Archive for August, 2010

New to Psychotherapy?

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

I’ll never forget the first day I entered psychotherapy. I was four months pregnant and reeling from a cocktail of pregnancy hormones that had me stumbling through life as a weepy drunk. And I was mad. Mad at the world. Mad at the television industry that (back then) discriminated against pregnant on-camera babes. Mad at my romantic partner who seemed hell-bent of winning the trophy as most unhelpful father in the world. Mad that the outcome of years of pumping and pulsing at the gym had been erased in a matter of months. One day my daily gush of tears made a unwelcome appearance at my monthly obstetrics appointment and my doctor ordered me into therapy.

I entered the therapist’s office apologizing for my tears. I assured her that I was normally quite a together woman was completely surprised by this mess of black mascara. She was kind, empathetic, and made me promise to stop apologizing for myself. (Sigh. It’s a Canadian cultural tradition so I still do it sometimes.) I expected, like most people, to have a couple quick sessions and be dry-eyed and beaming within a few weeks. Little did I know that I was actually embarking on a tender journey toward the center of my earth. I didn’t know that what I was experiencing was an identity crisis, some delayed grieving for the deaths of my parents, and yes, some pre-pardem depression. In the end I was so fascinated by the process that I spent seven years in therapy and a partially overlapping six years in graduate school studying psychology. Clearly I had found my bag and myself, and along the way I learned a few myths and methods of therapy that the common person may not know. So, here’s a starter list of things you may not know about therapy if you’ve never been there.

Stigma Belongs to You, Not Society At Large

Like many newbies, I was cautious early on about who I shared my news of therapy with. I still carried some crazy idea that therapy was for crazy people. In fact, psychiatric hospitals are for crazy people. The rest of us live with a pleura of annoying habits and feelings that sometimes run counter to society’s definition of “normal.” The rest of us can really use an observing eye to help us make sense of some of the painful lessons we learned and the thoughts in our head that stop us from being the best person we can be. When I finally started sharing my experiences of therapy with others I found out that nearly everyone, especially the most successful people I knew, had been or were continually in therapy. I felt behind the times.

The Range of Therapists Can Be Daunting

Most people choose a therapist based on a referral, having no knowledge about their psychological orientation or their education of licensure. To break it down, therapists can range from drug-prescribing medical doctors called psychiatrists, to clinical psychologists with a Ph.D., to marriage and family therapists, to social workers, to religious counselors, drug and alcohol counselors, to life coaches. Some are liscensed. Some are being supervised by someone with a license. Others are unlicensed lay people. But all have a capacity for care and are doing what they do because they have a lot of empathy. Many have recovered from some major emotional wounds themselves so they have personal insight into what you may be going through. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask a therapist about his or her credentials and treatment plan. But also know this. No matter the level of education or liscensure, it is the therapeutic relationship itself that heals. It is the consistent timing of sessions and consistent care giving that becomes the catalyst for growth.

Boundaries Protect YOU

At the beginning of therapy new patients are often taken aback by the abrupt way that a therapist may end a session at exactly 50 minutes or not disclose personal details about their own life. Or charge you even when you don’t show up. Or not extend the length of a session when you are stuck in traffic. Or, not take friends of yours on as patients. This is called the therapeutic frame and it is designed to keep you safe. Imagine the hurt if a therapist had time to bleed a session into 60 minutes one week but not the week you are in the most pain? Or, imagine your feelings of jealousy if your therapist seemed to be more helpful to a close friend of yours. Therapists may rigidly stick to the 50  minute hour or insist on a set weekly appointment because your brain responds to consistency of care. And because in the safety of that weekly 50 frame you have the complete freedom to vent and use it to your advantage knowing that the therapist will never inject their needs into your time.

Therapy Can Feel Like a Love Relationship

Imagine having a person entirely focussed on you, all eyes and ears during weekly sessions for months on end. Imagine that they have compassion and empathy and truly understand what you are going through. Now imagine that this kind of attention and safety brings forth emotional communication that you’ve never even been able to express to your real-world intimates. Yes, therapy can feel like love, because it is a kind of love. But it is a non-sexual love (and shouldn’t ever be!) and it is a false love in the sense that you never have to deal with your lover’s problems. Given the set up, it is perfectly natural to have deep feelings of love for your therapist, but in the psychological process these feelings will eventually transfer as you learn to love yourself and others. At no time should a therapeutic relationship become a dual relationship with real-world connections. A dual relationship has too much potential to injure a patient.

