HypoManiacs Often Misunderstood

Author: Lance Winslow

Are you a Hypomaniac? If you are you have some definite advantages over others. Hypomaniacs are often superstars in their fields, but they are often misunderstood by those who work so hard to profile personalities and put individuals into neat little boxes.

Regarding this article which seems to be the present day thought on the Hypomaniac Syndrome: ‘Hypomanic’ executives often most successful Associated Press 04/26/2002 Washington-

I too have been studying this group of people as I observe the superstars and read the biographies of the most driven individuals. Here are my thoughts on the subject. Perhaps you can assist and shed some light on this subject.

First off the Very good article. But how does an individual know if he has this “Hypomanic” Thing? I submit the hypomaniac person maybe much more complicated than was introduced in this article.

And having those traits myself (many times those who chose the subject of psychology actually have questions about themselves which causes them to go into such subject matter as a profession). I have read 100s of biographies of the greatest leaders, sports figures, inventors, entreprenuers, warriors, scientists, etc. Yet I have a hard time placing many of these people into those categories. So it seems hard to find a correlation to these comments in the article and also difficult to see the downside of such a person for society, it is a plus and allows many of us to live without worry because those hard chargers are protecting the heard so to speak.

Most hypomaniacs would not see the drawbacks. I too do not see them as negative; I do see them as an advantage. This is very interesting indeed. I first must question and wonder about the “risk taking” thing a little, in that I do not believe these people see it as a risk, I know I do not. Challenge yes, risk, not really. Innovation is a necessity of any of these people, and that maybe perceived as out on a limb or a risk. As far a the grandiosity issue I think that too maybe debatable, because nothing is impossible, anything can be achieved it is more a matter of mind and perseverance which I guess a PhD in the psychology field would not be able to readily recognize. Any person like this Hypomanic, constantly has others tell them they cannot do something, yet they do it for spite. Is it really grandiosity of the Hypomaniac or is it misjudgment of the observer? I think it maybe the psychologist are thinking they are so special that they cannot conceive of these people and their reach. For instance many Entrepreneurs and I use this context because the article does (I suppose scientists have other traits if they were hypomaniacs) do poorly after their first big win, in their next big thing or endeavor.

Entrepreneurs rarely have multiple wins in different industries, except people like Branson, Gates, Fred Smith (Fed EX), Wayne Hiezinga. The reason for these is they carried their same work ethic into the next battle, and they are not done yet, they want more. I see one of the traits at Harvard use to be hard work ethic, yet do not see it in these people anymore. Enron debacle was stupid, they had the world by the balls, but leadership slacked off, right when they should have been really turning on the juice. They needed a visionary, no prisoners leader, like the previously mentioned, too bad, because it hurt America. The reasoning being that commoditizing additional things that are omnipotent for our society is of value. I think also if the idea that Gates also has savant tendencies and you add Bi-Polar to it, then you have to go back to the drawing board and cannot relate his success or hard work ethic with that of the others.

Anyone out there is doing research on this Hypomanic personality trait should post their comments after this discussion. When studying great people such as, Gates “The Road Ahead” (And the Inner Circle Magazine), Turner “It Ain’t As Easy as It Looks”, Ellison “The Difference Between god and”, Richard Branson book “Virginity,” and Guzietta from Coke A Cola “I Want the World to Buy a Coke”. All seem to have many of these traits. I think the anger in stupidity, bureaucracy, and slow moving brain dead people, causes them to work harder, all seem to mention this in their autobiographical works. Perhaps they are trading the maniac mild depression into anger and steam and using it to heat up the soft tissue in the back of the head to drive their stick-to-it-ness back to the home front battle. I sometimes think that the anger of the brick walls in the way force these individuals to go crazy forcing them into thier work. How can anyone be depressed if they are doing what they love to do? They love to win.

A hypomaniac which does not like what they are doing might be different. Tesla the famous AC inventor had many of these traits and yet loved his work. There maybe cases to prove this point wrong. Maybe these off the chart Hypomaniacs have other sides to them, but this mild maniac depression seems a little unlikely. If people have witnessed these traits in these people, I would say they mistook the depletion of vitamins due to the self inficted stress of the their own inner personal battle with the “human factor” resistence put in their way to get to where they are going to be. It is possible to go without eating and sleeping and then all of a sudden it hits you. Maybe these people if witneesed in a depression like state, just need some more Chormium Picolinate or protien for their brains. This particular article may have missed a couple other benefits, although obviously cannot be a whole book because it is just an article;

1. When people cannot put you in their frame of reference they mis judge your motivations and needs in negotiations and therefore give you the upper hand;

2. Also a person moving that fast cannot have too many friends due to time. Therefore does not get too caught up in “Familiarity Breeds Contempt” traps;

2.5 Competition cannot keep up, because if they copy them, they are already several more steps ahead and back around to flank them. They never know what hit them and then it is too late;

3. Misdirection and miss information techniques are easier to emloy because no body can figure out where you are going or coming from;

4. When they are moving that fast and have faith in future moves they do not need to worry, they will find a way. This looks dangerous to others, and it gives them an advantage because no one will dare follow;

5. A moving target is harder to hit and almost impossible to follow;

6. Their very existence intimidates people, which can also help you. People are afraid of you;

7. Their energy radiates out word and causes things to line up your way by your sheer will.

Now on the drawbacks side of things the articles fails to mention the following; Draw Backs:

