By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
~ 3 min read

Healing After the Election

5 Crucial Reasons You Should Talk More

Bipolar vs. Schizophrenia

By Lauren Walters – 1 min read in www.psychcentral.com

Bipolar versus Schizophrenia

Introduction

According to healthline.com, “Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are two different chronic mental disorders. People can sometimes mistake the symptoms of bipolar disorder for schizophrenia symptoms.” To explain further according to this specific source, Bipolar Disorder and schizophrenia can be confused with one another. However, they are two different disorders. This particular article will address the differences between Bipolar Disorder and schizophrenia.

What Is Bipolar Disorder?

According to healthline.com, “Bipolar disorder is a brain disorder. It causes sudden and strong shifts in energy, mood, and activity levels. A person with bipolar disorder will switch between extreme excitement, or mania, and depression. These shifts can affect your ability to perform daily activities.” To sum it up, Bipolar Disorder consists of sudden shifts in mood and energy.

What Is Schizophrenia?

According to healthline.com, “Schizophrenia isn’t as common as bipolar disorder. The symptoms are more severe than the symptoms of bipolar disorder, but it’s highly treatable. People with schizophrenia experience hallucinations and delusions. Hallucinations involve seeing or hearing things that aren’t there. Delusions are beliefs in things that aren’t true.” To explain further, schizophrenia consists of hallucinations and delusions.

What Are The Differences Between Bipolar Disorder And Schizophrenia?

According to healthline.com, the onset of Bipolar Disorder and schizophrenia appear at different points in an individual’s life. According to healthline.com, “Bipolar disorder affects approximately 2.2 % of people in the United States. It usually first appears between the late teen years and early adulthood. Children can also show signs of bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia affects 1.1% of the population. People usually find out they have it between the ages of 16 and 30. Schizophrenia isn’t usually seen in children.” Therefore, to summarize, Bipolar Disorder affects more of the population than schizophrenia does. In addition, Bipolar Disorder can show up in childhood, while Schizophrenia usually shows up between the ages of 16 and 30 and is not seen in childhood.

Conclusion

To end this article, Bipolar Disorder and schizophrenia may appear similar to the human eye, especially since individuals with Bipolar Disorder and schizophrenia can both experience symptoms associated with psychosis. However, this is just one similarity between Bipolar Disorder and schizophrenia. On a contrasting note, they are actually quite different from one another. To recap, Bipolar Disorder is more common than schizophrenia, appearing in 2.2% and 1.1% of the population, respectively. In addition, Bipolar Disorder can appear in as early as childhood, while schizophrenia is not known to appear in childhood, rather appearing between the ages of 16 years old to 30 years old.

What Social Anxiety Feels Like and Where It Comes From

What Social Anxiety Feels Like and Where It Comes From

March 31, 2016 • By Ben Ringler, MFT, GoodTherapy.org Topic Expert Contributor

Do you often dread parties, anxiously fearing awkward conversations that expose the contents of your mind for all to see?

Do you cringe at the thought of meeting people?

Around others, do you find yourself spinning with worry about what they think of you or how you measure up?

These are just a few of the manifestations of social anxiety.

Social anxiety can be a paralyzing, frustrating, and chaotic experience. It’s a very out-of-control feeling that can leave you very torn: torn between the human need to be social and connected to others and the feeling of wanting to run away and hide from what feels like an oppressive, all-consuming monster. It can feel as though you have no clothes and no skin—as if people can see right inside you.

And when you’re alone again, away from the social scene, you may notice your immediate relief being slowly replaced by feelings of isolation, disappointment with yourself, and hopelessness.

Social anxiety can derive from many sources: early traumatic experiences, generalized anxiety expressing itself in particular ways, and a more sensitive disposition interacting with a highly stimulating world, among others.

In the paragraphs that follow, I want to address one aspect of social anxiety and offer some tips for how to think about and work with it. Specifically, I want to discuss how social anxiety can be a reflection of what is happening for you on the inside.

Social Anxiety as an Internal Mirror Image

If you struggle with social anxiety, you may be projecting onto the outside world what you feel inside, perhaps partially or entirely unconsciously. Inside, you may feel the (self-fulfilling) constellation of thoughts and feelings you notice in social settings:

Social anxiety can derive from many sources: early traumatic experiences, generalized anxiety expressing itself in particular ways, and a more sensitive disposition interacting with a highly stimulating world, among others.

