Demoralized teachers, unruly students, bureaucracy top concerns about schools Siobhan McDonough, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Ill-mannered pupils, demoralized teachers, uninvolved parents & bureaucracy in public schools are
greater worries for Americans than the standards & accountability that occupy policy makers, a new study says.
Teachers, parents & students said they were concerned about the rough-edged atmosphere in many high schools, according to the report released Wednesday by Public
Agenda, a research & policy organization in New York City.
Only 9% of surveyed Americans said the students they see in public are
respectful toward adults. High school students were asked about the frequency of serious fights in schools:
- 40% said they occurred once a month or more
- 56% said they hardly ever happened
- 4% had no opinion
Only 15% of teachers said
teacher morale is good in their high school.
"This is a true reflection of how the public feels," said Shirley Igo, president of National Parent Teacher Association.
"It says that our young people are looking for positive role models out there."
The report, drawing together more than 25 surveys done by Public Agenda, traces how attitudes of parents, teachers, students, principals, employers & college professors have changed over the last 10 years.
A typical national random sample telephone survey on standards in 2000 canvassed 803 parents of public school students
in grades K-12, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The report says standard testing is important, but many other factors are hurting academic performance.
The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act holds schools accountable for student achievement. States must devise & offer tests in reading & mathematics for every child each
year in grades 3 thru 8 beginning in fall 2005. Under current law, states are required to test students in reading & math
3 times during their K-12 years.
"The standards movement has taken hold in American schools & continues to enjoy broad support. But there are some troublesome fault lines," said Public Agenda
President Deborah Wadsworth.
Teachers "believe in higher standards but often feel they can't count on students to make the effort or parents & administrators
to back them up," she said.
Superintendents & principals want more autonomy over their own schools, with 81% of superintendents & 47% of
principals saying talented leaders most likely will leave because of politics & bureaucracy.
Teachers said their views are generally ignored by decision-makers with 70% feeling left out of the loop in their district's
decision-making process.
According to the report, 73% of employers & 81% of professors said public school graduates have fair or poor writing
skills.
Teachers said lack of parental involvement is a serious problem, with:
- 78%
of teachers saying too many parents don't know what's going on with their child's education
- 19% said parental involvement is strong in their high school
Igo said part of the problem is the lack of communication between schools & homes.
"There's a lack of knowledge on the part of parents about how to be effectively involved in the school," she said. "It's
2-way street - parents have to assume responsibility & schools have to offer meaningful opportunities for parents to be involved in students' education."
The study also found that:
- 67% of teachers said their
school puts obstacles in the way when they're trying to accomplish goals at work
- 83% of teachers said parents
who fail to set limits & create structure at home for their kids are a serious problem
- 41% of teachers said schools
automatically promote students who have reached a maximum age
Respondents generally said schools place far too much emphasis on standardized test scores with:
- 60% of parents
- 84% of teachers
- 52% of employers
- 57% of professors
- 45% of students
agreeing.
Do all Americans experience a demoralizing
environment in today's society?
Thesis sentence:
The
problems with public education today are that many teachers feel demoralized
& ineffective because of the many calls upon their time outside of teaching & many
students are disinterested & disruptive.
General Outline.
1. Many teachers feel demoralized.
2.
In addition to feeling demoralized, they also feel ineffective.
3. Finally
the students themselves are a problem because many of them are disinterested & disruptive.
I can still remember
my elementary school days: I contrast my memories with the stories I hear from my friend who is
just now going thru her 1st year of teaching & comes home every night & cries out of frustration that she can't make learning happen for her class of 1st graders.
It's easy enough to
be an old curmudgeon & complain that public schools aren't "good like they used to be," but it's a fact that here in Texas,
1/3 of graduating high school seniors who go on to college have to undergo remediation in reading, writing &/or math before
they're ready to take college-level courses.
Public schools
definitely aren't as good as they need to be. The problems with public education today are
that many teachers feel demoralized & ineffective & many students are disinterested & disruptive.
One problem with
public education today is that the teachers feel demoralized.
They feel
demoralized for a number of reasons.
- They spend inordinate
amounts of classroom time in classroom management, which is a different way of saying that they must spend a lot of time disciplining
students, even older students, telling them to sit down, be quiet, stay on task & sit back down.
- They can expect little support from parents, since often times, the most
problematic students come from single-parent families where the parent, usually the mother, is working hard just to support the family & has little time to worry that the child
is behaving well at school.
- What's more, teachers expect too little administrative support, since so many students need disciplinary action. What's more, the
administration isn't necessarily sympathetic & supportive of the teachers' efforts in the classroom, often undermining those efforts without even realizing it.
One of my close friends teaches art at a local junior high school. She tells me stories from her own experience &
that of her friends that suggests that the students are out of control.
She told me of one 9th grade art student at one of the other junior high schools used the sink in the art classroom
as a toilet, leaving visible evidence in the bottom of the sink.
She's told me of calling parents to solicit their support in disciplining the child only to be told that the kid is
her problem during school & that if she can't handle him, then she has no business teaching.
The administration at her school has constantly backed away from tough institutional disciplinary measures, telling
the students that these measures are too harsh but admitting to the teachers that there are simply too many students needing discipline
for the school to hold them to in-school suspension for infractions where such punishment has been promised.
One of her friends who teaches math reported that last year the crisis counselor at that school
continually pulled students who were failing math out of math so that they could attend a
group counseling session in
order to get in touch with their feelings.
This left the math teacher with the
dilemma of either getting these students into tutoring before & after school or dealing with the consequences of failing them.
The teachers hold
so little authority & respect from either the students
or the administrators. It's little wonder that they feel as though too little of their time is spent teaching & too
much of their time is spent trying to carve out of few minutes where teaching might occur.
"I just gotta say it!" - a sideways look at education
in the US...
kathleen howe
I'm often the first one to say, "You have to walk a mile in a man's
shoes before you can make judgment on his actions..."
Sooo, I'm making that judgment, now, without doubt, without hesitation, without hedging on any intentions of hurting
any feelings...
I've made comment in other columns within the network that
I'm the mother of seven children. I am. Five of those children I've given birth to & 2 are step-daughters. I've had the
pleasure of monitoring their educational histories as well. Each one of my children has had a different experience in education.
It just happens when you've had a checkered past as I have, that children would all experience such differently colored pasts.
It's troubling that with their educational histories.... none of them are positive.
None of them positive? but why do I say that? Certainly a few of those seven children must have been educated in the United States of America's
fine public education system! Alas! What could be wrong with that? In the greatest nation in all global opportunity, how could
the education system be judged, "of poor quality, of inadequate means, producing inferior graduates?"
I say this about that.... and I've
just gotta say it! President Bush... President Clinton... President Bush.... the three of you need to be ashamed of yourselves for allowing the public education system to take the fall when you needed to cut programs. For after all... a nationwide educational public school system doesn't erode to meaninglessness overnight.
It doesn't take four years to destroy one of the most advantageous opportunities in the world. It doesn't take 8 or 12 or
16 years... It takes decades for the elimination of standards, morals, values & once held sacred
in our country.
Okay.... we're on the "feeling demoralized" page aren't we?
In the 2 previous articles, above, the authors spoke of Americans - those in the United States
of America's educational system - feeling demoralized.
Feeling demoralized is a wonderful choice of words, I do believe.
It proves that this "feeling" that Americans have concerning our public educational system
has accumulated over a long period of time, proving my admonishments of the three last presidents of our great country. When
someone feels, "demoralized," it doesn't happen overnight. Now, of course it can, depending
on the intensity of the offense, but most generally it takes a period of experiencing disturbing, distressing, negative or sub-standard behaviors or actions to feel the actual meaning of "feeling demoralized."
