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Your Word is Your Bond–Why Would I Go to the Well?
Fear destroys curiosity and playfulness. In order to have a healthy society, we must raise children and adults who can safely play and learn. There can be no growth without curiosity and no adaptability without being able to explore, through trial and error, who you are and what matters to you. Currently, more than 50 percent of children experience incarcerated family members, depression, violence, abuse, or drug use in the home, or periods of homelessness. People who feel safe and meaningfully connected with others have little reason to squander their lives doing drugs or staring numbly at television; they do not feel compelled to stuff themselves with carbohydrates or assault their fellow human beings. However, if nothing they do seems to make a difference, they feel trapped and become susceptible to the lure of pills, gang leaders, extremist religions, or violent political movements—anybody and anything that promises relief. Deviance often becomes a master status, a status that overpowers and in many cases supersedes any other statuses an individual holds that might run counter to it. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8
People often become so absorbed in their deviant identity that it shapes virtually all their subsequent behavior, and they repeatedly fulfill expectations associated with the deviant roles. Treating a person as generally rather than specifically deviant produces a self-fulfilling prophecy. Child abuse and neglect is the single most preventable cause of mental illness, the single most common cause of drug and alcohol abuse, and a significant contributor to leading causes of death such as diabetes, heart disease cancer, stroke, and suicide. D.L. Rosenhan, professor of law and psychology at Stanford University, designed and participated in a study on mental illness that resembled a Hollywood film plot. What is a perfectly normal person were diagnosed as being crazy and locked in a mental institution against his will? Would doctors and nurses recognize the mistake and release the misdiagnosed person immediately? Or, as some movies suggest, could a sane person languish for years in a mental institution, unable to prove his sanity? #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8
Professor Rosenhan and his research team of four men and three women, including two psychologists, a graduate student, a psychiatrist, a pediatrician, a homemaker, and a painter, visited 12 mental institutions in five states on the East and West Coasts, reporting to hospital admissions staff that they heard voices. All eight pseudopatient were admitted to the hospitals. Except for giving a false name and faking the initial symptoms, each pseudopatient gave an accurate history and made no additional attempts to fool hospital staff. In fact, all acted as normal as possible. Despite their normal actions, once admitted to the hospital, none of the pseudopatients was detected by hospital staff. The length of hospitalization ranged from 7 to 52 days. On release, all but one “manic-depressive” were discharged as schizophrenics “in remission”—a label that stays with an ex-mental patient for the rest of his or her life. Professor Rosenhan concluded that once someone is diagnosed as “mentally ill,” the structure and environment of the hospital serve to maintain and confirm the original diagnosis. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8
While in the mental hospital, the psychological stresses associated with the hospitalization were considerable, and all but one of the pseudopatients desired to be discharged almost immediately after being admitted. They were, therefore, motivated not only to behave sanely, but to be paragons of cooperation. That their behavior was in no way disruptive is confirmed by nursing reports. The normal are not detectable sane, however. Despite their public show of sanity, the pseudopatients were never detected. And the fact that they were diagnosed with schizophrenia and discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia in remission should in no way be dismissed as a formality, for at no time during any hospitalization had any question been raised about any pseudopatient’s simulation. Nor are there any indications in the hospital records that the pseudopatient’s status was suspect. Rather, the evidence is strong that they were not sane. However, some of the patients in the hospital suspected that the pseudopatients were either journalist or professors. Yet, the fact remains that it is strange that some of the patients recognized the fake were sane, but the staff did not. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8
Failure to detect sanity during the course of hospitalization may be due to the fact that physicians operate with a strong bias toward what statisticians called the Type 2 error. This is to say that physicians are more inclined to call a healthy person mentally ill, than a sick person sane. The reason is because it is more dangerous to misdiagnose illness than health. Better to err on the side of caution, to suspect illness even among the healthy. Also, psychiatric diagnoses carry with them personal, legal, and social stigmas. It was therefore important to see whether the tendency toward diagnosing the sane insane could be reversed. The staff was actually aware that there that pseudopatients would attempt to be admitted into the psychiatric hospital. Each staff member was asked to rate each patient who presented himself at admissions or on the ward according to the likelihood that the patient was a pseudopatient. The staff said most patients admitted were suspected as highly likely to be insane. Social learning theories contend that all behavior (including deviance) is learned through social interaction. Some people learn to become deviant through the complex process of socialization. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8
Differential association theory provides a sociological explanation of the individual-level and marcolevel differences in crime and delinquency. Deviant behavior is learned through interaction with other deviants in a social context where deviance is viewed as acceptable. The greatest hope for traumatized, abused, and neglected children is to receive a good education in schools where they are seen and known, and where they can develop a sense of agency. At their best, schools can function as islands of safety in a chaotic World. They can teach children how their bodies and brains work and how they can understand and deal with their emotions. Schools can play a significant role in instilling the resilience necessary to deal with the traumas of neighborhoods or families. If parents are forced to work two jobs to eke out a living, or if they are too impaired, overwhelmed, or depressed to be attuned to the needs of their kids, schools by default have to be the place where children are taught self-leadership and an internal locus of control. Primary relationships, such as those with our parents, siblings, and close friends, have the greatest impact on our behavior. At least moderate support for differential association theory has been found in studies of delinquency. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 8