1. They burn people out;

2. Others that emulate them often fail, it requires too much knowledge and skill to work at this level;

3. People question their judgment because they do not realize the multiple affect. ie… Ted Turner over paying in a merger so he had the movie classic content for his future project;

4. They have problems relating with people who cannot reason or do complex thoughts;

5. They do not do good at parties which are wasting your time. Although you can be the life of the party quite easily;

6. They are still stuck in linear time and therefore cannot do everything you want to;

7. They have to be careful not to run right over someone or through them, it is very easy to do;

8. They have no peers, this may actually be a benefit up for discussion.

Regarding the downer side of this hypomaniac title or labeling, I cannot see the mellow downer side of it. I do not see that maniac depression state? Perhaps that was put in there to capture the “Bi-Polar” thing to loop the story in a full circle, readers believe in all that Bi-Polar, lithium and Prozac ( a good book on this subject is “Living With Prozac” (scary book if you think of what this can do to our soicety) stuff. After all readers will not buy the superman idea without the kryptonite? Is the author sure that, that was not put in just to appease readers and make them not feel so little against these people?

There may be brief times where you have to think a lot, to get them out of a jam they got into by hitting the wrong turn in the maze or running through the wrong door of opportunity. But then again that is only a short time frame, then you usually just find a way to use all the mistakes as advantages. This article now makes me remember, of a guy who crashed into his new house in his new Beechcraft Baron? He may have had a moment such as this depression thing, but killing one’s self is giving up and a person with unlimited energy and a brain to match would never give up. Now if you need a down side maybe it would be the “burn out affect” or something else, although that does not seem to work either, judging by history and the referenced biographies above. Of course if one does not eat right or take care of themselves this type of person will write checks that it’s body cannot cash, causing health issues, I suppose.

In this article are the PhDs or author really specialists in Bi Polar disorders? I once had a gentleman who worked for me who was Bi-Polar, he had his life really screwed up, nice guy and needed help. I had to cut him lose due to performance issues, we needed more output. Some days he was terrific and other not at all. I was wondering what type of job a person like this might be best suited for. He was not good at a sales, although everyone seemed to like him. My theory was that his displacement caused feelings of superiority in others around him and make him appear to have Charisma and be approachable and non-intimidating. He was on Litium. What does lithium do to people, well it seems wrong to give to people, does it have after side affects?

After all Bi-polar is interesting since the Cerebellum if unfolded is 1128 cu centimeters the size of a record album cover which is bigger than either of the left or right side of the brain. Even together the cerebral cortex including both halves is 1900 cubic centimeters. So those who use it well are able to do more faster. We know from those who have brain injuries that their brain uses the cerebellum as RAM memory and lights up on the computer screens with activity when the damaged part of either the left or right side cannot be used. There are more cells and neurons in the cerebellum than the rest of the brain, much more capacity. So when some is using it they can do more faster and process more data and crutch more numbers so to speak. You may wish to check up on Nueroantomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal.

Sharks have also huge cerebellums and they have 400 million years of evolution on the modern man no matter what you believe as far as 160,000 years, 40,000 years since Neanderthal or 10,000 years of Chinese recorded written history. The problem I see with the article is that everyone is a Doctor of something and they are the same people giving kids under age 6 Prozac and screwing up their brains before full development. Perhaps the Hypomaniac is a positive label although to try to narrowly title a behavior is unhealthy and can cause risks of mislabeling. People who appear to be different for whatever reason all share another familiar advantage in sports, war, business, game or politics. Their opponents and followers, who do not understand them, once they realize that they do not understand, often fear them. From a Machiavellian standpoint one could say this is good if you are in a leadership capacity and especially good in the unforgiving battle in politics. It’s best if your opponents think you are crazy and unpredictable, because that incites fear and hesitation, the edge needed in surprise attack or reciprocal response. If your followers do not understand your methods but understand your strength in intelligence they will follow you and not try to topple you out of fear and admiration. This too would be considered a positive attribute if this article Bi-Polar theory holds true from the Hypomaniac executive model.

Remember Patton use to say that if stood on his jeep to make a speech he had everyone’s ear, his troops knew he knew how to win, the media made him sound crazy beating up on hospital wounded or panic attacked soldiers and no one could figure him out and therefore to his advantage, he was able to fly by the seat of his pants into victorious battle. Hitler talked in mesmerizing cadence and put people in a beta state of mind. While also having the ups and downs of Bi-Polar tendencies. Vince Lombardi said to be one of the greatest sports leaders in history also had mood swings to the low, they say. Steve Jobs is a good example of bi-polarality in this article context from what I have read. Perhaps a bi-polar type tendency and a trend towards hard charging never give up individuals and hypomaniac label may actually be a strength of character to be addressed and watched for positive advantages and to keep from turning evil?

The premise that there is only room for one visionary at a time is false. Visionaries always seek out like-minded visionaries to vision with. If one is the absolute boss, then there is a problem but it is not like household pets where the first pet is the boss. Visionaries often work well together and two minds are better than one providing the fundamental issues are equal (Belief System Theory-Equally yoked principle). Now then people like Mr. Lear, Edison, Tesla, Copernicus, Leonardo de Vinci, etc. may actually be loners and work better that way, although they all had companions and understood they needed help to get out their message and inventions and bring things to market.