To actually feel demoralized
brings to my mind, a frustrating chain of painful, hurtful, intensely negative blockades being faced, adversity, disenchantment,
disillusionment taking place, a breaking of spirit, a breaking of good will, a foraging for competency amongst those incompetent; it's a
treacherous journey in the bleakness of nothingness.
Check out some of those pages to get the true meanings of them.
Feel the dismal preponderance of bleakness, hopelessness and discouragement when you do check them out. Feeling demoralized
isn't a nice thing. It's a strong description that needs to cause heads to turn, Bush.... I don't care about your websites
concerning your wife's work in the sphere of "No Child Left Behind." Bush, I'm not against your war in Iraq, I'm against not
fixing the educational system, I'm against taking more money from education to finance the war, I'm against the fact that
you're not feeling demoralized concerning the state of our public educational
system. (Hey, Republican Party.... I'm a republican... watch out this next election....)
Okay, we've got it, those
working within our nation's public educational system are feeling demoralized. If they're
feeling demoralized, what kind of attitude can they have when working with our nation's youth? (It would be wise of you to click on the underlined link words, in this particular "I've just gotta say it!")
The smart parents that visit this site may say to themselves..."That's
right, Kathleen, that's why we spend thousands of our hard earned dollars to send our children to private institutions of
learning! The nation's public school systems are horrible! We can't allow our children to be educated there!"
That seems sensible enough, doesn't it?
I say this to both of our Presidents Bush & to President Clinton...
Hillary if you're listening & intending
on running for President, maybe you need to pay attention as well.....
There's a problem in the United States. Parents are
working more & more hours. They're forced to pay thousands of dollars each year to put just one child in a private school
to get a decent education because our public education system sucks.
If there are 2, 3 or 4 children in a family, both parents have
to work. Both parents not only have to work, they both have to work overtime. If their children are in private school, this
means that they're most likely in sports, or other after school activities. They're busy families, they are. They run here,
they run there.... they spend hours driving around from activity to activity, practice to practice, lessons to lessons, games
to games, it's very hectic. They spend lots of money on gas to fuel their larger model cars, vans, or even SUV's.
A parent can begin to feel slightly "demoralized"
when a child of theirs in this situation begins to experience, "anxiety, depression or obsessive compulsive disorder."
They've worked their asses off for the benefit of their children
& somehow, no matter what they've done, the child gets "mentally ill!" Their children aren't happy! Gas prices are soaring,
they need to make more money to maintain their current standards, oh and by the way, college is coming up and tuitions
are rising.
Then they watch television for exactly one hour per week and
on Sunday night, they chose 60 minutes, you know that television show that shows controversial news stories! They see on the
60 minutes show that global warming is hitting a level that is so dangerous that the government doesn't want us to know about
it because we might panic. We find out that the White House is forcing our American Scientists to be censored. Hmmmm.... How
demoralizing is that? Hmmmmm.... it's too demoralizing
to put into words.
Can you imagine
going to school all of the years that it requires to become a scientist working at NASA? Can you imagine discovering a monumental
factor in the future of the world as we know it and when you try to report this very crucial news to the people of the United
States of America, your news is editted by the government to no longer include such words as, "danger?" Can you imagine that
you know the world as we know it could no longer be, if we don't take certain action in the next ten years and the government
keeps you from relaying this information to the American public? Can you imagine feeling more than alittle demoralized in this case, if you're the very intelligent scientist?
Then there are those parents who
are struggling. They're the parents who work in some blue collar jobs... they struggle to pay tuition to private schools.
They're forced to volunteer at their child's school, taking away all their free time to help pay for tuition. Hey! This happens
a lot in private school that have some kind of religious background!!!!
Sometimes Catholic schools offer
parents the opportunities for volunteer work & sometimes they demand it. It's part of the contract that allows your child
to go to the Catholic School. Catholic schools are often famous for their disciplinary tactics. They're so disciplined that
the children that emerge graduates of this type of private school, are free of behavior problems. They're trained right, the
good old fashioned way!
These parents are feeling a bit demoralized
these days, do you know why? They work really hard. They are sweating their blood, sweat and tears into a quality education
for their children. Those Catholics, if they're good Catholics.... have lots of children.
When their children come home from school, they get to find
out how demoralized their children are feeling from going to those Catholic schools. The
teachers are mean. The teachers don't care about their feelings or emotions. The teachers can do anything they want because
the parents of those students, want their kids to behave. It's important to them that they don't turn out like those kids
that go to public school.... there is nothing they can do to change that though...
nothing.... nothing at all....
The parents are feeling demoralized..... they have to get from "point a" to "point b" - every day, driving their huge SUV's all
over east oshkosh to transport their well rounded children who attend their private schools that cost so much that their parents
have to both work, both drive cars to work, both drive many miles to get to their "good paying" jobs that they spend so much
time at & they're feeling shameful & guilty at the same time since they watched television last Sunday night and saw
that show about global warming. They're beginning to realize that they're trapped.
The whole time the parents are
ruining the atmosphere, using fossil fuels everyday, in large amounts because their kids have to go to a private school
& participate in extra after school activities run by the private sector instead of belonging to after school groups that
are sponsored by their neighborhood public school, that by the way, they could "walk" to.
Oh yeah, and
they there's the obese population of the world, finding more and more reasons not to walk somewhere, because of the crime
caused by the demoralized children & parents that have emerged due to the fact that
there's such a poor moral at the public school systems. They can behave any way they want at public school. This causes any
"good" child that goes to public school to begin to feel, "demoralized" as well. They get harrassed, hurt, bullied and have
trouble functioning, studying and going to school in a public school system.
Now don't tell me that this
simple stay at home mom, that's tried even home schooling to educate her children.... has thought of this before the last
three presidents of the United States of America!!!! Now don't tell me that they think that we're all stupid enough
to not know all of this..... Hey Hillary.... want to get elected?
That prospect truly makes me feel "demoralized," but there may be nothing I can do about it.
The Legacy of Psychological Trauma from the Vietnam War for American Indian Military Personnel
A National Center
for PTSD Fact Sheet
The Matsunaga Vietnam Veterans
Project
Military personnel of many ethnic backgrounds served w/distinction in the Vietnam War. The 1988 National Vietnam Veterans
Readjustment Study (NVVRS) demonstrated that Black & Hispanic veterans who served in Vietnam experienced
significantly greater readjustment problems & higher levels of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than White veterans.
To extend the study to other minority veterans, the late Senator from Hawaii, Spark Matsunaga, initiated a major project
to assess the readjustment experiences of American Indian, Japanese American, & Native Hawaiian veterans of the Vietnam
War. This resulted in Public Law 101-507, which directed the VA's National Center for PTSD to conduct what became known as
the Matsunaga Vietnam Veterans Project.
The Matsunaga Project involved two parallel studies. The American Indian Vietnam Veterans Project surveyed a sample
of Vietnam in-country veterans residing on or near two large tribal reservations, one in the Southwest & the other in
the Northern Plains. These populations had sufficient numbers of Vietnam military veterans to draw scientifically & culturally
sound conclusions about the war & readjustment experiences.
The Hawaii Vietnam Veterans Project surveyed two samples, one of Native Hawaiians (the indigenous peoples of the Hawaiian Islands, who constitute about 22% of the
permanent population in Hawaii) & another of Americans
of Japanese Ancestry (the descendants of Japanese
immigrants who comprise about 24% of the permanent population in Hawaii).
Matsunaga study participants were interviewed face-to-face for several hours with culturally sensitive questions about
their prewar & war experiences; their Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & other health problems; their personal, family, work & education readjustment
experiences & their use of Veterans Affairs health care services.
Only men participated because, despite their key contributions to the military, there are few women Vietnam veterans
in these survey populations. Although many American Indian veterans from other tribes & areas of the US served in Vietnam,
in a single study it isn't possible to characterize every possible American Indian tribe or veteran.
