Psychology Research

This quasi-facetious title is meant to highlight something essential to understanding childhood. Namely, that–more than anything else–what distinguishes children from adults is in their ability to control impulses. Put simply, the younger the child, the less developed the ability; the older, the greater the ability. And when the child eventually becomes an adult, presumably this capability has been more or less mastered. Fundamentally, civilizing or socializing children depends on the capacity of our institutions (particularly that of family and school) to teach them to curb or eradicate many of the behaviors deeply embedded in them. If, ultimately, they’re to function adequately in society, what–universally–is natural for them needs to be almost completely subdued. It’s almost mandatory that their original “biological scripts” be rewritten. If, specifically, they’re to fit in with others and, more generally, into society at large, they just can’t continue to do what their inborn nature might dictate. That is, from within the mind of a young child, if something is wanted it ought to be pursued–and immediately , too (and, further, with little or no regard for consequences). Additionally, if something is keenly felt , it should be acted out at once. So when angry, hit or scream. When sad, cry. When afraid, run or hide. When disgusted, make a face. Such impulsive acting-out is nothing more than being true to our inborn nature. In this respect, impulse and instinct are virtually inseparable. But unfortunately, we all learn over time that doing what comes naturally is, typically, not in our best interests, nor is it acceptable to the world around us. Well-adjusted behaviors–vs. developmentally normal but pragmatically “disordered” behaviors- -necessitate all sorts of self-imposed restraints (call them, if you will, “inner checks and balances”). So impulsive behavior, while it may be totally natural and reflective of where, in a sense, we should be at any particular stage of development, is nonetheless neither safe nor healthy for us–or even appropriate in helping us negotiate the difficult process of finding our proper place in society. And though our impulsiveness may to varying degrees be tolerated by our parents, it still needs to be taken charge of–or reined in–by them. If not, how will we avoid ultimately being rejected by those around us? After all, by definition unruly children don’t play by the rules. And generally they don’t share as much as they’re “supposed to” either. Nor are they very adept at suppressing their aggressive tendencies–or restraining or disciplining themselves. It’s simply not part of who they are. Again, impulsive behavior is innate–wired into us at birth. It can be seen as the pre-installed software that enables our organism to function. And since it’s how we’re “made,” it’s certainly nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about. The problem is that such impulsivity is primitive. It optimizes our chances of survival–but far more in the wild than in civilization. And this is exactly why, in the context of modern society, it warrants being viewed as dysfunctional, or “disordered.” For such impulsivity, pre-programmed as it is for another time and place, is precisely what gets in the way of our becoming fully socialized. If, finally, we’re to get along in the world, we have no choice but to adapt to what the world requires of us. And so, contrary to how we’ve been “constructed,” our unwary impulsivity needs systematically to be disciplined out of us. In fact, responsible parenting literally demands that parents bring this impulsivity under control–that they teach us to regulate (if not outright repress) it by correcting us almost every time we follow our internal dictates (i.e., what we’d do “naturally” if not subject to others’ reactions). For example, the constitutional inclination to cry or strike out when someone hurts us is automatic . . . until we’re motivated–through external conditioning–to inhibit such expression. Kids with ADHD represent a case in point here. Their marked inability to control their impulses can wreak havoc both on themselves and their relationships, as well as cause all sorts of problems for others, both at home and school (and anywhere else their wayward impulses might take them). Without malicious intent, their behaviors can easily end up being “anti-social–for example, heedlessly expressing their creativity through graffiti; or acting in public in rowdy, obstreperous, or otherwise obnoxious ways; or even punching out someone who’s just said something upsetting to them. In consequence, if such children are ever going to fit it (not to say, thrive), they’ll require an inordinate amount of parental training and discipline, and be subject to all kinds of behavioral modification. And if all this external regulation still fails sufficiently to reduce their maladaptive behaviors, they’ll also need to be put on medication–all in the expanded effort to bring their behavior up to acceptable childhood standards. But even these standards, though far more adaptive and age-appropriate, aren’t adequate to enable children to meet the demands that society will one day make on them. So all parents, if they’re to be responsible, need to set firm limits on their children when they’re behaving impulsively. And this impulsivity can include acting foolishly, imprudently, gullibly, mindlessly, rashly, and (as is so frequently the case with ADHD children) recklessly as well. Moreover, it’s only right that parents exert such authority. For unless their child’s impulsive, unrestrained behavior is brought under control, that child will have problems making (and keeping) friends, experience difficulty in applying themselves to anything that doesn’t “capture” their attention, will repeatedly antagonize others (most notably their parents–thus weakening this all-important attachment bond), and so on and so on.   Note: Part 2 of this post will deal with (1) how all addictive behavior–in the addict’s inability to control strong, though self-defeating, impulses–warrants understanding as a regression to (or fixation in) childhood; and (2) why it’s essential that parents learn to be as compassionate as possible when their children act impulsively.  

