What to do when your family does not believe that your child has a disability. You are not foolish for recognizing the symptoms that may be due to a disability in your child. Family may reject your concerns about special education, but you are your child's best advocate. This is a dilemma many parents face. It is difficult because parents want the support of family, and it would feel good to receive it. Instead, a parent's concerns are invalidated and the parent is made to believe that what they experience every day with their child is "typical behavior for their age," or not concerning. Daily, I encounter parents who are initially significantly distressed and tearful, then relieved when I diagnose their child with a disability. The emotional catharsis is sometimes because they felt “stupid” or “crazy” for pursuing a diagnosis for their child. Numerous parents have stated this to me, “No one believed me, not even my family, and I tried to tell them.” A lack of support from family is frustrating for parents . Some parents choose to delay psychological and educational testing, especially in early childhood, because they doubt their own observations of their child's behavior. Other family members have told them to let it go. Some of the statements to parents include: "Give it more time," "They're too young for testing," and "You did not speak either so it's fine," all as justification for rejecting parental concerns. First, rest assured that you are not "stupid" or "crazy" for believing that your child has a disability. I dislike when parents feel that way after discussing their thoughts and concerns with their family. You are the expert on your child because you are the parent. Feel empowered parents because your instincts are usually correct about your child, and you need to discuss them with your family with confidence. Yes, it can be challenging and emotionally taxing to deal with family as they reject your observations of your child’s behavior; however, it is your experiences with your child that led you to consider whether or not your child has a disability. If you suspect that your child may have a disability and you want to get your family on board with your concerns , here are some steps you can take: Gather Information: Before talking to your family, gather as much information as possible about your child's behavior, development, and any concerns you have. Document specific instances or behaviors that have raised your suspicions. Educate Yourself: Understand the specific disability in question by learning about it through empirically researched sources. Use this information to help you explain your concerns to your family more effectively. Share Your Feelings: After arming yourself with information, let your family members know how you feel about the situation. Express your worries, fears, and hopes for your child's future. Help your family to understand the depth of your concern(s). Ask for Support: Let your family members know that you value their support and involvement in your child's journey. Encourage your family members to ask questions and seek clarification. Seek Professional Guidance: If necessary, consider involving a family therapist or counselor who specializes in family dynamics and discussions related to disabilities. What if My Family Does Not Accept My Child with a Disability? Your family may not accept your child's disability. Although this type of outcome is sad, be aware that this can happen. However, regardless of your family's views, other options for support are as follows: Self-Care: Take care of yourself emotionally and mentally. It can be emotionally draining to deal with family rejection. Build a Support Network: Seek out support from friends, other family members, support groups, or community organizations that specialize in your child's disability. Empower Yourself: Advocate for your child's rights within the legal and educational systems if necessary. Set Boundaries: If your family's refusal to accept your child's disability leads to harmful behaviors or comments, set clear boundaries. Maintain Open Communication: Try to remain in communication about your child's progress, achievements, and challenges with your family. Help your family members embrace and celebrate the differences in your child. Teach them that diversity should be valued and respected. If you have tried the recommendations in this blog and your family still dismisses your concerns or your child's special education diagnosis and needs, then surround yourself with individuals and professionals who share your commitment to your child's well-being and development. If the attitude of family members is affecting your child's emotional well-being, consider therapy for your child to help them cope with the situation. It can be incredibly difficult and hurtful when loved ones do not provide the support and understanding that your child needs, but your child has you to love and support them, which is most important to their growth and development. You are your child's best advocate and while it's painful to experience rejection from family members, your child can still thrive with the right support systems in place. Lisa Liggins-Chambers, PhD., - Website -

7 steps to create a more positive work culture. Persistent workplace negativity impacts morale, innovation, and team culture. Recognizing the psychological underpinnings of negativity helps to address the causes of it. Managers can counter negativity through specific interventions and open dialogue. Have you ever run across someone who is perpetually negative? They might consistently say things like “You can’t do that,” “That won’t work,” and other de-motivating statements. They might use body language and facial expressions that zap energy from their team. Their very presence in a meeting makes others feel on edge. The presence of a consistently negative employee can undermine the performance of a team and lead to decreased morale, lower productivity, and potential long-term damage to team culture. So how do you support this type of employee while also ensuring their behavior doesn’t negatively impact your team and organization? The Psychology of Negativity Consistent negativity in the workplace often finds its roots in a complex interplay of psychological factors. Burnout can lead people to express frustrations through negativity when they feel overwhelmed, unappreciated, or excessively burdened. External stressors from personal life, such as financial difficulties or family discord, can impact an individual's mood and behavior at work, potentially driving them to adopt a consistently negative outlook as a coping mechanism. Unresolved conflicts and misunderstandings between employees can also play a role in creating patterns of negativity. Instead of addressing problems directly, people may become passive-aggressive, which takes the form of negativity. For some, personality traits like cynicism or a natural predisposition toward pessimism can lead to consistent negativity. Managers can address negativity in their teams and in meetings through a psychological lens, helping individuals address the root cause of their negativity and, as a result, fostering a more positive, supportive, and innovative work environment. The Impact of Negativity Negativity in meetings can manifest in various forms, from constant criticism and cynicism to dismissive remarks and resistance to new ideas. While a healthy dose of "creative tension" or "healthy conflict" can stimulate innovative thinking and better decision-making, unchecked negativity can erode team cohesion and harm relationships. The psychological toll of negativity on a team can take various forms including these: Cultural contagion : Negativity tends to spread like wildfire. When one team member consistently expresses pessimism, others may follow suit, creating a culture of cynicism. Emotional drain: Constant negativity can emotionally drain both the individual and those around them, affecting overall team morale and well-being. Lack of psychological safety: Negative comments can discourage others from sharing their ideas and being vulnerable, which hinders innovation and limits problem-solving potential. Disengagement: Negative environments are less productive, as they often involve disputes and distractions, which leads to general disengagement. 7 Ways to Address Negativity and Create a Positive Work Culture Managers of negative employees can be empathetic and supportive while also working to reduce the negativity. Practical strategies include the following: Have private discussions . Start by having a private conversation with the negative employee. Use active listening and empathy to understand their concerns and motivations. Ask open-ended questions to encourage them to express themselves. Provide constructive feedback . Share the specific negative behaviors like statements and body language that you have seen recently. Offer concrete examples of how their negativity has impacted team dynamics and outcomes. Discuss alternative ways to express their concerns constructively. Set clear expectations. Clearly define the behavior you expect in meetings and group settings. Emphasize the importance of respectful communication and open-mindedness in achieving team goals. Empower self-reflection. Encourage the employee to self-reflect on their negativity's impact on their own well-being and career growth. Discuss the importance of emotional intelligence in professional development. Intervene with facilitation. During meetings, intervene when negative comments arise. Acknowledge the employee's perspective while steering the conversation toward constructive solutions. Use positive reinforcement when they contribute positively. Cultivate a supportive culture. Promote a culture of appreciation and recognition within the team. Encourage team members to express gratitude for each other's contributions. Highlight examples of positive behavior in meetings. Follow up. Regularly check in with the employee to assess their progress. Recognize and celebrate their efforts to contribute positively. Address any setbacks constructively. Addressing negativity in meetings offers more than just interpersonal benefits; it also translates into concrete advantages for any organization. In a positive atmosphere, team members work together more cohesively, engaging in more productive discussions that lead to better outcomes. An open and affirming environment nurtures creative thinking and inventive problem-solving, fostering a culture of continuous innovation. With meetings that are more focused and efficient, valuable time and resources are saved, contributing to improved overall productivity. Moreover, employees are more inclined to remain loyal to organizations that prioritize their well-being and cultivate a positive culture. Addressing negativity is a strategic step toward driving tangible business results. Managers who approach this issue from a psychological standpoint can create a nurturing culture that fuels innovation, productivity, and sustainable success. Soren Kaplan, Ph.D., - Website - Book - References Duhigg, C. (2016). Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity. Random House. Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. Bantam Books. Grant, A. M. (2013). Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Viking. Kaplan, S. (2023). Experiential Intelligence: Harness the Power of Experience for Personal and Business Breakthroughs. Matt Holt Books. Sinek, S. (2019). The Infinite Game. Portfolio.

