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The Pennsylvania Psychological Association's Public Information Newsletter

 Psychological News You Can Use


December 2012

Greetings,

 

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."
-- Anne Bradstreet

 

As another year draws to a close, we offer some wonderful articles to help you manage life's challenges.  Whether you are facing tense family gatherings, dealing with change, coping with shame or just managing everyday stress, this newsletter offers valuable tips. 

 

We wish you all the best at this year's end and in 2013!

  

Christina Carson-Sacco, Psy.D.
The Center for Neuropsychology & Counseling, PC
1243 Easton Road, Suite 203 Christine Carson-Sacco
Warrington, PA 18976


Quick Links
In This Issue
PPA Workplace Award
Going Home for the Holidays...
Ready for Change?
Stress-Busting Apps
Shame is a Vow Crusher

Nominate Your Company for PPA's Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award

Rachael L. Baturin, MPH, J.D.  

 

PPA's Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award is designed to recognize organizations for their efforts to foster employee health and well-being while enhancing organizational performance. This award acknowledges the efforts, tactics and systems that companies have used which result in the development and maintenance of healthy and supportive work environments.   

 

Candidates are evaluated on their workplace practices in the following areas: 

  • Employee Involvement
  • Health and Safety
  • Employee Growth and Development
  • Work-Life Balance
  • Employee Recognition 
                            Continued...

Pauline Wallin

  Going Home for        the Holidays is          Almost Like   Stepping Back in                 Time
  Pauline Wallin, Ph.D

 

Although everyone's older, and your former bedroom may now be used for other purposes, some things are the same - that creak on the fourth step; the old photos on the mantel; the smell of the basement, etc.

 

And you may notice that your behavior is reminiscent of your 10-year-old self as well. For example:

  • Your brother (now a father himself) grabs the TV remote and won't give it back. You get into a heated argument, to the point where your mom has to intervene.
  • Sis forgot to bring the folding chairs. Your dad shrugs it off, saying that they'll find some old lawn chairs in the garage. "Why does she always get a pass?" you mutter to yourself. "If that were me, everyone would be jumping down my throat."
  • At dinner, your mother asks you why you haven't called your grandmother in Florida. "Why are you always picking on me?" you snap back. "Why don't you ever ask my brother why he doesn't call Grandma?"

This is not how you behave in your day-to-day world. In fact, most people would probably describe you as kind, considerate and accommodating. It's only here, with your family, that you regress into a petulant child, bickering and arguing with your siblings over stupid stuff.

Continued...  

Marianne Herzog
Ready for Change?
Prepare Your Family
Marianne Herzog, Ph.D.

  

Each day, we are asked to make many small transitions. However, major transitions (new sibling, divorce, child leaving for college, school or job changes) can strain your family's ability to cope. Fortunately, there are specific things you can do to be prepared.

 

Healthy lifestyle choices can help you face transitions, both big and small, with flexibility and a positive attitude. The following changes can make a big difference:

 

1. Pay attention to basic needs for food and sleep. Children who are hungry are grumpy and have difficulty controlling their behavior. Sleep deprivation interferes with their ability to learn and to be cooperative. Adults, too, have mood swings, make poor decisions, and have difficulty calmly and patiently parenting when not eating and sleeping enough.

 

Tips for feeding your family:

  • Eat a healthy breakfast, so you have the energy to face the challenges of work and school.
  • Sustain everyone's energy and positive mood; always bring along healthy snacks!
  • Plan meals ahead of time. Don't wait until everyone is hungry to decide what to eat; bad mood and bad decisions will result!