The first part of this post described how we make movies in our heads starring the people we love and how our movie scenes are destined to become more negative over time, irrespective of actual behavior. This post describes how our internal movies control the way we regard loved ones and the way they regard us. Guy Flicks If the role he writes for his partner in his internal movies is sympathetic and supportive, he will expose his deepest vulnerabilities to her, which he must do if he wants more intimacy. He will understand if she is too busy or distracted to be focused on sympathy whenever he seeks it. If he casts her as accepting, he will overlook occasional rejections in the rush of daily routine. He will sense opportunities for closeness and benefit from them. If he writes her role as moody, controlling, or rejecting, he is likely to be emotionally withholding, disengaging, and focused on his own preferences, desires, and emotional states. Chick Flicks If she casts him as a friendly, caring, generous, successful, and creative, she will believe in him and focus on building their future. She will be less judgmental about the momentary lapses of a creative person who tends to live in his head. She will complement his “big picture” mentality with her natural strength – attention to detail. If she sees him as desiring closeness, she will feel flattered and strive to be more open to his gestures of affection and more sympathetic to his self-disclosures. If she casts him as self-centered, she will be less likely to confide in him and apt to manipulate him, due to her low expectation of fair or caring responses from him. If she casts him as self-pitying, she will not accept his offers of love. Always in Character The negatively-biased illusion of certainty in our internal movies is bound to grow stronger, due to a largely unconscious process of character identification . Social contagion is a powerful force by which attitudes, emotions, and behavioral impulses are imparted subliminally. In social interactions, for instance, we tend to identify with the characterizations that other people make of us. If someone thinks you are critical, you are likely to find something to criticize about that person. If you live with someone who believes you are lazy, you won’t be terribly motivated to mow the lawn. So it is unsurprising that, in response to her husband’s internal movie, the woman described above has become more controlling, unreasonable, and angry and that, in response to her internal movie, he has become more selfish, passive-aggressive, irresponsible, etc. Like good actors with strong directors, they each play the role the other has created. Their solutions are reduced to: “I’ll stop being irritable when you stop being selfish.” “I’ll stop being selfish when you stop being irritable.” Action won’t Change before Characterization As long as their negative characterizations of each other persist, couples have little hope of improving their relationships. If they go along with the other’s requests for behavior change, they will view it as merely placating an unfair partner to move the plot of the movie along. I have never seen a case where changes in behavior alone changed the negative internal movies that govern the couple’s interactions. In the next post, we’ll explore how to edit the movies in your head for more benign, realistic, and compassionate characterizations.

Not long ago, I had a meeting with an undergraduate from a large lecture course. It was the first time I had spoken with her outside of class, and she asked me what type of research I conduct. When I told her, she responded by saying that my work reminded her of a presentation she sat through during freshman orientation–a presentation concerning psychological perspectives on diversity conducted by two faculty members. From that point forward, our conversation took a surprising turn: Me: “Right, I was one of those presenters.” Student: “No, there was a Black professor and a White professor, but the White guy was someone else.” Me: “Actually, that was me. Professor Maddox and I conduct diversit workshops, including that one at freshman orientation.” Student: “It was Professor Maddox, but the White professor was another guy.” I gave up at that point. I refrained from pulling out my daily planner to show her the date in question with “DIVERSITY WORKSHOP” written in big, capital letters. Of course, even if I had, she probably would’ve suggested that my calendar referred to a different workshop. Or perhaps that it was a blatant forgery. It seems like such an easy thing to do, to recall a person you saw weeks, days, or even hours earlier. Indeed, in the legal domain there are few types of evidence that a jury finds more persuasive than the eyewitness who can take the stand and point directly at the defendant while stating, “absolutely, that’s the man I saw.” But I just returned from the annual convention of the American Psychology-Law Society , where research presentation after research presentation demonstrated how surprisingly inaccurate and malleable eyewitness evidence can be. And the