BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Today for my birthday - my friends were quite wonderful. But best of all was my children - who made and decorated a cake for me, did a magic show for me and got me thoughtful and lovely gifts that showed they have a tremendous amount of empathy and insight into their mother's character. I always worry that since my divorce as well as being disabled (and the disability is getting worse) I am not able to give my children what they want or be with them as much as they'd like. Of course those are my fears, not theirs. One of my children wrote this for me... it will be one of those MUST SAVE items every Mother has. After 12 years of infertility treatment, and then this particular child having severe 24 hr a day colic for 7 months - proved how worth it every single step of the way was.  And this child, after years of dreaming a big dream and very hard work - was accepted to Bronx Science . And what wonderful people my children are turning out to be. From my child, for my b...

By Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy Once again, revising history, and having their baseless meme become the theme of the week. That would be the Left, beginning with “Heckuva Job” Sheriff Dupnik, who kicked off the “report” of the shootout in Tucson as being the result of rhetoric. Oh, yes, you may not know this, but President Obama called Sheriff Dupnik to thank him. I just bet he did, since Sheriff Dupnik got the ball rolling blaming Gov. Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and other Conservatives, for this heinous crime. There continues to be no evidence whatsoever that rhetoric had anything to do with this – in fact, quite the opposite. Surprisingly, though, some of the bigger media outfits refuse to correct the original unsubstantiated claims against Palin, et. al. I am not kidding. People like George Stephanopoulos refuses to issue a correction . Sadly, pathetically, he is not alone. How about this one: [snip] CNN’s Piers Morgan, who takes over longtime television newsman Larry King’...

Para-moralisms: The conviction that moral values exist and that some actions violate moral rules is so common and ancient a phenomenon that it seems to have some substratum at man's instinctive endowment level (although it is certainly not totally adequate for moral truth), and that it does not only represent centuries' worth of experience, culture, religion, and socialization. ...Any act can thus be proved to be immoral or morally proper by means of such para-moralisms through active suggestion, and people whose minds will succumb to such reasoning can always be found. In searching for an example of an evil act whose negative value would not elicit doubt in any social situation, ethics scholars frequently mention child abuse. However, psychologists often meet with para-moral affirmations of such behavior in their practice, such as in a family with the prefrontal field damage in the eldest sister. Her younger brothers emphatically insisted that their sister's sadistic tre...

An EXCELLENT piece that needs no additional comments from me - I agree with every word. Been there, done that. By Patricia Lefave, ex mental patient At first, that may seem to ‘make no sense’. It is nevertheless true. What we experience in isolation and which is judged to be our ‘imagination’ is the reality of a semi distant relationship with a group or mob, acting it all out from a few feet away, while the individuals who make up the numbers of that mob perceive themselves as ‘hidden’ from an ‘inferior.’ That role definition, as defined by one of the group members as the starting point of the whole thing, is the original ‘switch’ that gets it all going. If it is not seen or questioned, it is kept going indefinitely. This is one of the most difficult realizations I had to have in this in order to make some sort of ‘sense’ of the experience as a whole. It is especially hard when virtually everyone involved in it fights AGAINST any revelation that would in any way implicate an...

There is a reason why you are asked in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is because most of the time that is not what people do. Everyone lies sometime. There are many reasons to lie. Sometimes it is to not hurt someone's feelings. Sometimes a lie is for our own advantage. Some people lie in conducting business and in their personal lives. Most adults are aware of when they lie. Young children sometimes have problems telling fantasy from reality. When a 3-year-old insists that he flew to Mars this morning, he may not be lying on purpose. He may not even be aware that it is a lie. Children with good imaginations often take longer to learn what a lie really is. It is important to work with children to teach them about fantasy and reality, instead of punishing them for these kinds of beliefs. A pathological liar believes in the lies, at least at the time that she or he is talking. Their stories tend to be very dramatic. They often portray the ...

Not with an abusive pathological, it doesn't! Simple Case of Bad Guy Attacking Good Guy by Kathy Krajco Did you ever hear the saying "It takes two to Tango"? That's a common saying here in the United States, at least some parts of it. But I'll bet every language has a figure of speech that means the same thing. It takes two to Tango: That's what you're supposed to say when gossipping about interpersonal problems between two other people. The only interest is in coming to agreement with your gossips on who is to blame for it. Because then you are bestowing judgement on people, and that feels good. The doctrine firmly to be believed is that, no matter what the bad guy did, the good guy is partly to blame. I think this is construed as (of all things) "fairness" = unfairly (arbitrarily) placing blame on a person without one bit of evidence - just this almost religiously held slogan "It takes two to Tango." As in the ballroom danc...