Tips for helping you and your children sleep:

  • Maintain a consistent time for going to bed and waking up, including weekends, and follow the same routine every night. A fixed wake up time "sets" your body's clock so it knows when to sleep.
  • Ensure that your child is not drinking caffeine (check labels), and limit your intake.
  • No televisions in children's bedrooms (read, sing, or talk before sleep), or in yours!
2. Make time for relaxation each day

Try these exercises with your children:

  • Lie down with a small toy (or their hand) on their belly and watch the toy float up and down as s/he breathes in and out through their nose.
  • "Square breathing:" inhale to count of 4; hold for count of 4; exhale for count of 4; pause for count of 4, before taking next breath (reduce 4's to 3's, if too long.)
  • Starting with the face, tense the muscles, inhale and hold breath, release muscles and breathe out at same time, and say "relax and let go." Move on to neck, then shoulders, aims, hands and fingers, tummy, thighs, calves, feet and toes, working with one muscle group at a time.

For you:

 

The Relaxation/Healing Breath stimulates the "relaxation response." Do it twice daily, starting with 4 cycles. After two weeks, increase to 8 cycles. Place tongue so that the tip is resting on the ridge behind your top front teeth (keep it there).

  • Exhale completely through your mouth, making a blowing sound.
  • Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose, counting silently to 4.
  • Hold your breath for the count of 7.
  • Exhale (blowing sound) through your mouth to the count of 8.

Take time out to play, laugh, and connect with each other-find a balance between work and play.

Continued...

Joe Altobelli
Stress-Busting Apps 

Joe Altobelli, Psy.D

 

While advancements in technology have brought a wealth of information to our fingertips and enable us to reach around the world in seconds with a simple text message, we often find ourselves being overtaken by the same technological advancements that are designed to improve our lives. 

  

The advent of the smartphone has indeed brought us the benefits of having "the world in our hands" but it also contributes to our fast-paced, overly complicated lives. We take on too much and feel overwhelmed. With a pocketful of e-mail and the ability to work from any beach around the world, how do we know when the day is done? How do we know when to take a breath and call it a day? Fortunately, I'm sure there's an app for just such a question. In fact, there's an app for just about every occasion imaginable - even for reducing stress.

 

Below is an overview of a few different stress reduction approaches and apps to help get you started. Once you find a route that works for you, search your app store for other apps that will help you along your stress reduction journey.

  • Stress Check by AIIR Consulting is an app that helps you evaluate your stress level at different times of the day during different activities. It also gives you stress-busting exercises and relaxation tips and techniques. This app, and others like it such as Stress Tracker, is invaluable in the fight against stress as they force you to slow down and do a self-inventory, helping you become aware of your current stress level.
David Palmiter
Shame is a Vow Crusher 

David J. Palmiter Jr. Ph.D., ABPP


Many of us will soon make New Year's Resolutions. This article is designed to increase your odds of success. I'll review four planning steps and ten strategies for promoting success.

 

The first step in the planning phase is to visualize what you like about yourself. I'm skeptical that your self-improvement project can survive and thrive if you do not know and enjoy your strengths, not only at the start, but consistently throughout. I like a prayer that British psychologist Robert Holden recommends in one of his books: "Oh God, help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is.  Amen."

 

The second step is to picture yourself as the most fulfilled version of you. What is different about that person? What changes, that are under your control, could help get you there?

 

Third, list the obstacles you'll experience in taking this voyage. This is a step worthy of your most honest and thorough consideration.

 

Fourth, what steps can you take to reduce the obstacles and lessen your reliance on will power?

 

A problem that many of us run into is called "present bias." The person who we are when we make a resolution - present me - is steely eyed and filled with gritty resolve. However, present me may also be inclined to be harsh ("okay, you really need to stop being so weak!"), excessively ambitious ("I'm going to never yell again!") or inclined to invest in ways that aren't always helpful (e.g., purchasing expensive equipment or services). The problem is that present me is not the same person who will be doing the heavy lifting; that person is future me. If present me doesn't adequately understand future me's strengths and vulnerabilities, then present me is destined for disappointment.