Wisdom traditions teach the value of solitude for clarity and peace. Philosophers reframe solitude as an opportunity for reflection, deep work, relaxation, and growth. Science shows that each mood has its wisdom. Even when it is painful, loneliness can teach us about ourselves. Virtually everyone in human history has experienced loneliness, and the diverse traditions that reflect their collective wisdom can offer excellent guidance for facing loneliness and living well. While approaches from psychological science challenge loneliness by targeting its psychological and behavioral mechanisms, philosophers negate loneliness by embracing its positives. Reframing isolation as an opportunity for reflection, deep work, relaxation, and growth, philosophers aim to transform loneliness into meaningful solitude. Wisdom in Solitude The idea that time alone is valuable has a long history in wisdom traditions. In Petrarch’s view from 1356, solitude is a source of freedom and virtue that “rehabilitates the soul, corrects morals, renews affections, erases blemishes, purges faults, (and) reconciles God and man.” Or, as musical artist Drake echoed 666 years later, “I’ve been losing friends and finding peace. Honestly, that sounds like a fair trade to me.” Other thinkers have embraced loneliness even with its sharp edges. The Buddhist meditation master Chögyam Trungpa claimed the lonely state of having “nothing around you that you can hang onto” is a window through which to “meet one’s real ego without clothing.” Nietzsche elevated solitude to political significance as a protector from oppression, writing “Wherever there has been tyranny, there the solitary philosopher has been hated, for philosophy offers an asylum to a man into which no tyranny can force its way.” Hannah Arendt observed that a lonely population is ripe for totalitarian domination. For this reason, dictatorial regimes use ideology to enforce a desperate kind of isolation without solitude. "The self-compulsion of ideological thinking," Arendt wrote, "ruins all relationship with reality." Importantly, these philosophers are not advocating constant solitude or praising chronic loneliness. They appreciate its value as one element of a good life that also includes family and rich friendships. No matter how philosophically valuable one’s solitude is, too much time without meaningful contact with others will inevitably mutate into a more toxic loneliness. Arendt, again, wrote, "What makes loneliness so unbearable is the loss of one’s own self which can be realized in solitude." It is also worth mentioning that philosophers may be a class of people who particularly appreciate solitude. It is certainly true that some of us are more prone to loneliness than others; some feel lonely when surrounded by friends, while others feel satisfied despite being objectively isolated. Science and Philosophy Align The optimistic philosophies on solitude’s clarifying power are broadly supported by evidence from scientific work. Work examining narratives of solitude showed that many people of all ages feel that being alone can be invaluable as a way to improve one’s competencies and as a reminder of the the value of one’s social connections. In addition, normalizing loneliness can help to find greater joy even amid loneliness. Moreover, emotion researchers have argued that seeing one’s problems through the bluish tint of loneliness offers a fresh and useful perspective that one might miss in a satisfied emotional state—each mood has its wisdom . Solitude might also be a time to reflect on one’s more and less valued relationships, as a strained relationship causes as much stress as a supportive one brings joy. Finally, meditation has been shown to reduce feelings of loneliness, which may be consistent with the philosophical idea that a calm appreciation of the present moment (rather than desperately reaching for any available interaction) is a wise way to face loneliness. While psychological science focuses on effective strategies for facing loneliness head-on, philosophy shows us that solitude itself can be a valuable teacher. Together, science and philosophy offer robust guidance for living well in a complex world. Final Thoughts Loneliness can be a profoundly heavy burden, but a wealth of scientifically supported and time-tested guidance is available to help confront it effectively. In overcoming loneliness, we can begin to contribute to a less lonely world for others as well. Benji Kaveladze, Ph.D.,

New research shows the wisdom of using your “me-time” to its best advantage. tend to choose easier activities rather than ones that test their abilities when given the choice. New research suggests that this so-called happiness paradox can erode our long-term sense of meaning in life. Breaking tough tasks down into manageable units can allow us to fulfill our true inner potential. Suppose you’re looking ahead to your evenings as a chance to catch up on the latest streaming series or televised sport. Nothing looks more attractive to you than your couch. In the back of your mind, though, runs the possibility of using that time to work on a crossword puzzle or devote the time to figuring out how to complete the home craft project that is languishing somewhere in the back of a closet. That project so far has become so complicated that it will take you at least an hour of watching instructional videos to complete it. You know that you’d feel proud of yourself if you got it done. However, the couch’s allure becomes too hard to resist, and so the project will have to languish some more. The Happiness Paradox, and Where It Comes From According to California State University’s Max Alberhasky and University of Texas Austin’s Raj Raghunathan (2023), your plight is a prime example of what’s called the “happiness paradox.” Simply stated, this is the tendency for people to choose a leisure activity that requires very little effort even though they know that a true mood boost would come from honing and applying their skills. A large amount of prior evidence supports the first piece of the paradox, which is that, when given a choice, people would rather engage in passive rather than active pursuits during their leisure time. This “aversion” to expending effort is due to a combination of “time-inconsistency” and “impulsivity.” Put somewhat differently, when you’re looking at how to spend your leisure time right in the moment, you’re less likely to consider the long-term consequences of your decision. It’s an irrational choice because, as the authors note from previous research, what will really make you happier is being busy in an activity that allows you to expand and strengthen your skills. Why would becoming involved in a more demanding leisure activity benefit your happiness? The answer to this question comes from the idea of “flow,” introduced in the early days of positive psychology by the late Claremont Graduate University's Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi. When you’re using your abilities to their optimum levels, you’ll feel an inner surge of happiness that propels you through a challenging task. You won’t feel that way if you just veg out or do the minimum required to get a particular job done. Putting the Happiness Paradox Under the Microscope The two parts of the happiness paradox are that (1) people choose low-skill activities for their leisure pursuits, but (2) if they applied themselves harder, they’d be happier. To test these components, the Cal State–U. Texas researchers conducted a series of five experiments, both online and in the lab, in which participants (both undergrad and adult online) either chose a type of task (hard or easy) or had their happiness measured after completing a task varying in difficulty. Rather than assume that flow would automatically occur when participants engaged in those more demanding tasks, the authors took into account the role of expertise. Theoretically, a high-skill activity could be frustrating for someone who is completely inept or is at a very beginning level. Think about how much you would enjoy having to put together an unassembled kit of furniture if you couldn’t even use a screwdriver. In contrast, someone with pretty decent carpentry skills would find the challenge both fun and rewarding (the authors refer to this as the IKEA effect). In one experiment conducted in the lab, undergraduates participated in the high-skill activity of playing the online game “2048” (where you build chains of sums) versus the low-skill activity of playing “Plinko” (a game based solely on luck). Participants playing the 2048 game reported being happier and finding more meaning in the activity than did the Plinko players. Another experiment used a writing task to elicit the feelings that participants had about high-skill activities in which they self-rated themselves as experts versus novices prior to entering into a hard versus easy task. The findings from this experiment suggested a possible