consequences for crime suspects as well as victims are far greater than the marginal ego blow suffered by the unrecognized professor who learns that he apparently nothing more than an average-looking, generic White guy. Consider, for example, the recent spate of cases in which falsely convicted individuals have been freed after years in prison because DNA analysis has now demonstrated their innocence. The legal non-profit Innocence Project has documented and assisted with more than 200 such exonerations in the past 15 years. In over 75% of these cases, at least one eyewitness had testified against the defendant in the original trial. That is, in more than three-quarters of these mistaken convictions, an eyewitness mistakenly fingered the wrong suspect and helped send him to prison. A striking example of the limitations of eyewitness memory is told in the new new book Picking Cotton . Years ago, Jennifer Thompson was raped in her apartment at knifepoint. During the assault, she somehow had the presence of mind to study her assailant’s face. She would later help police come up with a composite sketch of the suspect, and when a tip led to the arrest of a man named Ronald Cotton, Thompson positively identified him. She was “100% sure” that this was the man who raped her. After serving 11 years in prison for the crime, a DNA test proved that Cotton was absolutely not that man. Picking Cotton serves as but one example of the limitations of eyewitness memory, but the end of this particular tale is particularly amazing. You see, the book is written by Thompson and Cotton ( left ). Together. Now co-authors, the mistaken eyewitness and the falsely convicted man travel around the country giving talks to spread the word about wrongful convictions and seeking reforms to eyewitness identification procedures to prevent future miscarriages of justice. Why is being an eyewitness so deceptively difficult? Researchers have identified two sets of factors that contribute to mistaken identifications. The first are estimator variables. These are characteristics of the actual scene that impair an eyewitness’ memory encoding.  Like how far away the culprit is from the witness, how poor the lighting is at the scene, the fear and other emotional reactions experienced by witnesses as a crime is ongoing… these and other estimator factors contribute to eyewitness difficulties. But perhaps more surprising to many laypeople is the important role played by system variables in the performance of eyewitnesses. These are factors under the control of the legal system, of the police who investigate crimes. For example, whether a lineup is conducted using photos or actual people, how “fillers” are chosen for this lineup, what instructions eyewitnesses are given during the lineup, and many, many other considerations have a powerful effect on witness accuracy, as demonstrated by decades of research by psychologists like Gary Wells at Iowa State University. What to do, then? Psychologists can offer said system many research-based suggestions for reform. As just one example, a leading cause of false identification is that eyewitnesses often react to a lineup the same way students do to a multiple choice test–they pick the best answer among the available alternatives. This process of relative judgment may pay dividends on the SAT, but it leads to serious problems in the legal setting, especially when the true culprit isn’t part of the lineup. This can be avoided by showing photos to the eyewitness one at a time as opposed to all at once. With such sequential presentation, witnesses can’t use the same strategy of process of elimination that they do with simultaneous lineups. Another effective safeguard is a simple instruction to a witness that the culprit “may or may not” be in the lineup. I’ve just scratched the surface of this issue. There is a wide range of factors that contribute to mistaken eyewitness identifications, and a similarly broad catalog of potential reforms to consider in the effort to curtail the phenomenon. But education plays an important role as well–after all, every single citizen is a potential future juror. Now, by no means am I suggesting that eyewitness memories should be dismissed or discounted; to do so would render some crimes essentially unprosecutable. But neither is it reasonable to treat eyewitness identifications as flawless, irreftuable evidence, as many of us tend to do when seated on juries. So it’s worth bearing in mind that the challenge of remembering the faces of those around us is not as easy as we often think it is, as my office experiences with my former student made quite clear. Of course, you might suggest that it’s one thing to try to remember where you’ve seen a professor before, but it’s another altogether to remember the face of someone from a crime scene. I agree wholeheartedly. If we can make memory mistakes for people we see during daily interactions, then just imagine the potential for error when you add into the mix the limited exposure times, adrenaline, fear for safety, and surprise that burden many an eyewitness to actual crimes.