There can be other experiments to determine if these hypomaniacs really exist to the degree mentioned in the article. By using naturalistic observations and a limited control group of other over achievers and we will have created a random assignment. I question the validity of subjects like Gates and Jobs as proof that the Bi-Polar theory holds true to the Hypomaniac hypothesis. The correlation in such limited data set along with the PR bull that their companies and books promote make it difficult to know the truth of any of this. I mean, the theory still may have some validity, and it cannot be proven either way unless we can have them at our disposal for a week or two which is impossible based on the justice departments needs of gate’s time when he should be working on R and D projects and Jobs incredible schedule and interview rounds with his latest new product rollout. And if these subjects were taken away from their artificial lives compared with that of normal folks we could lose the whole project. For instance if we took all these people and put them on a track with go carts and watched their behavior we might see some interesting things similar to all, but we may also find none to that of the HS Athlete, full of piss and vinegar wanting to conquer their world. Does this make sense? If the article and theories hold true and we cannot have off the chart in one direction without off the chart in another, which I believe too, then the Bi-Polarity between Major Depression and Mania maybe a good answer for things. And if this is so then we should not condemn those who are too far off the end on one side, because they have so much to offer the world on the other. Interesting.

This subject matter is fascinating as we try to understand the human spirit and will of top performing individuals, what on Earth makes them tick? The examples presented are interesting indeed and we need to take a real look into the theory, which seems to be too simply defined in the article and there has to be more to this. Although the article hits home for me, thus I find this subject matter of value, it appears we might all learn from such hard charging super stars like Gates and Jobs. I think I still have to question trying to pigeon hole any individual as people are complex and are an accumulation of all their observations, experiences, genetics and achievements are unique and therefore such simple classifications may be highly invalid, why don’t we simply ask them? If any one has any data on Hypomaniac Syndromes, please post them below so that other Think Tank members can review this as many over achiever tend to also join think tanks to make a difference.

“Lance Winslow” - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

Author: Tom Koziol

Stress is the nastiest 4 letter word you ever met. Don’t stress, I know it is six letters but it packs the wallop of the meanest 4 letter word you ever heard.

Stress can affect your health and keep you from being all you can be to borrow a phrase recently made popular by the U.S. Army.

Psychologists, scientists and those who study this particular beast say its origins may be physical, financial, environmental, social or emotional. I say that covers everything in which we as humans engage so to bypass a long discourse, let’s just say stress is all around us and manifests itself through one or more of the aforementioned categories.

Given this is true, there must exist commonalities that are recognizable so, if we choose, we can deal with it regardless of its particular origin. Of course, the medical types may disagree and say its source must be known before treatment.

I don’t know about you, but just sitting in a waiting room stresses me out. Therefore, I’d rather have general recognition parameters so I can at least sound intelligent should I have to transmit my self diagnosis to my doctor.

This way, we both have something we possibly recognize and may be can come to the same conclusion about it. Then, we can discuss treatment.

If you think this way, the following 9 warning signs will be what the doctor ordered, pun intended.

1. Anger at parents, siblings, friends. Comes on suddenly with no apparent real cause.

2. You feel overwhelmed at what use to be routine and want to withdraw to get away from it all.

3. Anxiety and/or constant worry are your new companions.

4. Depression and a lack of pleasure not only in what you used to enjoy but in everything.

5. Exhaustion accompanied by sleeplessness where you were at least half way energetic and enjoyed a tumble with the pillow.

6. If you have chronic conditions, they seem to be worsening yet your activity level hasn’t changed.

7. You are irritable at the drop of a hat. Anyone, anytime can trigger your irritation.

8. You no longer have the ability to concentrate. Your are disorganized and devil may care about it.

9. You let your appearance and/or your environment (home, work area, etc.) go to the dogs.

I know these are mostly general in nature, but think about it for a moment. Most of us non stressed homo sapiens don’t get angry or irritated at the least little thing, we get an almost good night’s sleep with regularity, our tasks/job doesn’t overwhelm us and we love what we love and we continue to do them.

I present this list because as a former caregiver, I noticed it happening to care receivers and some caregivers. If 4 or more of these conditions apply, it is time to have a talk with someone. It is time to stop and smell the coffee/roses/catnip or whatever you like to smell.

It is your life and your health. As long as you have the power to control them, why wouldn’t you?

Tom Koziol is the Secretary for a nonprofit giving away a free caregiver manual at: http://www.senior2senior.org. The manual was written as a blueprint for everyone whether they are currently a caregiver or not.

Author: Tony McGlinn

Much of the time when a new idea comes to us, we handle that idea and move on, without ever becoming consciously aware of the process. During the times when we are consciously aware of the process of handling a new idea, we often reject that idea without understanding why we rejected it, or sometimes without even understanding that we did reject it.

How can this be?

To understand this, lets briefly review the mechanics of how our minds work. When a new idea comes to us, it comes into our conscious mind. It can be as a result of our own thinking, or it can be from an outside source. Immediately, and sometimes before the new idea is even properly formed, our sub-conscious mind starts to evaluate that idea.

Now this evaluation is happening in our sub-conscious mind. That means that we are not consciously aware of it, but it is happening anyway.

So how does our sub-conscious mind evaluate an idea, sometimes before the idea is complete, and without us being aware that this is going on. To understand this we need to understand a characteristic of our sub-conscious mind.

