Wednesday, September 28, 2011

BMA certificate

British Medical Association Book awards certificate

BMA Certificate

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Monday, September 26, 2011

Dynamics of the marital relationship

Someone asked me about how the relationship with their father early in life might have effected the relationship with males she has as an adult woman. She reports some difficulty in getting a relationship that seems to work.

In normal circumstances the relationship with parents provides us with the templates for subsequent relationships such as with a partner later in life. For instance if a girl has a close and loving relationship with father that sets the template for similar kinds of relationships in subsequent relationships with males.

However it is not that simple. There are other factors which will influence the final relationship outcome such as with a partner. For example the young girl watches how mother and father get on. She will unconsciously and automatically model that behaviour, but she may at the same time decide never to be mistreated by a man like mother was.

Girl pointing

In such circumstances one may get two types of relationships for the woman as an adult. One where she is mistreated by the man who happens to be her partner, but she may have also have had a series of relationships where she mistreated the men in her life as a demonstration to herself of never being like mother in a relationship.

One of the key features in the selection of a marital partner is what is known as the early demand.

What was the thing I always wanted from father (mother) and never got?

It is usually something like time, affection, love, encouragement and so forth. The woman then sets about finding a man who will continue to not meet that need in her, like father never did. This may seem a little odd but it is just the way it is.

steptoe and son

It is usually in our most intimate relationships where we tend to try and resolve our Free Child needs. Of course a marital partner can often be that. We often try and use our partner to finally resolve the issues we never resolved in childhood.

This can lead to circumstances where a much younger woman marries a much older man. When there is a big age difference it is likely that such a thing is happening and the woman is psychologically using the man for such reasons. The success of such a thing varies from situation to situation.

However these circumstances are much more frequent than many realise. Whilst in many relationships there may not be a big difference chronologically there can be psychologically. Thus in real terms the same psychological mechanisms are at work even though the chronological ages may be much closer.

face stripes

In some, nay most relationships, the psychological status or strength is not the same. There tends to be one more psychologically stronger partner than the other. This indeed can change over time as well. In some relationships the psychological dominance varies considerably and thus one has the same circumstances as the much older male and much younger female. The same psychological mechanisms are at work.

The less dominant one tends to see the other as a dominant psychological parent and sets about trying to solve all the stuff that was never solved first time around with varying success.

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Melamary life script currency analysis

Results

uniqueness
one and only +
feelings ++
power +++
reverse status
sex ++
beauty
pied paper
booze ++
food +
violence
money ++
words +
drugs +

Analysis

Games - Rapo, cops and robbers, psychiatry
Stage - anal
Lifestyle/occupation - politics, examiners, critics, the “boss”. police, doctors, psychologists
Therapist - Supervisor / supervisee disputes, industrial mediation
Personality - paranoid, anti social
Issues - Control, penis envy, dependency

Car crash

Power is an interesting script currency and not an uncommon one. It is unfortunate in that the person tends to waste so much energy as they get caught in fights or disputes they do not need to and so much energy gets ‘wasted’ in this way. The person with the power script currency needs to ask self, “Do I need to be involved in this dispute”.

The young child has fight (compared to flight or freeze) as its primary response to parental control. Feeding, toileting and adolescence are especially crucial stages in this child’s development where parents need to be extra careful not to set up an adversarial relationship with the child in a battle for power and control. However it is not just these stages and it is all through the formative years that parents need to be careful with the ‘fight’ child.

Child trust

Power is a double edged sword in relationships. If one feels they have the power position in the relationship that can lead to a sense of safety because one is in control of what happens. However it is also tiring as one IS always in control and thus can never be ‘looked after’ by the other. In therapy the client is invited to take the dependent role in the relationship with the therapist. They may find this very difficult to do but if achieved they may feel a great sense of relief at not having to be the one expending all the energy being in charge.

The therapist needs to make sure that the therapeutic relationship does not become just yet another battle field for a fight over control, for the client. This does happen as therapists are the ones in the power position in the therapeutic relationship and thus those with a power script currency issues will be attracted to the profession.