 

Each of us are like snowflakes, completely unique. Thus, a strategy that helps another person make substantive changes could be a horrible idea for you. Use your world's leading expert knowledge of yourself to develop a plan that is supportive of future you. Use her strengths. Establish support for his vulnerabilities. Some of the following ten tips may help:

  

1. Set daily goals. Avoid goals like "I'm going to lose 30 pounds." Instead, try "today I'm going to eat a balanced diet and get 45 minutes of physical activity."

 

2. Keep a daily log of those behaviors that are most important to your goal(s). Many self-destructive behaviors occur when we only partially notice what we're doing. Writing stuff down increases the odds that you will remain self-aware and in the moment.

 

3. Join with others. Two things characterize those who are successful in setting aside self-limiting patterns: they work on themselves and they surround themselves with people who are doing the same. Relying on others could involve partnering with friends, starting counseling, or attending support group meetings.

 

3a. Ask your partners for help. Many people are willing to help your future self reach your present self's goals. All you need do is share your vulnerabilities and ask for ideas and/or assistance. For example, I know one pair of friends who committed to playing a rotating aerobic game before work each day. They rotated the role of cheerleader for those days when one or both of them was tempted to cancel.

                                                  Continued...

                              Sign up here to receive PPA's quarterly Newsletter: 

Psychological News You Can Use

 

Written by PPA psychologists for everyone interested in 

how psychology impacts their everyday life.

 

Topics include issues related to business, parenting, education, mental health treatments, forensic information, addictions, prison concerns, legislative events, and much more!

 

Firstarticle Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award...

 

Additional factors that are considered include employee attitudes and opinions, the role of communication in the organization and the benefits realized in terms of both employee health and well-being and organizational performance.

To nominate your company for a Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award you will need to  register your company by January 31, 2013. (https://www.phwa.org/app/login.php)  

 

When you register you will need to create a username and password so that you can link to the application. You will then be able to complete the PHWA application process.

If you have any questions regarding this award or the process, please feel free to contact Rachael Baturin, MPH, J.D., at 717-232-3817 or [email protected].  

 

Article1Going Home, continued... 

 

But it's not really about stupid stuff. It only seems that way.The surface bickering is triggered by old fears, insecurities and resentments that you acquired in childhood and never resolved.

 

Thus, for example, fighting over the TV remote is not really about the remote. It's about something deeper - maybe old feelings of competition with your brother. Similarly, your sister's "getting a pass" on forgetting the folding chairs might anger you because, as a child you may have felt overshadowed by her.

 

There's no formula for determining which behavior is attached to which childhood emotion. It's different for everyone, based on your unique experiences and perceptions as you were growing up. But one thing is for sure - you feel very little control over these emotions. They just seem to pop out of nowhere.

 

When old wounds from your childhood are re-activated, you experience a reaction so intense that you can feel it throughout your body. And the familiar childhood surroundings magnify everything.

 

 

4. Suddenly you're 10 again...or 7, or acting like it. Your rational self has been taken over by your inner brat - that primitive part of your mind that makes you say and do things that you later regret.

 

Unless you recognize what's happening, the situation can rapidly get worse. When you and your siblings start squabbling it's not just your inner brat that's involved. It's theirs, too. In a matter of seconds your inner brats are reacting to one another, escalating the conflict to an irrational fury.

 
It doesn't have to be this way.
 

Emotional conflicts that have a long history are not easily erased. However, you can minimize their effect on you when you get together with your family. Here are some tips:

  • Don't start dwelling in advance on how bad things are going to be at your family event. This only gives your inner brat a head start. Instead, remind yourself that you are choosing to go, and that it's time-limited. You've spent a few hours in difficult circumstances before, and you can do so again.
  • Practice simple relaxation skills such as slow, deep breathing or pleasant visualization. If you find yourself getting tense at the event, take a short time-out to relax and get yourself centered again. Relaxing your body automatically relaxes your mind, and you'll be better able to withstand others' bothersome behavior.
  • Mentally detach yourself from conflict. When your siblings act obnoxious or critical toward you, notice that such behavior reveals more about them than about you. Observe them, and see what happens when you don't engage.
  • Decide how you want to feel when you leave the family event. Do you want to leave calm and in control? Then conduct yourself in a composed manner throughout the event. Think of it as an acting job, staying in your best Academy-award role. It will take effort, and you won't get paid big Hollywood bucks. But instead of ending up feeling frustrated and angry, you'll leave more confident - which is a lot more satisfying than winning an argument.
Pauline Wallin, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Camp Hill, Pa., and author of the book, Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide for Transforming Self-defeating Behavior. Her Website is http://drwallin.com