The many American Indian experiences & cultures all require recognition & respect. The similarities & differences revealed by surveying hundreds of Vietnam veterans from each of two large
& different tribes bring to life the richness & diversity of the American Indian experience before, during & after
the Vietnam War.
The Matsunaga Study's key finding is that exposure to war zone stress & other military danger places veterans at risk for PTSD several decades after military service. Native Hawaiian & American Indian Vietnam in-country veterans had
relatively high levels of exposure to war zone stress & high levels of PTSD.
Caucasian & Japanese American veterans tended to have somewhat lower levels of exposure to war zone stress & later PTSD.
The unique cultural traditions, society & family experiences of each different ethnic group played an important
role in the veteran's homecoming & readjustment after Vietnam, but they don't appear to either cause or prevent PTSD.
American Indian Veterans' Experiences before
& during the War
"I was a happy, healthy boy & I felt in harmony with my family, my people & the earth because of the teachings my grandfather
shared in traditional ceremonies & that my father shared when we'd go fishing. I grew up in a hurry when I enlisted in
the Marines after high school & I hated being looked down on as an Indian.
I had to swallow the anger & shame when they
jokingly called me Chief. Nothing prepared me for the physical
& spiritual violation of war. I stayed for 3 tours because I lived so much w/death that I couldn't
come home."
Before Military Service
American Indian veterans described growing up in a supportive tribal community, on or off reservation, in which they
felt securely included in their
extended families & close to their parents. They rarely recalled physical abuse, less so than any other ethnic group except Japanese Americans.
They & their families were very involved in traditional activities such as tribal gatherings & ceremonies &
they learned to trust & honor traditional values.
These men often attended & completed school & were actively involved w/their peer group & in organized activities
such as athletics.
Disciplinary or legal problems were rare. However, many experienced the stressor of adult members of their families who suffered from substance abuse or PTSD.
Entering Military Service
American Indian veterans often joined the military as a way to obtain opportunities for education, jobs & travel
not otherwise available to them.
In addition to wanting to serve their country, many wanted to become warriors to protect their families, to uphold the honor of their tribes & to prove themselves as men. Military training was
a shocking new experience with good & bad aspects. For the good, many found the discipline, skills & team spirit an
invaluable preparation both for war & later adulthood.
On the other hand, many felt torn between traditional spiritual & community values & the military emphasis on
aggression & killing. Many faced racial prejudice & discrimination, often for the first time up close & felt disillusioned when they or other Indians encountered racial hostility or disrespect.
More than 1 in 2 American Indian veterans experienced war-related trauma in Vietnam. The war traumas included being on frequent or prolonged combat missions in enemy territory; encountering ambushes & firefights;
being attacked by sappers, snipers, artillery, or rockets & witnessing death & terrible harm to their own or others'
bodies.
Traumas also included being under fire on helicopters, cargo & reconnaissance aircraft, patrol boats & cargo
trucks & being on very hazardous duty such as walking point or being a radio operator, medic, scout, tunnel rat, perimeter
sentry, long range patrol, or door gunner.
American Indians faced war trauma so often for many reasons, including because they were more likely than any other ethnic group to serve in the
Marines (the branch of service w/most combat
duty) & in the northernmost sector of Vietnam (I-corps, the area under greatest enemy attack).
American Indians & Native Hawaiians received combat service medals more often than individuals in other ethnic groups.
American Indian Veterans' Homecoming
& Readjustment Experiences
"I was spit on & called a baby-killer in the mainstream culture when I first came home & no way any college would
accept me or any good job would be open to me. I felt too ashamed & enraged to accept the love & gratitude my family & community showed me. I thought I was going crazy, waking up in a sweat trying to choke my wife, seeing signs of Charley around every corner
when the weather was hot & steamy.
I'd always kept my feelings to myself, but now I didn't seem to have any feelings except anger. I couldn't get thru a day without getting into a fight & when I tried to numb the pain with alcohol I just got more angry & out of control. I left my wife & kids because I was ashamed & afraid of what I was doing to them, but I miss them still.
I've had more jobs than I can count & I walked out on every one because I'd start to feel trapped. I really never left Vietnam until
just a couple of years ago after I got sober in a program & then I felt I had to either go back to my tribe & go thru
the healing ceremonies or I was going to kill myself.
I'm finally beginning to come home, with the help of a Vet Center counselor & the Blessing Way in my community."
The Long Journey Home
Many veterans are unable to leave behind the trauma of Vietnam & psychologically return home. They struggle w/a variety of extremely severe problems that they
& their families, friends & communities don't understand or know how to cope with:
- Fears (such as of closed spaces, crowds,
unfamiliar places, or sudden attack)
- Anxiety (such as restlessness, obsessive
worries, compulsive rituals)
- Panic (such as a terror of losing control, suffocating, or going crazy)
- Depression (such as hopelessness, loss of all interests, suicidal impulses)
- Rage in the form of either intense violent emotions or violent actions
- Irritability (such as
feeling constantly annoyed, on edge & critical)
- Shame (such as feeling embarrassed, exposed, violated, or like a misfit)
- Guilt (such as feeling others should have lived & he should have died, or feeling that he failed or made mistakes that had terrible consequences)
- Isolation (such as being physically present
but emotionally absent, going off alone for long
periods of time, or refusing to talk about family matters)
- Emotional emptiness (such as staring off into
space blankly or refusing to show any feelings when everyone else is very emotional)
- Alienation (such as feeling that no one understands or that everyone
makes too much fuss about unimportant things & too little about big problems)
- Being over-controlling (such as being extremely demanding
or needing to make all decisions even if they're really someone else's responsibility)
- Inability to relax (such as always being on the
go, never able to have fun, or turning everything into serious work or a crisis)
- Addiction (such as compulsive overuse
of alcohol, drugs, or gambling)
The Hidden Enemy: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
What neither these veterans nor their families (nor even many VA counselors & doctors) knew was
that many of these veterans were & are suffering from PTSD. The symptoms of PTSD include:
About 1 in 3 American Indian Vietnam veterans who served in-country suffered from full or partial PTSD at the time of the study, a quarter century or more after the war. More than 2 in 3 American Indian Vietnam
veterans suffered from full or partial PTSD sometime since Vietnam. PTSD prevalence for American Indians is very high, more than twice as high as for White or Japanese American
Vietnam veterans.
PTSD's Effect on Family & Friendships
American Indian Vietnam veterans reported the most severe problems of any ethnic group in the NVVRS or Matsunaga Project.
They tended to be extremely isolated from relationships & community, primarily as a result of PTSD.
The Northern Plains veterans were by far the most likely of any study group, including Southwest tribal veterans, to
have been verbally hostile in the recent past, to have been homeless or vagrant, to have been divorced once or several times & to have
had problems as a parent.
PTSD explains much of these interpersonal problems. In addition,
the Northern Plains veterans had great difficulty in rejoining the very tightly knit extended families & communities of
their tribes after the war. i.e., only 1 in 7 of these veterans had participated in a traditional healing
ceremony, compared to one in two Southwest Indian veterans.
Other people, such as spouses, children, family members, friends, or coworkers, often are more aware of the veteran's emotional distress than he is himself. Decades of haunting memories & overwhelming feelings leave the veteran suffering from PTSD feeling demoralized & alone.
He may believe that as a man he must bear the burden of pain, fear, anger, shame & guilt silently. He may believe that he has failed his most precious loved ones & lost the respect of his community.
He may feel helpless
to conquer the habitual urge to drink alcohol. As a result, it becomes almost impossible for him to enjoy life or relationships & the harder he tries
to fight the symptoms the more stressed he becomes!
Yet, when family or friends see signs of the veteran's inner turmoil, they don't know why it's happening & often blame themselves: "I always thought it was something I was doing wrong, but I never knew what!" Nor do they know how to help: "I gave up trying
to break thru his emotional walls."
