Addiction in Society

Two Different Worlds We Live In - The Hasan Murders

Stanton Peele — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:13:21 +0000

The most fundamental truth in psychology is that human beings filter the world through their own prisms. There is no objective reality for humans - only the reality seen by each person and the groups to which they belong.

There have always been two Americas - now termed Red and Blue America. This was evident during the HUAC hearings on communism in the fifties, where virtually everyone in Hollywood and New York was a suspect, and men with pinched glasses and comb overs grilled liberals and Jews in the arts about their past political associations.

That we are so focused currently on Red and Blue America indicates we have reached another apex - like the one during the McCarthy-HUAC era. Only now, it seems most Americans have staked out their positions and taken up battle stations. And the Nasan murders are a perfect illustration of the two different worlds we live in, as represented in the New York Times and Fox-Murdoch News.

The morning-after reflections on the mass homicide by the Moslem military psychiatrist read like they were written by people occupying two different countries - or planets - which they do.

Here are the New York Times opinion pieces on the murders:

Max Cleland: The Forever War of the Mind. "While the authorities say they cannot yet tell us why an Army psychiatrist would go on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas, we do know the sorts of stories he had been dealing with as he tried to help those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan readjust to life outside the war zone. A soldier's mind can be just as dangerous to himself, and to those around him, as wars fought on traditional battlefields."

Bob Herbert: Stress Beyond Belief. "Simply stated, we cannot continue sending service members into combat for three tours, four tours, five tours and more without paying a horrendous price in terms of the psychological well-being of the troops and their families, and the overall readiness of the armed forces to protect the nation."

Joseph Kinney: Surviving Fort Hood. "The killings at Fort Hood are a reminder of our failure to deal with the psychological wounds of war."

Editorial: The Horror at Fort Hood. "In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East."

And those from Murdoch's New York Post:

Editorial: Terror in Texas. "In the terrorists' war on America, every square inch of the nation is a potential battlefield, including Ft. Hood, Texas. The point of terrorism is to terrorize. It matters not at all whether the victims are soldiers on a military base, or office workers in downtown Manhattan, as long as the results are so shockingly bloody that they sap the will of Americans to stand up for their way of life."

Ralph Peters: Call this Horror by Its Name: Islamist Terror. "This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it's an act of terror. Period."

Paul Sperry: The Military's Blinders. "His superiors put up blinders to all these red flags because Hasan -- who wore traditional Islamic robe and kufi and prayed five times a day -- practiced the ‘religion of peace.' And they're not supposed to make a connection between that religion and terrorism, even as they prosecute a war on Islamic terrorism."

Stephen Schwartz: Take a Look at Hasan's Old Mosque. "What interpretation of Islam influenced Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan? As often before, the trail leads to the official sect of Saudi Arabia -- known as Wahhabism to most of us of who denounce it. Confronting the role of radical Islam here is not Islamophobic, but common sense."

Can a nation this divided against itself remain afloat?

(Potential commenters: In case you can't tell, it is inappropriate to simply jump on a bandwagon and argue strenuously for one side or the other. That only reinforces the post's pessimistic conclusion.)

Lonely Men Commit Mass Murders

Stanton Peele — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:04:02 +0000

A mass murderer has been discovered each of the last three days. When we examine the men's lives, we are struck by their loneliness and yearning for intimacy, which leads some to strike out in bizarre and violent ways.

November 4, 2009. The home of Anthony Sowell, 50, a convicted sex offender, was searched, revealing 10 bodies, along with one skull. Mr. Sowell had served 15 years for sexual assault. Since 2005, he had lived alone in the top floor of a duplex in a shabby Cleveland neighborhood. Police had come to Mr. Sowell's house because a 21-year-old woman reported that he had assaulted and raped her after luring her to his home. Other reports of women whom he either lured, or else dragged, into his house suggest that this was his modus operandi. It was a strange, violent, lethal pattern for seeking female companionship.

