March 31
They Are Sober, But Why Are They Jerks?
This is my latest post for Psychology Today. Click here to read it!
Archive for March, 2011
March 31
March, Thoughts For…
31. The mind can make a heaven out of hell or a hell out of heaven. John Milton
30. The life process is reinforcing whether headed for heaven or for hell. David Brazier, Zen Therapy
This one might bare a little elaboration. What Brazier is saying is that our conditioning leads to our thoughts and behavior. Unmonitored it is reinforced, and we continue in the same direction. The goal is awareness of thinking and the ability to change direction. He also makes the point that we all have positive and negative thoughts, and if caught in negative we can focus more on …
March 29
How Teens Can Become Alcoholic Before the Age of 21
The following is a guest post from Lisa Frederiksen. Lisa Frederiksen works in addiction, substance abuse, and secondhand drinking/drugging education, prevention, and intervention and is the author of If You Loved Me, You’d Stop! and Loved One In Treatment? Now What! and the blog, www.BreakingTheCycles.com.
Underage drinking is often considered a right of passage; something most teens and young adults under 21 go through. As such, the focus is often on keeping young people safe, whether that be parents hosting a party with alcohol and taking away all car keys or offering to drive, no questions asked. Yet, young adults, ages 18-20, have the highest rate of alcohol dependence (alcoholism) in the United States, according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s “2007 Call to …
March 28
Review: Zen Therapy
Let me begin by saying this book is for therapists interested in applying Buddhist principles to therapy. For the casual Buddhist it offers some explanation of Buddhist terms and thought, but for that purpose other books would be better suited. For the therapist simply interested in new techniques there is some food for thought, but generally the book challenges Western ideas of psychotherapy.
With that introduction, I’d be surprised if many are still reading this review.
It took me a good while to finish the book. This was partly due to my schedule teaching five courses, but was also a result of finding the text a bit …
March 9
Raising the Bottom
The following post is from a guest blogger to my site. Lisa Frederiksen works to educate about addiction, substance abuse, and secondhand drinking/drugging, as well as prevention, and intervention. She is also the author of “If You Loved Me, You’d Stop!” and “Loved One In Treatment? Now What!” and writes the blog, BreakingTheCycles.com.
There is an age-old saying when it comes to offering reasons for why a person does not seek recovery or treatment or why a person relapses (goes back to drinking). Namely, “He (or she) hasn’t hit bottom, yet.”
It’s long been held that the person has to “hit bottom” before treatment can work. The new brain research I present on this site …
March 3
Accident Lessons
Recently, on my way from FIU to my office, I was in a minor accident. I wasn’t on the phone, or texting, or looking for a song on my iPod, or putting on my makeup. I was just driving. I was making a right at the next light, and got in the lane to do so. A driver who was not in the lane decided he needed to be. As he pulled into the lane I was passing him, and his right front hit my driver’s side back door and rear.
It was clearly his fault. My initial reaction was to yell the F-bomb in the car, as I accidentally …