are very individual, can be negotiated between people, are often communicated non-verbally. They are influenced by cultural values, styles and expectations. Try checking with your clients about precisely what feels to them like the right distance from you. You may be surprised about the amount of variation. Boundaries serve well to provide a consistent container that can define, contain, and limit relationships. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Daniel Brezenoff, LCSW

A new study from the University of Maryland sociology department provides evidence for what many teachers, parents, and therapists have long suspected: Happy people watch less tv.

John Robinson, UM sociology and the author of the study, and his colleagues relied on 35 years of data collected by the University of Chicago General Social Survey from about 45,000 Americans. The UM study looked at peoples’ level of happiness and then drew correlations with 10 activities, including going to church, visiting friends, reading newspapers and watching television. All of the activities were more likely engaged in by happy people, with the prominent exception of watching tv. In that case, the happiest people watched the least tv, and the least happy people watched the most. The data is correlative, not necessarily causal. Does unhappiness lead to more time in front of the tube, or vice-versa?

“I don’t know that turning off the TV will make you more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. The best predictor of how much time one watches television is whether one is employed. Unemployment can lead to unhappiness, and to more TV time. A controlled study would be very difficult, so causation may never be demonstrated.

Still, the study is certainly an indication that excessive time watching TV will usually be an indicator of dissatisfaction.

Click here to contact Daniel and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile ©Copyright 2008 by GoodTherapy.org All Rights Reserved. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Daniel and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Jolyn Wells-Moran, PhD, MSW

A research report released in late October by the VA (Veteran’s Administration) states that 15% of military personnel who received some medical service from the VA suffered sexual trauma while in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Reuters. The majority of those who screened positively for sexual trauma were women, one in seven who sought some form of VA service after leaving the military. The VA documented that one percent of men discharged from the military reported sexual trauma. All VA medical service users are screened for sexual trauma, defined as psychological disturbance related to an unwanted sexual advance, including sexual assault and severe sexual harassment.

The study found that this group were one and one-half times more likely to require mental health treatment. Rachel Kimerling of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California, where the study was conducted, noted that not only can sexual trauma result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but also in substance abuse, depression and anxiety. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Daniel Brezenoff, LCSW

A new study by the MacArthur Foundation contains good news for stressed parents: the Internet, as used by teenagers, does not appear to be as dangerous a place as conventionally assumed in most cases, and may in fact have benefits.

“It may look as though kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it’s on MySpace or sending instant messages,” said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher on the study. “But their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy…They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity…”

The study began in 2005 and ended this summer, and describes new-media usage but does not measure its effects. However, based on the patterns discovered by the study, enhancement of teen happiness and productivity appears more likely than, for example, sexual predation or exposure to destructive influences. Read the rest of this entry

By Sherry Gaba, LCSW

Click here to contact Sherry and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

If you are like most people, you are feeling the effects of the economy. The fears of a failing economy, fallen house prices, banks going out of business, and high gas prices cannot be alleviated by an “economic rescue package.” What most people are needing is instead, a “mental health rescue package.” My private practice has never been busier and the issue du jour is anticipatory anxiety over an uncertain financial marketplace. Perhaps our parents and grandparents can remember days gone by of soup kitchens and people throwing themselves out of tall buildings because of the depression. I don’t know if we are not that far off from similar desperate measures due to desperation in these frantic times.. Certainly, my associates are seeing more depression and signs of helplessness and hopelessness with their clients. If managing stress was the buzz before the economic downturn, it is most definitely needed in today’s financially disastrous times.

Some people get confused with the differences between pressure and stress. Pressure is what is happening to you, while stress is how you react to those pressures. Stress is composed of the thoughts that we believe are happening, although there is not always any reality related to those thoughts. For example, you may have a boss that is in a bad mood but you instantly believe he is going to fire you and that may not be necessarily true. Therefore, be careful what you think because that may be what is causing you unnecessary stress in your daily life. Read the rest of this entry

By Aylee Welch, LICSW

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In the world of western psychotherapy “Body Oriented Psychotherapy” appears to be a new trend. But in reality Body-Psychotherapy dates back to the days of Sigmund Freud. Body-Psychotherapy was pioneered by Wilhelm Reich, who lived from 1897-1957. Reich grew up on a farm in what is now the Ukraine. He was tutored at home and spent most of his time outside. He was a natural scientist, known to experiment with breeding insects and animals as a child. He fled his home in 1914 because of WWI. After the war He went to medical school and by 1920 he was active in Freud’s inner circle and considered one of Freud’s most promising students. By 1922 he had his own “bio-psychiatry” practice and was an astute researcher and lecturer.

At this time Freud was hypothesizing that “neurosis” was caused by denial of our natural sexual instincts which leads to frustration. He called this sexual energy “libido”. It is well known that Freud later diluted this idea, in part because of his reaction to patients telling him about sexual abuse, and because of the complicated social implications of the discovery.

Meanwhile, Reich was conducting experiments that led him to conclude that life energy can be qualitatively measured in the body and that the natural build-up and discharge of this energy heightens one’s sense of well-being. Or, if it is frustrated, it can lead to the development of physical armoring and psychological problems. Reich was able to confirm the existence of this biological energy (which is more than sexual excitation) that he called “orgone energy” in the human body. He also verified its presence in the earth’s atmosphere; he developed instrumentation to observe and collect it in plants, and he harnessed it for a variety of purposes. It is because of Reich’s work that science made progress in areas such as cancer treatment, motor power and weather experimentation. But Reich’s passion and his life study was human behavior. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

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“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – C.S. Lewis

After my childhood, then teenage years, my musings and passion for creative writing “grew up,” succumbing to the norms that college and graduate school required. My journals, having unceremoniously insisted that they be my comfort and companion through every experience, were buried under my “adult” responsibilities.

I meant to write and I was inspired to. Nevertheless, I rarely did. My muses stood by, impatiently, in the unemployment line, eagerly waiting for the next job. Mostly, they waited for me to find the “right” time to pit pen to paper. Granted, words would often materialize, unexpectedly, as if apparitions out of thin air. Joyous and full of energy, they eagerly sprung into step, as if dancing around a maypole, circling me in celebration of me joining them. But, there were many times that I consciously ignored them. At least they trusted that I would return to play with them. I did, albeit twelve years later.

As we “grow up” the playful and creative activities we once loved are often the first to be tossed overboard if the ship goes down. Yet, is in the act of playing that you can find what your spirit hungers for. The most playful, creative, inspiring and “childish” activities can offer a life preserver, to carry us from all of those “have to’s.” They ask that we remember what it feels like to have fun and color outside the lines of expectation and judgment.

Writing is good for me; it feeds me. At the same time, perhaps like you, there are so many other things to juggle. This phone call. That person. That deadline. This meeting. You name it; there is always “something” that has to be done. Nevertheless, we should also allow ourselves to do what is playful and nurturing; we need it to find balance in our lives. At the same time, some activities are just good for us, period. Kind of like broccoli, you know? You don’t ask “why,” you just know it is.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw Read the rest of this entry