November 5, 2009. Nidal Hasan, 39, shot 40 people at Fort Hood, Texas, 13 of whom have died so far. Dr. Hasan was an Army officer and psychiatrist. He lived alone off base in an inexpensive apartment. Before his assault, he gave away his frozen food and an air mattress and lamp to his next-door neighbor, Patricia Villa, whom he barely knew. Ms. Villa said "he seemed like a real nice person." Dr. Hasan's parents are dead, and he didn't give his few American relations any inkling of his plans. He attended religious services, but worshippers there remembered him as "a quiet, shy man who always left immediately after prayers." A store owner reported to the Times that when he shopped there, "Mr. Hasan would talk to him about the military, about attending prayer services and about wanting a wife."

November 6, 2009. Jason Rodriguez, 40, returned to his former place of employment in Orlando, and shot six people - one of whom has died. Mr. Rodriguez was fired from the research firm where the attack took place "for performance reasons" in July 2007, after working there about a year. He filed for bankruptcy this year when he reported he was working at a Subway sandwich shop. Public records indicate that Mr. Rodriguez was divorced twice, most recently in 2006. Little additional has come out about him personally, but do you want to bet he's a lonely guy?

Remember Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who lived in an isolated Montana cabin? According to Robert D. McFadden, of The New York Times, "It was just a dusty, cobwebbed cabin high in the Rockies, as remote as a cougar's lair. But it suited a man who had always been alone, this genius with gifts for solitude, perseverance, secrecy and meticulousness. . . but never love, never friendship."

According to Jeff McMahon, the attackers on 9/11 were "sullen spoiled narcissistic brats and bullies. One of the most prominent of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, in particular is an extreme personality study in repressed sexuality, narcissism, and sociopathic hatred . . . . Atta, like the others, is misogynistic; women are shunned and held in contempt."

Obviously not all lonely men are mass murderers, or even bad guys. But, to judge from their worst examples, lonely men are a high-risk group.

How Your Child Will Die

Stanton Peele — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:08:37 +0000

"Here in the United States, we have the technology to defer death, so we often pretend it will never really happen to us. There is always another procedure, always a cure in sight if not in hand. But in our sober moments we recognize that we will indeed die, and that we have precious little control over when it will happen."

Odds are, sooner or later, your child will die of coronary artery disease (CAD) - fatty deposits in the arteries. Heart disease is the number one cause of death for Americans - strokes are third - and the large majority of both are due to CAD. Diabetes - which shares risk factors with CAD - is the sixth leading cause of death.

The bad news - Americans' death rate is higher than most comparable economically advanced (and even several developing) countries. The good news - Americans' death rates are declining. More bad news, younger Americans are rapidly developing their risk profiles for CAD and diabetes, with as yet uncalculated results.

White Americans have a significantly lower death rate than African Americans. Americans' infant mortality rate (<1 year) is quite high compared with other societies. But, after one year, not many young people die. Fewer than 3 children in 10,000 (less than half of a hundredth of a percent) of all races ages 1-4 died in 2006, and fewer still ages 5-14.

Accidents caused only a minority of these deaths. Of all kids in America, fewer than 1 in 10,000 (less than a thousandth of a percent) died of an accident in 2006. So, if you are worrying about fatal accidents befalling your child, that doesn't happen very often. Of course, you never want it to happen, to even be a possibility. But this threat probably looms larger in parents' minds than is justified.

Here's a startling statistic - as many young people ages 15-24 kill themselves each year as 1-4 year-olds die in accidents. And the suicide rate rises for each age group thereafter. Therefore, anything you could do for kids 1-14 to lower their likelihood of killing themselves later in life would have more impact on their dying prematurely than their likelihood of dying from accidents when they are young.

Speaking strictly of deaths due to accidents, these likewise jump after age 15 - four times the rate of 25-24 year-olds die from accidents as 1-4 year-olds and eight times as many as 5-14 year-olds. Is there anything you can do for children under 14 that makes it less likely they will have fatal accidents after age 15? Does greater exposure and therefore learned ability to protect themselves accomplish this?