Now that you’ve gained some familiarity with the first two proven strategies, it’s time to introduce the third strategy, which will help you bring all your awareness together in a way that you take positive action that will help you build the muscle to stop overshopping and start getting what it is that you’re really shopping for. Proven Strategy #3: Instead of shopping, tailor-make alternatives. Tailor-made alternatives are an important strategy for eliminating overshopping, a defense for when the urge is sharp and strong. A tailor-made alternative is an activity you prepare ahead of time to do instead of shopping, an activity carefully chosen to address your authentic needs. The process works on several levels. Do something instead of shopping and you’re taking control of your life and your habit. Do something instead of shopping and you’ll probably find that the urge has dissipated. And every time you do this, you reinforce your power to resist subsequent urges. To use this strategy successfully, however, you must choose or discover or invent tailor-made alternatives that genuinely address your needs, for when you do that you are strengthening the disconnect between those needs and shopping. Perhaps, for example, you overshop out of a craving for the easy personal attention of salespeople, the ready rapport available, buyer and seller joined (if only briefly) in transaction. Underneath this urge, in all probability, is loneliness, the feeling of being unconnected, not belonging, not engaged enough with other people in a way you find meaningful. Instead of shopping, you might choose to sit with and pet a beloved animal. You might call someone you feel close to and meet for coffee or a movie or conversation. You might volunteer your help or expertise, since what we get back when we do this is a feeling of connection. You might even choose some comforting way to connect with yourself, maybe a bath with bubbles and scent and candlelight and soft music. Now that you’ve thought about and listed your triggering emotions and authentic, underlying needs in Part I of this blog, start to think about tailor-made alternatives that meet those needs. These are activities that you will do instead of shopping. Be sure that each contributes to the genuine fulfillment of your specific, important, authentic needs. Take your time with this list and bring all your creativity to it. Triggering        Authentic             Tailor-made Emotion            Need                  Alternative ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________ ________       ________        _________________________________   Keep in mind : These three strategies outlined may appear simple on the surface, but each is a powerful new way of addressing your overshopping problem. Don’t be surprised if you try one and discover it may take some time to succeed. Overcoming a long-term destructive habit doesn’t happen overnight; it takes commitment and daily attention. Be patient with yourself, congratulate yourself for every step in the right direction, and above all, resist any tendency to judge yourself for the inevitable occasional step backward. What to Expect as You Stop Overshopping As you stop overshopping, you might feel worse before you feel better. The feelings that you’re trying to handle by buying can well up because you’re no longer anesthetized or distracted from them by your buying behavior. Be ready for this; having solid strategies for riding out those intense initial feelings is crucial. As you continue to resist the shopping impulse and begin to practice healthier ways of dealing with your feelings, the intensity of the difficult feelings will lessen and your power to resist overshopping will grow. The change you are making is a significant one-you wouldn’t be struggling with it if it weren’t-and anxiety always accompanies major change. Diffuse that anxiety by focusing on your new tools and strategies and by visualizing what you’ll gain: self-control, self-esteem, better relationships, relief from debt and shame and secrecy, and a general feeling of being grounded and competent. If the compulsion to shop is so strong that you can’t follow through on the strategies outlined above or if you want even more strategies and tools, you might want to consult To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop and Shopping Journals . We also offer group coaching to complete the work of the program. I wish you much success in stopping overshopping, and to moving from mindless buying to mindful being.

Archeologists occasionally dig up strange artifacts that make no sense. Carefully crafted in gold or silver, they obviously served some significant purpose but what was it? You can see many such relics in museums labeled religious totem or sexual fetish…a good guess but who really knows? And if you think about it, how many equally strange beliefs and traditions do you suppose went along with those artifacts? Perhaps that’s part of being human…doing dumb stuff. Even today, we maintain lots of weird ideas and insist on counterproductive practices. For example, why doesn’t the United States get on the ball and adopt the metric system? There was an attempt thirty or so years ago when, I suspect, some government official’s brother-in-law was in the highway sign business because I recall not being able to drive ten feet without seeing a posting for the next town in both miles and kilometers. Said brother-in-law must have either gone out of business or – more likely – retired on all the federal funding he received because one day all the signs were gone. The nation didn’t go metric except for just a few exceptions. Because liters are smaller than quarts, all the wineries converted to the less-bang-for-the-same-buck packaging. Soft drink companies then followed suit. So here we sit, an industrial nation in the 21st Century, clinging to a 12-inch foot based on some dead king’s shoe size while rejecting a system of weights and measures that makes sense and can be taught even to dummies in about half an hour. And here’s another example: How many times have you seen a row of clocks in a travel agency set for New York, London and Tokyo? So what good are they if they don’t tell morning from afternoon? As it happens, I just got back from Australia and my watch is still on Sydney time but I don’t know if it’s AM or PM. I once phoned a guy at what I erroneously thought was 3:00 PM and he hasn’t spoken to me since. So how difficult would it be to convert to a 24-hour clock? But now for an even bigger mystery: How many minutes will you spend on a plane if you fly from 3:55 in the afternoon until 10:30 at night? The reason that the answer isn’t readily apparent is because somebody somewhere decided that time should be divided into units of twelve. Why, when we have ten fingers and ten toes and have spent tens of thousands of years thinking in terms of tens, should this be? Why not take one complete rotation of the Earth and divide it into a thousand units with a hundred of those hours and a hundred of those minutes and a hundred of those seconds? How do you think we wound up with the length of the meter? The distance from the equator to the pole was put down and then divided by ten again and again. This would, in one fell swoop, eliminate the need for AM/PM and make computing the number of minutes you’re going to have to spend on a plane as simple as making change for a dollar. Look At It This Way Just think about Daylight Saving…pushing and pulling all your clocks back and forth every six months. Despite all the talk about being good for farmers, it isn’t. They operate according to the sun and couldn’t care less what time you say it is. Ditto for just about every other group that’s supposed to gain some benefit from making believe their watch is an hour off. This is almost as archaic a notion as when the Pope – who’s infallible in case you didn’t know – insisted that the Sun goes around the Earth and not vice versa. I read the other day about how it was possible to go through eight time changes driving through certain towns between the western boarder of Illinois and Ohio’s eastern edge. Isn’t it time we gave up such nonsense? What are future archeologists going to think of a civilization that sported a 12-hour Rolex on a 24-hour planet?      

