Newsletter April 2017 Volume , Issue

The Importance of Relationships

What strategies enhance life satisfaction, hap-piness and psychological wellbeing?

The 2016 Compass for Life campaign surveyed 1,000 Australian adults and 518 adolescents (13-17 years) to answer this question.

It found overall that Australians report a positive sense of wellbeing.

Wellbeing was closely linked to life satisfaction and future outlook.

80% of Australian adults are satisfied with their lives and future outlook.

Household income was unrelated to wellbeing.

Some key findings from the survey were;

75% of Australians connect with close ones (partner, family, and/or children) every day. Those who connect daily have significantly high-er wellbeing scores.

Older Australians aged 65+ have significantly higher levels of wellbeing and lower levels of loneliness and negative emotions than the rest of the population overall.

Belonging to a fitness club, actively contributing to the community, and having a sense of be-longing (at school, work, with friends), were all

associated with improved wellbeing scores.

Adolescent girls report significantly higher levels of connectedness than boys.

Adolescents and people aged 25-34 scored sig-nificantly higher scores on loneliness than adults 35 years and over.

Respondents reporting a high usage of social me-dia (a platform designed to bring people closer together), reported significantly higher levels of loneliness and negative emotions ie lower lev-els of wellbeing.

The survey found that strong relationships and community connectedness were major contrib-utors to wellbeing.

Additionally,

Being active each day is related to multiple measures of wellbeing.

People who seek new experiences that broaden their world view have higher wellbeing scores across all domains.

Poor sleepers (19%) scored significantly lower on all domains of wellbeing.

www.psychology.org.au/psychologyweek/compass-for-life/

Page 2 Magnolia House

Perfectionism – “Perfect” or just punishment?

tional and irrational thinking is a quick trip to burn-

out, as well as further low self esteem with a side dish

of self loathing.

While breaking this pattern takes time, challenging

the perfectionist thought pattern begins with persis-

tence, and a slight expansion of focus.

It can be helpful to deliberately get the perfectionist

to talk up small wins, even if the final outcome is not

perfection. “So, you answered some of the tough

questions in that exam and surprised your-

self” (deliberately diverting focus from class place-

ment, competition or what was not achieved).

After this, it can be useful to get the person to set a

learning goal in an area that they know nothing

about – and set their focus on the small wins, taking

a calmer “learning curve” approach to their inevita-

ble mistakes.

After all, it is our mistakes which create the most

interesting opportunities for us to learn.

Perfectionism is sometimes assumed to be an essen-

tial habit of high achievers. While wanting to per-

form well, or to do something thoroughly, are valua-

ble attributes, striving to be perfect can have its

dark side.

People who strive for perfection (and some conscien-

tious teenagers are prone to this) put a high level of

pressure on themselves.

Their desire to achieve flawless performance, with

excessively high standards, can become a debilitat-

ing pursuit and highly stressful.

Here is the catch – perfectionism is often linked to

an ambivalent self worth. This unfortunately means

that even when a perfectionist achieves 100% on

something – it will never be enough.

Why? How could they have done better? The truth

is, they could not have improved.

For the perfectionist it is not enough because it isn’t

about their performance, it’s about how they feel

about themselves.

While it is admirable to have high standards for our-

selves, this is separate from ‘perfectionism’.

High standards, and a sturdy self worth, allow the

person to strive for excellence, celebrate their

achievements, and learn from their mistakes.

Those with perfectionist traits strive for 100%. But

they relentlessly push or punish themselves and are

intolerant of errors, regardless of the outcome.

It is the epitome of “I am only ok if I get an A+” or

“I am only ok if I stay at a size 6”. This dysfunc-

What’s in a name?

Did you know that your behaviour can be influenced by virtue of the initials of your first name?

A US study of Red Cross donations since 1998 showed that those whose names had the same initials as the hurricane of the season gave considerably more to their appeals.

For example, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, donations from people whose name started with K in-creased 150% in the two months after the hurricane struck when compared to their giving in the 6 months before. The same pattern was found for six other hurricanes!

So thanks .. Debbie ... David … Dorothy … Dane … Dianna ... Dylan .. Dawn .. Damien .. Denise .. Darcy …..