explanation for the low-skill activity choices that people tend to make. In the words of the authors, “unless one is an expert, high-skill activities provide no immediate hedonic benefit (although they may provide more meaningful long-term benefits) while requiring significantly greater effort for successful participation” (p. 2097). This creates a Catch-22. To get the most enjoyment out of an activity, you have to invest some up-front time to reach a certain level of expertise. The only way to mobilize the energy you’ll need to get that mood boost is to consider that, in the long run, you will derive more meaning from it. Using the Happiness Paradox to Your Advantage You now know why the couch looks so inviting compared to the halfway-done home project that just seems like it will be too hard and, hence, not very hedonic. You can only pull yourself away from what will ultimately be a less beneficial choice if you project into the future and think about how good you’ll feel when it’s done, and you can stand back and admire your work. If this is too much pie-in-the-sky thinking, there are other options you can explore. One is to pair up what seems like it will be an unpleasant way to spend your time with little rewards for yourself as you gain each new level of mastery. Second, toward this end, you can also break the activity down into what can be more manageable chunks. Maybe you stopped working on that project because you expected success to come too soon or because you made what seemed like a fatal mistake. Looking more realistically at your abilities, and then seeking guidance (online or from an expert), you can now feel better about the whole enterprise. Ideally, you can peel back to where you were before making the mistake, or just face the fact that you'll have to restart from scratch. The Alberhasky and Raghunathan findings don’t mean that you have to abandon your couch all the time when you’ve got a choice about how to use your leisure time. Instead, the authors recommend that you put some variety into your choices. If you had a particularly tough week, either with managing your family or responsibilities at work, it’s fine to take a break and unwind. You don’t even need to feel guilty about that occasional use of “me-time.” To sum up even if at first you don’t really feel you have the energy or expertise, putting some effort into the way you choose to spend your time is what ultimately will give you the greatest benefit. Not only will you feel happier, but you’ll also have allowed yourself to fulfill your greatest inner potential. Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D., References Alberhasky, M., & Raghunathan, R. (2023). Skills make you happy: Why high (vs low) skill activities make consumers happier, yet they don’t choose them. Psychology & Marketing.

How our expectations influence the experience of pain. Both physical and psychological pain are mediated via the same neural circuitry. One study found that a person's expectations influenced their experience of pain and the neural activity mediating that experience. Implications of the study include that managing a patient's expectations of pain may help mitigate its severity. According to the CDC (Aug 11, 2022), the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our daily lives has been significantly reduced. Researchers have been assessing the impact that the virus has had on our lives, revealing some expected results along with unexpected ones. In a recent poll (Ipsos, Sept. 13, 2022), the majority of the people surveyed said that while the impact of the virus had changed their lives forever, they now saw themselves in a better place than they were only one year ago and that they were optimistic about their lives going forward. Studies of the effects of the nationwide lockdown (generally from March to June of 2020) have shown that COVID has had mixed effects on anxiety , depression , and pain perception. Generally, anxiety and depression increased during the lockdown, but the experience of pain in sufferers of chronic pain was mixed. Some studies found that pain intensity increased during the lockdown, while others found that it decreased. It may be that this mixed bag of results when it comes to pain is related to the nature of the experience of pain itself and the various factors that affect that experience. Pain is most often thought of as sensory or physical, caused by damage to tissue. But pain is also, simultaneously, psychological. Pain has cognitive, emotional, and motivational components . It can come about because of damage to the body, or it can result from damage to a social relationship, our self-image, or even our hopes for the future. Interestingly, neuroscientists have found that both psychological pain and physical pain are mediated by the same circuitry in the brain. That circuitry is affected by incoming sensory information as well as by our expectations and the ways that we interpret what happens to us. This circuit involves the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the amygdala in the midbrain. Experimental Pain In an fMRI study, Henderson, et al. (2020) examined the influence of expectations about a painful stimulus on activity in the pain circuitry in the brain in a sample of 24 healthy college students (students without chronic pain). The caveat that the sample was of non-chronic pain sufferers is important because, unfortunately, to study pain perception in people who don’t suffer it every day, the experimenter needs to create pain. That can be accomplished in a number of ways. The painful stimulus used was created by a thermal electrode that could raise or lower skin temperature between baseline (32C or 89.6F) and a maximum between 44 and 49C (111 to 120F) in intervals of 0.5C. Participants rated the intensity of pain evoked using a 10-point scale where a score of 0 indicated no pain at all and 10 indicated the most extreme pain imaginable. Average pain intensity ratings were approximately 5 on the rating scale for all conditions tested in the experiment. The experimenters then established three different expectations about the pain via manipulations of the instructions provided to the participants. Participants were first told that they were going to receive a series of “noxious stimuli” and that they should rate the intensity of the pain of each. This was the no-expectation condition. Then, the same participants were told that the same stimuli would be repeated and that they should again rate the pain of each. However, unbeknownst to the participants, the temperature of the stimuli was either increased or decreased so the experience of the pain did not match the expectations that had been set up by the first condition of the experiment. In the last condition, the participants were told that they would again experience a series of noxious stimuli that might or might not vary in intensity from the original series. In this condition, participants expected the stimuli to vary, and, in fact, they did, so that the expectation matched the experiences the participants were having. Results The expectations the participants had about the pain they were experiencing significantly influenced that experience as well as the neural activity mediating that experience. When the expectation of what they were going to experience did not match the actual experience (condition two) the ratings of pain were significantly lower than they were when the expectations matched the experience (condition three). In addition, expectations also had a significant effect on neural activity. The patterns of activity in cortex regions of the circuit (the ACC and dlPFC) and the amygdala were significantly different when the experience matched expectations and when it did not. The authors concluded that these differences in neural activation might represent the participants’ attempts to resolve the conflicting information they were receiving about what was going on in the world. They also speculated that there might be clinical applications. Perhaps managing expectations about the pain that could be experienced during a particular procedure might mitigate the severity of that pain. Clinicians might also be able to help sufferers of psychological pain manage their expectations, and their pain, as well. Barbara Blatchley, Ph.D., References Centers for Disease Control. Colloca, L., Thomas, S.,Yin, M., Haycock, N.R., and Wang, Y. (2021) Pain experience and mood disorders during the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: an opportunistic study, 6, e958 Henderson, L.A., Di Pietro, F., Youssef, A.M., Lee, S., Tam, S., Akhter, R., Mills, E.P., Murray, G.M., Peck, C.C., and Macey, P.M., (2020) Effect of expectation on pain processing: A psychophysics and functional MRI analysis. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14(6). doi: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00006 Ipsos. Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 202-12-17.