Our sub-conscious mind has no ability to reason. If that is so, how can it evaluate a new idea? Well one way is to ask itself, does this new idea fit with what I already ‘know’. If it does, then the new idea will not be immediately rejected. If it doesn’t then the sub-conscious mind will send a message to the conscious mind to say that this new idea doesn’t fit. Usually at this point, the conscious mind will believe what the sub-conscious mind is saying to it, and reject the idea.

There are a number of problems with this. What if the information that the sub-conscious mind is evaluating the new idea against, is wrong?

A common example of this is when a new idea comes into our conscious mind, and our sub-conscious mind starts to evaluate it. The sub-conscious mind says, ‘I already know that’. Now that ‘I already know that’ message is sent to the conscious mind, and what happens then?

Often the conscious mind stops considering the new idea at that point, and moves on to something new. But did the sub-conscious mind really know that it knew that? Maybe sometimes, but often the new idea is not even properly formed yet, so how could the sub-conscious mind be sure that it ‘knew’ that.

Unfortunately when the conscious mind gets the ‘I know that’ message, it usually stops receiving or processing the new idea, and that means the opportunity to learn something new is lost.

What can we do about this? How can we interrupt our sub-conscious mind so that it does not stop us learning from new ideas, when we are exposed to them. I suggest that there are two easy ways.

Firstly, when we hear our sub-conscious mind saying ‘That doesn’t fit’, or ‘That can’t be right’, or something similar, we can simply say to our sub-conscious mind ‘Thank-you for that information’. This means that we have decided not to act on the message that our sub-conscious mind was sending. Our conscious mind is then free to continue considering, reasoning and thinking about the new idea.

The second thing we can do is ask our conscious mind to think about the new idea in a way it may have not done before. Usually our conscious mind thinks ‘Is this idea right?’, or ‘Is this idea wrong?’. Instead of those questions we could ask ‘Could this idea change or improve my life in some way?’.

This allows us to look at a new idea in a completely fresh way, without being influenced by all the things that we have learnt before, or that we already ‘know’.

It was Will Rogers who said many years ago that “it’s not what people don’t know that hurts them. It’s what they do know that just ain’t so.”

Tony McGlinn runs personal development programs, writes and is a personal coach and consultant. You can visit him and subscribe to his newsletter at http://www.MyPowerfulMind.com

Author: Anthony Kane

Introduction

Developing healthy peer relationships is critical for the normal development of a child. Peer relationships have been found to be an important predictor of positive adult adjustment and behavior. Difficulty in finding friends leads to feelings of low self-esteem and these feelings usually continue into adulthood.

Children with poor social skills are at risk for delinquency, academic underachievement, and school drop out. Even though the inattentiveness, impulsiveness, and restlessness frequently persist into adult life, these problems are of less importance as the child gets older. Rather, the main difficulty ADHD patients encounter as they reach maturity is their inability to interact appropriately with others.

ADHD children often lack the social skills that are essential to success in life. These children can be socially inept, and their lack of interpersonal skills may cause them a multitude of difficulties. In addition, positive relationships with friends in childhood provide a critical buffer against stress and help to protect against psychological and psychiatric problems. ADHD children lack these positive interactions and thus are at risk for a number of emotional problems.

Probably 60% of ADHD children suffer from peer rejection. ADHD children are less often chosen by peers to be best friends, partners in activities, or seatmates. As the children grow older, their social problems seem to get worse. Their inappropriate behavior leads to further social rejection and exacerbates their inability to relate to others appropriately. Long term these children are more likely to have difficulty finding and maintaining successful careers. This is not surprising since social aptitude can make or break careers and relationships in the adult world.

Causes of Poor Peer Relationships

ADHD children are frequently disliked or neglected by their peers. It is difficult to determine all the factors that make a child unpopular, but children who frequently display aggressive or negative behavior tend to be rejected by their peers.

Impulsivity and Aggression

ADHD children tend to be more impulsive and aggressive than other children. Teachers observe that the social interactions of ADHD children more often involve fighting and interrupting others. These children are more intense than others and behave inappropriately in social contexts. For example, ADHD children are more likely to yell, run around and talk at unsuitable times. They also tend to want to dominate play, engage in off task behaviors and engage more in teasing and physical jostling of peers. This sets up a process of peer rejection.

Academic Problems

ADHD children often do not do well in school. Poor school performance by itself does not result in social rejection. However, the way the child responds to his academic difficulties can contribute to inappropriate social behavior. Children who cannot engage themselves with classroom work assignments often disrupt and irritate their peers.

Inattention

ADHD children have difficulty with sustained attention. Deficit in attention seems to be related to peer rejection independently of the aggressive, impulsive, and hyperactive behaviors of ADHD children. These children become bored more easily than other children. As a result, they are more likely to become disruptive in the classroom.

ADHD children have difficulty in modulating their behavior and changing their conduct as the situation demands. They have apparent social-cognitive deficits that limit their ability to encode and recall rules of social cues. Children with ADHD pay less attention to others verbally in games and other activities.

Many ADHD children are aware that they are socially inept. Children who are anxious or fearful about peer relations are unlikely to behave in an effective manner. These children withdraw from peer interactions and, in this way, limit their ability to gain acceptance and friendship.