The family's view of PTSD may include:
- "Little things get him very depressed or enraged, like he's always at the end of his rope."
- "He tries to enjoy being with us, but his
heart's not in it & his mind's always somewhere else."
- "For him, every problem's a disaster &
we're slow, stupid & never careful or tough enough."
- "He's always got to be on the go, can never
sit still & can't even hold the same job for long."
- "I never understood why he kept going back to alcohol, even though he always ends up in a fight, in jail, or out in the mountains for weeks after he's been drinking.
He won't stop even though it's killing him."
PTSD's Effect on
Work & Education
Getting & keeping a good job or returning to complete school or for advanced education, require exactly the abilities
that are most impaired by PTSD:
Despite courageous efforts, veterans w/PTSD often become trapped
in the vicious cycle of settling for bad jobs & avoiding or walking out on good jobs. Now well into their 40's & 50's, Vietnam veterans w/PTSD face great difficulty in getting a good education or having a rewarding career. Of all survey groups,
the Northern Plains veterans have had the most difficulty keeping jobs, mainly because they also were the most likely to suffer
from PTSD.
PTSD's Effect on Addiction
Over 70% of the American Indian Vietnam veterans have current serious problems with alcohol overuse or dependence, more than twice as many as any other group in the NVVRS or Matsunaga Project.
Addiction to any drug other than alcohol, however, wasn't a greater problem for American Indian veterans than for other veterans. PTSD plays a substantial role in these veterans' alcohol problems, but the discrimination, isolation & demoralization experienced by Native American civilians & veterans is also a factor.
Alcohol is a tempting (false) solution to PTSD symptoms such as nightmares ("drink
yourself into a dreamless stupor"), unwanted memories &
fears ("drink until your mind is blank"), anger & tension ("drink to take away the edge"), hopelessness & emotional numbness ("drink until you feel
no pain") & hyper-vigilance ("drink until you don't care anymore"). Unfortunately, excessive habitual use of alcohol causes a person to feel edgy, irritable, unable to concentrate & more demoralized than ever.
PTSD's Effect on
Physical Health
American Indian Vietnam veterans reported the poorest physical health & the highest level of medical care use of
any NVVRS or Matsunaga Project group. This may be partly due to chronic alcohol overuse, which often is associated with smoking & poor health habits.
However, PTSD also plays a role in poor physical health. PTSD symptoms such as restlessness, tension, irritability, anxiety & poor sleep are exhausting & hard on the body.
Culturally, it also may be more acceptable to disclose somatic problems
& pains to family or medical providers than to admit emotional distress.
Physical illness more often results in sympathy & concern, while emotional distress may be mistakenly viewed (by
the veteran, his family & community or the medical provider) as a sign of weakness or lack of character.
In fact, the emotional distress & poor physical health associated with PTSD are both signs of a legitimate need for traditional healing & mainstream medical & mental-health care.
Steps toward Recovery for the
Veteran & Family
Recovery from PTSD involves several steps by which a veteran & family can begin to recover from the emotional wounds. Recovery also involves taking steps toward
regaining a healthy, happy & satisfying life:
- Talk frankly & privately to a trusted healer or counselor who is sensitive to the understandable feelings of guilt or embarrassment.
- Learn about psychological stress & trauma, i.e., by reading or by taking a class.
- Books often recommended by veterans &
families include:
I Can't Get Over It: A Handbook
for Trauma Survivors by Aphrodite Matsakis, New Harbinger Publications,
1992
- Recovering from War by Patience Mason. Viking Penguin, 1990
- Two video programs describing the Vietnam
& post-Vietnam experience of American Indian veterans are also available:
Wounded Spirits Ailing Hearts:
PTSD and the Legacy of War among American Indian & Alaska Native Veterans. This project was jointly sponsored by the National Center for PTSD, the American Indian & Alaska Native Mental
Health Research Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado, Denver Colorado & VA Employee Education System. This
video is available online: Wounded Spirits Ailing Hearts.
A set of four videotapes with an accompanying
booklet have been developed and distributed in separate binders to facilitate broad use by multiple audiences. All videotapes
contain instructional content related to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and interviews with native veterans and family members.
They provide powerful personal examples of military experience and readjustment to civilian life including experiences with
VA and Indian Health Resources. Only the materials contained in video 3 and 4 and print materials include independent study
material for primary care and mental health staff. Specific instructions for registration and completion of the study are
contained in the accompanying booklets.
Layoffs
will leave Corel demoralized
By Kate Chappell - Monday June 12, 2000
Any loyalty beleaguered Corel Corp. employees
felt has all but disappeared in the aftermath of layoffs of 1/5 of the software company's workforce, says an Ottawa recruiting
firm's CEO.
TalentLab CEO J. Alan Kearns says those that survived the layoffs
didn't really escape intact. "This has a huge impact on the attitude & mindset of employees," he says. "The question you
have to ask yourself is: 'why would you stay in a company w/a risky future? And in Corel's situation, it's been 2 or 3 years.'"
Kearns says many Corel employees
will feel wary & question their future w/the company. "I think they're feeling nervous & some people may be feeling really angry." So why would
anyone want to remain at the company? "
That's a good question. If you were
really loyal, you might stay. You might really like your boss or you might be really
fearful of change." Nevertheless, those that chose to stay for the long haul will find
it very difficult to be enthusiastic about the future, says Kearns.
"I think it's a very difficult thing to regenerate employee
productivity. It never really returns. Management
has sent the message to employees that they're not really important," he says. As for the fiercely competitive world of recruiting talent, Kearns says forget it. "You can't tell me that
the best product managers are thinking of going to Corel."
TalentLab places high-level executives at high tech firms, including Corel. Kearns says senior management who have
left Corel have confided that it's time for the software firm to pack it in. "They're telling us that it was a great organization,
but it's time to move on. It was a good story 4 years ago."
Managers making
layoffs can feel demoralized
By Stephanie
Armour, USA TODAY
It's not just rank & file employees feeling downsizing pain. Mounting
layoffs also are demoralizing many managers who must let their workers go.
In April, 223,000
more people lost jobs than gained employment, according to the Labor Dept. That was the 2nd consecutive month of net job losses
& the largest decline since 1991.
Many of those job cuts are being handled by supervisors who've never witnessed layoffs, although seasoned management
veterans also say downsizings are taking a toll. Bosses suffer from sleepless nights, feelings of guilt & anxiety; especially in those cases where they may have to select just who is
let go.
Case in point: Peter
Jackson, CEO of Intraware, was up w/his executive team until nearly 5 a.m. the day that layoffs at his company occurred. The
reason? He & the others were going over who would be kept & who would go, a process that elicited misgivings.
"I had a hard time keeping from weeping, The pain is enormous,"
says Jackson. The Orinda, Calif.-based technology-solutions firm laid off nearly 180 employees. "I felt like I was slapping
loyal employees in the face. There's no business school that trains you to deal
w/this stuff."
To be sure, the
managers who are left behind are the lucky ones. They have their jobs.
But that doesn't
mean it's easy for others. Many wrestle with:
Deception. Managers often know for days or weeks who will be laid off & some
also select which staffers should go. Some feel guilty afterwards because they knew, while those affected had no idea of what
was in store.
"You have to try to learn their job w/out letting them know why you're doing it," says Lisa Hayes, executive marketing
vice president at ProSavvy, an Englewood, Colo.; based online sourcing solution for procuring consultants.
"And you have to try not to discourage ideas they had for the future when you know
they won't be there. That's hard. A lot of them were friends."
Guilt. Supervisors struggle w/dismissing workers
they often consider friends. Some have moved up through the ranks & were once colleagues w/those now losing their jobs.
"I knew their kids. I knew they just got a mortgage. They're not a number," says Grace Stanat, CEO of 415 Productions,
a San Francisco-based interactive design firm that has laid off about 15 workers. "There's a feeling like survivor guilt."