I’ll end this blog with a story I heard recently about Carl Jung. Jung was one of Freud’s disciples who broke off to form his own theory of personality. (I hope this story is true because I love it.) Supposedly Jung was once asked why would anyone ever want to enter therapy. Why would they want to put themselves through the psychic pain of revisiting all the hurts of their childhood or retelling of their worst nightmares. Jung seemed surprised by the question and responded with, “Well, you certainly shouldn’t, if you don’t HAVE to!”

(P.S.: I have opened a new private practice in Los Angeles and am taking clients who I do not know in the real world.)

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

First Time Entering Therapy?

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

I’ll never forget the first day I entered psychotherapy. I was four months pregnant and reeling from a cocktail of pregnancy hormones that had me stumbling through life as a weepy drunk. And I was mad. Mad at the world. Mad at the television industry that (back then) discriminated against pregnant on-camera babes. Mad at my romantic partner who seemed hell-bent of winning the trophy as most unhelpful father in the world. Mad that the outcome of years of pumping and pulsing at the gym had been erased in a matter of months. One day my daily gush of tears made a unwelcome appearance at my monthly obstetrics appointment and my doctor ordered me into therapy.

I entered the therapist’s office apologizing for my tears. I assured her that I was normally quite a together woman was completely surprised by this mess of black mascara. She was kind, empathetic, and made me promise to stop apologizing for myself. (Sigh. It’s a Canadian cultural tradition so I still do it sometimes.) I expected, like most people, to have a couple quick sessions and be dry-eyed and beaming within a few weeks. Little did I know that I was actually embarking on a tender journey toward the center of my earth. I didn’t know that what I was experiencing was an identity crisis, some delayed grieving for the deaths of my parents, and yes, some pre-pardem depression. In the end I was so fascinated by the process that I spent seven years in therapy and a partially overlapping six years in graduate school studying psychology. Clearly I had found my bag and myself, and along the way I learned a few myths and methods of therapy that the common person may not know. So, here’s a starter list of things you may not know about therapy if you’ve never been there.

Stigma Belongs to You, Not Society At Large

Like many newbies, I was cautious early on about who I shared my news of therapy with. I still carried some crazy idea that therapy was for crazy people. In fact, psychiatric hospitals are for crazy people. The rest of us live with a pleura of annoying habits and feelings that sometimes run counter to society’s definition of “normal.” The rest of us can really use an observing eye to help us make sense of some of the painful lessons we learned and the thoughts in our head that stop us from being the best person we can be. When I finally started sharing my experiences of therapy with others I found out that nearly everyone, especially the most successful people I knew, had been or were continually in therapy. I felt behind the times.

The Range of Therapists Can Be Daunting

Most people choose a therapist based on a referral, having no knowledge about their psychological orientation or their education of licensure. To break it down, therapists can range from drug-prescribing medical doctors called psychiatrists, to clinical psychologists with a Ph.D., to marriage and family therapists, to social workers, to religious counselors, drug and alcohol counselors, to life coaches. Some are liscensed. Some are being supervised by someone with a license. Others are unlicensed lay people. But all have a capacity for care and are doing what they do because they have a lot of empathy. Many have recovered from some major emotional wounds themselves so they have personal insight into what you may be going through. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask a therapist about his or her credentials and treatment plan. But also know this. No matter the level of education or liscensure, it is the therapeutic relationship itself that heals. It is the consistent timing of sessions and consistent care giving that becomes the catalyst for growth.

Boundaries Protect YOU

At the beginning of therapy new patients are often taken aback by the abrupt way that a therapist may end a session at exactly 50 minutes or not disclose personal details about their own life. Or charge you even when you don’t show up. Or not extend the length of a session when you are stuck in traffic. Or, not take friends of yours on as patients. This is called the therapeutic frame and it is designed to keep you safe. Imagine the hurt if a therapist had time to bleed a session into 60 minutes one week but not the week you are in the most pain? Or, imagine your feelings of jealousy if your therapist seemed to be more helpful to a close friend of yours. Therapists may rigidly stick to the 50  minute hour or insist on a set weekly appointment because your brain responds to consistency of care. And because in the safety of that weekly 50 frame you have the complete freedom to vent and use it to your advantage knowing that the therapist will never inject their needs into your time.