Children are rejected by peers when they appear to be different. Similarity fosters social acceptance. Because ADHD children do not learn social clues as well as other children, they tend to be viewed as strange.

Bad Behavior

One of the keys to your child’s social success is proper behavior. If your ADHD or ODD child frequently misbehaves, it is your obligation as a parent to teach your child how to improve his behavior.

If your child is aggressive or defiant, if he does not accept the authority of adults, or if he conducts himself in a such a way that children his age will view him as a behavior problem, then your child will have a difficult time making and maintaining friendships. The friends he will attract are other aggressive problem children, the type of child with whom which you would rather your child not associate.

All children need friends. Behavior problem children have trouble making friends with others, so these children tend to congregate together. They reinforce each other’s bad behavior. If you are an aware parent and you have control of your child you can put a stop to friendships with these children. However, you must have control of your child’s behavior in order to help him to avoid the trap of bad friends.

Conclusion

Helping children with ADHD build close peer relationships is an important goal to focus on, and is one that often may be over looked. You, as a parent, have the ability to help your child accomplish this important social goal. You should make every effort to help your child in this area. His psychological health and his happiness, both now and in the future, are very much dependent upon how successful he is at making and maintaining childhood friendships.

About The Author

Anthony Kane, MD is a physician, an international lecturer, and director of special education. He is the author of a book, numerous articles, and a number of online programs dealing with ADHD (addadhdadvances.com/childyoulove.html) treatment, ODD, parenting issues (addadhdadvances.com/betterbehavior.html), and education. You may visit his website at http://addadhdadvances.com. To sign up for the free ADD ADHD Advances online journal send a blank email to: subscribe@addadhdadvances.com?subject=subscribeartcity

akane@addadhdadvances.com

Author: Dean Danielson

Avoid stress? Easy to say, impossible to do. Stress is always with us. Stress is our shadow. Life is stressful. If we are looking for the ways to escape, we are wasting our time, our inventiveness, our energy. Instead, it would be much better for us to learn how to live with stress.

First of all, we should stop experience stressful situations as a catastrophe, as a reason for panic or despair. We should accept them as challenge, as opportunity. It’s the best way to cope, to overcome. More active we are, less we are afraid, worried, anxious.
The most important is to surpass our helplessness, our frustration.

Stressful events and situations are not a punishment. That’s why we should cease to grumble that we haven’t deserved it. Self pity is the great temptation but it isn’t solution, not at all. Stress is part of our lives. We must stop to blame ourselves for it or to search culprits among others.

Blaming ourselves we are on the road to heavy depression. Blaming others we are on the best way to spoil our relations. Stress is not a question of guilt. It’s the part of human condition. It’s our shadow.

And there is not shadow without light, or light without shadow. The only way to live without shadow is to live in complete darkness. Trying to avoid stress, we are trying to avoid life.

We can’t solve everything by pressing some button. We can change disturbing or inadequate circumstances with remote controller as we change some boring TV channel.
We must cope, we must fight, we must invent. Acting and only acting we develop our forces and our personality.

We must accept our shadow. Than we will see stress is not as horrible as we thought.

Author: SecretsofGreatRelationships.com

The Law of Blue

Just sort of feeling blue, kinda out of it, gets confused with being depressed. We all get the blues from time to time, and they pass.

The Law of Sad

Feeling sad, while not pleasant, makes sense in the context of the situation.

The Law of Clinical

True clinical depression is not just feeling blue or sad. It’s both a biological and psychological struggle that’s often best treated with a combination of medication and counseling.

The Law of Boot Straps

When you are depressed, some well-meaning people will tell you to just “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.” The problem is when you are clinically depressed, you don’t have bootstraps.

The Law of Music, Part 1

Music can either lift you up or keep you down. Listening to certain kinds of music while depressed is like pouring gasoline on a fire and then wondering why it gets worse.

The Law of Music, Part 2

Make your own list of uplifting, positive, energizing music.

The Law of Coping

You need to have a variety of tools in your tool bag to effectively cope with depression. Here’s a few suggested tools:

Talk about it. Trying to handle depression on your own is like trying to do your own open-heart surgery.

Write out your feelings. Getting it out on paper can get it out of
you.

Take a drive and ease your mind.

Cry if you need to. There’s a great line in Pat Conroy’s novel Beach Music that goes something like: “Men die younger than women because men have not washed their faces enough with their own tears.”

Exercise. If I can get a client that is depressed to exercise regularly, I know we are part of the way home.

The Law of Lifestyle

I’ve come to believe that there is such a thing as a “depressive lifestyle.” Over-working, over-stressing, expectations of perfection, a critical, complaining and cynical spirit, focusing on the negative in life, feeding a sense of hopelessness through what you read and listen to, all these things contribute to a depressing life.

The Law of Discovery

Discovering they
are depressed, while frightening for many clients, also gives a name and a beginning
understanding of the struggles they have experienced.

The Law of Warning
Signs

Many people feel like depression sort of snuck up on them. They didn’t see it coming. As you work your way out of depression, it’s crucial to develop a list of “early warning signs.” These allow you to take early action to prevent a
reoccurrence.

The Law of “Like Minded People”

If you surround your self with depressed people, you’re likely to stay depressed. Or get depressed if you weren’t already. And if you surround your self with positive people, it’s a lot harder to get and stay depressed.

