Category Archives: families

Dogs and Health, a Winning Combination

We know that exercise is good for the heart. We know that having companionship is good for health. But did you know that owning a dog helps relieve stress and lower blood pressure and heart rate? 

Psychology Today Magazine published an article in its April 2006 edition about a research project completed at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In this study, 480 people experienced various stress-inducing tasks. Sometimes, the subject could have their dog present during the task, and in other cases, the dog could not be with its owner. The same was true of the subject’s spouse. Sometimes, the spouse could participate, and the spouse was absent in others. Before, during, and after the experiment, blood pressure and heart rate were carefully monitored and documented. The results of the study were fascinating:

Results:

The tasks required of the subjects were successful in sending heart rates and blood pressure soaring.

When a participant’s spouse was present, blood pressure and heart rate were the highest of all participants, even though the spouse could provide any social support they thought necessary.

Stress response was lowest among those allowed to have their dogs present during and after the task.

It is not surprising that the researchers speculated that those with their dogs present had a better outcome because dogs are comforting and non-critical.

This study coincides with another recent research project, which showed that loneliness and the lack of social support in an individual’s life lead to high blood pressure. A pet, particularly a dog, goes a long way toward providing owners with a sense of responsibility, comfort, and companionship that has real health benefits. 

The mere process of walking a dog leads to the opportunity to speak with people and interact. Children, other adult dog owners, and interested neighbors stop interacting with those walking their dogs. In addition, dogs are always welcoming when their owner returns home from having been elsewhere. This welcome feels very good and reassuring for those who live by themselves and may feel socially isolated.

Financial Problems Impact Mental Health

Not since the great depression have so many people collectively been dealing with financial hardship. The Covid pandemic locked down nations and caused people to lose their livelihoods. It is not surprising that we also see increases in the rates of depression.

Other studies have also linked depression and anxiety with financial burdens. This study suggests that individuals with depression and anxiety are three times more likely to be in debt.

It’s a Vicious Cycle

Solving any problem requires clear thinking and an ability to take action. When financial burdens cause a person to become anxious and depressed, they live in an emotional state that makes it almost impossible to solve their financial problems.

For instance, when people feel depressed, it is common for them to feel overwhelmed and out of control. They want to avoid problems because they can’t bear the weight of it all. 

Depression and anxiety can also make it hard for people to get proper sleep. The lack of sleep creates a mental fog, making it incredibly hard to figure out a solution to any problem.

Talking to Someone Can Help

No, I’m not talking about a financial planner. I’m talking about speaking with a therapist. A licensed therapist can help you find some calm in the storm. Working with a therapist often brings clarity that can help you heal from depression and anxiety and get your financial life back in order.

There is no reason to be ashamed. At one point, most of us have experienced trouble with our finances and felt depressed and anxious. It is a standard part of living in these modern times when the economy seems to go against us.

If you or a loved one have been having a hard time financially and feeling stressed and overwhelmed, please contact me. I would be happy to help you deal with your current situation.

On Lauging and Laughter

We are living in difficult times. There is the war in Ukraine, two years of coronavirus, domestic political turmoil, rising crime, and changes in the economy. Challenging times like these create a lot of anxiety, worry, and stress. However, as individuals, there is little we can do to solve these problems. One psychologically beneficial coping mechanism is to laugh. Laughter reduces a lot of stress and worry.

When I was a college student many years ago, I wrote a term paper about the Pygmies of the Congo in Africa. While researching the paper, I came across one observation of their way of life that caused me to laugh. The anthropologist who wrote his observations while living with these people was that when something struck them as funny, they would begin laughing until the laughter became so side-splitting that they rolled on the ground. At the same time, tears came rolling down their faces.

When I was a child, I remember that I loved to see Jerry Lewis movies. I would laugh so hard and loud that my laughter spread through the isles of the theater until everyone was laughing at me laughing.

I remember a psychology class I took in college where the professor used a lot of humor in his lectures. One day, he said something that made all of us laugh. I don’t know if it was his joke, something about my mood that morning, or the atmosphere in the classroom, but I couldn’t stop laughing even after the others had. That caused the other students to resume laughing after they had stopped. For fear of being reprimanded, I looked up and was relieved to see the professor laughing along with all the rest of us. Our laughter was purely spontaneous and left me warm feelings about the class and professor that I still remember after these decades.

Whether laughter is medicine is unclear. Studies show that laughter is the best medicine for stress, worry, and many other problems. Psychologist Robert Provine, Ph.D., is the foremost expert on laughter. He states that:

“Laughing more could make you healthier, but we don’t know,” he says. “I certainly wouldn’t want people to laugh more just to avoid dying — because eventually, they’ll be disappointed.”