Spoiled children are not just frustrating; they often struggle as adults. Spoiled, entitled children can grow up to be self-centered, volatile adults who struggle in relationships. The underlying causes are polarized parents, parental trauma, unresolved marital issues, a lack of hierarchy. The keys are working as a team, having clear structure and consequences, and maintaining clear roles. In the now classic scene from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Veruca Salt stomps her foot and yells, “I want an Oompa Loompa now!” as her father scrambles to get her one. The more everyday version is the child who throws a tantrum at the grocery checkout line, stomping and yelling to get candy. Other customers shake their heads or roll their eyes as they watch the exasperated parent grab a candy bar off the rack and hand it to the child. We can call such behavior spoiled, entitled, or plain old bratty. Regardless of the term, children who learn that their tantrums and demands can get them what they want can not only wind up running the family as teens but also struggle in their relationships as adults. Believing that the world revolves around them leaves others seeing them as self-centered, volatile, demanding, and inconsiderate of others. They are often in trouble at work, and home life creates constant strife or leaves everyone walking on eggshells. What creates bratty behavior and keeps it going? Here are some of the common causes: The parents are on different pages and polarized. Ellen is lenient with her son, Tom, because her husband, John, is tough. John is tough because Ellen is so lenient. Tom has learned to squeeze through the cracks and work the system, asking his mom if he can stay out later when his dad is not home. The result is that he usually gets what he wants. The child is vicariously acting out the parents’ marital issues. Ellen harbors a lot of resentment and anger towards John, but rather than dealing with John directly, she encourages Tom to act out her anger. When Tom is upset with John, Ellen tells him to complain to his father, stand up for himself, and tell him how he feels. Or sometimes Ellen is less direct—she just sits on the sidelines watching Tom do what she can’t. Not only does this further fuel the polarization, but Tom is essentially treating his father like a peer rather than in the role of a child. As this continues, Tom comes to feel both empowered and entitled. The child becomes a junior parent. John and Ellen eventually divorce, with Tom spending most of his time with his mother. Tom is the oldest of three, and Ellen, frequently feeling overwhelmed as a single parent, has come to rely on Tom to help with the younger siblings, as well as looking to him for emotional support . Tom, as the junior parent and almost-peer, feels empowered and entitled. Should Ellen ever remarry, and her new husband try to assert any authority over Tom, we could expect the dethroned Tom to aggressively challenge him, potentially recreating his past battles with his father. The parents have trauma and avoid conflict. Ellen grew up in a chaotic family where there was abuse, perhaps where one parent had alcohol or drug problems or was mentally ill. In such an environment, she understandably learned to walk on eggshells and be good to avoid creating any conflict. As an adult, she remains fearful of stirring strong emotions and continues to cope in the same way—quickly accommodating and sweeping problems under the rug, even with Tom. Again, the lack of structure and consequences leads to entitled children. So, how do we not raise a spoiled child? Here are some suggestions: Work together as a team. When parents contact me regarding their children, I always start by seeing the parents together without the children. Why? Because I want to make sure that they are on the same page and able to work as a team, backing each other up. If not, the child is likely to be confused and anxious at best but more likely in danger of again squeezing through the cracks and becoming entitled. Have clear expectations, rules, and consequences. Even if the parents work as a team, they sometimes fail to set clear rules, routines, and expectations or are inconsistent in enforcing them. You don’t want to run your family like a drill sergeant, but providing a consistent structure helps reduce a child’s anxiety and their continual testing of limits. Even teens, who usually seem to be constantly pushing back against the rules, do better having something solid to bounce off of rather than nothing at all. That said, as parents, you need to review and upgrade the structure as the child grows so you’re not treating your 16-year-old like a 6-year-old. Maintain a parent-child hierarchy. Tom shouldn’t be fighting Ellen’s battles or be Ellen’s confidant. Reward cooperative behavior and build in quality time. Carrots are always better than sticks. The rule of thumb is to take action and be as non-emotional as possible when you need to set limits. And when your child doesn’t have a tantrum at the checkout, when she is acting appropriately, it’s time to get out the balloons and confetti. The danger with always scolding and providing little reward is that the child learns to seek negative attention, which for a child is better than no attention at all. Building in regular quality time—a half hour before bed or a steady weekend outing with a teen—does much the same, offsetting the use of bad behavior to get attention. Consider parenting classes or counseling. A wealth of information is available on healthy parenting and taming the untamed child—online classes and videos, books, chatrooms. Even shorter-term counseling can help resolve any underlying drivers—helping you reach a consensus and build teamwork, tackling past trauma or marital issues, or providing family therapy to provide a forum for airing and solving problems. The spoiled child will eventually become an unhappy adult, but there’s much you can do to change course. Need to step up? Bob Taibbi, L.C.S.W., - Website - Books - References Taibbi, R. Doing family therapy, 4th ed. (2019). New York: Guilford.

Here are 10 areas that partners can expect to explore in therapy together. Having spent the better part of five decades working with struggling couples , I deeply understand the many ways that once-loving partners suffer when their relationships go astray. It is often too easy for intimate partners to look aside as warning signs mount, only to be faced with a jarring crisis before they realize they are in trouble. But for many couples, it is not a crisis per se that threatens the relationship but a slow erosion of intimacy that has left them alienated from the love they once knew. No matter what brings a couple into therapy to try to heal the destruction they are facing, they are often exhausted . They’ve done everything they could on their own, and none of it has worked. Now, they have come for an infusion of hope. In our first session together, I will ask partners to share their individual answers to these three questions: In what way do you each see the difficulties you’re experiencing now? What do you believe are the resources you currently have to help your healing process? Because successful therapy can present hard challenges, do you both feel that you have the motivation and energy to see this through? The therapist must help the couple answer these initial questions as honestly as they can and then share with them what challenges they will likely be facing. It would be unfair and even unethical to predict an outcome that does not look promising. If the couple is willing to proceed, the therapist will then expand the assessment by exploring the following ten areas with them. 1. Crisis or Erosion A crisis is the most common reason why couples come into therapy. A breach of trust, an unexpected medical diagnosis , or an unpredictable loss has occurred that has put the relationship under intense stress. How a couple was managing before the crisis occurred often determines whether the partners have the resources of time, money, energy, social networks, availability, and devotion to the relationship under fire. 2. Motivation It is not uncommon for one partner to be more motivated than the other. The partner who has less need for the relationship to survive always has the power to set the rules. A successful outcome is dependent on both partners wanting the relationship to work. It does not bode well if one person is willing to do anything to help the relationship heal, but the other is OK if it doesn’t. 3. Commitment Commitment is different from motivation. It is the deeper value that is expressed by the unwillingness to give up without doing everything possible. For distressed couples to have a fighting chance, they must be fully devoted to keep trying no matter what challenges emerge. As the partners open up authentically to each other, they are likely to hit unpredictable barriers along the way and must be willing to keep going until they can trust that things will get better. 4. The Willingness to Explore a New Vision If either partner feels that the past will always predict the future, they will become the victims of that limited view. All relationships scar, but they also have the capacity to grow beyond those scars. But if the partners cannot see a bigger vision of what the relationship could become, they can only try to stop the scarring, but the scars that remain can strangle what good might still be there. 5. Working as a Team If only one partner continues to do most of the work, the relationship will buckle under that uneven effort. They don’t necessarily have to work in the same way or always on the same issue, but they must both be willing to put in the effort. If both partners feel the authentic presence of the other in working toward a mutual goal , the energy between them will begin to increase, as will the hope they need to succeed. 