The Law of Focus

Focusing on everything that is wrong with your life and the world is a great way to stay stuck in depression. By the same token, focusing on everything that is right with your life and the world is a great way to move on out of depression.

The Law of Recovery

The really cool news is that people can and do recover from depression every day. Recovery begins with the decision to recover, and then selecting the best guides and creating the best map for your journey back to the passion of life.

The Law of Getting Stronger

This one comes from a special client of mine who has a wealth of experience in this area. Instead of only
praying that circumstances change for the better (which is a good thing to do) pray and work on getting your self stronger to deal with whatever comes your way.

As Chicago, one of my favorite bands still sings:

“I’m feelin’ stronger every day…………”

Visit SecretsofGreatRelationships.com for
tips and tools for creating and growing a great relationship. You can also subscribe to our f*r*e*e 10 day e-program on how to enrich your relationship today, from relationship coach and expert Jeff Herring.

Author: Kathy Thompson

Too much driving, too much shopping, too much rushing around, running the kids around. Do family and work demands have you stressed out?

There are many ways to help you control stress. Here are some unique methods I’ve collected.

1. Yell! But—be sure you are alone. The best place is in the car with the windows up. Stuck in traffic? Try it.

2. Sing. This is close to the first one. Lots of people swear by the power of music to release tension and stress. Sing wherever you feel comfortable. It doesn’t matter
what. Just have some fun with it! I have done this on all jobs I’ve had. Then I started dancing. Why not! People thought I was crazy, but it works.

3. Do something soothing. Start or try a activity like knitting, crochet, pottery making. Don’t worry about being good at it. It’s the process that’s beneficial. Sitting still whileperforming repetitive movements is calming and stabilizing for many people. It can
be time to collect your thoughts.

4. Start a garden. Even apartment-dwellers can do this. Inside in pots, pots on the patio,pots, a small spot in your yard. There is a little work to setting it up. Tending plants, fruits, vegetables, flowers and watching them grow, bloom, or yield food is rewarding. Avid gardeners say working a garden is the best way to control stress and worry. An added benefit is the creation of a more beautiful, restful environment.

5. Play with a dog or cat. Experts say Pet owners have longer lives and fewer stress symptoms than non-pet owners. Playing with your pet provides good vibrations. It’s a form of social interaction with no pressure to meet anyone’s expectations!

6. Gaze at the stars. Many times I have gazed up at the stars off my patio. Preferably in a still, dark, and quiet area, sit back and observe the heavens. The vastness of space is awesome. This way can make a lot of problems seem very small.

7. Discover how you can recognize too much stress before it explodes here:
http://www.faceuptoit-youcan.com/sanpaku.html

If stress is not relieved it can be very dangerous to your health and can explode into violent behavior.

Kathy Thompson, Wellness Coach, can help you lead a happier healthy life, with products, programs, profiles. With 8 years of teaching and 15 years in Toastmasters, Kathy Thompson really enjoys writing and speaking. She has a B. S. in Business Communications and has taught her programs around the country at various businesses and Adult Education Centers.

She writes and speaks about Health, Personal Communications (writing & speaking), and her unique specialty of “Face Reading” has brought her plenty of media attention. Kathy’s goal is to help you be all you can be and reach your potential.

http://www.faceuptoit-youcan.com
Contact Kathy at; writing4u@faceuptoit-youcan.com

Author: Michael J. Hadfield MBSCH

Psychological well-being is something that we all have a right to. However, for a variety of reasons to do with upbringing, life experiences, physiology, environment and so on? we often find ourselves with a mind-state other than what we desire. Depression, anxiety, and stress seem to be the major obstacles to just feeling good - judging by the number of visits to doctors for help with these problems.

It doesn’t really matter what the label is for your particular problem, if you follow the seven steps diligently, there will be an improvement in your general feeling of well being.

The Seven Steps are:
1. Acceptance2. Releasing guilt

Author: David Leonhardt

There is good stress, and there is bad stress. Good stress is the type that propels a person to excel, to reach new heights or to complete a big project on time.

And there is bad stress. Stress that comes from conflict or worries. Stress that keeps a person from sleeping and happiness. Stress that calls for relief. Here are three stress-relief tips you can follow.

Meditation for stress relief.

Can there be a more obvious stress relief strategy than to bring your entire physical being to a calm? Meditation techniques often involve visualization of something calm, like a blank screen or clouds. Or it can mean clearing your mind entirely.

If stress is caused by how we allow our minds to captured by worries and fears, then replacing those worries and fears with calmer images is the obvious way to reduce stress.

You can sign up for a free course on meditation techniques to reduce stress at my website.

Exercise to reduce stress.

If relaxing to a state where even your blood vessels are almost still is the ultimate in stress relief, surely exercise, which gets even your blood pumping at breakneck speed, must be the ultimate stress demon.

Not so. Exercise is a big stress reliever. In fact, the bigger the muscles you exercise, the more less stress you will bear. That’s because exercise releases physical tension in the muscles.

Here’s another tip: exercise in water to reduce stress even more. Why? Because you are more buoyant on water; gravity takes a much gentler toll on your body, so the tension created in your muscles just by holding you up gets released. For the ultimate stress release, exercise in water. Or meditate in water. Or laugh in water.

Laughter reduces stress, too.

Yes, laughter also relieves stress. The muscles we use to laugh are those tense ones in our faces. When we loosen them, we release tension from our faces. We also allow more blood to flow to the pleasure centers of the brain (which might be why someone with a ‘good sense of humor’ is considered more attractive).