Maybe that's too abstract. How about this: anything your child does from ages 1-14 that lowers their likelihood of developing CAD will repay itself many times over in terms of longevity. From age 25 on, deaths from heart disease and stroke overtake the rate of deaths from accidents for children ages 1-14 - and CAD deaths rise rapidly afterwards.

We have a good answer in the latter case - exercising regularly and staying thin will reduce lifetime CAD incidence and death. Thus, if you are highly oriented towards protecting your child from fatal accidents, say by encouraging them to stay indoors, this could actually reduce their safety and life expectancy over the course of their lives.

Just a thought.

How Did Alec Become the Sanest Baldwin?

Stanton Peele — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:49:35 +0000

All right, he can go off the deep end. His worst moment, of course, was leaving that creepy message calling his daughter a pig. Even after he recovered from that self-inflicted trauma, he resolved to retire from show business in order to devote himself to his 2008 book, A Promise to Ourselves, and to rectify the trampled on rights of divorced fathers. It seems sometimes the oldest Baldwin sibling has a strong self-destructive impulse.

Fortunately, he - or others - turned his head around and he continued his perpetual Emmy-winning character on the critically acclaimed and commercially successful NBC hit, 30 Rock. As Jack Donaghy, Baldwin manages to be not only one of the funniest people to ever appear on television, but a middle-aged (Baldwin is now 51) sex symbol to boot.

Still, we can wonder, could Alec have been an even bigger star? He went from premier Hollywood leading man to character actor in record time, dropping out of the Jack Ryan role after starring in the 1990 box office hit, The Hunt for Red October, to be replaced in subsequent Tom Clancy films by Harrison Ford.

Of course, he has had any number of notable film roles, but Baldwin rather quickly lost the aura he created in his early movies - Beetle Juice, Married to the Mob, and - my personal favorite - Miami Heat. At the time, it seemed logical that the job of recreating Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski role in A Streetcar Named Desire should go to to Baldwin.

But his "descent" - more like a leveling off from superstardom - is like nothing compared to the rest of his family. Remember when the Baldwins appeared in 1994 en masse with Alec's then-wife, Kim Basinger, on Saturday Night Live with their hilarious version of Family Feud? The assumption of every viewer was that this was the golden clan of Hollywood - kind of like the Kennedy's were to politics.

But things changed rapidly for the Baldwins from the mid-1990s on. Remember when brother Daniel was best known as a tough street cop in the sterling TV series, Homicide: Life on the Street, which he left in 1995? He also had important film roles, including one in Born on the Fourth of July. Now his identity is as the repeat drug offender-addiction patient who admits to 12 trips to rehab.

Remember when brother Stephen was an actor noted for his role in the 1995 flick, The Usual Suspects, rather than as a paunchy perpetual contestant on TV reality series? These included his damaging performance on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice, where - in stunning contrast to winner Piers Morgan - he didn't seem to have a friend he could get to pony up money for a charitable fund raiser?

A vocal conservative who has clashed with liberal Alec publicly and who Sarah Palin only half-jokingly referred to as her favorite Baldwin brother, Stephen describes how he turned to God following his drug abuse and the events of 9/11 in his 2006 book, The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the New Hardcore Movement of Faith (like Alec's book, not a runaway best seller).

And, finally, there is Billy Baldwin - himself married to a descendant of a troubled entertainment family, Chynna Phillips. Remember when he had promising roles in Flatliners and Backdraft, and was chosen as the male lead to Cindy Crawford in her heralded 1995 film debut, Fair Game? Billy's career has not flourished since that movie bombed. Wife Chynna has also not been able to recreate her early musical stardom with Wilson-Phillips, whose 1990 debut album was the all-time best-selling female group recording. Chynna has since joined brother-in-law Stephen as a self-proclaimed recovering Christian.

