Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 2)

After too long of an absence, one of my clients finally broke my writer’s block. Unfortunately, this experience is so common among women there’s no way confidentiality will even be threatened by my sharing this. My client expressed her deep seated fear that if she gained weight, people would no longer like her and would even abandon her. This idea was based on her observations that being thin is what leads to happiness. Some of you may be asking yourselves, “where could she have possibly gotten this ide.” Some of you are nodding your heads in agreement because you too have seen the numerous ads for weight loss aids, diet foods, Lean Cuisine, and even chocolate that shows thin, happy people generally having a good time. Day in and day out, we are inundated with these types of ads from the time that we can watch TV. We are taught that some foods are “good” and that others, typically the ones people want to eat, are “bad.” At the same time, any advertisement for food on TV involves a thin woman sensually enjoying whatever it is that she’s eating and ravenously looking for more. Women are trapped. Food is both the enemy and the replacement for a sexual relationship.

What if, instead of this confusing food landscape, we were raised on a planet where food was simply food, neither good nor bad and in no way a replacement for sex? Would women, and in reality men, have such a conflicted relationship with women’s bodies? The surprise of this is that we do live on this planet – food is simply food, neither good nor bad. We can’t have a relationship with food that will replace our intimate relationships with others. The difference is that we have commercials, magazines, and even some television shows that tell us otherwise. Maybe it’s time to start listening to our own wisdom again. Maybe it’s time our rational brains were invited back to the party. Instead of looking for comfort in that Snikcers bar or bag of Doritos, look for it in those people in your life that you can trust. Instead of trying to gain control of your hectic schedule with mac and cheese, try saying no to some of the things in your life that are actually creating the hectic schedule. Simple, right? Absolutely! Easy? Well, that’s a different story. It takes constant mental aerobics for women and men to remind themselves what is real for a woman’s body. Whether or not we use them for this purpose or not (which by the way, is the woman’s choice), women’s bodies are built to create and sustain life. That takes fat, hips, and breasts. It’s time we started to remember that and stopped bombarding women and men with unrealistic images and ideas about bodies and food. Women really do come with curves, and those curves are beautiful, in whatever form they take. That should be respected, not derided.

For so many women pregnancy and delivery proceed as planned. They never have a need to read the section of the pregnancy book about c-sections and other complications. They never know the fear associated with a child being placed in NICU (Newborn ICU) and they never have to worry about later consequences. For other women, nothing quite goes as planned. There are unforeseen complications during pregnancy like gestational diabetes or high blood pressure. There are complications during delivery, like failure to progress and wrapped cords. And for some women there are complications after birth that result in days, weeks, and even months spent with a child in NICU. A difficult pregnancy and delivery, followed by feeding difficulties are the biggest predictors of Post-Partum Depression or “the baby blues.” Even when the pregnancy is normal, 80% of women will experience at least some depressive symptoms following birth. Having experienced a difficult delivery myself, my heart broke when I learned that the woman who played matchmaker for my husband and me in high school had given birth nearly two months early. A few weeks ago, she was brave enough to share a few words about her experience. She discusses the idea of “ambiguous loss” in regards to premature birth. I have a feeling many women who had a less than perfect pregnancy and delivery can relate to her words and I felt they needed to be shared. Thank you Becky, for your strength in allowing me to share your story so that others may find some healing as well.

“Hm, I just read an article on Prematurity.org regarding “ambiguous loss” in regards to premature birth, and it kind of made me ponder my feelings about Blake’s premature birth. Of course the birth of any baby is a celebration of life, but when the birth involves a premature baby, the mother suffers the loss of her full pregnancy. And how exactly do you grieve the loss of something that can’t be touched, can’t be quantified, only felt, only imagined? No pregnant woman in this world plans to have a premature baby (unless of course her doctor has advised that the probability is high). I certainly wasn’t and until it happens to you, you have no idea how you will feel afterwards. I have said to many different people that I felt I was robbed of a normal, healthy pregnancy and birth experience. I didn’t get to hear my baby cry until a week after his birth because I was under full anesthesia and he was intubated. I didn’t get to hold my baby right after he was born, and I was scared to even touch him for fear of disturbing him. Some mothers have been in similar situations, and others have it far worse. My heart goes out to all of them. Some of the small and simple things are the ones we all take for granted. Throughout our whole experience I have made the most of our birth experience, because it is ours and I have seen that no two are the same. It has been hard, I can’t deny it. But every day I remind myself that it could be a lot worse…I have a beautiful, healthy baby boy and I am grateful for all the love and support our family has received and for the exceptional care Blake and I received at Women’s Hospital. . It could have been better, for sure, but it could have been a whole lot worse…and I thank my lucky stars every day that it wasn’t.”