I think I will close with this excerpt from my newsletter, A Daily Dose of Happiness, which shows the value of a little creative humor:

“Little Lady was guarding the space between the trees, as I tried to kick her little ball past her.

“Then an idea struck me. Off to the side lay a large, purple fit ball that the kids like to be bounced on. A rushed over, rolled it into the clearing and kicked it toward Little Lady. ‘Giant Blueberry Soccer!’ I shouted. She laughed.

“For the next ten or fifteen minutes, we rolled and licked and laughed and shouted, “Giant Blueberry Soccer!”

“What a great family moment, stress relief, joy-injector, fun and more. My formula was simple, and you can do it too. Look around and find something that just would not belong, like a too-big ball. Then imagine what it might be, like a blueberry. Then thrust it into your situation with all the gusto you can apply.

“Have fun.”

David Leonhardt is a Canadian freelance writer and a self-help books author.

Author: Sam Vaknin

There is one place in which one’s privacy, intimacy, integrity and inviolability are guaranteed - one’s body, a unique temple and a familiar territory of sensa and personal history. The torturer invades, defiles and desecrates this shrine. He does so publicly, deliberately, repeatedly and, often, sadistically and sexually, with undisguised pleasure. Hence the all-pervasive, long-lasting, and, frequently, irreversible effects and outcomes of torture.

In a way, the torture victim’s own body is rendered his worse enemy. It is corporeal agony that compels the sufferer to mutate, his identity to fragment, his ideals and principles to crumble. The body becomes an accomplice of the tormentor, an uninterruptible channel of communication, a treasonous, poisoned territory.

It fosters a humiliating dependency of the abused on the perpetrator. Bodily needs denied - sleep, toilet, food, water - are wrongly perceived by the victim as the direct causes of his degradation and dehumanization. As he sees it, he is rendered bestial not by the sadistic bullies around him but by his own flesh.

The concept of “body” can easily be extended to “family”, or “home”. Torture is often applied to kin and kith, compatriots, or colleagues. This intends to disrupt the continuity of “surroundings, habits, appearance, relations with others”, as the CIA put it in one of its manuals. A sense of cohesive self-identity depends crucially on the familiar and the continuous. By attacking both one’s biological body and one’s “social body”, the victim’s psyche is strained to the point of dissociation.

Beatrice Patsalides describes this transmogrification thus in “Ethics of the unspeakable: Torture survivors in psychoanalytic treatment”:

“As the gap between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ deepens, dissociation and alienation increase. The subject that, under torture, was forced into the position of pure object has lost his or her sense of interiority, intimacy, and privacy. Time is experienced now, in the present only, and perspective - that which allows for a sense of relativity - is foreclosed. Thoughts and dreams attack the mind and invade the body as if the protective skin that normally contains our thoughts, gives us space to breathe in between the thought and the thing being thought about, and separates between inside and outside, past and present, me and you, was lost.”

Torture robs the victim of the most basic modes of relating to reality and, thus, is the equivalent of cognitive death. Space and time are warped by sleep deprivation. The self (”I”) is shattered. The tortured have nothing familiar to hold on to: family, home, personal belongings, loved ones, language, name. Gradually, they lose their mental resilience and sense of freedom. They feel alien - unable to communicate, relate, attach, or empathize with others.

Torture splinters early childhood grandiose narcissistic fantasies of uniqueness, omnipotence, invulnerability, and impenetrability. But it enhances the fantasy of merger with an idealized and omnipotent (though not benign) other - the inflicter of agony. The twin processes of individuation and separation are reversed.

Torture is the ultimate act of perverted intimacy. The torturer invades the victim’s body, pervades his psyche, and possesses his mind. Deprived of contact with others and starved for human interactions, the prey bonds with the predator. “Traumatic bonding”, akin to the Stockholm syndrome, is about hope and the search for meaning in the brutal and indifferent and nightmarish universe of the torture cell.

The abuser becomes the black hole at the center of the victim’s surrealistic galaxy, sucking in the sufferer’s universal need for solace. The victim tries to “control” his tormentor by becoming one with him (introjecting him) and by appealing to the monster’s presumably dormant humanity and empathy.

This bonding is especially strong when the torturer and the tortured form a dyad and “collaborate” in the rituals and acts of torture (for instance, when the victim is coerced into selecting the torture implements and the types of torment to be inflicted, or to choose between two evils).

The psychologist Shirley Spitz offers this powerful overview of the contradictory nature of torture in a seminar titled “The Psychology of Torture” (1989):

“Torture is an obscenity in that it joins what is most private with what is most public. Torture entails all the isolation and extreme solitude of privacy with none of the usual security embodied therein … Torture entails at the same time all the self exposure of the utterly public with none of its possibilities for camaraderie or shared experience. (The presence of an all powerful other with whom to merge, without the security of the other’s benign intentions.)

A further obscenity of torture is the inversion it makes of intimate human relationships. The interrogation is a form of social encounter in which the normal rules of communicating, of relating, of intimacy are manipulated. Dependency needs are elicited by the interrogator, but not so they may be met as in close relationships, but to weaken and confuse. Independence that is offered in return for ‘betrayal’ is a lie. Silence is intentionally misinterpreted either as confirmation of information or as guilt for ‘complicity’.