Therapy Can Feel Like a Love Relationship

Imagine having a person entirely focussed on you, all eyes and ears during weekly sessions for months on end. Imagine that they have compassion and empathy and truly understand what you are going through. Now imagine that this kind of attention and safety brings forth emotional communication that you’ve never even been able to express to your real-world intimates. Yes, therapy can feel like love, because it is a kind of love. But it is a non-sexual love (and shouldn’t ever be!) and it is a false love in the sense that you never have to deal with your lover’s problems. Given the set up, it is perfectly natural to have deep feelings of love for your therapist, but in the psychological process these feelings will eventually transfer as you learn to love yourself and others. At no time should a therapeutic relationship become a dual relationship with real-world connections. A dual relationship has too much potential to injure a patient.

I’ll end this blog with a story I heard recently about Carl Jung. Jung was one of Freud’s disciples who broke off to form his own theory of personality. (I hope this story is true because I love it.) Supposedly Jung was once asked why would anyone ever want to enter therapy. Why would they want to put themselves through the psychic pain of revisiting all the hurts of their childhood or retelling of their worst nightmares. Jung seemed surprised by the question and responded with, “Well, you certainly shouldn’t, if you don’t HAVE to!”

(P.S.: I have opened a new private practice in Los Angeles and am taking clients who I do not know in the real world.)

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

How Much is Society to Blame When a Mother Kills her Children?

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

The 29-year-old South Carolina  mother Shaquan Duley, accused of suffocating her two toddler boys on August 15 and then strapping their bodies in car seats and pushing her car into a river, was certainly disparate. And while the media and public vilify her for committing such heinous crimes, there’s a piece of me that feels deep sympathy. And I wonder how much we can blame us, as partners in her society.

To put this mother’s crime into historical perspective, the act of infanticide by a parent is not new. Anthropologists speculate that for thousands of years as human mothers struggled to raise highly dependent infants and toddlers in harsh environments, they were forced to make heart-wrenching decisions between their own survival and the survival of their family, eliminating hungry mouths when necessary. It is estimated that in points in history, some hunter/gather mothers killed as many as 30% of their own children as a survival technique.

But we are not hunter/gatherers and we do not live in times of famine. Or do we?  In her new book, “Mothers and Others” UC Davis Professor, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy makes a strong case for “co-operative breeding,”  saying that the human species excelled partly because of an elaborate system of alloparents – aunties, friends, cousins, uncles, and grandparents who helped feed and care for small children while mothers foraged for miles looking for food. But as we became more industrialized and richer, dependancy on a safety net of caregivers became somehow old fashioned. Multigenerational households became far less common and families now often live thousands of miles away from kin, whose genetic interest in helping, once kept kids alive.

The current economic recession is harsh season to many. Shaquan Dulay was an unemployed single mother of three children under the age of five. She lived with her mother who was undoubtedly exhausted herself as she worked outside the home as a caregiver. To top it off, Shaquan’s sister also lived in the home with two more toddlers. Two young mothers. Five small children. A few food stamps and no job prospects. The situation would be challenging to even the most psychologically prepared. CNN describes Shaquan as poor, jobless and overwhelmed.

I ask myself, how did this happen to us, our wealthy culture? Where was the father? Where are the relatives? Where is the affordable day care? Where is the medical intervention that might have offered Shaquan birth control had she wanted it? Where was the education to help her make a better choice than the one she did? Where was the psychiatric help had she showed signs of cracking?

One can argue that she had choices. After that fateful fight with her mother when she stormed out the door with her two little boys, she called a friend who suggested she come over. She turned down that offer. That lifeline might have gotten her through the night, but what then? She was facing years of poverty. Watching children starve to death isn’t a fun option either.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not defending Shaquan’s choice. She committed probably the worst crime ever imaginable and deserves the consequences. But this tragedy will keep on giving. Her five year old daughter is now an orphan. Her mother is grieving over the deaths of her child and grandchildren. And I am washing the blood off my hands as I wonder how to prevent this from ever happening to another American child.

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Posted in Family | 3 Comments »

The Fishburne Family Business

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Now here’s a teen who knows how to get Daddy’s attention. In a matter of days, Montana Fishburne, the nineteen-year-old daughter of film star Lawrence Fishburne has found instant fame, but not the kind her father is proud of.

It all started with her making  her own sex tape in the vein of her role models, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, (nice choice Montana) and then signing a professional contract to get it distributed and become a career pornographic actress. No sooner, did daddy shake his head than a posse of his fellow stars banded together in an attempt to purchase all copies of her first porn DVD release. They failed. And the news for Lawrence went from bad to worse.

The latest reports are that his little Miss was arrested last fall for prostitution charges and is now on probation. As if that wasn’t enough, E! Online reported this week that Montana Fishbourne was arrested again in February for a violent assault on her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. Then Montana got herself a Twitter account and further distanced herself from A – list Hollywood by attacking Jamie Foxx as being gay and also accused him of making a gay porn. She may face a slander and libel charge for that one.