• Anxious anticipation of socializing or being with people, about being judged or exposed, or just having to deal with awkward conversations.
• Heightened anxiety (maybe manifesting in sweaty palms, pale skin, or rapid heartbeat) in a social setting, particularly if you feel what you anticipated you’d feel: anxiety, feeling judged, awkwardness, and the feeling you don’t belong.
• Often what goes along with this, even when things are going OK, is a running inner commentary of comparison: how everyone else is NOT anxious, just you. How everyone else is able to connect and has so much to say and is so articulate, just not you.
• Depending on how difficult it gets, you may want to run, but first have to devise the best escape route in order to not attract attention.

These thoughts and feelings may echo how you felt as a child in your family of origin. If so, you may have internalized them, and now replay them in social settings of one type or another.

Specifically, as a child, you may have felt alone, anxious, and not quite adequate in relation to your family. Especially if there was anxiety, insecurity, or self-criticism in the family system, and no one was really aware of or dealing with it, you may have internalized it and made it your own.

Attending to Your Inner World

In order to reduce social anxiety, especially if the family scene I described resonates for you, it’s important to attend to your inner world in a consistent way. Here are five steps you can take:

1. In a journal, draw a line down the center. On the left, write “Family Environment” and on the right, “Social Anxiety.”
2. Spend some time thinking about your family environment. Look for any similarities you experience in your social anxiety and your childhood. Specifically, was there a lot of criticism? Anxiety? Did you feel judged? Insecure? Write your observations down in the left-hand column.
3. Track the thoughts and feelings you notice in social settings. (This is a great exercise because it distracts from your anxious thoughts and gives you an immediate tool to work with your anxiety.) Write down any repetitive thoughts and feelings you experience in the right-hand column.
4. Take some time and compare and contrast. You might be surprised how much you learn about how your past affects your present experience. Write down any insights and, especially, feel whatever feelings arise.
5. When feeling social anxiety, breathe into your belly consistently. Reassure yourself. Tell yourself that, most likely, everyone in the room is anxious in one way or another.

These are some great initial steps that may open your eyes to how your inner world, especially memories and emotion, affects your present-day experience. For more in-depth work and permanent change, psychotherapy is an excellent way to work with social anxiety because you can, in real time, observe and share your anxious thoughts with a trained professionalwho can help you navigate the memories and hurts that keep you from having a more satisfying social life.

© Copyright 2016 GoodTherapy.org. All rights reserved. Permission to publish granted by Ben Ringler, MFT, therapist in Berkeley, California

The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.

Emotionally Prepare for a Hurricane By American Psychological Association

Emotionally Prepare for a Hurricane / Anxiety Tips

Emotionally Prepare for a Hurricane / Anxiety Tips

~ 2 min read

Preparing for and anticipating the arrival of a large-scale hurricane can be distressing for people living in the hurricane’s path. There may be uncertainty ahead about your living arrangements, work and other important life factors, especially if you have been evacuated.

You may also be concerned about storm damage to your home, neighborhood and community. The near-constant stream of news about the storm’s arrival can give rise to feelings of stress, anxiety and fear. Recognizing these common emotional reactions and taking steps to prepare for the storm will be helpful in safeguarding your emotional well-being.

Here are some simple and effective ways to manage your storm-related fears and anxiety. Many are essential ingredients for a healthy lifestyle and adopting them can help improve your overall emotional and physical well-being

Steps to Take to Prepare for a Hurricane

• Have a plan and implement it. It is important to have a plan for you and your family (including pets) to be safe during the storm. Recent hurricanes and other weather-related events have illustrated the importance of emergency preparedness. The American Red Cross recommends steps you can take to prepare. Find out about available transportation, relatives who might be able to take you in, shelter locations and other important details. Knowing in advance that you are prepared for the storm can lessen your anxiety.

• Get the facts. Gather information that will help you accurately determine your risk so that you can take reasonable actions. Find a credible source you can trust such as your governor’s office, local or state public health agencies or the National Weather Service. Limit your exposure to news reports that focus on damage and destruction.

• Make connections. Good relationships with close family members, friends and others are important. Even those separated from their families, can build connections among new acquaintances. Some of the most inspiring stories from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina spotlighted people evacuating from New Orleans accompanied by – and emotionally attached to – fellow evacuees they had just met. Coming together and helping one another can be positive for your emotional health.

• Stay healthy. A healthy lifestyle – including proper diet, exercise and rest – is your best defense against any threat. A healthy body can have a positive impact on your thoughts and emotions, enabling you to make better decisions and better deal with the hurricane’s uncertainties.