So it’s that time of year again when everyone makes big plans for what they want to accomplish in the new year and then quickly ditch them for the easier, less stressful, more practical, or simply realistic way of life. That’s right, it’s time to make and then break those New Year’s Resolutions. So why make a resolution if we know we’re just going to break them? The number of answers to this abound – it gives us motivation, it sets a goal for the year, it helps us focus on ourselves for a change, etc. So then why do we break them within a few days of making them? The issue isn’t that we don’t try to stick to our pledge to never even look at a cigarette ad again or to finally lose those last 10 lbs. of baby weight. The issue is that because we feel so gung-ho to make changes in those first few days we often make the changes too big and too fast to stick. Think of it this way, if your goal is to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet that’s great and healthy. But, if your a person who doesn’t even know where they keep the fruits and veggies at the grocery store, this is going to be a huge challenge for you. You will most likely need to think about how to build up to your goal in steps rather than starting with your 5 fruits and veggies a day on January 1. So here are some tips for making and hopefully keeping your resolutions for more than a few days.

* Make sure that your resolution is actually attainable. If your goal is to reach your healthy weight but you’re over 100lbs overweight, you will most likely not reach this goal by year’s end (regardless of what the Biggest Loser did) and then feel frustrated. So keep in mind what is really realistic to accomplish in the time period that you have.

* In addition, if you’re making a large goal for yourself, you will most likely need to break it down into smaller steps and set mini deadlines for those goals. For instance if you want to eat better decide what steps would be involved in that for you. Maybe the first step is to lay off the fast food, so set a goal to not eat fast food for 2 weeks. Your next step might be to eat leaner meat, so use the next 2 weeks to add chicken and fish to your diet. Keep making and meeting these small goals until you reach “better eating.”

* While we’re talking about these small goals, it would be worth mentioning that the big goals probably need some defining. Our resolutions often tend to be broad sweeping statements like “I’m going to lose weight,” “I’m going to eat better,” “I’m going to do better with my money.” But we never really decide what each of these things look like – how much weight do you want to lose, what does “eat better” look like, what does do “better” with money mean? Without a clear picture of what your goal really is you’ll never be able to make the smaller steps or even really know if you’ve met your goal.

* So, you’ve chosen an attainable resolution, clearly defined it in a measurable way, and set smaller goals if your resolution is too big to handle in a few days. Now what happens when life happens and you don’t actually stick to those smaller steps? Well, nothing really. For a lot of people this is the end of the road and the attempts to make changes are over. They tell themselves, “I’ll never be able to . . . ” When really, all you need to do is just pick up where you left off. Did you fall off the cigarette wagon? That’s fine, take an objective look at what happened that led to smoking and make a plan for if that happens again. Then toss those new cigarettes in the trash with the old ones and re-resolve to quit.

* Now lets say that for some reason, you just cannot stick to your resolution. Maybe you need to look at whether you really want to do what you’ve chosen. Do you really believe that you should add more fiber to your diet? If not then maybe you chose the wrong thing to work on at this point. That’s fine, sometimes we choose stuff because we think it sounds good or because our doctor/spouse/friends/kids think we should. Maybe your real desire is to save enough money to finally take that trip to Paris, not to exercise 3 times a week. That’s great – DO IT!!!