I didn’t long for a baby who melted into me, who captured my hair between her soft fingers. I longed to be the type of woman who did. It seemed as though this trait were woven into my biology as much as the fair skin and curly hair. As a child I played with dolls, but didn’t fantasize about a real baby I could love, or dream of pregnancy the way some girls do. I never stuck a pillow beneath my dress to pretend I was having a baby. It scared me even then the whole idea of someone growing inside me, and having to push that little person out from between my skinny legs. The girls I played with shriveled their noses at me, then blithely offered to have the baby for me. Babies, with their hands like rose petals and their toes like creamy pebbles, were natural. My lack of maternal instinct was not. The truth is I’d always wanted to adopt. However, I never wanted to adopt a baby. Not that I have anything against babies (I don’t!). But when I spoke of adoption, the words baby, infant and birthmother were never used. I was more interested in adopting someone a bit older, a toddler or – gulp – a child. When my husband and I eventually did adopt, we went further than that. Our daughters were 10 and 13 (almost 11 and 14, actually) when we got them from a Russian detsky dom , children’s home: orphanage in 1999. A teen and a ‘tween–they were, indeed, not babies. Yet from the moment I saw them, during their brief stay as part of a dance troupe sponsored by the adoption agency, I wanted these grown children as much as any mother wants the unborn babies who swim silently in her womb. I don’t see adoption as better or worse than having biological children, stepchildren, foster children or no children at all. I do, however, see it as a different spin in the cycle of family. But I won’t go around saying you should think about adoption the way people (often) tell women they should think about having a baby because biological clocks run out and you’re not getting any younger . I think often about how I made adoption real, but I’m interested in all the people who do real – ancestral lines from the past and future – and the relationships we share with one another. Which makes Adoption Stories for all of us. If you’re adopted or have adopted, if you don’t understand why anyone would want to adopt-or why anyone wouldn’t. If you longed for a baby or didn’t.    

If scientists ever come up with a physics of the psyche, one of its first axioms might be the above title. We humans crave stimulation, and on many different levels. To experience ourselves as fully alive, we all have various “arousal requirements”-whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. And if we feel under-stimulated, we’ll generally complain of being bored, antsy, anxious, irritable, lonely, or even depressed. This post explores some of the less fortunate ramifications of our constant need for stimulation. Perhaps more than anything else, our arousal needs–and the negative emotions and states of mind we experience when these needs aren’t being met–can interfere with our better judgment. People who suffer accidents and injuries, for example, frequently do so because their personal arousal requirements compel them to take risks ranging from the not-entirely-prudent to the foolhardy or downright reckless. Others may join religious cults or fringe organizations because they’re frantically searching for a more fulfilling, spiritual life–but don’t really know where to turn. Their need to fit in somewhere , to fill the internal void of un-relatedness, drives them (at times, quite indiscriminately) to put their faith in an ideology, or charismatic leader, that can easily lead them astray. Since as a therapist I typically focus more on mental/emotional problems than physical or spiritual ones, I’ve become acutely aware of how experiencing an inner vacuum can lead people to make poor life choices, especially in relationships. Many people I’ve worked with who’ve gotten into bad or inappropriate relationships did so because at the time they felt alone, abandoned, or rejected. Consequently, they experienced an overwhelming need to prove to themselves they were still lovable. Perhaps they’d been having problems dating, or recently “loved and lost,” or maybe gone through a painfully one-sided divorce, which they’d strenuously sought to avert. Anxious to escape intolerable feelings of emptiness–the emptiness of loneliness or desertion–they rushed to embrace (as it were) the first person that came along. Unable to simply allow themselves to fully experience their disappointment, or grieve their loss, they propelled themselves headlong into a new relationship–one which they weren’t at all ready for. Additionally, they may have feared going within themselves (or, for that matter, eliciting professional help) to learn just why their relationship had gone sour. Feeling hollow, desolate and forsaken–and without the ability to self-soothe –they hastily paired up with the first available person they could find. It reminds me a little of the lyrics to B. J. Thomas’ song, “No Love at All,” in which he opines: “A little bit of love is better than no love/Even a bad love is better than no love/And even a sad love is better than no love at all.” In fact, in the mind of an individual unable to tolerate the emotional vacuum of dis-connectedness, it must certainly feel that almost anything is better than the unnerving void of being alone. But I myself would argue that if you can develop a secure, nurturing relationship with yourself , you’re in a much better position to “stabilize” your thoughts and feelings after a failed relationship and patiently wait for the right person. To me, such an alternative