simcha's postings about love, connection, parenting & personal growth
Can it be said enough times? Criticizing, nagging, fault-finding, accusing — these are behaviors that represent the largest predictors of divorce. While partners often nag, criticize and point fingers as a way to ask for help with housework or childcare or to urge a partner to be more responsible with money, it is an ineffective way to communicate needs and wishes. It instead leads to a “shutting down” that deepens resentment, estrangement and disconnection.
Environmental cues tend to shape our actions because they subtly license us to behave poorly. And perhaps vice versa.
The linkage between social order and crime was demonstrated by the “Broken Window” theory, put forth by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in a 1982 article for The Atlantic Monthly.
There is not a single version of “you” and “me,” writes Adam Alter in his recent article (shared below) in the New York Times (Where We Are Shapes Who We Are, 6.14.13). Though we’re all anchored to our own distinct personalities, contextual cues sometimes drag us so far from those anchors that it’s difficult to know who we really are — or at least what we’re likely to do in a given circumstance. Drawing upon several research studies, he demonstrates how we behave differently, given circumstance, context, and environmental cues.
In this moving youtube video, Naomi Feil (MSW), founder of Validation Therapy, shares a breakthrough moment of communication with Gladys Wilson, a woman who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2000 and is virtually non-verbal.
Although her interaction in this clip demonstrates her approach to working with severely disoriented elderly people, it speaks volumes to the potential power of validation and connection in so many other areas of our interpersonal and emotional lives.
Sexual pleasure among young adults (ages 18-26) is linked to healthy psychological and social development, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study (funded by the National Institute of Mental Health) is the first to use a representative population sample of heterosexuals (3,237 participants) to find a relationship between key developmental assets — specifically empathy, self-esteem and autonomy — and sexual pleasure.
The findings are published in the June 2011 issue of The Journal of Adolescent Health.
In her thoughtful Atlantic cover story on gay marriage (The Guide to Wedded Bliss, 5.22.13), Liz Mundy suggests that the “great gay marriage experiment” teaches us how to reinvent marriage so that it’s durable through the next century. Mundy reminds us that, although marriage has changed a lot from the “Father Knows Best” days, it is still burdened with old notions and habits about how men and women should behave — habits that are largely at odds with economic and practical realities.
In a few short years, drugs aimed at boosting low libido among women may be approved for sale. In his recent New York Times article (Unexcited: There May be a Pill For That, 5.22.13), Daniel Bergner explores the decrease in sexual desire experienced by many women in long-term, committed relationships, and possible ramifications for medicinal boosting of flailing monogamous relationships.
The following is a short selection from his article that I particularly liked.
On this Mother’s Day, Madeline Levine, psychologist and author of “Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success,” writes about the profound ways mothers change over the span of decades during which infants grow into fully fledged adults. Alongside the pain of loss, she writes, is the awareness that our children’s independence and self-sufficiency is the sign of a job well done.
The following is a selection from her longer New York Times opinion piece (5.11.2013).