 
Article2 Stress-Busting Apps, continued... 
  • Relax and Breathe2Relax are two simple apps that can help you reduce stress and relax by guiding you through deep and controlled breathing techniques.       

  • NatureSpace is an app that provides relaxing sounds found in nature. A few minutes with this app and a set of headphones, and your audio therapy has begun. A similar app is StillPoint, which combines nature sounds and tones to help induce relaxation.     

  • Simply Being is an app that provides guided meditation, walking you through a series of sessions designed to help you relax and unwind. Meditation is a similar app that lets you combine soundscapes to help aid in meditation.   

  • Simply Yoga and Pocket Yoga provide a variety of yoga routines that walk you through each pose, helping you improve your yoga abilities and de-stress your day.    

  • Office Harmony is the perfect workplace companion for managing stress on the job. It combines workplace exercises, relaxation techniques, and stress check breaks to help manage daily workplace stresses.    

  • Fluid Monkey, Zen Bound, TanZen, iZen Garden 2, Bubble Filler,
     and Pocket Pond are just a few of the many games and interactive apps available that provide entertaining ways to escape the fast-paced demands of everyday life. Give yourself a few minutes throughout the day to explore these and other interactive relaxation games.

While there's no avoiding the stress that comes with the ever-present expansion of technology, there are creative ways to use technology to help you combat it. Being more mindful and aware of your stress level, taking time to breathe and relax, building time into your day for yoga or meditation, and giving yourself permission to take a break and just have some fun may go a long way to help.

 

 

Joe Altobelli, Psy.D., has been providing psychotherapy for individuals and couples for more than 10 years and has a private practice in Ardmore, PA. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Chestnut Hill College. Visit his website at http://jaltobelli.com.

 

Article3

Ready for Change, continued...    

 

Facing the change or transition

  • Are you ready for the challenge? Think about how you generally approach changes and transitions. Consider new, more effective strategies, if necessary.
  • Make lifestyle changes that provide a foundation and can support you through transitions (sleep, rest, relaxation, nutrition, exercise, work-play balance).
  • Find your calm center while changes occur around you; focus on the present moment and breathe!
  • Ask for support, information and advice from others and trust your own judgment.

Helping your children be ready

 

Life changes or transitions can be looked at as opportunities for learning. Children can learn to:

  • Feel safe in new environments,
  • Trust the new people in their life,
  • Discover that new places and routines can be fun and exciting,
  • Feel competent in making the change successfully,
  • Enjoy problem-solving,
  • Become more flexible and resilient.

What to do

  • Discuss changes as early as possible; focus on being "ready" for starting something new.
  • Help your child think of it as a milestone, a new undertaking, or a reason to celebrate.
  • Encourage your child to talk about his/her feelings.
  • Point out the feelings of both looking forward to the new people and things to do and learn, and the fears that are natural to facing anything that is new or unknown.
  • Elicit your child's questions, provide answers, if possible, or say, "we'll find out."
  • Help your child find out what the new situation will be like by doing things like visiting the new school and teacher, reading books about having a new baby in the house, talking to others who have gone through their parents separating.
  • When your child expresses fear, validate it; it's natural to feel fear of the unknown.
  • Then, work together to find a way to cope with it (e.g. what will I/we do if?)
  • Talk about the routine of the day or event or new plan. 

Plan ahead

 

Think about what is needed for the change and share these plans with your child. Discuss any changes in routine that will result.