It’s that time of year again – time to toast a new year and a new decade this time around, make grand plans for what we will do in the new year, and then quickly realize we don’t care that much about vacuuming every weekend. The new year is a great time to think about the things in our lives that we want to change, but maybe it could also be a time to give ourselves credit for all the things we already “do right.” Maybe instead of resolving to change yourself, you can resolve to reward yourself and give yourself some credit for the things you already do. Happy New Year and here’s to a content 2010.

On October 2, 2009 a Newsweek article caught my attention that I just can’t stop thinking about. Granted, I am a few weeks behind in my reading so I really just read this about 2 weeks ago, but that’s beside the point. In this particular artical (Ignoring the Evidence) Sharon Begley makes the assertion that therapists do not understand nor use evidence based treatments in their practice. She also asserted that Clinical Psychology programs did not teach students how to be consumers of the literature. In addition, she implies that cognitive and behavioral techniques are the only interventions that can work in therapy. By the time I finished this article, I was incensed. Since that time, I have been ruminating about her article and decided to take some of my own advice and journal (or in this case blog) about it.

I think the main reason this article made me as angry as it did was that it only perpetuates the feelings that are already out there among people considering therapy. They’ve seen every episode of Law and Order where the therapist is sleeping with her clients and killing their spouses. They’ve seen all the news stories that talk about rebirthing “therapy.” All Ms. Begley, who, by the way, does not hold a degree in psychology, did with her article was create yet another stereotype. This is the therapist who despite the science, continues to use treatments that do not and will not work. Along with this stereotype, Begley also seems to be saying that psychology consists mainly of hocus pocus and maybe a little bit of luck.

To me, this was an extremely dangerous article that had the potential to dissuade someone on the fence about therapy from getting the help they need. Of course, as in every profession, there are some therapists who don’t know what they’re doing or who use interventions that harm rather than help their clients. Contrary to what Begley would have us believe, this is not the norm. Here are the facts about therapists and their training in research. Every doctoral level therapist has completed at least two courses in research design and statistics, most have three. They also have to complete a research project in which they either conduct their own original research or use the research of others to propose a new theory. If there therapist graduated from an accredited program, they also learned to consume the research of others and apply it to the work that they do. And what of Begley’s assertion that cognitive and behavioral therapy is the only therapy supported by research. That is blatantly not true. In reality, the bulk of the research shows that the strength of the relationship with your therapist is what really determines outcome, not which technique said therapist uses. Does this mean that if you have a good relationship with your therapist that any technique will work? Absolutely not, and I don’t know a therapist who would make this assertion. Every therapist knows that some techniques work better for some problems than others. For instance, if you are going to therapy in order to conquer your fear of flying and your therapist is analyzing your relationship with your father, you may want to find a new therapist. Sure, any therapist worth their salt will learn something about your family history in the first few sessions. But that therapist will also know that the best way to treat fears is to expose the person to the feared object or situation and help them reduce their anxiety.

It is always important for a profession to take a critical look at its shortcomings. This is especially true in psychology where others put their trust in you at their most vulnerable. However, false allegations only hurt those who truly need the help that therapy can offer when done well. If you are in therapy now and feel that your therapist is practicing below an acceptable level, then you should find a new therapist. You should also express your concerns to whoever oversees the licensing process in your state. It is their job to protect the public and ensure a standard of care. If you ever have questions about what your therapist is asking you to do, voice them. Regardless of how good your therapist is, you will only get out of the therapy what you put into it. Oh, and if your therapist starts talking about rebirthing – run.

Welcome to my blog. The purpose of this blog is to share information on the field of psychology, new research, advice, and my own thoughts about the world around us. When people find out that I am a therapist, they always want to know what the job entails, what kind of training I have, and why they should pay someone to listen to them. In the coming weeks I plan to answer those questions and many more. If you have a question you would like to have answered or a topic you would like more information on feel free to email me at [email protected]. I plan to post weekly, but will make every attempt to answer your email the same week as it is received. Also, check out my website www.kimbentonpsyd.com. There you will learn a little about my thoughts on therapy and my style as a therapist. If you or someone you know is looking for a therapist, give me a call. If we are unable to work together, I will make a referral for you.