Volume , Issue Page 3

Gaming and Life Engagement

In 2015 a study was conducted to assess the impact

of multi-player role playing gaming (MMORPG).

Researchers wanted to know if an individual’s life

engagement, or emotional problems were different

from those who participated in single player games.

The study showed that there was a lower level of ‘life

engagement’ and a risk of emotional problems with

MMORPG, as opposed to single player games.

This was attributed to the fact that those who played

role playing games were more likely to spend much

more time gaming, and to use it as their socialisation

avenue.

Tips for parents (learnt from other parents!)

Install software that terminates internet or Wi-Fi use after a certain time All mobile phones, iPad etc to be on the kitchen table, turned off, before going to bed No mobile phones as alarms by the bed Put limits on how much time can be spent playing games Leave mobile phones at home for some outings Know what rules your child’s school has about phones and support this No devices or television at meal times Be snoopy – be a parent who will know where your child’s browsing takes them. Only provide a pre-paid phone plan.

Internet Use

Parents often question practitioners about the possible

risk to their children of excessive internet use.

One researcher addressed the question by collecting

survey data from 417 adolescents at two points in time,

a year apart.

He explored what ‘gratifications’ they got from internet

and social media use. He reports “social media use

makes (adolescents) feel important, cool, and fashiona-

ble”, and increases their status and ability to impresses

people.

His data showed adolescents use the internet and social

media to express opinions, get entertainment, reduce

stress, live out a fantasy or experience things not avail-

able in the real world. They use it to gather information

about their world and to ‘pass the time’ or ‘get out of

what they are supposed to be doing’.

None of these things is inherently risky or unique to the

use of internet or social media.

However, over the course of the year’s investigation,

the researcher did note that adolescents who depend

too much on social media for gratification, for entertain-

ment, to impress others, to avoid responsibilities and

forget problems, spent more and more time on the In-

ternet or social media.

As a consequence, these teenagers withdrew from oth-

ers, skipping classes, work, bypassing friends and social

occasions.

Excessive dependence, and therefore use, isolates

them from important real life experience with

peers and day to day social situations. This in turn

makes them more vulnerable to suffering academ-

ic and social setbacks.

The findings reinforce the need to help (or insist) ado-

lescents balance the use of internet and social media

with real life, person to person engagement.

Predicting Internet risks: a longitudinal panel study of gratifications-sought, Internet addiction symptoms, and social media use

among children and adolescents, Louis Leung. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 2014, 2:1, 424-439

For a thought provoking presentation about ‘Millennials’ (born 1995 onwards), and, among other things,

the effects of social media, watch Simon Sinek at www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU

Page 4 Magnolia House

As parents and caregivers we all experience stress in our lives and this often affects our relation-ships. John and Julie Gottman, the founders of Gottman Method Couples Therapy, recommend a communication technique that provides a buffer for us against the stress in our lives. It also helps us to stay connected as a couple.

Here is how the stress reducing conversation works;

Step 1

Decide who will be the Speaker and who will be the Listener in your conversation. (Take turns in these roles for 15 minutes each.)

Step 2

As the speaker you get to be the ‘complainer’. Tell your partner about things that have happened in your day, including stressful events and situations. The idea is to talk about stresses outside of your relationship not within your relationship.

As the listener your job is to make eye contact and listen with curiosity and understanding and to suspend any judgements about your partner’s story. It is not your job to try and fix the situation and the rule here is that understanding is more important than jumping in to give advice and must hap-pen first.

Step 3

Let your partner know that you empathise and understand, eg ”I’d be annoyed at that too, that must have been tough”

Step 4

Take your partner’s side – don’t side with the opposi-tion, eg “That guy is a total jerk”.

Step 5

Ask questions, eg “What is most upsetting to you about this? What is this like for you? Is there any-thing I can do to support you in this?”

According to John Gottman , the research shows that if couples are making a connection emotionally eg listening empathically, even for 20 minutes a day, this has a significant, positive impact on how they handle conflict.

The Stress Reducing Conversation

John Gottman and his researchers say there are two sorts of marital or relationship conflict – perpetual issues and solvable issues.

69% of issues a couple argue about, he says, are perpetual. “Time and again when we do four year follow ups of couples, we find they are arguing about precisely the same issue.”