is far preferable to making any person the “right” person simply because he or she can immediately fill what is “abhorred” as an unbearable vacuum. Finally, the vacuum that some people strive so assiduously to avoid is really a “vacuum of self.” When we’re not enough for ourselves (i.e., can’t somehow fill our own vacuum), we can’t help but focus our attention on what we can import into ourselves to feel more whole and complete. Another PT blogger, Robert W. Firestone, recently made a similar point in a post entitled Emotional Hunger Vs. Love . As he put it, emotional hunger is the “pain and longing which people often act out in a desperate attempt to fill a void or emptiness.” When people precipitantly get into unhealthy relationships, it’s almost always to keep at bay some inner void they only vaguely understand. But to try to get from without what we haven’t yet learned to give ourselves from within is almost always an exercise in futility. Of course, there’s nothing wrong in striving to fulfill ourselves by pursuing people and things that might offer us what–personally–will afford us just the right degree of stimulation. As I stated earlier, although what is an optimal degree of stimulation varies with the individual, the basic need for such arousal is universal. And it’s certainly worthy of respect. But we still need to carefully monitor our behavior to ensure that our requirement for stimulation doesn’t ultimately end up jeopardizing our health or peace of mind. In instances where our best judgment is not available, we ought at least to confide in someone who cares about us as to whether we might possibly be getting ourselves into something questionable. Are we perhaps on the verge of making a decision that hasn’t really been thought out? that may be wrong-headed, or foolish? Many people I’ve worked with have told me that before they made what, ultimately, was a disastrous decision, friends and relatives had already warned them against it. So it’s not simply a matter of informing others about what you may be planning to do, but listening painstakingly to their feedback–whether it’s welcome or not. I’d caution anyone on the brink of acting impulsively to stop, reflect, and speak to people they trust before giving themselves final permission to embark on such a venture, or commit to such a relationship. Although it may be true that our need to fill a vacuum can productively direct our behaviors, it can also end up seriously threatening our welfare. To conclude, if you’re harboring some ambivalence about making a decision, most of the time it will be in your best interest not to until you’re able to resolve this ambivalence. At the very least, you might ask yourself the question, “Am I driven to do this because I’m desperate to fill a void inside me?” If the answer is “yes,” or “probably,” I’d suggest–before going any farther–that you talk to others. . . . Or, if at all possible, go within and consult your own wiser, more prudent self.

A great deal of couples work focuses on intimacy and sexuality or, more to the point, the lack and loss of it. In a recent post , I mentioned the differences in the way that men and women approach emotional connection and sexuality. A bit of reflection upon that model begs an exploration of the role of masculine and feminine archetypes in this, and how those constructs complement and conflict with socially defined gender roles. It’s no secret that there is what we might call a cycle of declination when it comes to sex in relationships. We typically start out hot and heavy; we can’t keep our hands off each other, grabbing a quicky, being adventurous, and trying new things, exploring each other and our limits. Fifteen years, a house, a dog, a mortgage, and a few kids in, most couples I talk with aren’t even sleeping in the same room. There are all sorts of reasons for this, questions often better left to experts on the subject , but the psychodynamics of this change tend to be expressed by couples in a fairly consistent fashion. Plainly put, women point to the emotionally unavailability of their partner, while men point to the sexual unavailability of theirs. Thumbnailing the content of the previous article : Men are, as a general rule, physical creatures. We are hunters and typically associate availability with proximity. There is no real magic or mystery in this; it is something that is hardwired into our DNA. Men are physical first — which in this case includes the sexual — and emotional second. The physical availability of a man’s partner for him points to emotional and sexual availability and, because this is in some ways assumed, it is something that men (quite mistakenly and often to our disadvantage) do not necessarily feel the need to communicate. Women, on the other hand, are contemplative creatures. They are the thread that holds the fabric of society together and, by nature, tend to think about the whole cloth, not just the part that they can see or touch. For women, physicality grows out of emotionality in that it is emotional availability that activates their physical, and by association sexual, natures. The bottom line is that women are more apt to show up physically and sexually when their partner is emotionally present, while men tend more to just show up, with their emotional presence being something of an afterthought. If we peel away the gender roles here and look at the manifestation of the masculine and feminine archetypes in terms of personality and social presentation, something interesting happens. We get a grey area. It is no longer that men are linear and women global or women are contemplative and men physical. What arises is an awareness of the delicate