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Sunday, September 25, 2011

The emeshed family

A video on how the emeshed family structure can result in anxiety and panic attacks



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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Book award part 2

A summary of the BMA book award night can be found at the publishers website here.

I travelled there with a good colleague of mine and here are some photos of us.

T&J Award nite

T&J at award

And I finally was able to meet up with the Commissioning Editor of JKP who was also there to see the event.

T & Steve

And here is the woman who made all the announcements of the nominees and the winners.

Winner announcer


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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Book award

This was the moment of truth. At the British Medical Association 2011 medical book of the year awards. There I was in London last week at the awards as my book had been given a high commendation and nominated for the award by the BMA.

Book competition.

There would have been at least a couple of hundred people there including publishers, authors and those in the medical profession.

A big screen was at the front of the auditorium. Each time a nominee was announced the book would be displayed on the screen for all to see. In my category of psychiatry you can see there was a total of 12 nominees with my book in the bottom right hand corner. Then they announced the winner and that book would be displayed up on the screen by itself, everyone clapped and so forth.


To see the BMA list of winners and losers for the night go to here.

There is one other thing that I have learn about book publishing. My next book is not going to have a title that starts with a “w”. Any list I have seen my book on it is always at the end as happened when the nominations were announced, as you can see. Even if they sort them by author it is still at the end.

My next book on drug counselling will have a title something like, “A compendium of drug counselling”. Even if it doesn’t get put under “a” it will get under “c” on any list.

Smoker

Besides all that here is an updated list of the libraries my book is in and these are only the ones I know of. Also the book is still only 9 months old so it is good to see it get into so many university and college libraries in their degree programmes.

University of Waterloo (Canada)
Saint Francis Xavier University (Canada)
Simon Frasier University (Canada)
Mount Saint Vincent University (Canada)
Mount Royal University (Canada)
Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada)
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Canada)
University of Lethbridge (Canada)
Concordia University (Canada)
University of Guelph (Canada)
Library and Archives Canada (Canada)
Maribor General Hospital Library (Slovenia)
Stellenbosch University Library (South Africa)
Mitt hogskolan library (Sweden)
Stockholm University (Sweden)
PJ Library (Norway)
University of Bergen (Norway)
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet (Norway)
University of Oslo (Norway)
University of Tromso (Norway)
University of the West of England (UK)
Derbyshire library (UK)
University of Plymouth (UK)
Manchester Metropolitian University (UK)
Lancaster University (UK)
University of Hull (UK)
University of East Anglia (UK)
University of Cambridge (UK)
Oxford University library (UK)
University of Exeter (UK)
Coventry City Council library (UK)
Bromley Library service (UK)
Cadbury Heath Library (UK)
Kingswood Library (UK)
Nottingham Central Library (UK)
Yate Library (UK)
British Library (UK)
Ebook library London (UK)
Hounslow Library (UK)
Barnet London Borough Library (UK)
National library of Scotland (Scotland)
Executive Counseling and Training Academy (Singapore)
Ngee Ann Polytechnic Library(Singapore)
Singapore Polytechnic Library (Singapore)
National University of Singapore (Singapore)
LaTrobe University (Aust)
Victoria University (Aust)
Queensland University of Technology (Aust)
Deakin University (Aust)
University of Western Australia (Aust)
University of Ballarat (Aust)
University of New England (Aust)
University of Western Sydney (Aust)
Charles Sturt University (Aust)
Curtin University (Aust)
Australian Catholic University (Aust)
University of Newcastle (Aust)
Bond University (Aust)
University of Melbourne (Aust)
James Cook University (Aust)
National Library of Australia (Aust)
University of California San Diego (USA)
Open Library. California State Library (USA)
Ithaca College (USA)
Marquette University Raynor Memorial Library (USA)
University of Massachusetts Amherst (USA)
Williams College Massachusetts (USA)
National Library of Medicine Maryland (USA)
Illinois State University (USA)
Loyola Marymount University California (USA)
University of Michigan (USA)
Central Michigan University (USA)
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (USA)
University of Missouri-Columbia (USA)
Akron-Summit County Public Library, Ohio (USA)
University of California Merced (USA)
University of North Carolina Greensboro (USA)
Library of congress (USA)
University of California San Franisco (USA)
Mt. Hood Community College Library Oregon (USA)
National College of Natural Medicine Oregon (USA)
Oregon Health and Science University (USA)
Northeast WI Public Libraries (USA)
College of DuPage Illinois (USA)
Boston College (USA)
University of Chicago Illinois (USA)
University of North Texas (USA)
Laredo Public Library Texas (USA)
University of Texas-Pan American (USA)
University of Texas at Austin (USA)
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
Dublin Institute of Technology (Ireland)
University of Auckland Library (New Zealand)
Northtec library (New Zealand)
Auckland University of Technology (New Zealand)
Unitec Institute of Technology (New Zealand)
Eastern Institute of Technlogy (New Zealand)
University of Otago (New Zealand)
Rotorua District Library (New Zealand)
City University of Hong Kong (China)
National Cheng Kung University (Taiwan)