Of course, that is a joke. Most laughter is not a result of a joke but is a laughable part of being with people. Research on relationships is measurable by the amount of laughter. Problems and conflicts cause people to divorce or end relationships. Yet, one of the most apparent ingredients of any happy relationship is laughter. Laughter may be a symptom of how well a couple is doing. Laughter binds people together. During the beginning stage of a romance, people frequently laugh. It is a time of fun, warmth, joyfulness, and spontaneity. Couples need to laugh a lot more.

Laughing is also very social. It brings people together. It brings people together because it’s contagious. When you hear someone laugh, you also start to laugh. Do you remember how you also yawn when you see someone yawn?

How might a couple reintroduce laughter into their relationship? According to Provine, the most primitive form of stimulating laughter is tickling. Not only does tickling cause laughter, but it also causes the person getting tickled to turn around and start tickling. In addition to couples engaging in tickling and laughing, we love to tickle babies and children because it’s fun to see and hear them laugh and giggle.

It’s always fun to get together with people who also spontaneously laugh. Once the laughter begins, everything that happens is funny.

Do you allow laughter into your life? Just remember, we don’t laugh to solve problems. We don’t laugh to improve our health. We laugh because we do, and it feels great. So, let’s all get together and laugh.

Contact Dr. Schwartz for a consulation and/or psychotherapy

Resentment, Like Holding Onto a Hot Coal

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~Buddha

Resentment is an extremely bitter diet and eventually poisonous. I have no desire to make my toxins. ~Neil Kinnock

According to the Oxford American Dictionary, “resentment is defined as

bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.” The definition includes the fact that people can harbor resentments going back many years.”

Resentment has also been called the experience of negative emotion, such as anger or hatred, felt because of a real or imagined wrong done to them.

A perfect example was given to me by a couple who complained about their younger son, now 38 years old, continuing to yell at them about his childhood. Despite being quite successful in his career, he loudly blames them for all of his troubles. The son is not occasionally yelling at his parents. Still, he does this every time he talks to them over the telephone. It has gotten so bad that his father will no longer speak to him. The son heaps the greatest on his father. His son is not bothered by this break in communication. Instead, his mother has to hear about all the past injustices.

A female patient bitterly complained about her husband. The latter eventually moved out of their apartment because he could no longer tolerate her. She blamed her father for never having time for her while growing up. Then, she blamed her therapist for not finishing her therapy and charging too much money. While she completed her treatment, she left these complaints intact, although her life quality dramatically improved since starting therapy. She was no longer depressed, completed her undergraduate degrees, had a professional career since graduation, and had a vastly improved relationship with her son and daughter. 

However, she held onto her resentments. Perhaps that enabled her to end her therapy successfully. She remained blind to how her complaining harmed other people. I never heard from her again, but sometimes I wonder how she got along afterward.

Parents are the most common object of resentment. As with the couple cited above, they are the people who are frequently the target of blame. These patients blame their parents for all failings and failures alike. 

I have heard patients blame their addiction on their parents. I have heard patients blame their parents for everything from poor school grades to work failures to failed relationships. Many young patients have complained to me they “Would not be depressed except by the way they were treated by mom or dad.”

What is so interesting is that, in blaming parents or others for one’s misfortunes, there is a failure to take responsibility for what has happened. The 38-year-old son never looks at his behavior to understand the role he plays in his present-day successes and failures.

None of this suggests that parents are innocent or that they never did wrong. We know that parents abuse, neglect, and reject their children. There are those parents who are overprotective authoritarians. Some are addicted to drugs and alcohol. In all cases, even the best parents are imperfect, make mistakes, and sometimes be unjust.

An essential step for all adults is acknowledging that what happened in the past cannot be undone. We can build better lives for ourselves in the present and future. To do this is to take responsibility for one’s behaviors and choices in the present. Many patients have told me that they want their parents to admit their wrongdoing. When asked how that would help them, most gave vague answers. Of course, there is nothing to be gained from asking a parent to admit guilt, even if they did so.

Resentment is malignant. There is no better way to hold on to the bitter past than to relive horrible events that happened then. There is no better way to relive the awful past than to continue to blame others, whether parents or anyone else. 

Remember Buddha’s quote that anger and resentment are like grasping hot coal that can only burn yourself.

Pandemic, The Economy, War and Life and Death

Along with American citizens and people worldwide, I am extremely upset about the Pandemic, Ukraine, Russia, and the economy. 

 Many friends, family, and clients say that they believed the Pandemic was over. However, Russia invaded Ukraine, and anxiety rose once anxiety and worry rose again. If these events aren’t bad enough, we have been plagued by rising prices for everything from gasoline, building materials, and food, among many other essential items.