6. Personal Accountability No matter how strong motivation and commitment are, no therapy can work if the couple is intent on making the other the one responsible for the relationship’s demise. There is never an exact 50-50 responsibility, but there must be personal accountability as the first choice for both partners. Otherwise, the counseling sessions will become continual outings of what the other partner is doing wrong, with an array of defensive maneuvers to avoid blame. 7. The Role of the Therapist Couples counseling is tricky. It is an unavoidable triangle that can quickly become unstable if either partner feels a conspiratorial bias from the therapist. A solid triangle means that all three sides are strong. Both partners must trust the therapist to maintain objectivity, honest appraisals, and accurate feedback on what they observe. 8. Mirroring the Therapist In any successful therapeutic encounters, both partners will learn, over time, to mirror the objectivity of the therapist in the way they begin talking to each other. They learn to separate out a part of themselves to join in the non-biased observation of the relationship as it is unfolding. Over time, that allows the couple to take over their own therapeutic process and to continue improving after the clinical part of their work is done. 9. Assessing and Minimizing Collateral Damage Relationships falter over time, even when it appears that a crisis has been the reason a couple comes into therapy. Other relationships have often taken a hit along the way. Part of successful couple’s work is to assess the damage their floundering relationship has had on others and to add those amends to the work they are doing on themselves. Very often, until a couple regains faith in themselves, they can hold on by not wanting to hurt others if they fail. 10. Once the Assessment is Made, Questioning the Availability of Resources Very often, prolonged stress, disillusionment, and disappointments drive couples into therapy before they have had the time and information to know if they can commit to what it will take for them to heal. Some issues are more easily resolvable, and stretching to make room for that is doable. But, as therapy evolves, early trauma, long-term deprivations, and unshared heartbreaks may emerge, dramatically changing the therapeutic landscape and increasing the need for more resources. Randi Gunther, Ph.D. - Website - Book -

Recovery from addiction is the ongoing process of learning, growth, and healing. Abstinence is instrumental to healing the neurological impacts of addiction. Recovery goes beyond abstinence and involves learning and practicing conscious awareness and skills. There are multiple ways in which Western psychotherapy, Buddhist psychology, and 12-step recovery intersect. Recovery is the ongoing process of learning to live a whole, healthy, and healed life . “The world breaks everyone. And afterward many are strong in the broken places.” —Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms While the term recovery can be applied to getting better or improvement related to a wide range of conditions, it is most often used to describe the process of overcoming addiction to alcohol and other drugs. In this context, recovery is generally thought of as becoming abstinent from these substances, but the reality is that recovery extends far beyond abstinence. Addiction is a chronic, progressive, and potentially fatal disorder—like other chronic, life-threatening conditions , such as diabetes, asthma, and heart disease. Like these other illnesses, there is no cure for addiction. However, it can be treated and managed successfully through the process of recovery. Recovery allows those with addiction to live long, full, and healthy lives. I should know, having been an addiction treatment professional for over two decades and a person in long-term addiction recovery (16+ years currently). There is no shortage of personal stories that describe the horrors of addiction, many of which also depict people’s journeys into recovery, and some of these involve people who go on to become addiction counselors. My story is a little different in that I was a behavioral health professional, initially as a therapist and subsequently in high-level management capacities in a variety of settings, including addiction treatment—before I entered recovery. I was highly regarded as a practitioner, supervisor, and administrator until the final devastating 18 months of a 30-year active addiction (exacerbated by a chronic pain condition) when my life as I knew it started to unravel—a process that picked up speed like a snowball gaining momentum and size as it rolls downhill. The disease of addiction is known for being “cunning, baffling, and powerful.” It is also exquisitely patient, as well as treacherous, in the ways it attempts to convince those who suffer from it that they don’t have it. Ironically, as long as my addiction was active, my education and professional experience obstructed my ability to see it for what it was, admit it, and seek help despite mounting personal and professional consequences. Usually, it’s only when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of change that people make significant life changes. Ultimately, the damage to my family of procreation and career “gifted” me with enough desperation to accept that I needed inpatient treatment. There, I was introduced to a holistic, multi-dimensional approach to living with chronic pain and 12-step recovery, both of which I continue to practice. In my second 12-step meeting, someone with nearly 30 years clean stated, “Recovery won’t open the gates of heaven so you can get in, but it will unlock the gates of hell so you can get out.” And that has been my experience. The Neuroscience of Abstinence Abstinence is instrumental in healing the neurological impacts of addiction. With the aid of neuroplasticity, the human brain has remarkable abilities to heal. Research using brain scans indicates that with 14 months of abstinence, noticeable healing of the adverse changes caused by active addiction has taken place.[1] This notwithstanding, the brain’s reward center and the mesolimbic dopamine system that feeds it are forever altered. As neurons that fire together wire together, the brain connects emotion, memory, and sensory stimuli, linking experiences perceived as “positive” with specific associations: images, sounds, smells, people, and places, coding them as omens of comfort and reward. These unconscious learned responses are strong enough to remain operative even after years of abstinence. As a result, their memory tracks tend to pull people back toward the experiences and behaviors with which they are familiar and comfortable, making it more difficult to stop such behaviors and stay stopped. Like petroglyphs etched in rock formations that are clearly visible hundreds of years later, the rhapsodic recollections of drug use are engraved deep within the midbrain—beckoning sweetly and seductively. Consequently, recovery from addiction involves sustaining abstinence and learning and practicing the awareness and skills necessary to respond intentionally rather than react unconsciously and reflexively. These two elements reinforce one another: Sustained abstinence creates opportunities to build the skills that facilitate growth and healing, which is not possible during the unremitting entropy of active addiction. Conversely, learning and practicing such skills is instrumental to sustaining long-term abstinence. Defining Recovery The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has defined recovery from both substances use disorders and mental disorders as: “A process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential." Recovery is a process of transformation that necessitates changing how I relate to myself, to others, and to the world. It is an extraordinary undertaking, requiring no small amount of mental, emotional, and spiritual renovation. A foundational underpinning of this metamorphosis is the shifting away from a focus on doing things that make one feel good to doing things one can feel good about. The former is explicitly transitory, and after the mood elevation subsides, it often leaves us feeling even worse than before. Moreover, it frequently takes us further away from our true values, the type of person we want to be, and the kind of life we wish to live. In contrast, the latter is enduring and brings us into greater alignment with our values and closer to the type of person we want to be and the kind of life we wish to live. In order to get my life back together, I had to be done with tearing myself apart. This is the essence of step one—to accept and admit powerlessness over my addiction and the breadth and depth of the unmanageability it created in my life. In Buddhism, this dynamic is framed in terms of letting go of specific attachments as an essential ingredient in the lessening of suffering—specifically, attachment to the need to deny I was an addict and the beliefs that I could control my using and didn’t need any help, as well as the desire to ease my stress, emotional discomfort, and physical pain through the use of substances. Once I entered recovery, my professional knowledge and experience became assets that enriched my understanding and awareness of recovery as an ongoing process of learning, growth, and healing. Interestingly, there are multiple ways in which Western psychology and psychotherapy, Buddhist psychology and practice, and 12-step recovery intersect. These include but are not limited