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Sunday, September 4, 2011

Using drugs dangerously - part 2

In the previous post I talked about people using drugs dangerously and gave an example.

KYLady made some good comments on the possible defence mechanisms used by the case example below. I find that I got similar ones to her and a few different which I have listed below

shit creek

Below is a statement by a 37 year old doctor who shared needles on this occasion.

“Never in wildest dreams did I EVER IMAGINE that I would share needles. Some of the details around these circumstances I can’t recall. I spose it was so traumatic, having a medical background and a deep moral code around sharing fits it still seems unbelievable.

I would ask the people who had used the fit before me if they had HIV or hepatitis and I chose to believe their response of no. Truth has no place in this world, if it shows up then is gets distorted, ignored or disproven because truth and drugs cannot be in the same room. The thought of not being able to get the drugs into me as quickly as possible especially when watching the others getting relief from their angst was something I could not take. This anxiety/fear far outweighs the fear for my own health and life. It was like trying to resist the sound of a newborn baby crying when you’re breast feeding.

I would disassociate from reality, time and space changed. I would wash the fit out with alcohol or bleech the whole time repeating a mantra of please God please God. I would think who cares anyway, you’re fucked and life is fucked and you’re all fucked. Self loathing and the fear of not getting that rush would fuel me on.

Then the ritual of mixing up would begin and my mind would start bargaining “you’re not really going to do it” “you’ll stop before you whack it” but there is no stopping by this stage you’re like a robot and this thing has you in its grasp. I would cry as I found a vein, wishing I could stop, jacking it back, holding in the sobs so I didn’t shake too much, then pushing it down the relief flooding over like a lover holding you in their arms no more aghhh and once again I’m cleaver and funny, all worries dissolve, I am a sex goddess and philosopher, brave and complete, all fears drift away.” (end quote)

Walking yellow line


1. Firstly she describes how she would ask others if they were carrying the HIV or hepatitis C virus. She knew the answer of ‘no’ could be considered quite unreliable. To proceed she must have used some mechanism like repression or denial to push the knowledge of unreliability out of her conscious.

2. Next she describes how she could dissociate which would allow her to decommission her Adult ego state temporarily which would allow her to proceed. This may have also assisted her discounting the unreliability of her peers reporting they were virus free.

3. Then she talks about repeating the mantra, “please God please God”. This could be the defence mechanism of magical thinking where the Child ego state can feel safer because she has ‘prayed’ and this will some how magically make her safe.

4. Next she moves to an angry position with her comment, “I would think who cares anyway, you’re fucked and life is fucked and you’re all fucked.” This may be the defence of minimisation. If she can convince herself that everything is bad then one little bit more of badness is not going to make any difference. It would allow her to minimise the importance of sharing needles.

5. Finally she talks about how her mind would start bargaining which may be a kind of rationalisation. Convincing herself that her preparations for drug taking were not wrong because she will pull out at the last minute.

Two women
Humans are very good at lying to themselves



If she had not been able to employ these defence mechanisms then she would not have been able to trick her Adult ego state and then she probably would have not engaged in sharing needles on that occasion. So you can begin to see the importance of what I am presenting here.

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Saturday, September 3, 2011

Using drugs dangerously

In order to use drugs dangerously such as with injecting drug use one has decommission their Adult ego state whilst doing so. This can be done by using what are called defence mechanisms. Humans are very good at lying to themselves and defence mechanisms are one way they can do that.