balance of social roles, gender roles and archetypal tendencies. To personalize it, my social presentation is very much what might be termed, for lack of a better idiom, androgynous. While on the one hand very much a "man’s man" – rugged, athletic, physical, good with power tools – I also possess a number of qualities that would typically be ascribed to the feminine archetype. Those qualities – compassion, creativity, sensitivity, a manner that is both gentle and gentile – are what allow me to be good at what I do, as a professional, as a partner and as a human being. Back to our point, for me a lack of emotional investment on the part of my partner is going to translate into a lack – or at least a diminution — of sexual investment on my part. I’m the "girl"! Seriously, the fragile balance evidenced here between overt personality and meta-personality makes the "I’m a guy – let’s have sex and I’ll love you later" dynamic a bit more subtle than it may first appear. On the other side of things, I have a very close friend who is quite the opposite. In our conversations, she expresses her frustration with her partners in that – while we are not, nor were we ever, partners – she tends to chose men like myself. She does this in a psycho-energetic attempt to balance her own personality/meta-personality structure (a different conversation/post) and then doesn’t understand what they are asking for or what they need from her. Very much a woman, the depth and breadth of her masculine archetype – and its evidence and manifestation – prompts her to be the "man" in a relationship. She is roundly emotionally unavailable, greatly lacks an understanding of intimacy and intimate expression, generally unexpressive and her sex play is very "male" – fast, genitally focused and narcissistic. Consequently, she will maintain a relationship long after the relationship itself – and her investment in that relationship – is over because the sex is good and despite her frustration with what she perceives to be her partner’s "neediness". There are two "take away" points here. The first is that there is a distinct and demonstrable difference in the way that men and women approach issues of intimacy, sexuality and emotionality that is clearly the engine for much of the conflict and tension we find in transgender interpersonal relationship. The second is that it’s not so cut and dried as it seems on the surface, and that warrants attention. Just because you encounter a man with a "big-tough-biker-dude" persona or, conversely, a woman with a soft, sophisticated "Upper-East-Side-debutante" persona don’t make assumptions about their interior landscape. You might find that, in their heart of hearts, your biker dude writes poetry and your debutante throws beer nuts at Monday Night Football. © 2009 Michael J. Formica, All Rights Reserved My Psychology Today Therapists Profile My Website Email Me Directly Telephone Consultations   © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. 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This post offers additional bulleted explanations to help account for the almost universal susceptibility to criticism. At the same time, it suggests ways to gradually become less sensitive to the negative judgment of others. • When we’re unfavorably evaluated or disagreed with, we can experience such discord almost as a put-down. Negatively sensitized to criticism, we may respond as though we were told (in so many words) that we were bad, ugly, or stupid. In such instances, the hurt child within us–never fully healed from the wound of early, and quite possibly excessive, parental criticism–is likely to bleed anew. And so we’re simply unable to listen objectively to the other person’s remarks, calmly appraise them, and respond accordingly. If their criticism pushes our buttons–and it can hardly be over-emphasized that it’s our child self that controls these buttons–we’re compelled to react far more emotionally than rationally. So if we’re ever to overcome this ultimately self-defeating habit of reacting emotionally–and negatively–at the first sign of another’s judging us, it’s crucial that we learn how to talk, compassionately and reassuringly, to this insecure child within us • Criticism, even well-intended criticism, can be understood as a direct assault on our ego. When (however unconsciously) we’ve come to associate our very selves with our ego or point of view, then whenever our perspective is questioned, disbelieved, or disputed, we cannot but experience ourselves in jeopardy–our mental and emotional poise at once thrown into disequilibrium. When this occurs, the right way of hitting our "reset button" is to remind ourselves that, regardless of whether we’ve said or done something wrong, we’re still fundamentally ok. The situation doesn’t really require us to defend ourselves because our self-acceptance doesn’t hinge on the other’s approval. And, finally, it is this essentially positive self-regard that can inoculate us against any and all negative appraisal. However, the kind of unconditional self-acceptance that alone can enable such a response frequently eludes us, so that what we typically do when criticized is attempt to regain our psychological balance (and the upper relational hand) by focusing all our attention on in validating the person who just judged us. Such a reaction is hardly the way toward personal evolution or growth, but may yet be irresistible in situations where our ego feels in peril. Additionally, for those of us who are particularly insecure about how others see them–and therefore sensitive to the slightest hint of criticism–even a well-meaning suggestion can feel threatening. For others’ suggestions