Many people believe that the crew from Stanford University deserved to be punished because they abused the system. Suppose a teenage girl shoplifts a computer. If she is not caught, she may immediately experience a sense of gratification by getting something she wanted for free If her friend praised her deviant behavior, she is likely to shoplift again. On the other than, if her friends are outraged by her behavior and threaten to withdraw their friendship, she is much less likely to repeat the deviant behavior. What keeps everyone from breaking the rules? The reason most people do not commit deviance is that they have developed a strong social bond, consisting of an attachment to parents, school, church, and other institutions aligned with conformity; a commitment to conventional norms; an involvement in conventional activities and a belief in the validity of social norms. The stronger a person’s social bond, the less likely his or her involvement in deviant activities. Conversely, the weaker the social bond to conformist groups and institutions, the easier it is for the individual to violate society’s norms. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 8
Basically, a bond is what employer use to protect against employee theft, and this is known as a fidelity bond. Fidelity is faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support and obedience. It insures the fidelity between the employer and its employee and pays for any dishonesty the employee may commit. If you have a criminal history, you cannot be bonded because large-scale embezzlement by company officers can bankrupt a company, fidelity bonds may provide the necessary capital for the company to keep operating. So no one wants to bond a dishonest employee because then it could cause them to lose everything and mess up their business relationships. In the hood, you often hear people say, “Your word is your bond,” which means they need to be able to believe everything you say and if they cannot, it may cost you your life because they are putting they are making their business and life vulnerable by associating with you, so they have to be able to trust you with their life. Research on delinquency, crime, and deviance over the life course finds modest to impressive support for social bond theory among both adolescents and adults. Your word is your bond, and if you work hard, you can get anything you want in life. (www.thedeedle.com) #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8
Social Reinforcer and Warnings about Painkillers
It is better to condescend to be happy than to aspire to be miserable. As we have seen, many people who work in mental health often compound, rather than alleviate the problems people are having. Frequently, psychiatrists and therapist work in assembly-line offices where they see patients that they hardly know, for fifteen minutes, and then dole out pills to relieve pain, anxiety, or depression. Their message seems to be, “Leave it to us to fix you; just be compliant and take these drugs and come back in three months—but be sure not to use alcohol or (illegal) drugs to relieve your problems.” Such shortcuts in treatment make it impossible to develop self-care and self-leadership. One tragic example of this orientation is the rampant prescription of pain killers, which now kill more people in the United States of America than guns or car accidents. Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999, and so have sales of these drugs. From 1999 to 2014, more than 165,000 people have died in the United States of America from overdoses related to prescription opioids. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
Every day, over 1,000 people are treated in emergency departments for misusing prescription opioids. The most common drugs involved in prescription opioid overdose deaths include: Methadone, Oxycodone (such as OxyCotin), Hydrocodone (such as Vicodin). Among those who died from prescription opioid overdose between 1999 and 2014: Overdose rates were highest among people aged 25 to 54 years. Overdose rates were higher among non-Hispanic whites and American Indian or Alaskan Natives, compared to non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics. Men were more likely to die from overdose, but the mortality gap between men and women is closing. Overdose is not the only risk related to prescription opioids. Misuse, abuse, and opioid use disorder (addiction) are also potential dangers. In 2014, almost 2 million Americans abused or were dependent on prescription opioids. As many as 25 percent of people who receive prescription opioids long term for noncancer pain in primary care settings struggles with addiction. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
Our increasing use of drugs to treat these conditions of trauma and pain does not address the real issues: What are these patients trying to cope with? What are their internal or external resources? How can they calm themselves down? Do they have caring relationships with their bodies, and what do they do to cultivate a physical sense of power, vitality, and relaxation? Do they have dynamic interactions with other people? Who really knows them, loves them, and cares about them? Whom can they count on when they are scared, when their babies are ill, or when they are sick themselves? Are they members of a community, and do they play vital roles in the lives of the people around them? What specific skills do they require to focus, pay attention, and make choices? Do they have a sense of purpose? What are they good at? How can we help them feel in charge of their lives? To know your own happiness, and that is now, nor to leave it to after-reflection to look back upon the preferable past with a heavy and self-accusing heart, that you did not choose it when you might have chosen it, is all that is necessary to complete your felicity. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
If we cannot be as happy as we wish, we should rejoice in the happiness we can have. I like to believe that once our society truly focuses on the needs of children, all forms of social support from families—a policy that remains so controversial in this country—will gradually come to seem not only desirable, but also possible. What difference would it make if all American children has access to high-quality day care where parents could safely leave their children as they went off to work or school? What would our school system look like if all children could attend well-staffed preschools that cultivated cooperation, self-regulation, perseverance, and concentration (as opposed to focusing on passing tests, which will likely happen once children are allowed to follow their natural curiosity and desire to excel, and are not shut down by hopelessness, fear, and hyperarousal)? Undoubtedly, we acquire many of our likes, dislikes, and fears as conditioned emotional responses. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
All of us, and especially children, need confidence—confidence that others will know, affirm, and cherish us. Without that we cannot develop a sense of agency (knowing who we are and feeling comfortable) that will enable us to asset: This is what I believe in; this is what I stand for; this is what I will devote myself to. As we have noted, learned desires for attention and approval, which are called social reinforces, often influence human behavior. As long as we feel safely held in the hearts and minds of the people who love us, we will do great things in life and reach amazing levels of success, we will stay up all night to finish projects, and work until our bodies hurt. Children and adults will do anything for people they trust and whose opinion they value. However, if we feel we are abandoned, worthless, or invisible, nothing seems to matter. The point to remember is that attention and approval can change behavior of children, family members, friends, roommates, and co-workers. Be aware of what you are reinforcing. My relations cannot be happy unless they make me unhappy. (www.thedeedle.com) #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
Trauma Breeds Trauma—Hurt People Hurt Other People!!!!!!!