  • Keep things the same as much as possible, especially eating and sleeping routines.
  • Let children know of any differences in schedules that will result.
  • Get organized.
  • Make lists, obtain supplies (e.g., for school; for living in two different houses).
  • Make a large calendar (use this also for marking when the change will happen).
  • Involve children in coming up with ideas for addressing changes and implementing them.

Weathering the change

  • Talk with your children often to see how they are coping with the change. Be prepared to listen carefully for their thoughts and feelings.
  • Offer support and validation ("it seems like you are feeling a little sad;" "I can tell that you are excited for school each day-does that mean you are feeling more comfortable and having fun?" "You seem to be getting used to the idea of your parents living in two different houses, but it seems like you still feel a little confused and angry at times. Is that right?" "I notice that you are having fun holding the baby and helping me with getting diapers, and also that it is sometimes hard to hear all the crying and getting woken up at night.")
  • Brainstorm with your child ideas for coping with difficulties ("What could we do to help you make new friends at school?" "How can Daddy and I help you get ready for changing from one house to the other on weekends?" "Let's figure out a new bedtime routine.")

Even with your best efforts to cope with change, there may be times that you feel that you and your family could use help with getting through a difficult time. Psychologists specialize in helping people gain a new perspective on the issues they are facing and to discover what is keeping them from moving forward. Together, you can figure out effective ways to manage the challenges you are facing.

 

To find a psychologist, talk with your physician or your child's pediatrician, or see www.papsy.org.

 

For further information regarding life transitions, stress management, and emotional wellness, see www.apa.org

 

Marianne Herzog, Ph.D., has worked with Early Head Start and Head Start programs in the Philadelphia area for 18 years, and also maintains a private practice in Lafayette Hill, PA.  She draws on a variety of psychological perspectives in addressing such issues as anxiety, depression, parenting, life transitions, and relationship difficulties.  Dr. Herzog finds mind-body approaches to therapy particularly valuable, and includes mindfulness-based and psycho-neurological strategies in helping people discover their own unique strengths and paths to healing.

 
 
Article4
Shame, continued...

 

4. Establish rewards for yourself. For instance, so many days of doing as you vow earns you a treat. Also, give yourself hefty mental pats on the back for success along the way.

5. Take lapses as opportunities to learn more about your vulnerabilities and how present you can do a better job of supporting future you. Avoid being cruel and harsh with yourself as this risks putting your goals further out of reach; shame is a vow crusher. I'll sometimes ask clients, who are parents, to react to themselves as they would react to their child if their child showed a similar lapse (sometimes this involves projecting forward in time and imagining their child at their age, having fallen prey to the same vulnerability).

6. Use music if that motivates you.

7. Focus your mind on the positive behaviors you want to do rather than the negative behaviors you want to avoid. It's better to focus on what healthy breakfast you want to eat rather than trying to use white-knuckle willpower to resist the unhealthy version.

8. Have present you write encouraging and positive messages for future you. Try to avoid being harsh lest you risk future you "forgetting" to read the message.

9. Make a plan to remove as much temptation as possible from the eye line of future you.

10. If you are a spiritual person, lean on that part of your life as much as you can.

 

Good luck! And, remember, being in the fight for self-improvement matters at least as much as the outcome.

 

David Palmiter Jr., Ph.D., ABPP is President of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association and professor of psychology at Marywood University. His parenting book, Working Parents, Thriving Families, focuses on practical strategies hectic parents can use to promote resilience in their children. His blog is at www.hecticparents.com while his Twitter ID is @HelpingParents. 

 

 

About Us

The Pennsylvania Psychological Association's purpose is to advance psychology in Pennsylvania as a means of promoting human welfare, and to educate, update and inform the public and our membership on current psychological theory and ethical practice through training activities and public policy initiatives.

 

Pennsylvania Psychological Association   

 

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Dorothy Ashman

Harrisburg, PA 17102

Phone: 717-232-3817 

 

Fax: 717-232-7294