can be perceived as a negative evaluation of how we’ve done something, as somehow casting doubt on the adequacy of our thinking or behavior. They can make us feel corrected or blamed–or that we’re being viewed as in some way deficient, whether in intelligence, discernment, principles, or anything else. It’s hard to take a simple suggestion at face value if self-doubts we still harbor about ourselves are never that far from the surface. • Finally, although the psychological literature does not appear to have recognized this, there may be something innate about reacting negatively to criticism. Just as our bodies when struck are hard-wired to immediately tighten up and take a resistant posture, our psyches seem similarly constructed to react defensively when we experience ourselves (or rather, our egos) as under assault. And I suspect that what happens to us physically, and bio-chemically, when we’re verbally attacked (or are experiencing the threat of such an attack) is almost identical to the way our bodies react when someone is throwing a punch at us. Experientially, that is, being verbally admonished, or reprimanded, may closely parallel being physically slapped, or assaulted. In fact, the actual language we employ when we feel criticized closely overlaps, or replicates, the language we adopt when we’re harmed physically. Which is to say that when we’re sharply criticized, we may portray our experience as having been "ambushed," "assailed," "bashed," "beat up," "blasted," "busted," "hit hard," "knocked for a loop," "lit into," "pounced on," "stabbed," and even "walloped." And virtually all the terms we employ when we’re being negatively judged suggest how very painful–subjectively–such an experience can be. In this respect, it’s hardly a coincidence that many medications for alleviating pain are known to have a positive effect not only on physical suffering but on depression as well (and vice versa). Despite this inborn vulnerability to criticism, however, if we can repeatedly tell ourselves that the subjective threat we’re experiencing is actually nothing more than a "perceptual illusion," in time we should be able to forestall the potential hurt of such criticism. Such a procedure for averting psychological pain is analogous to how, ideally, we might learn to better deal with life stressors–so that the kinds of situations that in the past might literally have given us headaches will no longer be able to doing so. Finally, no matter how understandable it may be that the great majority of us don’t take criticism particularly well, it’s still essential–if we’re to improve our relationships to others (to say nothing of our relationship to ourselves)–that we learn to transcend this negative knee-jerk reaction to others’ judgment. Many of my earlier posts, including those I’ve provided links to above, attempt to describe the personal work requisite to coping better with negative evaluations by others. Hopefully, these posts will be kept in mind as a resource–not just for the present post but for my next one as well, which will deal with the special difficulties in dealing with criticism from a spouse. In it I’ll try to explain why in families (as I like to put it) "blood may be thicker . . . but skin is thinner."   © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Stuck in the airport returning home from an emotionally exhausting day, tired and fighting an awful chest cold, my flight delayed to the wee hours of the morning, I stretched out on the seats in the waiting area with Randy Pausch’s book, "The Last Lecture." His lecture, his life, has some important messages regarding our goal pursuit. I had seen Randy’s lecture on YouTube , but not read the book. By the time I finished the book on the plane, I was in tears of course. I too am the father of very young children, and I’m older than Randy. His story touched on some of my deepest fears of loss. His story clearly speaks of time as a limited resource, something that 20-somethings rarely grasp, but by middle-age becomes painfully obvious to many people. As Randy puts it, "Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think" (p. 111). Randy, a self-admitted intensely focused person, understood the importance of time management long before his terminal cancer diagnosis. It is, as he called it, "one of my most appropriate fixations" (p. 108). He also was good at it, so he offered up advice from his experience that is worth sharing on this "Don’t Delay" blog. I have quoted each of his main tips below with an explanatory comment or example in parentheses after each, as necessary. Time must be explicitly managed, like money. You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. (Make manageable, concrete task lists and take one step after another.) Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? (Make sure your to-do-list tasks, your goals, are really worth pursuing.) Develop a good filing system. (Organization saves time in the long run.) Rethink the telephone. (Don’t waste time on "hold" – be prepared to do other things as you wait.) Delegate. (Many hands make light work, and everyone needs autonomy.) Take time out. (Everyone needs a break, and not all delay is procrastination.) Randy concludes his advice by writing, "Some of my time management tips are dead-on serious and some are a bit tongue-in-cheek. But I believe all of them are worth considering" (p. 111). So do I, particularly where he begins, "time must be explicitly managed" and where he ends, "Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think." Are you spending your time on the right things? Procrastination is the thief of time.   © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.