My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours. Aggression remains the emotional default for many people, however indirectly or calmly it may manifest. True healing is possible without recognition of our common humanity and our coming destiny. We are fundamentally social creatures—our brains are wired to foster working and play together. Trauma devastates the social-engagement system and interferes with cooperation, nurturing, and the ability to function as a productive member of the tribe. We have seen how many mental health problems, from drug addiction to self-injurious behavior, start of as attempts to cope with emotions that became unbearable because of a lack of adequate human contact and support. However, institutions that deal with traumatized children and adults all too often bypass the emotional-engagement system that is the foundation of who we are and instead focus narrowly on correcting “faulty thinking” and on suppressing unpleasant emotions and troublesome behavior. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8
We are on the verge of becoming a trauma-conscious society. Almost every day, we hear another report on how trauma is disrupting the workings of the mind, brain, and body. Just yesterday, 25 July 2016, at 2.30am, Tokyo, Japan experienced the country’s worst massacre in decades. A suspect named Satoshi Uematsu claimed that disabled people were worthless and reported that he wanted to kill at least 470 of them. He went on a bloody rampage with a knife that least at least 19 people dead and 26 others seriously injured at the adult care facility for the disabled. Petrified staff at the Tsuki Yamayuri En (Tsukui Lily Garden) facility in Sagamihara, south of Tokyo, Japan, called the police at about 2.30am local time, after the suspect went insane, and slaughtered several people. After the Monday massacre, Satoshi Uematsu drove to a local police station and turned himself in. The 26-year-old former employee reported, “I did it. It is better that disabled people disappear.” #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8
Satoshi Uematsu was carrying a bag full of knives and other sharp-edged tools, some of which were bloodstained, when he handed himself in. Nine women and ten men were killed, and they were all disabled and ranged in age from 18 to 70. Authorities reported that Satoshi Uematsu had, prior to this massacre, been involuntarily committed to a hospital on 19 February 2016, after the police in the town of Tsukui, Japan contacted him in response to a letter he had attempted to pass to the speaker of the lower house of Japan’s parliament. In the letter, the 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu argued that the government should permit euthanasia for disabled people because they drain resources and make the lives of other horrible since they cannot accept responsibility for their actions, nor care for themselves and have poor social and physical hygiene. He also went on to say that he would be willing to carry out such killings himself, and detailed how he would do it. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8
In his manifesto, Satoshi Uematsu reported, “I envision a World where a person with multiple disabilities can be euthanized, with an agreement from the guardians, when it is difficult for the person to carry out household and social activities.” He went on to say that, he wanted to “wipe out a total of 470 disabled individuals, by targeting two facilities for the disabled people, during the night shift when the staff is low the act will be carried out speedily, and definitely without harming the staff. After wiping out the 260 people in two facilities, I will turn myself.” (I realize the numbers do not add up, but that is a direct quote from the suspect.) Even with this letter, and being hospitalized on the 19 February 2016, Satoshi Uematsu was released from the hospital on 2 March 2016. It was reported that Satoshi Uematsu then smashed a window with a hammer, on Monday, 25 July 2016, at around 2.00am, and took out his range on the 45 victims, leaving 19 of them mortally wounded. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8
By learning about how trauma impacts people, we hope to save lives through early intervention in the lives of people from poor and troubled families, by increasing high school graduation, reducing their criminality, and increasing their employment rates. It had also been privately reported that Satoshi Uematsu had been fired from the disabled facility, but we cannot confirm that information. All the World, I meet people who take these data seriously and who work tirelessly to develop and apply more effective interventions, whether devoted teacher, social workers, doctor, therapists, nurses, philanthropists, theater directors, prison guard, police officers, or teachers. Advances in neuroscience have given us a better understanding of how trauma changes brain development, self-regulation, and the capacity to stay focused and in tune with others. Sophisticated imaging techniques have identified the origins of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the brain, so that we now understand why traumatized people become disengaged, why they are bothered by sounds, and lights, and why they may blow up or withdraw in response to the slightest provocation. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8
We have learned how, throughout life, experiences change the structure and function of the brain—and even affect the genes we pass on to our children. Understanding many of the fundamental processes that underlie traumatic stress open the door to an array of interventions that can bring the brain areas related to self-regulation, self-perception, and attention back online. We know not only know how to treat trauma but also, increasingly, how to prevent it. And yet, after attending another wake for a teenager killed at a house party, in the Meadowview area of Sacramento, in a drive-by-shooting or after reading about the latest budget cuts in impoverished cities and towns due $19.4 trillion national deficit, I find myself close to despair. Where traumatized children are concerned, the last thing we should be cutting from school schedules are the activities that can help them heal: chorus, physical education, recess, art, theatre, math, science, computer science, history, English, auto shop, wood shop, economics, foreign language, and anything else that involves movement, play, and other forms of joyful engagement is a requirement before we take on problems we cannot handle! #RyanPhillippe 6 of 8
In many ways, we seem to be regressing, with measures like the callous congressional elimination of food coupons, for children whose parents are unemployed or in jail; with the stubborn opposition diversity of low income housing in some quarters; with psychiatry’s obtuse refusal to make a connection between psychic suffering and social conditions; and with our tolerance for incarcerating a huge segment of our population, wasting their lives as well as our resources, but continuing to take in immigrants we know nothing about. People can learn to control and change their behavior, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment in heartbreaking and gut-renovating situations, then out first priority is to help people move out of this state where they feel that there is no one they can talk to about their concerns and that they either need to attack, stand their ground, or escape. Reorganizing their perception of danger, and managing their relationship with the people they are having ongoing problems with seems to a way we can help them. Far more Americans have died at the hands of their partners or other family members than in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. American women are twice as likely to suffer domestic violence as breast cancer. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that firearms kill twice as many children as cancer does. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 8
You remember Kathryn Steinle who was killed by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco, California USA, how many more times to we have to see tragedies like this take place? All around Sacramento, California USA I see signs for the new King’s area and how proud people are $508 million tax payer dollars went to pay for the complex without taxpayer consent, but we seem too embarrassed or discouraged to deal with the lack of affordable housing, the lack of reservoirs and water, the lack of police, and we are by far too ashamed to mount a massive effort to help children and adults learn to deal with the fear, rage, and collapse, the predictable consequences of having been traumatized. I wish I could separate trauma from politics, but as long as we continue to live in denial and treat only trauma while ignoring its origins, we are bound fail as a community, city, state, and country. People’s income, family structure, housing, employment, and educational opportunities affect not only their risk of developing traumatic stress, but also their risk of developing unemployment, inferior schools, social isolation, and substandard housing, which are all breeding grounds for corruption, crime, disease, conflict, and trauma. Trauma breeds further trauma; hurt people hurt other people. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8
They are Called Africans, Not Slaves First Lady!