If a person has the Adult ego state information that sharing injecting equipment is a most unwise thing to do then in order to do it that, the Adult needs to be tricked some how. The Child ego state in some way needs to temporarily trick the Adult. If it can not do this then the person will not share injecting equipment on that occassion.

Defence mechanism & ego states

Below is a statement by a 37 year old doctor who shared needles on this occasion.

“Never in wildest dreams did I EVER IMAGINE that I would share needles. Some of the details around these circumstances I can’t recall. I spose it was so traumatic, having a medical background and a deep moral code around sharing fits it still seems unbelievable.

I would ask the people who had used the fit before me if they had HIV or hepatitis and I chose to believe their response of no. Truth has no place in this world, if it shows up then is gets distorted, ignored or disproven because truth and drugs cannot be in the same room. The thought of not being able to get the drugs into me as quickly as possible especially when watching the others getting relief from their angst was something I could not take. This anxiety/fear far outweighs the fear for my own health and life. It was like trying to resist the sound of a newborn baby crying when you’re breast feeding.

I would disassociate from reality, time and space changed. I would wash the fit out with alcohol or bleech the whole time repeating a mantra of please God please God. I would think who cares anyway, you’re fucked and life is fucked and you’re all fucked. Self loathing and the fear of not getting that rush would fuel me on.

Then the ritual of mixing up would begin and my mind would start bargaining “you’re not really going to do it” “you’ll stop before you whack it” but there is no stopping by this stage you’re like a robot and this thing has you in its grasp. I would cry as I found a vein, wishing I could stop, jacking it back, holding in the sobs so I didn’t shake too much, then pushing it down the relief flooding over like a lover holding you in their arms no more aghhh and once again I’m cleaver and funny, all worries dissolve, I am a sex goddess and philosopher, brave and complete, all fears drift away.” (end quote)

Jumping boy

Can you spot the defence mechanisms?
Or the ways her Child ego state temporarily tricks her Adult ego state.
I can count 4, possibly 5.

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Gender bias in drug use and impact

One thing I have noticed over the years of studying drug use and drug counselling is the bias towards males. In any statistics you come across whether they be rates of use, rates of ODs, rates of viral infections invariably males will be higher. Not always but in the vast majority of cases males will be at the higher rates.

Bike stand

For example see these charts of illicit drug use in Australia. These are typical of the statistics one comes across over and over in terms of gender bias.

Gender bias in drug use

Gender rates of marijuana use

Gender rates of heroin use

I have always wondered why this would be so.
Why should males very consistently be the ones to use more and use more dangerously and so on?

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Friday, September 2, 2011

Di life script currency analysis

Results


One and Only ++
Feelings +
Power +
Sex ++
Beauty +
Booze ++
Food +++
Violence +
Words ++

Analysis

Food
Games - Obesity, anorexia, bulimia
Stage - Oral
Lifestyle/occupation - body builder, dietician, cook, calorie counting, mother
Illness - stomach problems, mouth ulcers, IBS,
Therapist - eating disorders, weight loss counselling, alcohol/drug/cigarette counselling
Personality - Schizoid, borderline, antisocial, narcissistic
Issues - can life and death, control, sexual avoidance issues.

Peasants at maccas

As this is an oral issue stage the consequences can vary considerably. Some who have an oral stage fixation can have few difficulties at all and have a work life like Jamie Oliver. On the other hand there can be very real life and death issues. This can result from over eating, under eating or highly restrictive diets and exercise regimes that can be dangerous. Or drug issues like alcohol and cigarette addictions can all result from oral stage fixations.

In females there can be issues around sex. Sometimes (but not all ways) the anorexic woman is protecting herself from sex (and a sexual relationship) by making herself unattractive to males and trying to make herself prepubescent again. The overweight woman may be also trying to make herself unattractive to males so as to avoid sex.

Cigar smoking

Dependency in relationships can be problematic. The two extremes by either being overly dependent on others or never being dependent on others. Oral stage issues can respond well to therapy and can include working out the relationship dependency issues in the transference with the therapist.

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