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 "What bothered them was when their parents became angry and irritable and withdrawn."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.