They were leaders and strong people to endure all that they faced. I have an issue and get offended when I hear people still referring to African Americans, who were enslaved, as slaves. To call someone a slave is a derogatory term, it robs them of all the humanity. Africans, who came to America in shackles, were first and foremost people, First Lady Michelle Obama. Calling these first and second and third generation Africans salves would be the same as calling you that black lady in the white house. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 2
And yes, in 1792, 66 percent of the White House that you are privileged to wake up in every day, and where your teenage daughters play with their dog was built by African Americans, who were free and enslaved. Please stop calling these people slaves. They were the architects, scientist, musicians, therapist, engineers, doctors, cooks, and homemakers, and teachers for many people, in spite of their socioeconomic conditions. So do not forget your roots, and remember these Kings and Queens came from the richest continent on the face of this Earth. There are also castles in Africa, like the Castle of Good Hope, in South Africa, and Fasilides Castle in Ethiopia and many more. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 2
Every Generation has its Improvement
We live in a physical World whose properties are familiar, and, it is around us all the time. We cherish our own space. If you would have your son or daughter to walk honorably through the World, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his or her path, but tech your children to walk firmly over them—not insist upon leading a child by the hand, but let your child learn to go alone. Artists as reporters represent their World, and they even expect their work to have an impact on the World, to reveal hidden or universal truths. The work is about knowing and appreciating the beautiful, and that is how we can make the World a better place. Each photograph represents a particular intellectual, emotional, or expressive quality of the subject, they represent powerful emotions and feelings and passions. In 1666, Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated that objects appear to be a certain color because they absorb and reflect different parts of the visible spectrum. Obviously, not all artists are able to utilize light as fully as architects. Architects, particularly, must concern themselves with light. However, especially if artist and photographers are interested in representing the World, they must learn to imitate the effects of light in their work. There is something called the atmospheric perspective or aerial perspective, and these rules state that the quality of the atmosphere (the haze and relative humidity) between us and large objects, such as mountains, changes their appearance. Objects further away from us appear less distinct, often cooler, or bluer in color, and the contrast between light and dark is reduced. Some of these photographs throw a veil of matchless color, that lucid interval of Morning dawn and dewy light on which the Eye dwells…and it is a sacrilege to pierce the mystic shell of color in search of form.
With linear perspective one might adequately describe physical reality—a building, for instance—but through light one could reveal a greater spiritual reality. In this photograph, the light is much more expressive. It is, in large part, the dramatic play of light and dark in the photograph that contributes to this expressivity. The perspective system employed is used to focus our attention on the building, it is light that draws our attention to the grandeur and beauty. The Heavenly light surrounding the Capitol contrasts dramatically with the darkness of the rest of the composition. The building is symbolically offering you its body as nourishment. This purely spiritual act contracts with the gluttonous Worldly activity going on in the foreground, where a dog knaws at a bone, and a cat searches for leftovers. Light here symbolizes the spiritual World, and darkness our Earthly home. Light and dark have traditionally had strong symbolic meaning in Western culture. We have only to think of the Bible, and the first lines of the Book of Genesis, which very openly associates the dark with the bad and the light with good. In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. In the history of art, this association of light or white with good and darkness or black with evil was first fully developed in the late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century color theory of the German poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
For Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, colors were not just phenomena to be explained by scientific laws. They also had moral and religious significance, existing halfway between the goodness of pure light and the damnation of pure blackness. In Heaven, there is only pure light, but the fact that we can experience color—which, according to the laws of optics, depends upon light mixing with darkness—promises us at least the hope of salvation. In the first, the figures are all passive, sleeping, or dead. In the second, the figures are bathed in an almost pure white light and barely recognizable at the top center of the painting. Figures swirl around him as if life itself is being born out of a vortex. Although this opposition between dark and light is taken for granted in our culture, many people of color, with reason, find such thinking offensive. They are especially offended by the use of the term value to describe gradations of light and dark, so that black is low, and white is high in value.Artists and art historians alike use the term as a part of a specialized descriptive vocabulary that, in itself, would seem to be art the furthest remove from issues of race and the relative worth of human beings. Nevertheless, it is clear that since Biblical times, Western culture has tended to associate blackness with negative qualities and whiteness with positive ones, and it is understandable why people might take offense at this usage. For this reason, we use the word key instead of value, substituting the musical metaphor for the moral and economic one. If for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, blackness is not merely the absence of color, but the absence of good, for African Americans, blackness is just the opposite. Mighty drums echoing the voices of Spirits…these sounds are rhythmic, the rhythm of vitality, the rhythm of exuberance and the rhythms of Life. These are the sounds of blackness. Blackness—the presence of all color.
When restoring some artwork, technicians found that the dull, somber hues always associated with Michelangelo were not the result of his palette, that is, the range of colors he preferred to use, but of centuries of accumulated dust, smoke, grease, and varnishes made of animal glue painted over the ceiling by earlier restorers. The colors are in fact much more saturated and intense than anyone had previously supposed. Some experts, in fact, find them so intense that they seem, beside the golden tones of the unrestored surface, almost garish. As a result, there has been some debate about the merits of the cleaning. However, it is not a controversy. It is a culture shock. Therefore, agree with your adversary quickly. Do it quickly—bring yourself to judgment now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must act immediately. God is determined to have His child as pure, clean, and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience, God will allow His Spirit to use whatever process it may take to bring us to obedience. The fact that we insist on proving that we are right is almost always a clear indication that we have some point of disobedience. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny.