I was born in 1942, in the middle of WW 11. My grandfather’s youngest brother, Uncle Sam, served in and earned the Purple Heart in the first World War. My three uncles served in World War 2. Then, there was the war to establish the State of Israel. Next was the invasion of Israel, the Korean War, Vietnam, invasion of Iraq, Gulf War, and Afghanistan, and more minor wars were between these. And, evermore, nations are gaining nuclear weapons and missiles. In these wars, including the current war in Ukraine, all of us witness acts of destruction. The destruction includes human lives, cities, buildings, and all the things people take for granted in their daily lives.

The great psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, wrote about the issues surrounding war, life, and death after World War 1. 

Freud’s Theories of Life and Death Instincts

Sigmund Freud’s theory of drives developed throughout his life and work. He initially described a class of drives known as life instincts. He believed these drives handled much of our behavior.

Eventually, he believed that life instincts alone could not explain all human behavior. With his book Beyond the Pleasure Principle in 1920, Freud concluded all instincts fall into two major classes: life drives or death drives.

The Life Drive (Eros)

Sometimes referred to as sexual instincts, the life drives deal with basic survival, pleasure, and reproduction. These instincts or drives are essential for sustaining the individual’s life and the continuation of the species.

While we think of life instincts regarding sexual procreation, these drives include thirst, hunger, and pain avoidance. The energy created by the life instincts is known as libido.

Freud proposed Eros was opposed by ego forces (the organized, realistic part of a person’s psyche that mediates between desires). In this latter view, he maintained that life instincts were opposed by the self-destructive death instincts, known as Thanatos.

Behaviors commonly associated with life instincts include love, cooperation, and other social actions. The life drives focus on preserving life, both the individual and the species. This drive compels people to engage in actions that sustain their own lives, such as looking after their health and safety. It also exerts itself through sexual drives, motivating people to create and nurture new life. 

Positive emotions such as love, affection, and social cooperation are also associated with life drives. These behaviors support both individual well-being and the harmonious existence of a cooperative and healthy society.

The Death Drive (Thanatos)

Freud first introduced the concept of the death drive in his essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle. He theorized that the death drive is the drive toward death and destruction, famously declaring that “the aim of all life is death.”

Freud believed that people typically channel their death drive outwards and manifest as aggression toward others. However, this drive can also be directed inwards, which can cause self-harm or suicide.

Freud based this theory on various clinical observations. For instance, Freud noted that people who experience a traumatic event would often reenact that experience. While studying soldiers returning from World War I, Freud observed they had a tendency to repeat the traumatic experiences that took them back to the combat scene.

He noted similar behavior in his 18-month-old grandson, Ernst, who played a game called Fort/Da whenever his mother was away. To deal with his anxiety, his grandson would repeatedly toss away and retrieve a wooden reel with a piece of string tied around it. Freud wondered how “repetition of this distressing experience as a game fit in with the pleasure principle?”

Freud concluded people hold an unconscious desire to die, but life instincts largely temper this wish.

According to Freud, the death drive stands in stark contrast to the drive to survive, procreate, and satisfy desires. In Freud’s view, all living organisms have an instinct” toward death.” in Freud’s view. The compulsion to repeat was “something that would seem more primitive, more elementary, more instinctual than the pleasure principle it overrides.” He further proposed that the death drive extended that compulsion.

As yet another war presents the danger of spreading into a wider conflict. Could Ukraine become the starting point of a third world war? I could not help but ask myself if Freud was correct. Does humanity have a drive towards self-destruction and extinction? What do you believe? I am available for exchanging ideas at

dransphd@aol.com

Trauma and Gaslighting

Gaslighting Quotes That Capture This Emotional Manipulation

  1. “Gaslighting is mind control to make victims doubt their reality.” — Tracy Malone.
  2. “Gaslighting is a subtle form of emotional manipulation that often results in the recipient doubting their own perception of reality and their sanity. In addition, gaslighting is a method of manipulation by toxic people to gain power over you. The worst part about gaslighting is that it undermines your self-worth to the point where you’re second-guessing everything.” — Dana Arcuri.
  3. “It frightens me because I feel vulnerable to attacks, an easy target for gaslighting. Phrases like ‘No, I didn’t say that!’, ‘You don’t remember,’ and ‘You must have forgotten,’ start rattling my brain and making me jittery.” — Ankita Sahani

There are many times of childhood trauma, where family members state it happened a long time ago, and it’s time to get over it. The same people who say that engage in gaslighting the survivor of childhood trauma.

What is meant by gaslighting?

Gaslighting refers to the act of undermining another person’s reality by denying facts, the surrounding environment, or their feelings and memories. Ultimately, the target of gaslighting may doubt their sanity.

The trauma of childhood abuse can have long-lasting repercussions that affect your understanding of yourself and the world around you. For many, the effects of abuse show up in dysfunctional interpersonal relationships resulting from attachment disruptions at pivotal points of childhood development. By examining the impact of childhood abuse on interpersonal relationships and the role of therapy in healing, people can better understand their experiences and the possibilities for recovery.