Beyond therapy: Some evil can't be cured by Norman Doidge What, other than our wish that it be otherwise, makes us think that every human vice is treatable by some form of psychotherapy? That this wish is not just naive, but, at times, harmful is illustrated by a recent Canadian study on group treatment for 238 sex offenders (rapists, incest offenders) from Warkworth penitentiary in Ontario. These prisoners included some well-documented psychopaths. All were taught to "empathize" with victims, and understand their "offence cycle" as part of treatment. After their release, it was found that those who had scored highest in terms of "good treatment behaviour" and who had the highest "empathy" scores were the more likely to reoffend on release into the community. Hannibal Lecter Charm School teaches good manners, but not morals. The important study by Seto and Barbaree replicated -- unintentionally -- a 1992 Canadian study that found treated ...

by Thomas J. Schumacher, Psy.D., R-CSW Most all of you have had to contend with control freaks. These are those people who insist on having their way in all interactions with you. They wish to set the agenda and decide what it is you will do and when you will do it. You know who they are – they have a driving need to run the show and call the shots. Lurking within the fabric of the conversation is the clear threat that if you do not accede to their needs and demands, they will be unhappy. Certainly, it’s natural to want to be in control of your life. But when you have to be in control of the people around you as well, when you literally can’t rest until you get your way … you have a personality disorder. While it’s not a diagnostic category found in the DSM IV (the therapist’s bible for diagnostic purposes) an exaggerated emphasis on control is part of a cluster of behaviors that can be labeled as compulsive generally characterized by perfectionism, orderliness, workaholic tendencies, ...

Those rejected by romantic partners are more likely to tolerate abuse from a new partner... now we know why women put up with pathological men (and vice versa). Ugh! Naomi Eisenberger & Shelley E. Taylor Science Daily UCLA psychologists have determined for the first time that a gene linked with physical pain sensitivity is associated with social pain sensitivity as well. Their study indicates that variation in the mu-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1), often associated with physical pain, is related to how much social pain a person feels in response to social rejection. People with a rare form of the gene are more sensitive to rejection and experience more brain evidence of distress in response to rejection than those with the more common form. The research was published Aug. 14 in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and will appear in the print version in the coming weeks. The findings give weight to the common notion that rejection "hurts...

by Anna Valerious Have you noticed that even when you do things right it can be crapped all over and made to be "wrong" by the narcissist? One of the ways they accomplish this is quite simple and can often trip us up without us seeing what got us. Even the most benevolent act can be turned into its opposite by the assignation of bad motives. The narcissist reserves to themselves the right to determine your own mind for you. They will tell you what was really motivating you in order to take away from you the truth, reality or rightness of whatever you have done . It can be an amazingly effective sleight-of-hand. When I think back on my relationship with my narcissistic mother this is one of the things that stands out. My mother takes extreme pride in her ability to "read" people. She has done this for as long as I've known her. Mostly, what that means is that she assumes the worst about someone's thoughts or motivations and proceeds on that as if it is the tr...

by Michael Sigman "I'm the greatest man in the world." -- Will Ferrell's goofball character in the basketball spoof "Semi Pro," upon incorrectly concluding that the team he owns will be joining the NBA According to myth, Narcissus became the first narcissist when he stared deeply into a reflecting pool and fell in love with the image of the gorgeous man he beheld. By the time he realized that the object of his affections was himself, it was too late. Even the attractive, ardent Echo, parroting her idol's every syllable, couldn't pierce Narcissus's self-involvement. By getting a line on the narcissists in our lives, we can mitigate the suffering they precipitate. The first step is to recognize them -- especially those with "narcissistic personality disorder," defined in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as, "A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and ...

How many of these Scott Petersons, O.J. Simpsons, Dennis Raders, Bruce Pardos, Drew Petersons, etc do we have to read about before people get: PSYCHOPATHS BLEND RIGHT IN!! It could be your neighbor, your friend, your co-worker, your spouse - these people all could have a secret life... perhaps not even criminal but amoral - that you have no idea about. None at all. No one is immune. NO ONE. A Boston medical student accused of targeting women who advertised exotic services on Craigslist was ordered held without bail Tuesday on charges that he sought to rob a masseuse, but bashed her in the head and shot her through the heart when she fought back. Philip Markoff, 22, a second-year medical student at Boston University, said nothing during a brief appearance Tuesday in Boston Municipal Court where he was ordered held on charges including murder, armed robbery and kidnapping. "Philip Markoff is not guilty of the charges. He has his family's support," said defense attorney J...