Congratulations, Camel!

My shrink friend, Camel, is becoming an American citizen today.  Congratulations, Camel!

Roy is Driving Me Crazy!

I'm at my office today and I turn on my phone between patients. There's a text and a message, both from the same person. "Where is Roy, he's supposed to be here at a meeting? Can you contact him?"

Interesting. I scratch some body part or the other. Am I Roy's mother? Did someone forget to tell me? I forward the text to Roy, and welcome in the next patient. After that session, I check messages again. Roy has texted me, "I can't talk, I'm in a meeting." I guess he got there. Oh good.

And the blog. We have a rule about the sidebar: Dinah doesn't touch it. It's Roy's rule, but I've had a few problems, so mostly it's okay. But then, I decided I wanted a duck on the side bar. I put one up. That I can do. Roy took it down, because if I say Earth, Roy says Mars. Duck> No duck. No duck> Duck. Should I start reverting to reverse psychology? What was wrong with the duck? I liked it. Roy put up a link to our book's Facebook page---you remember, that book we've been writing for about a zillion decades that never actually materializes. I promise (I hope) that it isn't just a pipe dream. So the book's Facebook page has a whopping 8 fans and their photos are shown on our sidebar. Does Jesse the Chinchilla Lover want his photo on Shrink Rap? Do we want to advertise our 8 fans? I take it down. And Roy tells me he's frustrated that I undo things he does without talking to him first. But my duck-- he took down my duck! And he didn't talk to me first.

Why does Roy want the Facebook page up anyway? Does it matter? How will our Shrink Rap Book FB page change the world? Oh, we had tried a Shrink Rap friend page, but that was too hard to manage. I had to sign out of my own account and confirm new friends, and interact with them, and I'm a bit on overload (in case you couldn't tell!). We tried a "fan" page and that was fine. Only it was linked and combined with the friend page and who knew what was what. I was pretty confused and I created them! So Roy made us a FB book page, only the book's not out, so he doesn't want anyone to know. But he does want 25 people to be fans so he can reserve a specific URL for it. HuH? And then he put his twitter feed in to it which would be good---Shrink Rap posts would populate the wall, but then he had a twitter conference and all sorts of random tweets went twitting away on the wall and in my News Feed. I think I'm way too old for this. Anyway, Roy is driving me crazy.

Please join our Shrink Rap Book page so Roy can drive you crazy, too.

And Clink has a new "old" post up on Shrink Rap Today over at Psychology Today.

You Need Help!

Sometimes in my real life it becomes obvious that a friend or acquaintance is having a problem. Either they are wearing obvious signs of mental illness or they just show signs of being 'stuck' in life or, worse, of moving backwards. Often they don't see it. I suppose there is the outsider's vantage point of making a judgment that may reflect my own value system and not their reality: to me, I may see someone who has family and job and connections who sees leaving those things as a healthy escape and their withdrawal as a good kind of comfort with keeping their own company. Usually these aren't my close friends, but what do you do when you notice that someone in your life is changing and might possibly benefit from help?

In general, I've found that "You need help" is not helpful. People hear this as an insult, not as a kind suggestion from a concerned friend. And from a healthy friend it may be worse and easier to blow off---shrinks think everyone's crazy, they push drugs, they think everyone needs therapy, they see the world in a skewed way (at least this is how the commercial runs).

So I wondered: how do people let their friends know they need help in a way that inspires them to get it in the absence of a crisis? If you're in treatment because someone else suggested it, what enabled you to hear the suggestion without being wounded or insulted?

Three Shrink Rappers Meditating on a Mountain Top....

On my post on meditation, Guzman from Montevideo, Uruguay left us a joke. I mentioned in that post that my mother took me to learn Transcendental Meditation when I was 10. Odd coincidence, but my mother also worked at the US embassy in Montevideo, long ago. Did you know her Guzman? It was many decades ago.

So I took Guzman's joke and I modified it to suit us three Shrink Rappers because it kind of suited our personalities:
Guzmán. said...

Jiddu Krishnamurti telling a joke...

“There are three shrink rapping monks, who had been sitting in deep meditation for many years amidst the Himalayan snow peaks, never speaking a word, in utter silence. One morning, Roy one of the three suddenly speaks up and says, ‘What a lovely morning this is.’ And he falls silent again. Five years of silence pass, when all at once a bird flies over and pulls the duct tape off monk Dinah's mouth and she speaks up and says, ‘But we could do with some rain.’ There is silence among them for another five years, when suddenly ClinkShrink, the third monk says, ‘Why can’t you two stop chattering?”


http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/jokes.html
http://seaunaluzparaustedmismo.blogspot.com/

Genetic Friendships

Here's an interesting article I came across about the role of genetics in friendships. Two researchers studied genetics found in social networks. They asked people in two longitudinal studies to name their friends, then they compared certain genetic markers. They found that the DRD2 gene, which is associated with alcoholism, tends to cluster among friends. In other words, DRD2 positive people tend to be friends with other DRD2 people. Conversely, the CYP2A6 gene carriers tended to make friends with CYP2A6 negative people. This gene is associated with people who have open personality styles. In other words, a tendency to seek out variety and new ideas.

