Self-help Articles

Children need to be seen and appreciated for who they are and what they feel. Our job as an adult is to look at a child and ask, "Who can you be?"

Think fast: can you remember anything about being a baby? Odds are good that you can’t remember anything before the age of two. Until recently, researchers wrote these memories off as manufactured.

Almost everyone has heard of John Gray’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. However, researchers have found that the belief in myths about gender can cause people to act more like stereotypes than they otherwise would. In addition, gender myths can actually harm your relationships.

Advertising has been a small part of life for generations, but the nature and pervasiveness of advertising has greatly increased over the past few decades. Advertising has become impossible to ignore, is substantially more sophisticated and aims to sell an entire lifestyle rather than a single product. As a result, excessive exposure to advertising can dramatically affect psychological health.

How Early Attachments Affect Romantic Relationships
Attachment is a measure of the degree and style of bonding between two people. John Bowlby developed the first measure of attachment in children, and his test has remained one of the most widely respected in the entire field of psychology. Children’s attachment styles are heavily affected by their relationships with their parents. But interestingly, these attachment styles continue to affect children for the rest of their lives. A child who reacts with anger to parental separation is very likely to react the same way twenty years later to separation from a spouse. Thus it’s vitally important that parents form strong, healthy attachments with their children. Here are the attachment styles recognized by Bowlby and the ways they can affect you throughout your life.

Secure Attachment

This healthy form of attachment comes from attentive parenting and lots of nurturing. Children whose parents were comfortable, mentally stable and who spent lots of time with them are most likely to grow into adults with healthy attachments. Securely attached children may cry briefly when their parents leave, but then are able to function and play with another adult. When their parents return, they greet them joyously. Adults with this attachment style have the most success in relationships and lower conflict in marriage and in friendships.

Insecure: Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment

Children with anxious attachment patterns typically have parents who are very loving sometimes and very distant at other times. Consequently, these children learn that they can’t rely on other people to meet their needs and that present kindness does not necessarily indicate future kindness and love. They may react with absolute despair to separation from a parent, and when the parent returns seek contact but also react with anger. As adults, these children tend to be especially needy and codependent because they are not confident in others’ desire to stick around and love them.

Insecure: Avoidant Attachment

As children, people with avoidant attachment styles had parents who did not respond to them when they cried and who showed little interest in their emotions. Consequently, these children learn that their needs are unimportant and that emotions do not convey important information. When their parents leave them, the children tend not to notice, and may react the same to each caregiver, regardless of how well they know the caregiver. When these children grow into adults, they tend to have few close relationships. Spouses may be frustrated by the lack of intimacy in their relationships.

Insecure: Disorganized or Fearful Attachment

Children with disorganized attachment patterns often have frightening caregivers who exhibit erratic behavior such as yelling, drinking and abuse. These children long for closeness and attachment, but have learned that the people they love are sources of fear. The frequently develop tics and stereotypies when their parents leave them. A stereotypy, like the name implies, is a stereotyped, repetitive behavior that results from stress and may include pacing, nail biting, self-mutilation, mumbling, and numerous other behaviors that occur at a semi-conscious level. They may pace, fidget or even bang their heads. As adults, these children long for close relationships with others, but have difficulty achieving them because they do not have the requisite social skills and are too fearful of intimacy to actually achieve it. They may alternative between extreme neediness and extreme distance, making it very difficult for loved ones to adapt to their behavior.
Parents should strive to form strong, responsive attachments to their children in the first years of life to prevent attachment problems. Respond to your child’s cries and never ignore feelings or neediness in children. If you are an adult with attachment difficulties, it is possible to reformulate your attachment style with therapy. If you’re in a relationship, you may want to consider couples counseling with a therapist specializing in attachment and family of origin issues.

Sources:
Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P. R. (2008). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical
applications. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

How to identify the various risk factors and warning signs of an eating disorder.

Children who are exposed to domestic violence are at risk for many problems in their lives. Those who witness domestic violence at home can develop academic problems, substance abuse issues, mental health issues, relationship problems. They are also at an increased risk of perpetuating the cycle of violence themselves.

Anybody online can claim to be a therapist without actually being one. Additionally, many therapists have jumped online without any training whatsoever. Dr. Maheu recommends you ask the following five questions to keep yourself safe.

Here are some specific strategies that will help you to show your employer that you are, indeed, fully engaged and therefore, a keeper in the organization.

Whether it's Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa we are celebrating, we all bring to the holiday meal table our high expectations and, inevitably, our history of disappointments. In this period of pressured work and vacation schedules, hectic travel logistics, and economic and political stressors, we need to be especially vigilant about taking care of our own mental health—not just for ourselves, but in order to be emotionally present for celebrations with friends and loved ones.

The year following inpatient alcohol rehab is a crucial period of time in which many patients relapse. Several factors may reduce the risk of relapse during this time, including therapy appointments, attendance at mutual help meetings such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or SMART Recovery, aftercare group sessions, and the use of medications such as disulfiram (Antabuse), which produces a heightened sensitivity to alcohol by interfering with the body’s metabolism of alcohol.

Approximately one-million people in North America are suffering from Parkinson’s disease. When you have Parkinson’s disease (or any other chronic illness) you are probably struggling with symptoms that can be overwhelming. Therefore the author of this article has created the following "Ten Tips" list to help individuals with Parkinson's disease cope with some of the psychological symptoms of the disease.

THE TAO OF JOY EVERY DAY is a compact volume that serves as a daily inspirational reader. It offers 365 bits of wisdom in a convenient page-a-day format, making it a great fit for a holiday gift guide or New Year/New You roundup. Each page provides advice on some of life’s hardest issues.

When the publisher said she wanted to send me this book, I got
really excited, being a work-from-home-mom myself, I knew I was going to enjoy
this one! This book is a handbook for parents that empowers them to feel
confident to do the best they can for their families.

by Jeffrey Stuckert, M.D.

If you currently know of or have known of an employee that needs drug and alcohol treatment, it is likely that you are frustrated. As an employer, you have a range of options available, but the action that many employers are likely to take is to fire the employee in question. Employers may think that is this the most practical and viable option. Dealing with employee drug or alcohol abuse seems troublesome, and hiring a new employee altogether seems as if it is the best choice for the company. But that choice may be wrong.