• Reach out to your children. Help children by restricting constant viewing of the news, giving them assurances that plans are in place to keep them safe and maintaining their routines as much as possible.

• Maintain a hopeful outlook. Remember that the federal government, your state government, and many non-governmental disaster services agencies have already mobilized to address the threat of the hurricane. Also, many improvements have been made to those response systems since the last large-scale hurricanes. Also, recall times when you’ve successfully managed challenging life circumstances. Draw upon those skills and experiences to help you through the current storm.

• Seek additional help. People who feel an overwhelming anxiety, fear or other prolonged reaction that adversely affects their interpersonal relationships or job performance should consult with a trained and experienced mental health professional. Psychologists and other appropriate mental health providers can help people find constructive ways to manage adversity and deal with extreme stress.

• Persevere and trust in your ability to get through the challenging days ahead. Putting into practice some of these tips may help to strengthen your emotional well-being.

Special thanks to Raymond F. Hanbury, PhD, ABPP and Eva D. Sivan, PhD for their assistance in preparing this document.

By Annabella Hagen, LCSW, RPT-S
~ 3 min read

Two Ways to Put the Brakes on Your Anxiety

Two Ways to Put the Brakes on Your Anxiety
Our human instinct is to react and push back when we feel pain and discomfort. When we struggle with anxiety, those feelings are magnified. Our inherent response is to try and get rid of unpleasant feelings and sensations immediately. But does it really work?

This is an important question, and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) teaches that fighting the discomfort can actually make the situation worse. Mental health providers practicing ACT often use the quicksand metaphor, and the reaction we naturally would have if we were ever caught in it. Even though we know it makes matters worse when we panic and try to get out quickly, our survival mechanisms tell us differently.

Trying to get out of quicksand is counterintuitive. The first piece of advice given by outdoor experts is not to panic or make frantic movements. We are taught to slowly wiggle our body until we can lie on our back. Once most of our body is on the surface, we can then try to float and roll ourselves to solid ground.

How we need to respond to anxious moments according to ACT may sound illogical as well. It takes time to understand how to be flexible with our thoughts and the emotional pain that comes with them. Our natural tendency is to react in defense, but perhaps it’s worth a try to look at our anxiety with a different set of eyes.

Think about what would happen if we were to ask a surgeon to remove our brain structures that set the fight-or-flight response in motion. We simply would not live very long. This response is part of who we are as mortal creatures. There is no way we can get rid of it. We need our “alarm system” to survive this menacing universe. However, instead of having to fight snakes, tigers, and mammoths, we fight the stress created by our challenging and busy world. When individuals experience anxiety, their fight-or-flight response is an ongoing reaction in their lives.

Experiencing restlessness, fatigue, muscle tension, heart pounding, and shortness of breath, to name a few symptoms of anxiety, is not something we want to encounter on a regular basis. However, when we resist these sensations, our “alarm system” may detect that it’s not doing its job. It continues to pump blood and stress hormones to defend us from the enemy. When this happens, it certainly can feel like we are in quicksand!

Rather than following your instinctive reaction, consider these two suggestions:

Slow down
This is easier said than done, but have you noticed what happens when you are feeling high anxiety? Someone may recommend that you relax and take slow deep breaths. You follow their advice, but then your mind may tell you to do it faster. The mind — the amazing problem-solving machine — wants to help you. So it says to you: “The faster you breathe, the faster these feelings and sensations will vanish!” It makes sense doesn’t it? That’s the mind’s job, but you know its warning is backfiring as you begin to hyperventilate and become even more anxious.

Remember, the sensations you feel as anxiety escalates are an indication that your nervous system is functioning well. In fact, it’s working overtime. Instead of trying to get rid of the sensations, note how your wonderful mind acts so quickly to protect you from harm. Gradually scan your body and detect how each part of it is responding. As you do this, remember to observe your thoughts, and slowly refocus.

Take time to breathe in and out even when your ‘thinking engine’ is telling you to do otherwise. Choose an anchor to focus on. For example, simply notice the air coming in and out of your nose. You might want to direct your attention to the temperature of the air as you inhale and exhale, or feel how your abdomen expands and contracts.

Remember, your thought-producing machine will be trying to coach you, and produce thoughts that may not be helpful in the moment. Acknowledge what it says, and gently return to the anchor you’ve chosen.

Become curious
Choose to look at your body with interest. Watch what happens when you breathe in and out slowly. Curiously examine the results of not reacting to the amazing problem-solving engine as you normally would. Carefully pay attention to small details in things and people around you. Can you clearly distinguish the sounds in the room? Have you ever wondered how your sense of smell functions during a stressful situation? How is your body reacting to the surfaces it is touching during anxious moments?