The difference between the ‘happy’ vs ‘unhappy’ couples Gottman has studied, is not the extent of perpetual issues, but the manner in which they discussed them.

Making Marriage Work. John Gottman & Nancy Silver. 1999

Volume , Issue Page 5

Magnolia House proudly presents a one day workshop

The Neuroscience of Relationships

Presenter Professor Pieter Rossouw

Saturday 12th August 2017 DAFF Conference Centre, 203 Tor Street, Toowoomba

Neuroscience is the new frontier. We are urged to grasp its significance for everyday therapy encounters.

But do you have the time to decipher and translate the expanding findings of this field?

You could read “Is desire for social relationships mediated by the serotonergic system in the prefrontal cortex? An [F]

setoperone PET study” or 100 others, or you could attend this workshop!!

Prof. Pieter Rossouw is a master at distilling the essentials therapists need

to know to use this new science effectively.

Professor Pieter J Rossouw MClin Psych, PhD, MAPS, MCClin, MQCA, MIACN

Pieter is the Director of Mediros Clinical Solutions, The BRAINGro Institute and The Neuropsycho-therapy Institute – companies that provide training and conduct research in Neurobiology and Neuropsychotherapy.

Pieter is also a Professor in Brain Based Education at Central Queensland University (CQU) and the President of The International Association of Clinical Neuropsychotherapy (IACN).

Currently he focuses on teaching and research in the fields of neurobiology and neuropsychotherapy as well as clinical training for clinicians, psychologists and general practitioners.

How is your Default Mode Network

(DMN)? In the past 20 years, neuroscience research has expanded

significantly. One common practice has been to get peo-

ple to perform a specific task, and then record the brains

firing pattern.

Given the brains complexity (100 billion neurons which

each have 5 – 10,000 connections), this is an ongoing

endeavour.

However, researchers also began to notice that, when

subjects were asked to rest between tasks, another pat-

tern of brain activation occurred.

Researchers originally were not much interested in this

pattern and somewhat dismissively named it the “task

induced deactivation network”.

In time though, irrespective of what task subjects were

resting from, researchers noticed that this ‘resting’ pat-

tern was identical. This was intriguing.

It is now understood that this Default Mode Network, (as

it was renamed), “ .. revolve(s) around thoughts about

ourselves and others, and the relationships we have

with others; remembering the past; and planning the

future. It is an automatic activation pattern that is

always on when we are not focused on the external

environment or on any particular cognitive task.”

In other words, the DMN pattern supports social think-

ing. It is deactivated when there is non-social thinking

happening, but when we have finished with a non-social

cognitive task, the DMN immediately lights up again

and we think about people.

We are wired to be social beings. Our brain is primarily

a social organ.

Aren’t we humans amazing – oh, oh, that’s my DMN

going again!!

The Neuropsychotherapist. Vol 4 Issue 12 Dec. 2016

Visit our website for more details www.magnoliahousepsych.com.au REGISTER NOW at https://www.trybooking.com/276417

Page 6 Magnolia House

Relationships and Physical Health

We do go on about relationships a bit here at Magnolia

House, but it is because they are so important to us all

(see our front page article) and main stream psycholo-

gy has tended to under emphasise ways to work with

distressed people using a relationship approach.

A recent 20 year longitudinal study of long term mar-

ried couples shows again the important connection

between our relationship health and our physical

health.

The study focused on “specific interpersonal emotion-

al behaviours and changes in specific physical health

symptoms”. The researchers selected two behaviours

common in marital conflict – one ‘anger’ (a speaker

behaviour) and the second ‘stonewalling’ (a listener

behaviour).

They hypothesised that anger would predict cardiovas-

cular health symptoms (pain in the heart or chest, heart

thumping or racing), and stonewalling would predict

increases in musculoskeletal difficulties (muscle ten-

sion including pain in back, arms or legs).

Couples were assessed with a behavioural coding sys-

tem and seen at intervals over 20 years in a naturalistic

setting where their interactions were repeatedly ob-

served. Health data was similarly collected over this

period.

The researchers (one is an associate of John Gottman –

see article p 4), carefully controlled for confounding

variables like age, education, socioeconomic status,

health behaviours like smoking, exercise, alcohol and

caffeine consumption.