Friendship Makes the World Happy
Friendship makes us warmly espouse the interest of others; but it is very cold to the gratification of their passions. To be sure, problems of identify occur at other times too. However, in a very real sense, puberty signals that it is time to begin forming a new, more mature self-image. Many problems during adolescence stem from unclear standards about the role young people should play within society. Are they adults or children? Such ambiguities make it difficult for adolescents to form clear images of themselves and of how they should act? Answering the question, “Who am I?” is also spurred by cognitive development. After adolescents have attained the stage of formal operations, they are better able to ask questions about their place in the World, and about moral, values, politics, social relationships, and private thoughts. Then too, being able to think about hypothetical possibilities allows the adolescent to contemplate the future and ask more realistically, “Who will I be?”
Many teenagers are preoccupied with imaginary audiences (people they imagine are watching them). In other words, teenagers may act like others are aware of their thoughts and feelings. Sometimes this leads to painful self-consciousness—as in thinking that everyone is staring at a bad haircut you just received. The imaginary audience also seems to underlie attention-seeking performances involving outlandish dress or behavior. In any case, adolescents become very concerned with controlling the impressions they make on others. For many, being on stage in this way helps define and shape an emerging identity. I will extol the LORD with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly. Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever. He has shown his people the power of his works, giving them the lands of other nations.
The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy. They are steadfast for ever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness. He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever—holy and awesome is his name. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands. His children will be might in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes. He scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be lifted high in honor. The unlovely man will see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing. The adolescent search for identity often results in increased conflict with parents. This is especially true in early adolescence. However, some conflict with parents is probably necessary for growth of a separate identity. A complete lack of conflict may mean that adolescent is afraid to seek independence. Actually, adolescents and parents usually agree to a large degree about basic topics such as religion, marriage, and morals. The largest conflicts tend to be over more superficial differences regarding styles of dress, manners, social behavior, and the like. In the majority of cases, adolescents who ask their parents for emotional or practical support actually receive it.
Adolescents naturally desire more freedom, but they do not want their parents to abruptly abandon them. Teenagers do best when they are given gradual increases in personal freedom and more opportunities to make decisions. Problems occur when parents crack down too hard or throw their hands up and surrender control over the adolescent’s behavior. LORD, I say to you, you are my God, hear my cry for mercy. Oh, Sovereign LORD, my strong deliverer, who shield my head in the day of battle—do not grant the wicked their desires, do not let their plans succeed, or they will become proud. Let the heads of those who surround me be covered with the trouble their lips have caused. Let burning coals fall upon them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise. Let slanderers not be established in the land; may disaster hunt down men of violence. I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.
Surely the righteous will praise your name and the upright will live before you. LORD, I call to you; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening of the sacrifice. Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips. Let not my heart be drawn to what is unlovely, do not take part in bad deeds with men who are ungodly; let me not eat of their delicacies. Let a righteous man join me—it is a kindness; let him bless me—it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it. Yet my prayer is every against the deeds of wrong. The rulers of the wrong doers will learn that my words are well spoken. However, my eyes are only fixed on you Sovereign LORD; in you I take refuge, there is nowhere else I would rather be—do not give me over to death.
Keep me from the snares they have laid for me, from the traps set by evildoers. Let the ungodly fall into their own nets, while I pass by safety. Look to my right and see; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. I cry to you LORD; I say you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me. Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me. LORD, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness, and come to my relief. DO not bring your kin into judgment, for no one living id righteous before you. In high school were you a jock, preppy, brain, hacker, surfer, cowboy, punk, mod, rapper, princess, prince, cheerleader, gargoyle, or warlock? Increased identification with peer groups is quite the common during adolescence.
A peer group consists of people who share similar social status. To an extent, membership in such groups gives a measure of security and a sense of identity apart from the family. Other than this, group members provide practice in belonging to a social network. Children tend to see themselves more as members of society as a whole. Therefore, gaining a broader, member of society perspective can be a major step toward adulthood. But are not groups also limiting? Yes, they are. Conformity to peer values peaks in early adolescence, but it remains strong at least through high school. Throughout this period there is always a danger of allowing group pressure to foreclose (shut down) personal growth. By the end of high school, many adolescents have not yet really explored various interest, values, vocations, skills, or ideologies. Perhaps that is why many students view moving on to work or college as a chance to break out of earlier roles—to expand or reshape personal identity.
For many who do choose college, the effect may be more a matter of placing further changes in identity on hold. By doing so, students keep open the possibility of changing majors, career plans, personal style, and so on. Typically, commitment to an emerging adult identity grows stronger in later college years. The search for identity may be intensified during adolescence, but it does not end there. For example, the process of selecting a career often starts in childhood and continues into young adulthood. At school, friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears the soul. All loves of after life can never bring its rapture, or its wretchedness; no bliss so absorbing, no pangs of jealousy or despair so crushing and keen. Though her heart was not large enough to harbor more than one light love at a time, it had room for many warm friendships; and she was the warmest, most helpful, and most compassionate of friends, far more serious in friendship then in love.
Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking. That new sense which is the gift of sorrow–, that susceptibility to the bare offices of humanity which raises them into a bond of loving fellowship, as to haggard men among the icebergs the mere presence of an ordinary comrade stirs the deep fountains of affection. There are jilts in friendship as well as in love; and, by the behavior of some men in both, one would almost imagine that they industriously sought to gain the affections of others with a view only of making the parties miserable. Out of love to oneself, one must speak better of a friend than an enemy. In his friendships and affection, man is subject to some inscrutable moral law, similar in its effects to what the chemists call affinity. The LORD, who remains faithful forever, He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. Love is nothing in comparison with the intimacy of two congenial friends.