Ask yourself this question: What happens each time I listen to my mind and try to get out of it frantically? Consider your answer seriously. Try to see anxiety in a different light. Take a chance and be willing to respond differently. Remember that managing anxiety is counterintuitive.

Discover what may happen if you follow professional advice. Outdoor experts have provided the appropriate steps to follow when caught in quicksand. Our thinking machine most likely will want us to follow our innate intuition to get out of it as soon as we can. It will be up to us to follow expert advice, if we ever should need it. So it is with anxiety. Will you follow your survival instincts or the advice from researchers who have studied this disorder and have found what provides lasting results?

There are other steps but start with these and see what happens. It takes practice, time, and patience to master new skills. Remember that learning to manage anxiety is a process. You can choose to slow down and become inquisitive. As you do, you’ll find that you have more time to live a value-focused life instead of an anxiety-focused life.

By Suzanne Kane on www.psychcentral.com

~ 2 min read

7 Tips on Mastering Change – Need Help with Change – Contact Dr. April

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”– Brian Tracy.   Change is nonstop. Life coaches and proponents of positive thinking are nearly unanimous in recommending that we accept and embrace change.

While that is good advice, sometimes change brings with it uncertainty, fear, doubt, failure and dashed hopes. We may start off with an optimistic outlook, only to encounter some difficulty or unexpected problem that throws everything we had planned off-kilter.

We might just give up on the change we’re trying to make.

Or, we might become even more determined to see it through.

The attitude we adopt is really the key to what comes afterward. Granted, we cannot predict what will happen or what will ultimately be the result of our actions, but we can control how we think about our prospects, what we believe our strengths are and how self-confident we are.

It does take practice to see the hopeful, rather than the dismal, but we can learn how to do this.

Here are some tips on mastering change:

• Keep your eye on the goal.
• While interruptions and challenges are bound to occur, if you have a firm grasp of what you want to achieve, you’ll be poised to weather distractions and detours along the way.
• Revisit your plan often.
  Sometimes, with everything being thrown at you, it’s tough to stay focused on the plan. That’s why you write it down, so you can refer to it as often as necessary to remind you of your goal – and the steps you need to take to be successful.
• Be optimistic about being able to find solutions.
  Problems will occur, but you have been through these kinds of situations before and figured out solutions. Remind yourself of this and it will help bolster your resolve and maintain your optimistic attitude.
• Don’t be afraid to adapt and revise.
• Just because you have a plan doesn’t mean that you have to adhere to it so rigidly that you miss opportunities. The key here is to remain flexible so that you are able to adapt and modify your plan to incorporate new ideas and perhaps take advantage of a different approach.
• Flexibility is one of the hallmarks of mastering change.
• Surround yourself with positive people.
  When you’re embarking on change, or making a decision to change, you don’t need naysayers around you challenging your actions. Choose to be with others who are upbeat, supportive of your ideas and goals, and whose success and demeanor you admire. Positivity is contagious, and you’ll benefit from associating with positive friends, co-workers, neighbors and acquaintances.
• Find the lesson in failure. No one likes to think about failure, but the fact is that it happens. Should this quash your attitude about ultimately succeeding? Not if you study what happened and discover the lesson the experience holds. This makes you that much more prepared to handle whatever comes next and to take proactive measures to deal with them.
• Be open to new ideas.
• You wouldn’t eat the same meal day after day, would you? Just as variety is the spice of cuisine, so, too, is the willingness to entertain new ideas. Even if what you read, see or hear is a somewhat different way to accomplish a goal than you’ve used before, it might hold some merit in terms of adaptation, revision or addition to what strategies you have in your toolkit.
• Knowing you have options is a great confidence-builder.
  Keep in mind that the way you regard change says a lot about who you are. You can be in control of your attitude and master change, or allow change to master you.

digitalista/Bigstock

If You’re Saying These 5 Things, You’re Hurting Your Kid

By Peg Streep
~ 4 min read

in www.psychcentral.com

I am on the corner of 72^nd and First Avenue, standing next to a father and a little boy about six or seven. He is wearing a baseball uniform, and carrying a bat, and weeping uncontrollably. The father’s voice is loud and abrasive: “How many times do I have to tell you to keep your eye on the ball? Don’t you ever listen?” The boy is snuffling, trying to contain himself. The light changes and then I hear the father’s final salvo: “And stop being such a crybaby.”