Motivating workers. After job cuts,
bosses field tough questions from employees who wonder if more cuts will come. They also grapple with how to retain workers
who fear more job cuts will come.
"Some managers go
from a team of 10 to 3. The job changes," says Ann Baker at UGO Networks, a New York-based provider of hosting services &
an entertainment Web site. Baker, a human resources vice president, coped w/laying off workers in March partly by turning
to yoga.
"You deal w/the
aftermath," she says. "It's easy to fixate on what happened, but I focus on the fact that, though it was painful for people,
I did the best I could. "
Experts say such
reactions are not unexpected or uncommon, especially when managers must let a large number of workers go.
"It's the toughest part of most managers' job," says Sharon Jordan-Evans, a workplace consultant & co-author of
Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay. "They lose sleep. Some don't eat for days. They're very nervous. It can have a lasting impact."
even those policing society -demoralized
& frustrated
Saturday, June 30, 2001
Police frustration brings slowdown
Arrests plummet from 2000;
officers seek jobs in suburbs
By Sheila
McLaughlin & Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Nearly 2 months after an officer was indicted for killing an unarmed black suspect, Cincinnati police are so demoralized that they're ignoring some minor crimes & looking for jobs in the suburbs.
Arrests are down 35% compared with May & June a year ago. Revenue from traffic tickets is down significantly, drivers
paid $25,000 during May, compared with more than $90,000 in fines the same time last year. Judges & lawyers report lighter
dockets as fewer defendants appear in court.
All are a result of an unofficial work slowdown by Cincinnati officers angry about what they see as a lack of support & concerned about the increasing scrutiny brought by a new evaluation system the administration is testing.
They're making a lot of inquiries about jobs with suburban departments, where chiefs say officers feel more support
from residents & they're increasingly reluctant to look for minor crimes in progress.
No one is accusing officers of failing to respond to emergencies. But when it comes to discretionary or self-initiated work, some acknowledge they're not going out of their way.
Since everything with the riots, it doesn't make sense to go out & chase some knucklehead who wants to fight with
you for whatever reason, said Officer Eric Vogelpohl,
who works in Over-the-Rhine.
Cincinnati's riots were sparked by an incident that began with self-initiated activity. Officer Stephen Roach was
indicted May 7 for the fatal shooting a month earlier of Timothy Thomas, 19, a man sought on 14 misdemeanors who was not armed.
The pursuit began when another officer, David Damico, who was off-duty, recognized Mr. Thomas & chased him.
The indictment, the 3rd of a Cincinnati police officer this year involving a suspect's death,
has had a chilling effect on officers' willingness to jump into proactive police work.
They're also upset about
the fallout from the shooting, including the days of rioting that ensued, the investigation of possible civil-rights violations
by the U.S. Dept. of Justice & the police administration's development of a new point system to monitor their behavior.
This week, officers found this cautionary message in their Fraternal Order of Police newsletter, written by President Keith Fangman:
If you want to make 20 traffic stops a shift & chase every dope dealer you see, you go right ahead, he wrote. Just
remember that if something goes wrong, or you make the slightest mistake in that split second, it could result in having your worst nightmare come true for you & your family & City Hall will
sell you out.
Mr. Fangman said the slowdown isn't an official job action, but rather simply symptomatic
of a shell-shocked police department.
Slowdown worries residents
Cincinnati Chief Tom Streicher said he continues to stress to his officers that he supports
them. His wish: They should continue to be the good officers he thinks they are.
It's a tough time right now, he said. They're just not feeling a lot of support. Residents are trying to be understanding. Still,
they're critical.
It concerns me, but in a way I see where they're
coming from. It's a two-way street. They figure we lost confidence in them so they think why should they break their necks for us, said Carrie Johnson, community council president in Over-the-Rhine.
The historic neighborhood north of downtown's business district took the brunt of the riots in April.
We still need the policing, regardless. If that's the way they're going to be, they need to give up their jobs. Veteran officers predict morale problems will continue until officers begin feeling
more support from City Hall & from the community.
I think the current climate will have long-term ramifications on recruiting, hiring & on people searching for other jobs &
people evaluating their retirement options in the next 6 months to a year, said Capt. Greg Snider, on the force 30 years. Moving to the 'burbs
Fourteen
officers, not an unusual number, have been forced to leave
because of criminal wrongdoing, resigned or retired in the past 3 months, said Sgt. Chris Ruehmer, personnel relations officer.
However, officers are starting to show up in greater-than-usual numbers to sit for police
exams in other communities that have comparable wage scales.
The only time I remember something like this was in the mid-'70's when there were layoffs
in Cincinnati, said Al Ledbetter, safety service director in Sharonville. 12 Cincinnati officers took Sharonville's test in
May.
Two city officers, Kenneth Schrand & John Connolly, started work this week with
Blue Ash. Both are 33 years old with more than a decade left in their careers. They took the Blue Ash test in October,
a month after Officer Kevin Crayon, the 3rd officer to die on duty since 1997, was dragged to his death while trying to apprehend
a 12-year-old driver.
The departing officers' new chief, Mike Allen, wouldn't let them discuss their reasons
for leaving, saying they were probationary employees in Blue Ash & shouldn't be criticizing their former employer.
In Loveland, Police Chief Dennis Rees, a former district commander in Cincinnati, has fielded
calls from another dozen city officers looking for jobs in the aftermath of Mr. Thomas' death.
Chief Rees has nothing to offer them until sometime next year. He said he expects quite a few Cincinnati officers to take a civil service exam next spring. It's a pretty serious thing, Chief Rees said
of the frustration he's hearing from city officers. People out here appreciate the police & they show
it.
Staff reporters Kristina Goetz & Karen Samples
contributed to this report.
what's a person
to do?
once demoralized - spend an eternity there?
"A lack of respect
in the workplace is a central reason behind individuals feeling demoralized on the job and/or leaving an organization completely.
In this article from careerbuilder.com ways to gain this respect
are profiled."
When starting a new job:
- clarify your role &
- verify your new duties
Use them as a foundation to introduce yourself
& establish credibility with colleagues. Within the first
few months on the job, it's also helpful to set up meetings with your boss & other key coworkers to gauge your progress & the contribution you're making.
Steps
that you can take to build ongoing respect include:
- Being
proactive about
dealing with miscommunications & misunderstandings
- Being respectful
of yourself & others
- Paying attention to your colleagues' time, their
abilities & their contributions & being
clear about your own
It's also useful to set up a regular 10-15
minute meeting w/your boss to discuss any issues & give feedback that can help improve your performance &
the company's.
once demoralized? take
risks to cause change
Published 1/24/2003
Don't be afraid to take risks
Gannett News Service
Fitness Magazine editors reveal strategies to help you tap into your youthful confidence. You'll speak your mind, take more risks & make change happen.
Stir brave memories. Revisiting past acts of fearlessness reminds you that you still can be gutsy. "If you're feeling demoralized, it can help to look back & say, 'I really was a brave person,' " says psychologist John Valentis, Ph.D., co-author w/his wife,
Mary Valentis, Ph.D., of "Brave New You: 12 Dynamic Strategies for Saying What You Want & Being Who You Are" (New Harbinger, $13.95).
To trigger these memories, sketch out a time line spanning from kindergarten to puberty. Jot down 1 or 2 courageous acts from each year. If you can't remember any, ask older family members.
"It doesn't have to be anything dramatic or brazen.
Maybe you spoke up for yourself or for a friend," suggests Mary Valentis, who says even the most timid girl will have
had fearless moments. "Use these memories as an emotional mantra: I was brave once, I can be brave again." Invoke them when you need a shot of courage - i.e., when asking your boss for a raise.
Make change happen. Daring feats aren't the only risks people avoid with age. Adults also tend to protect themselves emotionally. Granted, the stakes are much higher: It's one thing to quit the Girl Scouts, quite another
to leave your job.