Forget Me Not: Deep Thinking
Police have shot dead two men who took a priest and several others hostage at knifepoint at a church, in north-western France, on 26 July 2016. The men reportedly shouted “Allah Akbar” and cut the priest’s throat. The priest died after his throat was cut. We can never change the negative things that have happened in the past, but we can create new emotional scenarios intense and real enough to defuse and counter some of the antiquated ones. We have to learn to become welcomed into a World where people delight in us, protect us, and meet our requirements, and make us feel like our house is a home. If anyone should be inclined to overrate the state of our present knowledge of mental life, all that would be needed to force him to assume a psychologic theory has yet been able to account for the connection between the fundamental phenomena of remembering and forgetting; indeed, even the complete analysis of that which one can actually observe has as yet scarcely been grasped. Today, forgetting has perhaps grown more puzzling than remembering, especially since we have learned from the study of dreams and pathologic states even that what for a long time we believed forgotten may suddenly return to consciousness. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
To be sure, we are in possession of some viewpoints which we hope will receive general recognition. Thus we assume that forgetting is a spontaneous process to which we may ascribe a certain temporal discharge. We emphasize the fact that, just as among the units of every impression or experience, in forgetting, too, a certain selection takes place among the existing impressions. We are acquainted with some of the conditions that underlie the tenaciousness of memory and the awakening of that which would otherwise remain forgotten. Nevertheless, we can observe in innumerable cases of daily life how unreliable and unsatisfactory our knowledge of the mechanism is. Thus we may listen to two persons exchanging reminiscences concerning the same outward expression, say of a journey that they have taken together some time before. What remains most firmly in the memory of the one is often forgotten by the other, as if it has never occurred, even when there is not the slightest reason to assume that this impression is of greater psychic importance for the one then for the other. A great many of those factors which determine the selective power of memory are obviously still beyond our ken. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
With the purpose of adding some small contributions to the knowledge of the conditions of forgetting, I was wont to subject to a psychologic analysis those cases in which forgetting concerned me personally. As a rule, I took only a certain group of those cases, namely, those in which the forgetting astonished me, because, in my opinion, I should have remembered the experience in question. I wish further to remark that I am generally not inclined to forgetfulness (of things experiences, not of things learned), and that for a short period of my youth, I was able to perform extraordinary feats of memory. When I was a schoolboy, it was quite natural for me to be able to repeat from memory the page of a book which I had read; and shorty before I entered the University, I could write down practically verbatim the popular lectures on scientific subjects directly after hearing them. In the tension before the final medical examination, I must have made use of the remnant of this ability, for certain subjects I gave the examiners apparently automatic answers, which proved to be exact reproductions of the text book, which I had skimmed through but once and then in greatest haste. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
Since those days, I have steadily lost control over my memory; of late, however, I became convinced that with the assistance of a certain artifice I can recall far more than would otherwise credit myself with remembering. For example, when, during my office hours, a patient states that I have seen him before and I cannot recall the fact or the time, then I help myself by guessing—that is, I allow a number of years, beginning from the present time, to come to my mind quickly. Whenever this could be controlled by records of definite information from the patient, it was always shown that in over ten years I had seldom missed it by more than six months. The same thing happens when I meet a casual acquaintance and, from politeness, inquire about his small child. When he tells of its progress, I try to fancy how old the child now is. I control my estimate by the information given by the father, and at most, I make a mistake of a month, and in older children of three months. I cannot state, however, what basis I have for this estimate. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
Of late, I have grown so bold that I always offer my estimate spontaneously, and still run no risk of grieving the father by displaying my ignorance in regard to his offspring. Thus I extend my conscious memory by invoking my larger unconscious memory. I shall report some striking examples of forgetting of impressions and experiences, that is, the forgetting of omissions. The uniform result of the entire series of observations I can formulate as follows: The forgetting in all cases is proved to be founded on a motive of displeasure. I have found that most men experience some relief once they have got the hang of this, enjoying the simultaneous simplicity and depth of it, especially as they become more emotionally literate. Stating only what emotions and sensation are primarily present relieves them of getting caught up in cognitive combat zones and let us fix it strategies, and provides enough space and time to settle in and get really grounded before proceeding with the issues at hand. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
True Love is a Mystical Gift from GOD
We set forth on Earth as architects of our soul and relationship with God, the goal is to fulfill a mission so we can return to our official house with God. The story of our relations is to open up to people and teach them compassion and love so we can help them heal and grow as beings, and what we put out there, we will get in return. I know many people feel hopeless sometime like nothing will ever change, but keep being a good person. Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of physical states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the force on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object. This means that if you send love out and help others, the Universe will send you love and assistance back in return. And I continue to be the excited observer of the amazing benefits to my own personal and professional growth, as well as to the accelerated healing in my life and in the lives of the people around me.
To be empathetic is to emotionally resonate with what another is feeling—we are in their shoes, in their skin, in their position. We get them. Empathy cuts through our isolation, generating a network of interconnection and bring our heart out of the cold Winter storm, making compassion possible. On the spiritual level, I believe that as we master the psychological dynamics of our soul and our relationship with God and others, we blend emotional sensitivity, understanding, and savvy where they are intended to go and the steps and these choices move us toward the unfolding of our destiny on Earth and beyond. It means knowing what you are feeling while you are feeling, and being able to both contain and openly express it. In my heart is the feeling of the purest love and beauty, I feel showered in light, love, amazement and wonder. This feeling of love in my heart helps to end my suffering, and allows me to get to the roots, exploring it deeply, moving through it slowly but surely. You cannot emerge from your pain unless you enter it, and this begins with turning inward.
Have compassion for the you who fears doing this, holding him the way you would hold a frightened baby, keeping him close to you and letting him know that he is loved and protected. This blissful sense of union with you being will allow you to visit a remarkable place of Heavenly feelings, and as you go about your day and gaze into the eyes of other, an arc of light will envelope them. Each of your emotions has a purpose and is worth getting to know. When I focus on things that I love and make me happy and am around kind people, I feel like I am transported into a White Squall of tranquility, oneness, and a rapture of love far beyond anything on this Earth. In these moments, time stands still and the eternity of God’s love and my echo of that love is in my soul and spirit. The emotional intimacy of the divine love becomes a glorious sphere of light and the depths of tenderness presents an ecstasy and an inner sense of comfort. The enchanting blue World and the profound heart and soul are an inevitable part of life, and it carries me through my days.