to: Nurturing the ability to observe one’s thoughts and the fictional stories they so often combine to create so their merit can be evaluated and potentially disputed, Cultivating the capacity to be present with and tolerate the full range of our emotional life—without needing to run away from the painful or cling to the pleasurable, Learning how to allow space for and accept the ever-shifting sands of our physical status without adversely judging it or ourselves, Developing enhanced and deeper connections with that beyond oneself to facilitate spiritual centeredness. Meditation, a 2,600-year-old Buddhist practice, is a formal component of step eleven. Along with other mindfulness practices, mediation has increasingly been incorporated into contemporary psychotherapeutic approaches such as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). The role of spirituality in 12-step recovery is well known. What is much less well known is that its inclusion in the 12 steps when AA was established in 1935 occurred through Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and one-time protégé of Sigmund Freud, who founded analytical psychology and pioneered the concepts of archetypes, the shadow self, and the collective unconscious. Jung viewed addiction as a spiritual malady and addicts as frustrated spiritual seekers. He believed that the craving for altered states of consciousness reflected a spiritual thirst for wholeness and that spiritual connection was essential to overcoming addiction. Life takes its toll on all of us, and everyone, whether or not they struggle with addiction, chronic pain, or any other serious condition, sustains a certain degree of damage along the way. Recovery provides a pathway to heal from that damage and become stronger, just as broken bones can become stronger after they heal than they were before. Dan Mager, MSW - Website - Book References: Loss of Dopamine Transporters in Methamphetamine Abusers Recovers with Protracted Abstinence, Nora D. Volkow, Linda Chang, Gene-Jack Wang, Joanna S. Fowler, Dinko Franceschi, Mark Sedler, Samuel J. Gatley, Eric Miller, Robert Hitzemann, Yu-Shin Ding, Jean Logan, Journal of Neuroscience 1 December 2001, 21 (23) 9414-9418; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.21-23-09414.2001

... but neither finished first in a major recent survey. Earlier this year (2023), the Pew Research Center asked a representative national sample of adults in the U.S. what they thought it would take to live a fulfilling life. Participants were asked to indicate the importance of 5 factors: being married , having children, having close friends, having a job or career they enjoyed, and having a lot of money. Marriage Was Considered Least Important to a Fulfilling Life Only 23 percent of respondents to the survey said that marriage was either very important or extremely important in order to live a fulfilling life. That was the lowest percentage of all five categories. Very close to marriage, in their lack of importance to a fulfilling life, were having lots of money and having children . Only 24 percent thought that having lots of money was very or extremely important to a fulfilling life, and just 26 percent thought that having children was. Having close friends was considered far more important: 61 percent said it was very or extremely important to living a fulfilling life, compared to just 23 percent for being married and 26 percent for having children. The number-one key to a fulfilling life, though, was not any of those things; it was having a job or career you enjoy. More than 7 in 10 (71 percent) said this was very or extremely important in order to live a fulfilling life. This didn’t seem to be just about the money that employment brings; only 24 percent said that having lots of money was a key to fulfillment. What seemed to matter was that the work was enjoyable. Do Married People Also Believe This? The overall results I just presented were averaged across adults of all marital statuses. But what if we looked separately at the married people? Would we find that they think marriage is more important than the other factors, but their attitudes are rendered invisible by averaging them in with everyone else’s? Not really. Among married people, 29 percent said that being married was important to having a fulfilling life. That’s more than the average across people of all marital statuses: 23 percent. “Still,” the Pew Report noted, “married people place much greater importance on job satisfaction and having children than they do on being married.” Here are the percentages of people in each marital status who believe that marriage is very or extremely important to a fulfilling life: Married: 29 percent Divorced , separated, or widowed: 18 percent. Lifelong singles (“never married”): 15 percent. Living with a romantic partner: 12 percent. A Timely Set of Findings The Census Bureau issues a press release every September to mark “Unmarried and Single Americans Week.” If you look at this year’s statement, you will see from the two graphs included within it that for both men and women, the percentage of adults who are married has consistently decreased since around 1960, while the percentage who have been single their whole life (“never married”) has increased. Counting all adults who are not married (divorced, widowed, and always single), there are now nearly as many adults in the U.S. who are not married as who are. Even people who do marry are getting around to it later and later in life. In a previous post, I made the case that we are living in the age of friendship. Our changing demographics , needs, and values are consistent with a growing appreciation for close friendship. Increasingly, friends are represented in serious ways in popular culture, and scholars, too, are more often turning their attention to the study of friends. What they are finding is impressive. For example, in a study of more than 300,000 adults from 99 nations, people who valued friendship more were happier, healthier, and more satisfied with their lives. Embracing Single Life Does Not Mean Disparaging Marriage Discussions of the decades-long decrease in the percentage of married people and the equally longstanding increase in the percentage of lifelong single people have focused overwhelmingly on the former. Why, it is asked, are rates of marriage declining? That’s a marriage-centered way of thinking. Too often neglected is the singles-centered perspective that instead asks why so many people are staying single. That framing invites the possibility that many people are embracing single life for what it has to offer, not settling for single life because they never found The One. I call those people single at heart. As I've noted elsewhere, "Many single people are flourishing because they take advantage of the freedom and autonomy they often have in their lives, as well as the opportunities to live psychologically rich and meaningful lives. They flourish because of the skills they master, the solitude they savor, the people they value, and the love and intimacy they enjoy." The people whom the single at heart value most are often their friends. They are also more likely than people who are not single at heart to value work that is meaningful. In those ways, they are living the values that most adults in the U.S., married or not, see as the keys to a fulfilling life. Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. - Website - Book

Remain confident in your value, no matter how a date goes. It may be best to show interest in finding love, but not desperately search for it. We should aim to be confident in our value regardless of the result of a date. Dating does not have to be hard work; when it is taken lightly, it can be enjoyable. “You don't find love, it finds you.” —Anais Nin Finding a suitable romantic partner has become complex in contemporary society, not because there are not enough candidates, but because there are too many of them. A major issue in this respect is how exactly we search for love. Being too serious and desperate is counterproductive. Random Answers Here are several random responses (taken from Reddit) to the saying: “If you stop looking for love, it will come naturally.” “This saying suggests you just live your life and don't put all your energy into looking.” “Learn to be happy with yourself, focus on being the best version of yourself and it will happen.” “Honestly, I disagree. I think the more accurate concept is: don’t try to force anything that isn’t there.” "Don't focus on finding the right person, focus on being the right person." “People will be more interested if you are not desperate.” “You can’t just sit there and expect the love of your life to suddenly show up with a smooch and chocolate cake.” “It only works if you're at least an average looking woman or attractive man.” “If it were true, I'd have a lot of love by now, given that I’ve never looked for it. But nope, I have none.” “Actively searching for love can be seen as ‘creepy’ or ‘weird.’" Searching for Love “Desperation is unattractive. People naturally want someone supportive and strong in a relationship, and if you are living your life happy, busy, and single, more people will be drawn to you because you fit that description better.” —SlavaBogo The advice to call off the romantic search stems from unpleasant dating experiences and their poor success rate. The road leading to love has many seductive romantic options but finding the optimal one is often frustrating. This may make hopeful daters desperate and hurtful, and in doing so perhaps become "unattractive" and likely to make bad choices. People want a partner who will help generate a flourishing relationship where partners bring out the