Yet if you allow your fears to spin out to their worst-case conclusions, you'll find that the potential
consequences are usually manageable.
"Ask
yourself: What's the absolute worst thing that can happen?" advises John Valentis. "Thinking it thru can eliminate your fear & provide you with the courage to move forward."
Stop worrying what others think. Fear of embarrassment can keep you from enjoying new experiences & interests. What's the
antidote?
"Acknowledge the fear & do it anyway," advises Marilyn Newman Metzl, Ph.D., a psychoanalyst
& adjunct professor of human development at the Univ. of Missouri at Kansas City, who says it's helpful to remember that the only person truly focused on you is, well, you. "People don't notice your actions as much as you might
think," she notes. "They aren't paying that close attention."
Take up belly dancing, audition for a part in a community theater production or apply to that pre-med program you've
been considering. If you fall flat, take a lesson from the girl you once were:
Get up, brush the gravel
off your knees & try again.
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undemoralize
yourself by adam khan
Pessimistic thinking is almost always a mistake. Not only is it a mistake because it makes you less capable, but the thoughts themselves are usually in error.
When a thought-mistake makes you feel disheartened, discouraged, or helpless, it can stop you from taking action. If your mind's naturally - occurring thought - mistakes fool you into believing you can do nothing about a difficulty you have, you'll do nothing. So one of the most important things you can do to make your life better starts right in your own mind:
Cure yourself
of demoralizing thought-mistakes (like overgeneralizing, for example).
We're not talking about positive thinking. This is anti-defeatist or anti-discouragement thinking. We're aiming at making fewer mistakes in our thinking. It is more fundamental than positive thinking & also more effective.
Cognitive researchers (scientists who
study the effect of thoughts on feelings & behavior) have discovered that thoughts of hopelessness or helplessness can lead to anxiety & depression.
These kinds of negative thoughts were once considered symptoms of anxiety & depression. But Abraham Low, Aaron Beck & Albert Ellis discovered that certain kinds of thought-mistakes actually cause anxiety & depression & when a person's thinking is changed, the depression or anxiety lifts.
You change your thinking by arguing w/the demoralizing
thoughts as they arise in your mind.
There are two problems w/trying to argue w/your negative thoughts. First of all, negative feelings often seem to arise on their own w/out anything causing it, when in fact those feelings were preceded by a thought such as, "I'll never feel happy again."
A mental image of oneself in the future, looking terribly unhappy flashes in one's mind. The thought zips thru the mind so quickly & so automatically, the person didn't notice she thought anything. All she noticed was the effect: The resulting feelings. She'd have a difficult time arguing with a thought that she doesn't even know she's thinking.
The second problem occurs even when the person knows he is thinking a demoralizing thought. He knows what he's thinking, but he believes his thoughts are true. i.e., after September 11th, if he thought, "It's horrible & sad but there's nothing I can do about it," he would take no action.
He is defeated before he starts. He may even be aware of thinking the pessimistic, defeatist thought, but if he assumes he's correct, he'll make no attempt to argue with his thinking.
Rooting out defeatist thoughts can eliminate the defeated feeling. Arguing against those demoralizing
thoughts will undemoralize you.
When negative thoughts are making you feel anxious, arguing w/the negative thoughts can bring back feelings of calm & determination.
I can't emphasize enough that we're not talking about "looking on the bright side" or trying to cover ugly reality
w/pretty thoughts. The fundamental premise of cognitive science is that if you think the situation is hopeless & you believe you can do nothing about it, you should look carefully at that assumption because it's usually wrong.
If your brain happens to be in the habit of thinking that way about certain kinds of circumstances, it's time to notice it & change it. This idea is powerful & effective. Read a true-life example. Read another couple of examples. (click to go off-site, but remember to keep this window to come back to!)
In his book, Alone, Admiral Byrd described his brush w/death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Byrd was stationed
at a remote base deep in the interior of Antarctica in 1934, about as removed from any civilization as a man can get on this
planet. He was utterly alone & w/out hope of rescue.
At one point in his ordeal, he gave up. He was going to die, he admitted to himself. This is how it would end. He wrote
a note to the people who would find his body the following spring & then snuffed out the candles.
He lay in the dark for some time, sad at this
horrible turn of fate. But then he remembered a scene from his past. He had been in a wrestling match, trying to win the championship
at the Naval Academy. Near the end of the match, exhausted & in great pain, he decided he had no chance of winning.
But his mother was watching & he wanted her to be proud of him, so he used this anti-demoralizing
technique & it worked. He stumbled onto the secret of determination. His strength revived & he fought to the finish. He didn't give up.
It worked then, he thought, so it might work here in the Antarctic even though his situation was now incomparably worse. The single thought that revived him in the wrestling match was the realization that "although I seemed absolutely washed up, there
was a chance I was mistaken."
That's an important key to becoming immune to demoralization: Admit to yourself that you might be mistaken about a pessimistic conclusion. Introduce some doubt. The doubt is legitimate. Most of us are far more confident in our negative assumptions than is justified by the facts. As Norman Cousins said, "Nobody knows enough to be a pessimist."
IT'S HIGHLY EFFECTIVE
Disputing defeatist assumptions has been shown in many scientific studies to be extremely effective at permanently immunizing
people against anxiety, worry, disheartenment & depression. i.e., a team of researchers took 33 people with panic disorder who averaged 5 panic attacks per week per person.
16 of them had weekly sessions w/a therapist who provided emotional support. 17
of them had weekly sessions w/a cognitive therapist who taught them to rethink their usual overreactions.
i.e., when a man felt chest pain, he was coached to come up w/more likely causes than the first thought that came to mind (it's a heart
attack).
It was more likely to be heartburn, for example. And he was coached to remind himself that when these feelings occurred in the past, they had never amounted to anything.
In other words, he learned to doubt his automatic, habitual negative assumptions. He learned to recognize the mistakes in his thinking.
At the end of two months, 12 of the cognitive-therapy people were totally free of attacks. Only 4 of the emotional support people were totally free of attacks.
Among those who still had panic attacks, the cognitive-therapy people averaged 1 attack a week. The emotional support people
averaged 3 per week.
The researchers did a 1 year follow-up. The success rate hadn't diminished in that time. Arguing w/their own negative, pessimistic thoughts dramatically changed their lives.
The thoughts you think are very powerful & worthy of your attention.
Similar effects to cognitive-therapy can be achieved on your own using paper & pen. As a matter of fact, that's often one of the most effective
techniques cognitive therapists assign as "homework." Read how. (click to go off-site, but remember to keep this window to come back to!)
In his book, Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman has a very good list of what to look for in your arguments
when you're arguing against a negative thought. Read his list here. (click to go off-site, but remember to keep this window to come back to!)
Find
Mistakes in Your Thinking
In David Burns' book, Feeling Good, he has a list of what he calls "cognitive distortions." These are
common thought-mistakes we tend to make that demoralize us unnecessarily. He has 10 cognitive distortions on his list
& the list is complete (you'll find links to the
list at the end of this article). Any mistake you're
likely to find in your thinking is on his list because the brain makes imperfect judgments in a limited number of ways
Our brains also process visual information imperfectly, which is why we have such things as optical illusions.
When you look at the two lines above, one looks longer than the other.
But they're the same length. No matter how carefully you look at it, the 2 lines definitely look different lengths. Even when you measure it & are completely
convinced they're the same length, they still look like different lengths.
You're witnessing a flaw in the way the human brain processes visual
input. Optical illusions demonstrate that our visual processing isn't perfect in certain specific ways.