I cannot wait to meet the glory of the Heaven World, where there is an inner perfection of charming love that transcends all space and time, where Heaven and Earth are truly one, and Love’s eternal promise is fulfilled. Many of the wonderful people I meet on Earth, much like myself, are trying to find a spiritual partner to share their soul, intellectual, emotional, and physical life with. We all want to create a loving hose and lasting friendships, and those already in loving relationships want a way to deepen the connection between themselves and their beloved. What I have learned is that we are required to heal and focus on the things we love. We have talked so much about trauma because I feel that we all have been hurt to the core and before we can reach a deeper level of intimacy, we are required to address our inner pain so we can let go of it and allow love to flow in our heart, minds and body. I have learned that life and relationships mirror back to us who we are and what we need to learn and perhaps I attack so much pain because I have to teach others how to love. Who we are is a combination of the magnificent soul and spirit of God.
Life can be so confusing and it can be painful, but what you choose to do with this pain is what is important. We have to learn is to understand and appreciate ourselves spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Each lesson we learn helps us to accept more of our loving qualities into our being and this becomes grounded in our core. And then we find ourselves having more control over the pleasant and unkind feelings and we can recognize negative habits and patterns that sabotage our relationships. Life can be a mystical experience, we already live in the greatest and most peaceful country on Earth, so there is no need to make war with our neighbors. Our human experience is meant to embrace the mysteries of love. Love is the reality of God, and I wish to reach the starry heights with you. Each of us wants to be loved, it is how we nourish our heart, soul, and body. Love recaptures the soul’s inception with God. Each of us is granted the gift of free will and you can choose to be kind and loving towards others or not. The essence of my being is love, and it is God’s given gift for me to help you open your heart and heal.
I remember when I was a child, and would look up at the starry sky with my father, and he would tell me stories about how beautiful and perfect Earth used to be and how people were like angels. Perfect and kind. Each of us have a special experience and we may open our hearts and ask God to helps us love others. We can be a source of inspiration, and we can cry out for God’s help when we require it. Continue to send light and love to others and think good thoughts. Love is patiently awaiting our awakening, and it seeks to heal our soul’s memory. Sometimes we feel the sense of inner peace and harmony, even when we do not know where it is coming from. This is your soul; its quest is help you realize our natural state is a pleasant one. We all seek a higher meaning of life, no matter how much money we have nor how big our house is. When life is about making our dreams come true through honest means, the American dream can come true. We love each other the perfect way, we complement one another, and it is not surprising that others love us in return.
Well Beyond the Truth of the Hungry Tigers
There is no spiritual warfare going on, people are just having trouble complying with the laws, and looking for an excuse for their unethical behavior. Being validated by feeling heard and seen is a precondition for feeling safe, which is critical when we explore the dangerous territory of trauma and abandonment. A neuroimaging study has shown that when people hear a statement that mirror their inner state, the right amygdala momentarily lights up, as if to underline the accuracy of the reflection. Allow yourself to feel that joy as you look at an ideal dad who would have cared for you. Remember a really tender moment with your dad, and mom. Think about this for a while so you can fully internalize the experience and heal. Nobody grows up under ideal circumstances—as if we even know what the ideal circumstances are. Every life is difficult in its own way. However, we do know that, in order to become self-confident and capable adults, it helps us enormously to have grown up with steady and predictable parents; parents who delighted in you, in your discoveries and explorations; parents who helped you organize your comings and goings along with other people. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
Defect in any of these areas are likely to manifest themselves later in life. A child who has been ignored or chronically humiliated is likely to lack self-respect. Children who have not been allowed to assert themselves will probably have difficulty standing up for themselves as adults, and most grown-ups who were brutalized as children might carry a smoldering rage that could take a great deal of energy to contain. Relationships will suffer as well. The more early pain and deprivation we have experienced, the more likely we are to interpret other people’s actions as being directed against us and the less understanding we will be of their struggles, insecurities, and concerns. If we cannot appreciate the complexity of their lives, we may see anything they do as a confirmation that we are going to get hurt and disappointed. The biology of trauma and abandonment disconnects people from their body as a source of pleasure and comfort, or even as a part of themselves that requires care and nurturance. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
When we cannot rely on our body to signal safety or warning and instead feel chronically overwhelmed by physical stirrings, we lose the capacity to feel at home in our own skin and, by extension, in the World. As long as their map of the World is based on trauma, abuse, and neglect, people are likely to seek short cuts to oblivion. Anticipating rejection, ridicule, and deprivation, they are reluctant to try out new options, certain that these will lead to failure. This lack of experimentation traps people in a vortex of fear, isolation, and scarcity where it is impossible to welcome the very experience that might change their basic Worldview. This is one reason the highly structured experiences of psychomotor therapy can be so valuable. Participant can safely project their inner reality into a space filled with real people, where they can explore the cacophony and confusion of the past. This leads to concrete aha moments: Yes, that is what it was like. That is what I had to deal with. And that tis what it would have felt like back them if I had been cherished and cradled. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
Acquiring a sensory experience of feeling treasured and protected as a three-year-old in the trancelike container of a structure allows people to rescript their inner experience, as in: I can spontaneously interact with other people without having to be afraid of being rejected or getting hurt. (That can be true for some, but be safe and trust your instincts.) Structures harness the extraordinary power of the imagination to transform the inner narratives that drive and confine our functioning in the World. With the proper support the secrets that one was too dangerous to be revealed can be disclosed not just to therapist, a latter-day father confessor, but in our imagination, to the people who actually hurt and betray us. That was you create and identify and communicate with them, so that your undamaged self can emerge. This gives you a chance to create a different outcome. Most people are hesitant to go into past pain and disappointment—it only promises to bring back the intolerable. However, as they are mirrored and witnessed, a new reality begins to take shape. Accurate mirroring feels completely different from being ignored, criticized, and put down. It gives you permission to feel what you feel and know what you know—one of the essential foundations of recovery. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
