More Resources for Anxiety Disorders

Here are a few more places to look for information on anxiety:

SAMHSA's National Mental Health Information Center

ADAA, the Anxiety Disorders Association of America

The American Psychiatric Association

and of course, the American Psychological Association.

Anxiety

These are stressful times all the way around, and even though there is reason for hope and optimism, I find that a large proportion of my new clients suffer from anxiety. Here is a good resource for information about anxiety.

Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress. It helps one deal with a tense situation in the office, study harder for an exam, keep focused on an important speech. In general, it helps one cope. But when anxiety becomes an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations, it has become a disabling disorder.

The NIHM site is a trustworthy place to look for info on mental health issues.

Surviving Financial Stress

The January APA Monitor has an interesting article on dealing with economic bad times. The take-home info for family survival is:

Conger and colleagues observed that children in families whose parents put family first and continued to communicate despite the hardship fared much better in the short and long term than those who allowed the crisis to fracture them.

Youngsters "weren't terribly bothered by not having a lot of stuff," Conger says. "What bothered them was when their parents became angry and irritable and withdrawn."

Similarly, children whose parents maintained strong community ties did much better over time than those who were not as embedded in their communities, says Elder, Conger's research colleague.

"Kids whose parents were connected to church, school and civic organizations lived their lives the same way," he says. "Those involvements really predicted what they were going to do in their lives and how successful they would be."

Sometimes psychological research yields "well duh!" results. But it's nice that science matches up in this case with common sense. Go read the whole thing here.

Why I Love My Job

I attended a UPA Ethics workshop yesterday at the SLC Library (presented by Steve Behnke, director of the APA Ethics Office). As usual in these workshops, we discuss vignettes which involve conflicting principles or values--confidentiality vs. the duty to report child abuse, for example. One vignette Dr. Behnke presented was that of a Jewish female psych intern whose prospective patient is a neo-Nazi. Is the intern obligated to disclose that she is Jewish? Will she be able to work with a neo-Nazi? What if he finds out later in therapy that she is Jewish? Will it damage the therapeutic relationship? What is her ethical obligation in this instance?

One of the other attendees raised her hand and said, in gently accented English, that she was a Holocaust survivor as a child, and her very first patient as an intern during graduate school was the Utah head of Aryan Nations. "But he was not a big scary SS officer," she said, "and I was no longer a little child. He was a victim of child abuse himself, sad and trying to build himself up. The roles were different, and because I saw him that way, we were able to work together."

The presenter asked her what had happened if or when she informed the client that she was Jewish. "I asked him about it later," she said. "He figured it out in our first interview. He said when he told me what he was I didn't even flinch, and he knew that I would be able to handle his issues."

I love my colleagues. Every time I talk to them or listen to them they inspire me and remind me of why I do what I do.