In precisely the same way, our thinking (our logical processing) isn't perfect either & there are particular mistakes we are prone to make simply because we're human. David Burns' list
of 10 cognitive distortions is a list of the thought-mistakes the human brain is prone to make. The brain's tendency to make mistakes combines w/the brain's natural negative bias (clicking the link will take you off-site so remember to keep this window to come back to!) & it makes demoralizing thinking much
more likely.
So one way to argue w/your negative thoughts is to memorize Burns' 10 distortions. Then write out a demoralizing thought you
have about terrorism & see how many cognitive distortions you can find in your statement.
When you memorize the list first (before
they're attached to a particular thought of yours) you can clearly see why they're mistakes because
you don't have the problem of overcoming your own naturally-occurring defensiveness when you're analyzing your statements. Having the list memorized ahead of time makes it easier to find mistakes
& straighten out your thinking.
Questioning & disputing your demoralizing
thoughts is the best & most effective way to defeat defeatism. And one of the best ways to do that is to write down your negative thoughts & then argue w/them. Now you have a powerful weapon against feeling demoralized, disheartened
or depressed. Master the know-how on this page. Practice several times a week. Make yourself sit down & do it for a half-hour
at a time. It'll make you stronger & healthier & more successful.
What
is "relationship therapy" about?
By Margery Silverton, LCSW
For over 2 decades, I've counseled hundreds of individuals & couples
on the best methods of achieving & sustaining a satisfying relationship. I've spent the last 10 years, since training as an Imago therapist, coaching couples in a powerful set of processes designed to help partners develop self awareness regarding core emotional needs, understand & constructively manage negative emotions & facilitate deep levels of healing & personal growth.
The ultimate goal of this work is to help couples transform their relationship so that it becomes a lasting source of support, love & companionship. In short, my goal with the couples I work with is to help them become passionate best friends, able to be fully alive & self- loving in each other’s presence.
Couples who "stay the course" & successfully
complete the therapy state that they feel an enhanced sense of possibility, hopefulness & expansiveness both as individuals & as partners in a relationship.
If you're someone wanting to attain this level of impassioned aliveness in your intimate relationship, several things need to take place. You need to develop self awareness about your own needs, how you tend to react when those needs are frustrated & how your reactive patterns have affected your partner.
You need good coaching in how to effectively identify needs & communicate about your desires & you need to practice putting certain behavior changes into practice. You need to feel in your heart that you want
the relationship to work & at a deep level, you need to have faith that a healthy, loving relationship, with all its challenges & ups & downs, is possible for you.
You also need to develop the capacity to manage your feelings so that the inevitable conflicts that occur in the course of a relationship don’t send you into a spiral of despair. To transform a troubled relationship, you also need patience & a healthy curiosity about how this person "from the other planet" thinks, feels & operates.
It's not possible to have intimacy unless there's also vulnerability to
one another. When we're in pain & believe we need to harden around our pain, we've entered a cycle of defensiveness, in which neither partner can feel deeply known.
Frustrated needs create pain, pain creates guardedness, guardedness creates distancing & disconnection. Many couples who seek counseling come in feeling demoralized & doubtful about the possibility of healing.
In fact, research indicates that most couples wait at least 6 years from the time a problem is first acknowledged to the time they seek therapy to help resolve it. The longer a couple waits, the more time there is for the frustration cycle to become entrenched.
In successful therapy, the downward spiral of the frustration cycle is reversed & transformed into a "satisfaction" cycle instead. Deeply held needs are identified & new strategies are developed to consciously address these needs.
All couples, even the happiest ones, encounter some form of let down, where commitment begins to flag & energies tend to go outside the relationship. One of the first requirements in therapy is to reinvest energy in the relationship before the motivation dies off completely.
Like a sickly plant that needs nurturing & watering to bring it back to life, there comes a point where too little, too late & the
plant dies. If the sickly plant is watered in time, given the proper attention, care & sunlight, then it can revive & be a source of beauty & joy for a long time to come.
When partners come in for relationship therapy, just the act of being in the room together & engaging in meaningful conversation can start the process
of rejuvenation & re-energizing.
From
romance to the power struggle: the problem
It's no secret that sustaining love over the long haul is no easy task. Most of us long for the "in love" feeling that we had in the beginning stages of our courtship, but eventually the romantic feelings wear thin & we wonder how what started out feeling so good could turn into something that feels so bad.
How could this happen? Over time, it's not possible to continue putting our best foot forward. Eventually, the best
selves we were in the beginning of our romance give way to the true selves we really are, with all our warts, limitations & undeveloped, immature parts. The Jerry Seinfeld show plays with this truth as comedy & helps us to laugh at our
selfish, darker tendencies.
In one episode, Seinfeld has recently ended a relationship & observes the selfishness
of his friend, George. He tells George, with shocked realization, "I'm just a child. You're just a child. We are 30 years
old, but we are children!"
It's upsetting to realize & acknowledge our own limitations. But it's almost more horrifying to see our partner’s warts & our partner is equally horrified by ours. The realization
that our partner is so limited & has such warts plunges us into a power struggle. Once this struggle begins, we experience our partner, not as the lover & friend we'd hoped to find, but as the enemy we most feared.
Once we sense our partner as a source of danger & pain, rather than a source of pleasure, we go into "old brain"
mode, angrily trying to get our needs met, or coldly constricting ourselves to remain safe & untouchable.
An
attempt at solution
How do we turn this situation around? Our natural tendency is to try to turn it around by whatever methods we used as a child to help us manage
our fears, frustrations & vulnerabilities. Simply put, we do with our
partners what we learned to do with our primary caretakers.
i.e., maybe we had a mother or father who suffered from depression & we learned that it was our role to cheer them up. We become "Daddy’s little sunshine, or Mommy’s little clown." We become very skilled at tuning
into our parents’ moods so that we can please them.
We develop an adaptation as a pleaser, always cheerful, always joking. In later life, we tend to form romantic attachments to our "Imago match," that person who is similar enough to our parents that we feel comfortable & can assume a familiar role.
In this case, it's likely that we'll feel most comfortable with someone who is somewhat distant & depressed so that we can cheer him or her up. Eventually though, our partner will complain of our incessant joking around &
we'll complain of our partner’s incessant down mood.
In an attempt to solve the problem, we up the ante by doing even more of what we naturally do. Our partner is depressed & feels disconnected. We joke around even harder. What we try to do to solve the problem BECOMES the problem!
As another example, perhaps we learned that when our parents were fighting, our pain & fear lessened once we got out of the house & played outside. We learned that by getting away & taking care of ourselves, we felt better.
"Getting away" becomes our adaptive style.
The fascinating thing about relationships is that
the person who tends to adapt by getting away & being self sufficient tends to fall in love with a person whose adaptive style is to "get in there" & fight for relational connection. I call this the orchid / cactus relationship.
The cactus manages very well with distance. The orchid thrives by symbiosis. During the romantic phase, a cactus loves the closeness attained by having the beautiful orchid care for him & the orchid admires the ability of the cactus to be so self sufficient.
This works for a while, until the orchid starts complaining about how the cactus never seems to need anything & is too emotionally distant. The cactus doesn’t understand.
He believes he's just being a good cactus, as always.
The power struggle begins: the criticisms intensify & the cactus fears his lovely orchid is about to suck the life out of him. He plays his strongest game: the spines get sharper to ward her
off & he goes off on his own to play (or
work) outside.
This tactic works for the cactus. It just doesn’t work for the orchid, who of course, tries to wrap her roots
tighter. Once again, the strategy designed to solve the problem only makes it worse.
On a purely
individual level, we have learned what we need to do to make the pain stop. And what we do to preserve ourselves usually works or it at least it helped us
survive the wounds of our childhoods.
The biological imperative towards self-preservation is so strong that we'll do what we believe we must to stay alive. Based on our temperament, we developed our adaptive style, designed to keep us safe &
make our anxiety go away.