Trauma causes people to remain stuck on interpreting the present in light of an unchanging past. The scene you re-create in a structure may or may not be precisely what happened, but it represents the structure of you inner World: your internal map and the hidden rules that you have been living by. Insanity is a legal term that refers to an inability to manage one’s affairs or foresee the consequences of one’s actions. Think of an instance of abnormal behavior you have witnessed. By what formal standards would the behavior be regarded as abnormal? In what way was the behavior maladaptive? People who are harassed or abused often report feeling depressed, hopeless, and sometimes suicidal, and they are more likely to develop an external locus of control (feeling that one is not in control of one’s own life) than an internal locus of control (feeling in control). Harassment, prejudice, and hostility toward others can lead to a number of physical and mental health problems. People who experience stigma and harassment often feel alienated, depressed, and self-critical. Getting to know someone from a marginalized group, however, allows people to become more empathetic toward that person and possibility treat them more kindly. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
The Cosmopolitan of Critical Thinking
The real job of the director or therapist and others is to provide you with the support you need to delve into whatever you have been too afraid to explore on your own. The safety of group therapy is supposed to allow you to notice things that you have hidden from yourself—usually the things that you are most ashamed of. The most powerful emotional roadblock for many is shame. It is also probably the most hidden, neglected, and overlooked emotion in most people (and in psychotherapy). Vulnerable emotions like sadness or grief may be difficult to access and fully express for many individuals, but aversion to shame. Shame often rapidly mutates into various forms of aggression—whether directed at others or at us—or into numbness or an emotional shutting down, all of which serve as “solutions” to or distractions from whatever shame was just felt. When you no longer have to hide, the structure allows you to place the shame where it belongs—on the figures right in front of you who represent those who hurt your and made you feel helpless as a child.
Feeling safe means that you can say things to your father (or, rather, the placeholder who represents him) that you wish you could have said as a five-year-old. You can tell the placeholder for your depressed and frightened mother how terrible you felt about not being able to take care of her. You can experiment with distance and proximity and explore what happens as you move placeholders around. As an active participant, you can lose yourself in a scene in a way you cannot when you simply tell a story. And as you take charge of representing the reality of your experience, the witness keeps you company, reflecting the changes in your posture, facial expression, and tone of voice. In some experience, physically re-experiencing the past in the present and then reworking it in a safe and supportive container can be powerful enough to create new, supplemental memories: simulated experiences of growing up in an attuned, affectionate setting where you are protected from harm.
Science is a powerful way of asking questions about the World and getting trustworthy answers. Structures do not erase bad memories, or even neutralize them. Structures offer fresh options—an alternative memory in which your basic human requires are met and your longings for love and protection are fulfilled. Most of us would be skeptical when buying a used car or an old house. However, all too often, we may be tempted to “buy” outrageous claims about topics such as dowsing, the occult, the Bermuda Triangle, hypnosis, UFOs, numerology, healing crystals, and so forth. Likewise, most of us easily accept our ignorance of sub-atomic physics. However, because we deal with human behavior every day, we tend to think that we already know what is true in psychology. For these and many more reasons, learning to think critically is one of the lasting benefits of a college education.
Critical thinking refers to an ability to evaluate, compare, analyze, critique, and synthesize information. Critical thinkers are willing to as the hard questions, including those that challenge conventional wisdom. For example, many people believe that punishment (a spanking) is a good way to reinforce learning in children. Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth. That is why a critical thinker would immediately ask: Does punishment work? If so, when? Under what conditions does it not work? What are its drawbacks? Are there better ways to guide learning? The core of critical thinking is a willingness to actively evaluate ideas. Critical thinkers analyze the evidence supporting their beliefs and probe for weaknesses in their reasoning. They question assumptions and look for alternate conclusions. True knowledge, they recognize, comes from constantly revising and enlarging our understandings of the World.
Critical thinking is built upon four basic principles: Few truths transcend the need for empirical testing. It is true that religious beliefs and personal values may be held without supporting evidence. However, most other ideas can be evaluated by applying the rules of logic and evidence. Evidence varies in quality. Judging the quality of evidence is crucial. Imagine that you are a juror in a courthouse, judging the claims made by two battling lawyers. To decide correctly, you cannot just weigh the evidence. You must also critically evaluate the quality of the evidence. Then you can give greater weight to the most credible facts. Authority or claimed expertise does not automatically make an idea true. Just because a teacher, reporter, guru, celebrity, or authority is convinced or sincere does not mean you should automatically believe them. It is unscientific and self-demeaning to just take the word of an “expert” without asking, “What evidence convinced her or him? How good is it? Is there a better explanation?
Critical thinking requires an open mind. Be prepared to consider daring departures and go wherever the evidence leads. However, it is possible to be so open minded that you simply become gullible. Critical thinkers try to strike a balance between open-mindedness and healthy skepticism. Being open-minded means that you consider all possibilities before drawing a conclusion. It is the ability to change your views under the impact of new and more convincing evidence. Here are some questions to ask over and over again as you evaluate new information: What claims are being made? What test of these claims (if any) has been made? Who did the test? How good is the evidence? What was the nature and quality of the tests? Are they credible? Can they be repeated? How reliable and trustworthy were the investigators? Do they have conflicts of interest? Do their findings appear to be objective? Has any other independent researcher duplicated the findings? Finally, how much credence can the claim be given? High, medium, low, provisional? A course in psychology naturally enriches thinking skills.