I decide that grabbing that father by the shoulders and stopping him in his tracks is probably not a smart move and would only make matters worse, but you have to believe that I wanted to.

What I witnessed is verbal aggression. This experience involved a father but unattuned mothers do it all the time and unloving mothers do it 24/7. Our culture is way too tolerant when it comes to words, especially when a parent uses them. “Oh, he’s just trying to help his son toughen up a bit, “we say collectively, “The world is a hard place.” Or “You do have to keep your eye on the ball, after all. Is there a nice way of delivering criticism?” Actually, there is.

Language that shames, marginalizes, or dismisses a child’s thoughts and feelings is abusive. Science is very clear on how those abusive messages are internalized—they become self-criticism, the habit of mind that ascribes missteps or failures to fixed character traits in yourself, rather than circumstances—and how they change the developing brain.

Way too often, verbal aggression is rationalized or justified as discipline or a necessary corrective but that is a lie, pure and simple. Following are five phrases that actually inflict emotional damage, hinder normal development, and make a child more vulnerable to impaired mental health, along with the reasons why.

1.Why can’t you be more like…

Children are exquisitely sensitive to differential treatment and the work done by Judy Dunn and Robert Plomin on siblings shows that witnessing differential treatment of a brother or sister makes more of a lasting impression on a child than the love he or she receives directly from a parent. Keep in mind, too, that humans are hardwired to react more strongly to negative events and that our memories of painful moments are stored in a different part of the brain and are more accessible than positive ones.

While a mother or father may feel that it’s helpful to set up a possible role model for a child with this sentence, it’s actually not. Pointing out the ways in which a child is less than another child—it could be a sibling, a cousin, a neighbor’s kid, anyone—is hurtful and demeaning, not inspirational.

2.You always…

This is phrase is aggressive when it’s used with another adult but invokes fear and often hopelessness when aimed at a child by a figure of authority. It’s destructive because it makes whatever criticism is being leveled highly personal and delivers a general indictment of a child’s personality and character. I’m not saying that kids don’t need to be reprimanded from time to time but keep it specific to whatever’s at hand. If something gets lost or damaged—as inevitably will happen—it’s one thing to tell a child to try to be more careful and another to launch into a litany of his or her failings as in “You’re always so clumsy and you never pay attention to anything because you’re always off in a dream world. How about trying to be a member of this family for once, instead of a slob?”

3. You’re too sensitive

Having grown up hearing this 24/7, I am especially sensitive—yes, the phrasing is deliberate—to mothers and fathers using these words to marginalize, dismiss, or deny a child’s emotional or intellectual reaction to being hurt. This phrase is a key component of blame-shifting in dysfunctional relationships, whether they are between a parent and child or two adults. Of course, the former is much more damaging because the child is very likely to take you at your word and believe that it must be her fault that she’s feeling hurt or that she’s wrong to interpret your words and actions as she does. The damage this criticism causes is enormous and sometimes life-long because it makes the daughter or son distrust her or his perceptions. It’s a close cousin of gaslighting.

3.It’s no big deal

Whatever the “it” is—a missed opportunity, something that makes the child sad or disappointed or anything else—this is not reassurance but a way of marginalizing what she is feeling. It’s one thing to reassure a child that she will feel better about what’s happened in a few days when it’s not as immediate and she’s had time to process her hurt but it’s quite another to undercut her reaction by dismissing what happened or telling her that “it really wasn’t important.” The point is that it was important to her. There’s a fine line here that parents—who are, after all, the folks in charge—need to pay attention to.

5. You’re a ….

Shaming a child is not okay so calling her or him a name—crybaby, wuss, coward, weakling, snotnose, weirdo, pig, brat—must and should always be off-limits and is highly abusive, plain and simple. So are words that mock a child’s appearance such as calling her fat or ugly. You’re the adult and how angry and frustrated you were in the moment doesn’t change how your child was affected. Own up to your own loss of control and apologize. That’s the bottom line.

No one likes to talk about how much power a parent has over a child or the small world a daughter or son inhabits. But where there is power, there is always the possibility of the abuse of that power. Forget the old “sticks and stones” thing because words matter and, yes, they inflict as much or perhaps even more damage than physical blows. Don’t justify or rationalize; just cut these phrases out of your working vocabulary for the sake of your child and, additionally, your own.

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Photo by Katie Chase. Copyright Free. Unsplash.com

Dunn, Judy and Robert Plomin. Separate Lives: Why Children Are So Different. New York: Basic Books, 1990.