All I can say is, “Daddy, do I have your attention yet?”

The truth is, no one but Montana knows what kind of father Lawrence Fishburne was. And sometimes problem children are immune to even the most mindful and loving parenting. But if family history is any indication, I’d bet my house that Montana is behaving like a toddler screaming for much needed attention.

Fishburne’s own parents divorced when he was a child and he moved with his mother from Georgia to New York City, where he was raised. Fishburne’s father saw him only about once a month. Montana is also a child of divorce. Fishburne spilt with Montana’s mother and left that family when she was around five-years-old. Then he went on to marry again and create another family. It is unclear how much visitation and attention Montana received from her father growing up, but if the stories of other celebrities’ children are any model, we can assume that when Montana visited Hollywood A-List Daddy’s world, it was a world of few boundaries and wacky wealth. Look no further than MacKenzie Phillips story. When she left her mother’s small apartment to visit her 70′s rock star father John Phillips and his celebrity friends in the big house, her confused tears were rocked away at late night adult parties by other rock stars. Not a world for a developing adolescent.

Clearly this troubled young woman has been over-sexualized — she says she’s dreamed of being a porn star since she was 16 — and has an anger an management problem. Her assault victim had significant injuries.

Reports are that Montana has not spoken to her father since her porn tape was released. She’s 19 now, legally not a child, but clearly emotionally one. My advice to Lawrence: Track down your daughter. Get in her face. And don’t leave her until you’ve given her all the attention she’s craving.

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Posted in Celebrity Love, Sex | 2 Comments »

Hewlett-Packard, Mark Hurd, Jodie Fisher, and the Double Standard

Monday, August 9th, 2010

I’ll start with this disclosure. The single mother whose sexual harassment claim brought down the king of Hewlett-Packard is a dear, old friend. Jodie Fisher and I met in a baby group twelve years ago, were champions of the breast feeding brigade, bonded through the identity crisis that often accompanies new motherhood, and in recent years have lost touch as our work took us to different cities.

So to wake up this morning and see her as the top hit on CNN.com and on the second link of the New York Times in my Blackberry, is surreal. Reading the nasty comments of trolls and bloggers sent a chill down my spine. Our culture sure loves to blame women when men screw up.

For those who need the crib sheet for the background story, Jodie was hired by Hewlett-Packard to do what she does best. Be the social intelligence for world-weary CEO, Mark Hurd. As a marketing specialist, she acted as a hostess of sorts, introducing him at parties designed to woo high level clients.

There could be no better match that Jodie and this gig. Her social skills are so obvious, I used her as an example of “welcoming energy” in my 2003 book, THE GIRLFRIEND TEST: “Jodie is a shining example of welcoming energy. I can’t go anywhere with that girl without being crowded by men (and women for that matter.) In fact, she’s such a reliable people magnet that one year I took her to my company Christmas Party with 3000 employees and their spouses, and met more people that evening than in the entire two years I had worked there — because Jodie introduced me to them.”

But it appears that HP’s Mark Hurd wanted more than Jodie’s smile. She eventually sued HP for sexual harassment. The company says they found no evidence of this but Mark Hurd was later given the boot due to falsifying expense reports concerning his extracurricular time spent with Jodie. And before his exit, Mark gave Jodie (what I hope is) a big fat check. Men generally don’t do that when they’ve done nothing wrong.

Now the world is speculating about whether this married man ever had sex with this single woman, but the question is moot. That part isn’t illegal.

Sexual harassment laws are quite clear. There are two types:

Quid Pro Quo Harassment – An employee is required to tolerate sexual harassment in order to obtain or keep a job, job benefit, raise, or promotion.

Hostile Work Environment Harassment – Harassment at work unreasonably interferes with or alters the employee’s work performance, or creates a hostile, abusive or offensive work environment. In determining if a workplace environment is “hostile.”

Both of those scenarios could have happened to Ms. Fisher. Apparently the CEO liked to “wind down” with a late night dinner with his marketing consultant and there may have been an implied or overt pressure for sex in exchange for future work. Or, he could have just been chasing her skirt at every event and created a hostile environment. Whether she crumbled under the pressure has nothing to do with the law. I’ll remind you, she is single. He is a married boss with power over her livelihood.