One result of childhood trauma can be dissociative disorders:

Dissociative disorders involve the inability to distinguish between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity. People with dissociative disorders escape reality in involuntary and unhealthy ways and cause problems with functioning in everyday life. In one case, a patient dissociated when she had to move from her apartment after many years. Any stress can set off this disorder. 

The Impact of Childhood Abuse on Interpersonal Relationships

In the absence of secure attachments, survivors of childhood abuse often develop dysfunctional attachment styles that disrupt your ability to interact with others in healthy ways. Emotional abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse are more strongly associated with interpersonal distress in adulthood than physical abuse. However, it is essential to remember that any abuse survivor can experience profound interpersonal difficulties, including:

  • An inability to trust: The ability to trust others is a critical part of forming and maintaining healthy relationships. However, when someone has experienced childhood abuse, that ability is often diminished or even removed altogether. As a result, you may be reluctant to engage in honest and open relationships for fear that you will be betrayed or harmed. Staying closed off, guarded, or hypervigilant can make it difficult for others to feel close to you, and you deny yourself the opportunity to form healthy and meaningful bonds. The lack of trust also affects all insecure attachment styles.
  • Avoidant attachment: Some people who do not experience the benefit of secure attachment in childhood must avoid attachment to others altogether. Avoidant people are unable to trust others. It also arises due to extreme self-reliance. Many abuse survivors learned that they could not rely on others to meet their attachment needs early. Those with an avoidant attachment may decide to ignore those needs or attempt to meet them yourself. In adulthood, this typically translates to social avoidance or the formation of emotionally distant relationships in which you remain unresponsive to the needs of others.
  • Ambivalent attachment: Survivors of childhood abuse develop a weak attachment style. People with an ambivalent attachment style desire intimacy. However, they are ever watchful of change in the relationship, sometimes to the point of paranoia, “frustrated and resentful, particularly if you feel misunderstood or vulnerable.
  • Disorganized attachment: People who experience this style are deeply fearful of relationships. However, they crave emotional closeness. You are at once afraid of intimacy and of being alone. As a result, you may lash out if you feel ignored or unloved while being reluctant to show affection for others. These patterns create significant barriers to forming and maintaining healthy relationships. 

People who experience childhood abuse are vulnerable to developing mental health disorders that compromise emotional and behavioral stability, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder. These illnesses present additional challenges to engaging in healthy interpersonal relationships, leading to re-traumatization that creates further emotional damage.

Contact Dr. Schwartz at

dransphd@aol.com

Family Life, Some Thoughts About The Fole of Father

Studies show that fathers play a crucial role in the psychological development of their sons and daughters. In addition, children raised without a father experience many more problems than those from intact families.

While there are many families in which the father is present, it is essential to make their presence felt. For instance, abusive fathers have nothing but a negative impact on their children and wives, in addition, true for fathers who are alcoholics, drug-addicted, or criminals. In addition, fathers who are present but uninvolved with their families do not positively impact their children. Therefore, most important to the family is that fathers be “actively involved” with their children.

What is meant by a father’s “active involvement?” According to some of the research, “active involvement is defined in terms of (a) engagement (directly interacting); (b) accessibility (being available); and (c)responsibility(providing resources). Actively-involved fathers have close and affectionate relationships with their children; they spend time with their children; they talk to them about things that matter; and they are the kind of person their children want to be as adults.”

That last sentence, “and they are the kind of person their children want to be as adults,” is imperative. The father is a role model for boys and girls for how a man is supposed to be. As a positive role model, the father reveals the male person as loving, hard-working, responsible, available and dependable. But, of course, the father does not work alone in the family context. The way mom and dad interact with each other and the children help shape the kind of people. The cooperation and friendliness of both parents are essential even if the parents are divorced.

It is essential to understand that the role of the modern-day father has changed. According to the American Psychological Association,

The Changing Role of the Modern Day Father

Today’s father:

The modern-day father comes in various forms. Today’s father is no longer always the traditional married breadwinner and disciplinarian. Instead, he can be single or married, externally employed or stay-at-home, gay or straight, an adoptive or step-parent, and a more than capable caregiver to children facing physical or psychological challenges. Psychological research across families from all ethnic backgrounds suggests that fathers’ affection and increased family involvement help promote children’s social and emotional development.

What has brought this change in roles for men as fathers?

Non-residential fathers

Divorced and step-fathers

Gay fathers

Stay-at-home fathers

In summary, the modern-day father can contribute to his children’s health and well-being by maintaining a healthy relationship with the other parent even in cases of divorce; providing emotional and financial support, appropriate monitoring and discipline; and most importantly, by remaining a permanent and loving presence in their lives.