In short the researchers found that high levels of hus-

band’s anger were associated with “increases in cardi-

ovascular symptoms over time”, and that husband’s

stonewalling behaviour predicted “greater increases in

musculoskeletal symptoms”. There was a similar asso-

ciation for wives but not as strong.

The authors of this study say the effect sizes were sig-

nificant and rate equally with other studies linking

other well recognised risk factors, like lack of exercise

and obesity predicting cardiovascular disease out-

comes.

Therefore, clients with relationship difficulties should

consider therapy, not just because a healthy relation-

ship is crucial to well being, but also because there can

be significant long term health benefits. Interpersonal Emotional Behaviours and Physical health: A 20

year Longitudinal Study of Long-Term Married Couples. Claudia

Haase etal. Emotion. 2016.

“… the masters of relationship manage conflict .. by remaining gentle toward other.

They soften start-up, they accept influence, they self soothe, they repair and deescalate, and they compromise”.

The Science of Trust. John M Gottman. 2011.

Volume , Issue Page 7

Using a broad swath of scientific, psychological, and medical evidence about brain function O’Mara examines;

the deleterious effects of repeated pain,

the way hormones secreted in periods of high stress degrade the functioning of the hippocam-pus and prefrontal cortex,

how sleep deprivation damages memory and cognition and

how simulated drowning (waterboarding) results in oxygen deprivation and also damages memory and cognition.

He details the multitude of noxious, deadening effects on brain function and cognition caused by cooling, heating, and starving.

He reminds us that memory is fragile, fallible, and unreliable, subject to decay and distortion by any number of psychological and situational factors.

Rather than enhancing memory, torture degrades it and makes any information gained unreliable. As Napoleon noted in 1778, “the poor wretches say any-thing that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.”

Additionally, O’Mara documents the wreckage that torture leaves on the torturers themselves.

Studies record PTSD, guilt, and remorse in soldiers and interrogators even if, at the time of the inter-rogation, the torturer believed such actions were warranted.

The accumulated evidence convincingly con-cludes – torture does not work!

Then why does it still have appeal?

Alfred McCoy (A Question of Torture, 2006) says tor-ture “persists through its deep psychological ap-peal ….. in times of crisis”. “..the powerful often turn to torture in times of crisis, not because it works but because it salves their fears and insecuri-ties with the psychic balm of empowerment”.

Précised from article by Diana Cole. Psychotherapy Networker. 31.1.17

Ian Goldsmith

In 2014 journalist James Risen claimed the Ameri-can Psychological Association (APA) had assisted the CIA and Defence Department in national se-curity interrogations.

The APA initially dismissed these claims, despite having come after a lengthy investigation by a New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

However, a subsequent inquiry by the APA itself, released in late 2015, confirmed that it had indeed secretly collaborated with government agencies from 2003 onward.

It had reinterpreted its professional code of ethics to allow military psychologists to be involved in national security interrogations.

These included those that used so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT), made infamous at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay.

Psychologist’s involvement was used to justify the use of such methods. Many other professional as-sociations like Psychiatrists and Nurses declined to provide such support to the US government.

Following the 2015 inquiry report, the APA apolo-gized, several officials resigned or were fired, and its governing board banned the direct participation of psychologists in all national security interroga-tions.

The Australian Psychological Society (APS), by contrast, passed a declaration in 2007 em-phasising the APS’s “unequivocal condemna-tion of the use of torture or other inhuman or degrading procedures in any situation”.

In 2015 it strengthened this position by outlining the ‘type of conduct expected by psychologists …’.

New US President Donald Trump is one of a long line of politicians claiming that “torture absolutely works”.

However, Professor Shane O’Mara’s 2016 book Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interro-gation demonstrates in devastating thoroughness why this is profoundly false.

Psychologists and torture.

MAGNOLIA HOUSE PSYCHOLOGY AND THERAPIES CENTRE

Phone: 07 4639 3367 Fax: 07 4639 3107 www:magnoliahousepsych.com.au

Magnolia House, 66 Lindsay St, Toowoomba, QLD 4350

Confidentiality and Care Are Our Highest Priority

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to your good judgment! (our only request is that you acknowledge the source on each page)

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