Torture combines complete humiliating exposure with utter devastating isolation. The final products and outcome of torture are a scarred and often shattered victim and an empty display of the fiction of power.”

Obsessed by endless ruminations, demented by pain and a continuum of sleeplessness - the victim regresses, shedding all but the most primitive defense mechanisms: splitting, narcissism, dissociation, projective identification, introjection, and cognitive dissonance. The victim constructs an alternative world, often suffering from depersonalization and derealization, hallucinations, ideas of reference, delusions, and psychotic episodes.

Sometimes the victim comes to crave pain - very much as self-mutilators do - because it is a proof and a reminder of his individuated existence otherwise blurred by the incessant torture. Pain shields the sufferer from disintegration and capitulation. It preserves the veracity of his unthinkable and unspeakable experiences.

This dual process of the victim’s alienation and addiction to anguish complements the perpetrator’s view of his quarry as “inhuman”, or “subhuman”. The torturer assumes the position of the sole authority, the exclusive fount of meaning and interpretation, the source of both evil and good.

Torture is about reprogramming the victim to succumb to an alternative exegesis of the world, proffered by the abuser. It is an act of deep, indelible, traumatic indoctrination. The abused also swallows whole and assimilates the torturer’s negative view of him and often, as a result, is rendered suicidal, self-destructive, or self-defeating.

Thus, torture has no cut-off date. The sounds, the voices, the smells, the sensations reverberate long after the episode has ended - both in nightmares and in waking moments. The victim’s ability to trust other people - i.e., to assume that their motives are at least rational, if not necessarily benign - has been irrevocably undermined. Social institutions are perceived as precariously poised on the verge of an ominous, Kafkaesque mutation. Nothing is either safe, or credible anymore.

Victims typically react by undulating between emotional numbing and increased arousal: insomnia, irritability, restlessness, and attention deficits. Recollections of the traumatic events intrude in the form of dreams, night terrors, flashbacks, and distressing associations.

The tortured develop compulsive rituals to fend off obsessive thoughts. Other psychological sequelae reported include cognitive impairment, reduced capacity to learn, memory disorders, sexual dysfunction, social withdrawal, inability to maintain long-term relationships, or even mere intimacy, phobias, ideas of reference and superstitions, delusions, hallucinations, psychotic microepisodes, and emotional flatness.

Depression and anxiety are very common. These are forms and manifestations of self-directed aggression. The sufferer rages at his own victimhood and resulting multiple dysfunction. He feels shamed by his new disabilities and responsible, or even guilty, somehow, for his predicament and the dire consequences borne by his nearest and dearest. His sense of self-worth and self-esteem are crippled.

In a nutshell, torture victims suffer from a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Their strong feelings of anxiety, guilt, and shame are also typical of victims of childhood abuse, domestic violence, and rape. They feel anxious because the perpetrator’s behavior is seemingly arbitrary and unpredictable - or mechanically and inhumanly regular.

They feel guilty and disgraced because, to restore a semblance of order to their shattered world and a modicum of dominion over their chaotic life, they need to transform themselves into the cause of their own degradation and the accomplices of their tormentors.

The CIA, in its “Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983″ (reprinted in the April 1997 issue of Harper’s Magazine), summed up the theory of coercion thus:

“The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy, a reversion to an earlier behavioral level. As the subject regresses, his learned personality traits fall away in reverse chronological order. He begins to lose the capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to deal with complex situations, or to cope with stressful interpersonal relationships or repeated frustrations.”

Inevitably, in the aftermath of torture, its victims feel helpless and powerless. This loss of control over one’s life and body is manifested physically in impotence, attention deficits, and insomnia. This is often exacerbated by the disbelief many torture victims encounter, especially if they are unable to produce scars, or other “objective” proof of their ordeal. Language cannot communicate such an intensely private experience as pain.

Spitz makes the following observation:

“Pain is also unsharable in that it is resistant to language … All our interior states of consciousness: emotional, perceptual, cognitive and somatic can be described as having an object in the external world … This affirms our capacity to move beyond the boundaries of our body into the external, sharable world. This is the space in which we interact and communicate with our environment. But when we explore the interior state of physical pain we find that there is no object ‘out there’ - no external, referential content. Pain is not of, or for, anything. Pain is. And it draws us away from the space of interaction, the sharable world, inwards. It draws us into the boundaries of our body.”

Bystanders resent the tortured because they make them feel guilty and ashamed for having done nothing to prevent the atrocity. The victims threaten their sense of security and their much-needed belief in predictability, justice, and rule of law. The victims, on their part, do not believe that it is possible to effectively communicate to “outsiders” what they have been through. The torture chambers are “another galaxy”. This is how Auschwitz was described by the author K. Zetnik in his testimony in the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961.

Kenneth Pope in “Torture”, a chapter he wrote for the “Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender”, quotes Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman:

“It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.”

But, more often, continued attempts to repress fearful memories result in psychosomatic illnesses (conversion). The victim wishes to forget the torture, to avoid re-experiencing the often life threatening abuse and to shield his human environment from the horrors. In conjunction with the victim’s pervasive distrust, this is frequently interpreted as hypervigilance, or even paranoia. It seems that the victims can’t win. Torture is forever.

About The Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory Bellaonline, and Suite101 .

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

Visit Sam’s Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com; palma@unet.com.mk