I'm not sure what to make of all this except to say I think it's interesting that there may be a biologically driven reason why Dinah and I are friends. In many ways we're the exact opposite. Dinah is a whirling dervish of multi-tasking in a way that I find exhausting, yet she seems to thrive on it. I'm an obsessionally detail-oriented and data-driven person who never loses her car keys (or drowns a cell phone). I enjoy living this way but have no doubt that Dinah would go mad from boredom within hours if we ever woke up and found our lives had been switched. I can guess which one of us has the CYP2A6 gene. The scientists would say that we are friends because we have complimentary genetics---traits that balance off and help one another. And I guess that's true. Our book might not ever have been finished if Dinah hadn't kept us moving and on task. And it wouldn't have been as organized and readable if I hadn't followed up with the editing. So it all works out in the end.

Now we just need to find a gene that protects against cell phone loss.

The Sunday Morning Shrink Rapper Update.

I've decided to start reading the Sunday New York Times in bed--- no electronic distractions and I actually sort of read. I love the internet, but I think it makes me crazy.

The NY Times has a feature on Debra Winger and talks about her acting come back in the role of Frances on In Treatment. Click here if you'd like to read it.

I'm reading a wonderful book, a memoir by Dr. Mark Vonnegut called Just Like Someone With Mental Illness Only More So. When I was a kid, I loved Kurt Vonnegut's novels. Unusual family with lots of genius and mental illness. I will write more about the book when I finish it, maybe later today?

Tried a great new pizza place last night. Trouble parking and I thought I'd never go there again, and then we ordered a boring pizza because we have topping-issues in my marriage. Great spinach salad, and as we waited for the pie, I coveted the pizza's around us with sausage, veggies, mushrooms, oh.... but then our Four Cheese Pizza arrived and it was amazing. We didn't even mind that we were by far the oldest people in the place, and I will definitely go again, maybe on a weekday. So here's a plug for Iggy's.

As for the rest of my day? Roy wanted me to go to lunch with him so he could convert me into someone who fully understands the details of an issue that has come up in our state with hospital reimbursements. The restaurant he chose isn't open on Sundays. Oh, and he's decided he's busy with one of his many other projects. Clink wanted to work on posting another podcast with me, but got a last minute invite to a birthday party and has blown me off. I've pointed out to her that she was on my "A" list as a first-choice friend for a Sunday afternoon. The day-before birthday party invite and she was clearly on that person's "B" list. Apparently, my company doesn't compare to the prospect of birthday cake.

Our little dog, Kobe, the hyperactive one, was shaved down yesterday in an event called grooming. I suggested husband take him to the Ravens Game (Kobe would like that) but was told, "As a comfort dog? Kobe is the farthest thing from a comfort dog."

My Friend, My Shrink

I just finished reading Dr. Gary Small's book, The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head. I talked about it during our podcast, and maybe, someday, that podcast will be posted.*

In the final chapter of the book, Dr. Small talks about his mentor, friend, and father-figure who has been mentioned throughout the book. The mentor approaches him on the golf course, where they meet to talk, and says he needs psychotherapy and Gary is the man to do it. The author is surprised, hesitant, and a bit uncomfortable with the demand (it comes as more than a request). His wife likens it to the need for a plumber or a dentist, and Dr. Small takes on the task. The mentor calls all the shots: where the meetings will be, what pastry they will eat, the form of his payment. The author initially misses the diagnosis and uses this as an example of how one can be blinded.

So is it okay for a friend to treat a friend?

I was in an institution where the resounding feeling is that psychiatric disorders are medical diseases like any other: the patient should go where the care is best. Obviously, our institution gave the best care, and so there was no taboo about faculty being treated (or even hospitalized) within the department. This is not to say that everyone treated their friends, but people might not move their care as far away as one might imagine (and sometimes people treated their friends).

At the same time, the standard professional boundaries suggest that friends should not treat friends, and that such arrangements are not kosher, especially after the fact if the treatment is called in to question.

Dr. Small talks about a delay in diagnosis. He doesn't talk about the fact that the patient here is dictating the care in a way we generally don't view as being helpfu to patients-- even VIP patients-- or that the desire to please authority figures can be very powerful.
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* Regarding the My Three Shrinks podcast: We've decided that I, the non-geek, should try to produce the podcasts for the near future. Roy said he'd rather stick a fork in his eye than teach me to do this. Clink is trying, but even the process of transferring the recordings to my computer has been rough, not to mention that our podcast programs don't sync. Soon... we hope.