What irks me the most about this story is that Mark Hurd’s past is not being examined by the media. I noticed that one former HP employee posted a comment online that his firing is long overdue. But mostly Jodie is being called everything from a B-Player actress to a reality show star, both titles she wears with pride. Single mothers are very creative when it comes to to earning a living. And being a mother is Jodie’s primary career, let me assure you of that. She nursed her son for 18 months, survived a dangerous miscarriage, went through a painful divorce, and then picked herself up, dusted herself off, and got a kick ass job at Hewlett Packard.

Is the double standard really that entrenched that we slay the female victim and forgive men who abuse their power?

I texted Jodie this morning and we exchanged loving words for our kids. She and her twelve-year-old are from hiding from the media storm, obviously under a gag order. Men also like to stymie a woman’s voice when they part with their guilt money. When is life going to cut a single mother a break?

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Posted in Celebrity Love, Sex | 4 Comments »

The Brouhaha over Mom Michelle In Spain

Friday, August 6th, 2010

A chunk of recession-weary Americans are taking aim at a working mother’s four-day vacation.  Please people, take a chill pill. While Michelle Obama spends a whopping four days on her own nickel in Spain with close friends and family, some Americans are likening her to Marie Antoinette, the French Queen whose teenage over-spending, gambling and partying led her to the guillotine, despite her passion and excellence as a mother.

I think the real target for people’s unhappiness is the slow recovery of our beleaguered economy. People are hurting. Big time. Reports are that one-in -six Americans are in default on their mortgages and those of us who are shopping new mortgages are being turned down by banks frozen with fear.

So, a smiling matriarch in a pretty dress in a Spanish beach town has our feathers ruffled. Undoubtedly working mothers feel the sting most, as they (we) are being pulled in many, many directions and can see no light at the end of an ever blackening tunnel. I get it. I understand. But to slam a member of our girls club, the babe who has the ear of the president, isn’t going to help.

My suggestion: Let the Fist Lady take a breath, gather her energy, and come back with gusto. Four days is not a sin. The first family hasn’t been abusing vacation time. According to CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush spent more time on “vacation” during their first year than President Obama did. In full disclosure, Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton spent less time on “vacation.”

Every mother deserves a vacation, even a First Lady.

Posted in Celebrity Love | 1 Comment »

Is “Un-Divorced” The New Marriage?

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

I have a guy-friend who has been un-divorced for three years. What that means is that he pays all his wife’s expenses while she lives in another (much smaller) house in the same city. They are both dating other people and speak only about practical household matters. When I ask my friend why he doesn’t get divorced, he shrugs his shoulders and says, his wife hasn’t asked for a divorce. I have a few theories on why this couple doesn’t legally pull the plug on their marriage — divorces are expensive, emotionally gruesome, and staying married is a kind of relationship that fulfills an attachment need for those who are more intimacy avoidant.

Apparently my friend’s situation is not unique. While it is difficult to estimate the numbers, a recent article in the New York Times says that “society is full of whispered scenarios in which spouses live apart.” The article even sites famous gazillionaire, Warren Buffet, who separated from his wife in 1977 and remained married to her until her death on 2004, even though he was living with another woman.

I would venture to say that there are three categories of people who live in this marital limbo. First, wealthy people who stand to suffer financially if a divorce breaks up assets, like companies and real estate holdings. Second, couples with children who are co-parenting, albeit from separate homes, while health and life insurance policies remain intact, and finally, that large group of wishy-washy, can’t-get-off-the-fence Americans who fear intimacy and deep emotional commitment. After all, staying married to an estranged spouse protects one from having to marry anyone else. For some, staying un-divorced is a perfect purgatory where they can maintain a social illusion of a legal pairing, while sowing their oats elsewhere, yet never having to bring the new crop to fruition. For some of these scenarios, according to The New York Times, pressure from a new paramour is the most common cause, finally, of a delayed divorce.

But there are downsides to this legal limbo. A couple’s financial lives are still intertwined so if one goes boom or bust, the other is eligible to part take in the windfall or responsible for the other’s debts. And if a separation goes on until death, it can mean a big mess for survivors who may include new kids and new “unmarried” step-kids.

For me, the woman who preaches, empathy, compassion, and connection, I think there’s far more going on psychologically than just financial convenience. I’d bet my house on the fact that in many cases of “un-divorce” one spouse is still secreting pining away for the other and even a thread of attachment adds hope to the longing. In other scenarios, the marriages were emotionally disconnected in the first place so moving to a defacto commitment is probably closer to the true spirit of their original marriage. In the words of my late Irish grandmother, “Poop or get off the pot people!” Being in the middle of the road can turn you into road kill.

Posted in Relationships | 2 Comments »