Just as in the animal kingdom, we use our best methods of defense. We get prickly like the porcupine, we bare our fangs, we withdraw into our shell like the turtle, we freeze
like a frightened deer, we cloud the situation by shooting ink into the water like an octopus, we roll over & play dead.
Male rats fight. The female rat, when under stress, will often fiercely protect the young or may go into "nesting overdrive," compulsively cleaning or grooming. You can probably think of other examples of how animals defend themselves when endangered & chances are, those methods can be found between two human beings.
Take a moment to think about it. You may be very clear on what method your partner uses & equally clear that it doesn’t help
you feel any closer to him or her. Now think again. What method do you use? Does it help your pain go away? Does it work with your partner?
Does that method open the door to healing & to understanding, or does it escalate the tensions?
Whatever method you use when under stress & we all have our methods, it's a strategy that's based on the prime imperative to stay alive. The fight / flight, freeze
/ submit pattern is hard wired into the human brain just as it's hard wired into the brains of reptiles & mammals.
In fact, brain researchers refer to our "old brain" as the reptilian & mammalian brains, because these parts
of the brain, or limbic system, serve basic survival functions similar to those of our animal cousins. The reptilian brain
is responsible for basic regulatory functions & the mammalian brain, is the seat of the primal emotions, fear, anger, reproductive urges & nurturance.
Once our partner becomes "the enemy" by behaving in hurtful ways, the old brain tells us we need to do whatever it takes to stay safe.
The attempt at solution makes our partner feel unsafe.
What is the good news about relationships?
The bad news about intimacy is that once we form an attachment to a partner, we are ultimately disappointed because we tend to choose partners who are limited in the very ways where we're most in need. Our unconscious tends to pick mates for us who, on the surface look good, but then under the surface wound
us in our most vulnerable places.
Our Imago match is the person with whom we have business. It's this person who can most rewound us because of the similarity
to our primary caretaker, but for the same reason, this person, when called to awaken, can also be our best healers. This
is the good
news, that if we can become conscious of our needs & the legitimate needs of our partners, we can become healers to each other instead of re-wounders.
How is this possible? Because of even more good news: as powerful as our limbic systems are in triggering our survival response to stress, we are much bigger than our limbic system.
What makes us different from our friends in the
animal kingdom is that we have a more complicated brain than theirs. Although when under stress, we may by-pass this part of our brain, we do also have a highly evolved neo-cortex, that part of the brain which is capable of complex thought sequences & creative problem solving, of internationality & of ethical, spiritual & moral behavior.
Thanks to our neo-cortex, there's hope for us in our relationships. If it makes sense to this part of the brain to do
something other than be reactive, we can learn to do the counter-intuitive thing. We don’t HAVE to go into fight / flight behavior, even though our limbic system is triggered.
To have a good relationship, we MUST mature into newer, more highly evolved forms of behavior. We can slow down our
reactivity, go from the back of our heads to the front of our heads. As Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. states in his book, Getting
the The Love You Want, conflict can be understood as "growth trying
to happen."
We are reactive to our partners because they want something from us we don’t know how to give. We must learn to give it.
To be safe in a long
term relationship with a partner, we must make a commitment to being a safe person for our partners.
We must end blaming & criticism, because it doesn’t work. Although we can't change our basic temperaments, we most certainly can stop behaviors which cause pain to our partners.
We truly only get the love we want, reality love, when we stop doing what we’ve always thought we needed to do to stay alive & learn to do something else instead. We must stop being selfish & immature, like
George, Jerry & Elaine & grow into more conscious, intentional, respectful partners.
The only thing that really heals relationship pain is heartfelt, empathic acknowledgment of the other & a willingness to change hurtful behaviors into healing behaviors. Nothing else works. As we practice what Dr Hendrix calls "stretching behaviors,"
those behaviors that may go against our natural tendencies, but are what our partners need to experience healing, we also reclaim a part of ourselves that was cut off long ago, the part that couldn’t
exist or never developed in our childhoods.
How does Imago therapy help?
A major assumption of Imago Relationship
Therapy is that the psychological purpose of marriage is to provide a context for the healing of childhood wounds & the
growth / expansion of the human spirit. At its best, marriage provides us with a secure emotional attachment, gives us someone to turn to at the end of the day, strengthens our identity as a lovable worthwhile person & gives a reason to continue growing & becoming more competent in the world.
We've chosen our Imago match to help us with these psychological tasks. To quote Harville again, "romantic love is nature’s way of getting us attached to an incompatible person so that we'll do the healing & growing we need to do." Romantic love is supposed to end, but so is the power struggle.
When we successfully work thru the issues in the
power struggle, we form a more organic bond, based on respect, maturity & valuing of our partner. "Reality love is romantic love transformed by wisdom & experience."
Imago therapy helps by creating a safe space
for couples to bring their hurts & frustrations. Couples are coached in a skill-the Intentional Dialogue - for communicating to each other their deepest concerns & they're given a structure for how to divide attention so that both parties have a chance to be fully heard.
Imago therapy helps by giving insight into why certain frustrations are so hurtful, given their linkages to childhood pain & by giving partners a way to understand each other & a motivation to change behaviors based on a combination of compassion & self interest.
Does it
work?
Can a cactus ever learn to like closeness & can an orchid ever learn to be self sustaining? The idea isn't to change the cactus into a different kind of plant, or the orchid either. But it's definitely possible for the two plant
forms to live in close proximity to each other without threatening each other’s lives & causing pain.
If these two plants sought therapy to improve their relationship & really basically liked each other, wonderful possibilities exist. The cactus
can soften its spines & not be so damaging to the orchid’s petals. The orchid can loosen it’s parasitic grip
& develop ways of being self sustaining.
Like anything else in life, Imago therapy works to the extent that both parties are committed to the process. Also, like anything else in life, there's no easy fix. However, I can honestly say after 10 years of being an Imago therapist, I've seen miracle transformations take place once a couple brings
their full energy to the therapy.
Sometimes, a partner will get clarity that the commitment just isn’t there. I'd say this is a case of the therapy working by clarifying long standing ambivalence & allowing separation to take place with less rancor than would be there otherwise.
This outcome is one scenario. My experience is that, if a couple is basically well intended toward each other, a tremendous amount of healing & growth can take place. These couples are successful in clarifying the source of their frustrations, learning to communicate their deep needs to each other in a way that they can be addressed, establishing a well endowed "relationship bank account,"
appreciating each person’s unique strengths, accepting each other’s foibles & creating bonds of trust, security & pleasure that will carry
them thru a life time.
When a couple leaves my office smiling, crying, laughing, playful,
impish, fully alive & "juicy" in each other’s presence, then I can take pleasure that our work together has been
successful. I can say "next" to the
new couple in the waiting room with a bit more hope in my heart.
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children,
teens, women, men, seniors, teachers, managers, employees, policemen &
even a city - demoralized....
Disaster Recovery in Real Time:
Report From Ground Zero
We share lessons
learned by New York City & state government & education agencies as they fought back to restore services in the aftermath
of Sept. 11.
I am a native New Yorker & Sept. 11 changed my life forever. At various times in my career, I have worked on the 100th floors of both World Trade Center towers. My wife, who was
home on maternity leave, worked on the 61st floor of 1 World Trade Center & lost one of her colleagues that day.
I woke up the morning of Sept. 11 in a hotel in southern
Florida, preparing to visit several clients. I was a little early for my breakfast meeting, so I turned on the "Today" show.
NBC had just gotten word that a plane had hit 1 World Trade Center. I immediately called my wife in New York to see if she
was okay & we began to plan how I was going to get home.
It took 4 days, but I finally
made my way home by train. As I arrived at Penn Station early on Saturday morning, 15 September, I saw what looked like a demoralized city. Soldiers were walking around in combat fatigues, posters seeking information
about missing loved ones were everywhere & everyone appeared to be in a daze.
click here to read the remainder
of the article....
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