best in each other. A desperate and needy person cannot do so. The advice to stop looking for love refers to how we find it—not to the romantic experience itself. The claim is that improving your dating behavior may make the road leading to love more pleasant, and the results better. There are various ways to improve our search for love (see here). One such way is increasing the partner’s interest; another is enhancing the agent’s own self-esteem. Increasing the Partner’s Interest "Don't play hard to get, play hard to forget." —Drake “If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them." —Michael Bassey Johnson One way of improving our romantic search is increasing the prospective partner’s interest in us. Two common tactics are playing hard to get and generating jealousy from our partner. These tactics, which are often more useful to women, are intended to make potential partners desire us more. When we play hard to get, we indicate that we are less interested in someone than we really are; this lack of enthusiasm may boost our prospective partner’s efforts to get this seemingly hard to get person. Similarly, generating a moderate jealousy in our partner may enhance our value, since we seem to be desired by other people. The tactics of playing hard to get and generating jealousy require deceiving and manipulating others. Although they may be useful in dating at times, and to a lesser extent in ongoing relationships, their value is temporary and limited (see here). Making the Road More Pleasant “I enjoy dating when I’m actually out on a date. The looking and pursuing part sucks.” —A woman Being too enthusiastic and purposeful in the search for love is counterproductive, since we may be perceived as worthless and desperate. The advice to stop looking for love does not focus on enhancing the partner’s interest, but rather on the agent’s own behavior and in particular, on enhancing the agent’s calmness and self-esteem, both of which are valuable in dating and romantic relationships. The idea that we should stop looking for love also has a deceptive aspect, since people do really want love. However, this attitude does not involve deceiving others, but rather negatively evaluating the price of a desperate search and its likely negative results. Nevertheless, playing hard to get is more valuable than completely calling off the search for love. This is because it is more restricted in scope and enables revising the decision at any time, since the agent has greater control on the situation. Notwithstanding the advantages of hiding your worries, expressing a positive attitude is valuable as well. Take, for example, the case of afterglow, the good feeling that lingers after pleasurable sexual experiences—a kind of intense shining that is both attractive and infectious. Research suggests that even more than the effects of orgasm, sexual afterglow determines how people feel about their sexual partner (Meltzer et al., 2017; Ben-Ze’ev, 2023). Indeed, a married woman said, “While having an affair, I was sexually aroused and began to notice other men noticing me. Even my husband was more attracted to me. When it rains, it pours” (see here). In the same way that men notice sexually aroused women, people notice romantically desperate people and stay away from them. Showing Interest but Not Desperately Searching “If you explicitly go to parties to meet a partner, you're going to come off as desperate and not meet anyone. If you just live your best life, be content by yourself, do fun and interesting things, hang out where other people are, THEN people will be interested in you.” —Unknown Coping with the dilemma of looking for love requires distinguishing between searching for love and an interest in love. Dictionary definitions of “searching” refer to the intention to find the often-hidden truth in a determined, complete and serious manner. Definitions of “interest” typically refer to enjoyable activity associated with the wish to learn more. What underlies the wish to find love is not the frustrating search for the hidden truth, but rather, the wish to learn more about the partner while enjoying the road, and being happy with your own lot. You should be confident in your value regardless of the result of the date. As it has been said, “Confidence isn’t ‘They will like me,’ it’s ‘I’m perfectly fine if they don’t’”. Your life and self-esteem do not depend on what happens on the date. Worries of disappointment in dating can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are confident of your value, you are less judgmental and biased and consequently more likely to succeed. Taking oneself lightly is extremely attractive, and is often associated with humor, thereby helping coping with minor misfortunes, such as an unsuccessful date. As G. K. Chesterton eloquently puts it, "Angels fly because they take themselves lightly." Taking oneself lightly is associated with calmness, which is essential in flourishing romantic relationships (Ben-Ze’ev, 2019; and here). We should not give up on the idea of love, but we should also not immerse ourselves in a serious, laborious search to find the one and only. Dating does not have to be hard work; when it is taken lightly, it can be quite enjoyable and successful. Aaron Ben-Zeév, Ph.D., References Ben-Ze’ev, A. (2019). The arc of love: How our romantic lives change over time. Chicago University Press. Ben-Ze’ev, A. (2023). “Is casual sex good for you? Casualness, seriousness and wellbeing in Intimate relationships.” Philosophies, 8, 2023, 25. Birnbaum, G. E., Zholtack, K., & Reis, H. T. (2020). No pain, no gain: Perceived partner mate value mediates the desire-inducing effect of being hard to get during online and face-to-face encounters. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 37, 2510-2528. ‏ Meltzer, A. L., Makhanova, A., Hicks, L. L., French, J. E., McNulty, J. K., & Bradbury, T. N. (2017). Quantifying the sexual afterglow: The lingering benefits of sex and their implications for pair-bonded relationships. Psychological science, 28, 587-598.

and are we any better at it than computers? Humans read each other’s emotions with great enthusiasm, but not a lot of accuracy. Who hasn't been annoyed by the question: “What’s the matter?” If you answer, “Nothing, that’s just my face,” people strangely assume that they’re correct and you are grumpy. But we do this because we care, enormously, about other people’s intent. What do they mean, and what do they mean toward us? Are they friends or foes? Powerful or subservient? A potential mate, or not? And so on. The question that inevitably follows on this highly practical concern about other people’s feelings, is more philosophical. It comes perhaps first in that moment when someone’s response to an event surprise you because it’s different from your own. You wonder: “Is that other person experiencing the same event as me?” This leads to the more general question, “Do humans experience similar emotions, or are we all different?” Philosophy has come up with different answers over the years, but generally, the conclusion is that, on the whole, we’re incommensurate with one another. That’s a mouthful, but it means that your experience of last night’s football game was different than mine. Maybe I cared more about the home team than you did, or maybe I don’t care about football at all. Taking it a step further, think about individual words. If I say, “London” to you, you most likely get a mental picture of the great English city, but what is it based on? Have you been to London? I have, both as a tourist and on business; I’ve got a walking familiarity with the city. But someone who lives there will inevitably have a much more detailed, rich, and emotional response to the word London than either you or me. Here’s their favorite pub, here’s their usual Tube stop, here’s where they got fired from one job, here’s where they currently work—and on, and on. Can we say that the word London means the same thing to all of us? And yet, neuroscience is teaching us that we’re more alike than we are different. Recent work on brain scans, for example, can read human emotions with 90 percent accuracy. Researchers showed people pictures of unpleasant things— physical injuries , hate groups, and acts of aggression —and they found that people reacted in predictable ways. But more than that, they all reacted with pretty much the same brain patterns. We’re more alike than we are different. Similarly, work by a team of psychologists at Princeton University found that when a storyteller and a listener get together, their brain patterns match up identically. Stories take over our brains—and in the same ways. Human emotions are similar, and the brain patterns show it. As chief researcher Luke Chang put it, emotions have a neural signature which is essentially the same from human to human. This also suggests that artificial intelligence could learn to recognize these emotions with high accuracy, 90 percent so far. The "2001: A Space Odyssey" scenario is not as far off as we might like to think. And there’s one further implication, which is that the accuracy rate for computers is much higher than humans can manage. And here’s the kicker, higher even than humans can manage their own emotions. We’re not even very good at recognizing how we feel ourselves. Reading other peoples’ emotions, as well as our own, is essential for good communications, and public speaking. The research shows that we are more alike than different suggesting that humans can profitably learn to become more accurate at reading emotions and that the results might pay off in better communication for anyone who attempts it. Nick Morgan, Ph.D. References See the journal PLOS Biology. Chang et al., 2015.

Most relationships contain unstated assumptions. In therapy, I ask couples, “What does monogamy or polyamory or ethical nonmonogamy mean to both of you?" Gay male and lesbian couples tend to be better at talking openly about these things than are straight couples. Restrictions may be unreasonable, unfair, and unlikely to succeed if not negotiated from the beginning. When I first work with couples , I always ask about their relationship status regarding monogamy or open relationships. Are you monogamous? Do you have an open relationship? Are you polyamorous? Are you monogamish? (This is a term coined by sex-advice columnist Dan Savage.) After they tell me the status of their relationships, I ask them what the word means to them. Once I worked with a couple, and they told me they were monogamous. After a few months of working together, they returned from a trip and told me about a three-way they had with someone. I responded by saying to them that they told me they were monogamous. They responded by saying, “We are monogamous; we only play together on vacations.” So, now, I ask my couples, “What does monogamy or polyamory or ethical nonmonogamy mean to both of you?” I have often noticed that when I ask couples who are monogamous if they have negotiated their monogamy, they look at me with great confusion. They think that question should only be for couples who are open and engage in ethical nonmonogamy. But this is far from true. I then ask these questions: Can they flirt with others? Can they have an occasional dinner with an ex? Can they enjoy socializing with others without the partner present? Can they privately watch porn? Can they have cybersex outside the relationship as long as they never meet physically? How about private masturbation? Can they have a relationship with someone on Instagram whom they will never meet? Often one partner says, “No, absolutely not, we are monogamous” while the other partner says, “Well, I don’t know; those things sound like monogamy to me.” This brings clarity to the need for all couples to negotiate their agreements within their relationship in overt ways and not assume. Gay male couples tend to be much better at talking openly about these things than are straight couples and even many lesbian couples. I’m not sure why this is less prevalent among straight couples, but I’m reasonably certain that if couples had negotiated which behaviors are acceptable and which aren’t, it certainly would cut down on the number of couples who come into my office deeply upset because some unstated boundary was violated. Then there’s the question of just how far to go in either limiting a partner’s behavior or limiting one’s own behavior. Former Vice President Mike Pence has made it clear that he considers even having lunch with a female colleague ethically off-limits. Whether this is something he and his wife (whom he calls “Mother”) have negotiated isn’t clear, but it does seem a rather severe restriction for someone in public office. What Is Micro-cheating? Mostly because of the prevalence of social media in our lives today, we now have the emergence of a term that is further dialing up such hypervigilance in relationships. It’s been dubbed “micro-cheating.” The opinions seem to be that we need to be watching for such dangerous behaviors as these: Casually flirting with someone other than one’s partner Having an online conversation with someone and failing to mention it to one’s partner Spending time looking at online images of an attractive person such as an actor Looking for too long at someone who is attractive on the street or in the office Repeatedly liking someone’s posts on social media (even if they live in Siberia!) Having ongoing conversations with an ex or someone other than one’s partner Spending money on another person Failing to tell someone who appears interested in you that you’re in a relationship Exchanging emails with someone who is not one’s partner Spending time with people outside the couple’s circle of friends Hugging someone other than one’s partner Masturbating or watching porn alone Most people I’ve seen online promoting this concept of micro-cheating pose it as an “open door” to more serious acts of unfaithfulness. Is it? I do think it’s a healthy idea at the start of a relationship to talk about what “monogamy” means to each partner and to occasionally reconfirm what the boundaries are. However, it’s hard for me to imagine one partner saying to the other outside of a therapy room, “Let’s talk about what we mean by monogamy,” without this being met with a firestorm of suspicion and a crisis in the relationship. Gay Male Couples Gay males often talk about what they want sexually and romantically immediately in their dating apps. They often don’t wait for even the first date to be clear about what they want and are looking for. It is a cultural norm that is mostly accepted. A typical personal ad looking for Mr. Right can read like this: I am into topping but will bottom every once in a while. I am into various kinks and fetishes and am open to yours as well. I like to masturbate and enjoy going having hookups now and then in addition to a romantic love with whom we go to movies, long walks, travel, and make a life together as a couple. This would be met with great scrutiny if heterosexual singles put this same ad on their dating profiles. In my therapy practice, couples have come in, for instance, because the wife has discovered that her husband has been watching porn, and she feels very threatened. She wants me to label him a sex addict or to somehow get me to control this behavior. But most often I find that his porn watching is no indication he wants to be unfaithful or is going to be. So, then the couple is, as the therapist Marty Klein has said, fighting over a contract that they never made. The couple’s office visit, then, offers an opportunity to begin a safer discussion about realistic and unrealistic boundaries and let me help them negotiate. We can, for example, raise the question, “Does the fact that his porn watching makes you uncomfortable mean that he absolutely must stop?” According to the online presenters I’ve seen about micro-cheating, the answer is “Yes.” The reality, though, is that such an expectation might be unreasonable, unfair, and unlikely to succeed if it is not something you negotiated from the beginning. I think of relationship expert, Ellyn Bader who says, “Forbidding a partner invites secrecy.” It can become a power play—which partner will restrict the other person’s physical and mental activity, their actions, and their thoughts? The question becomes, “How much power do you or should you have over your partner?” And even “How much power do you want to have over them?” I have found that, when it comes to sex, these types of power plays get enacted much more than outside of that realm. If someone says, "I forbid porn to be watched by my partner," I will ask if they have other places where they “forbid” a partner, and the answer is often no. This is a question I learned to ask by relationship expert Esther Perel who invites couples into these conversations. There is another approach I heard from a friend who said: “It’s OK to look at and smell all the good things on a smorgasbord, but you’d better eat your meal at home.” This way of thinking works well for some couples—especially if they’ve talked about it—and not at all for others. I know for certain that every couple is quite different in how they approach and resolve the questions surrounding the idea of monogamy. Maybe one of the good things that thinking about micro-cheating is that it begs the question, “Have you negotiated your monogamy?” And it certainly shines a spotlight on the possibility that women can be as guilty of this as men, while in the past it has mostly been women who have claimed to be the victims. So, at least for me, this idea of micro-cheating and clearly negotiating monogamy brings up more questions than answers. What are your thoughts? Joe Kort, Ph.D., LMSW, - Website -