The Baldwin's - rather than being known as the superstar clan they were at the time of their joint Saturday Night Live appearance - are now thought of as the entertainment world's most emotionally complicated, not to say dysfunctional, family (okay, perhaps second to the Phillipses). And in this mix, as the only family member who is still a star, let alone regularly working and not in recovery, Alec now deserves some kind of recognition for his buoyancy and strength.

How did he do it? Actually, Alec has written about the source of his emotional ballast - his demanding father - who died the month of Alec's 25th birthday. Alec seems to have been the closest child, as the oldest, to the Baldwin family's patriarch and mentor - a man Baldwin noted for being engaged in political and social issues and as a stern taskmaster. A formidable combination, of which Alec has perhaps been the main beneficiary, along with developing a few quirks of his own.

It's all happening at the playground (apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Stanton Peele — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:22:54 +0000

I am fascinated by playgrounds as mirrors on our society. And, lately, I have jumped back into playgrounds with both feet as several times a week I accompany my 20-month-old grandson Cassius to one or another playground in Queens.

It has been hard earned. My son and daughter-in-law remain suspicious of my implementation of their many safety precautions: care crossing streets, not giving Cash whole grapes, not letting him climb UP the slides. The first time they let me take him, they followed to keep an eye on the two of us. I'm still on probation.

I had thought that, by dint of my son and his two sisters surviving into adulthood with all their limbs and no disfiguring scars, I had earned a ticket to escort Cash. That I have taken Cash out a half dozen times with the same perfect record would, I thought, have established my bona fides forever. Not so - my playground supervision skills are still regarded with suspicion by many.

My son does let me take Cash out whenever I want. Here's what I've got going for me: When I make a motion to go outside, my grandson shouts "c'mon" and runs to the door, before he even has his sneakers on. And Cash never wants to leave the playground. When we get home, he still doesn't want to go inside. My son says, whenever he finally comes in, Cash is "tired and happy." When he wakes up the next morning he asks for "pop-pop."

It's about a mile trek to the playground as the crow flies. But - unless the crow stops at every chain-link fence - the trip takes us considerably longer than it does him. Why not? We're out for exercise and to see the world. Every time we encounter a new Halloween display or tall grass pile of leaves (remember the scene in Big?) or some guys building steps or a wall, it's a totally novel experience for some of us. What fun!

At the playground, where parents of kids Cash's age trail them around, I - the only male grandparent visible - sit on a bench in the sun and keep my eye on him. The only time I intervene is when once or twice he has encountered something he hasn't climbed before, and he looks around for help. I don't actually help him, but I place my hand where he needs to get his next hold. Then I leave him to his own devices. Several mothers have said to me (was that admiringly or in shock), "How old is he?"

What I have learned about society at the playground. When I read this quote, included in my last post about TV and autism, I knew exactly what the analyst was talking about: "When a whole roomful of children have TV scripts driving their play, the play is between many separate children each alone with their invisible script, rather than many children creating something together, and flexing with each other's ideas."

Kids now come to playgrounds with tons of toys - bikes and doll carriages and trucks and balls. But they don't plan on sharing them - just to play with their toys on the playground. I don't get it. I don't ask to bring any toys, because Cash is going to the playground to climb on various apparatus and play with other kids.

When another kid leaves one toy to move on to another, Cash takes it up (don't worry - we never leave with more aboard than we came). Sometimes the other child is shocked by Cash's boldness - sometimes he or she screams or whines. But about half the time, after Cash indicates his willingness to return the toy, the other kid lets Cash have one of the toys. Sometimes they even play around one another - how exciting! The other children's parents nearly always tell their kids to share their toys (so far, no one has called the police or, if a father is present, socked me).

When it's time to go, I bribe Cash to leave with his milk bottle or some grapes - by this time, he is usually tired, thirsty, and hungry (many parents bring chips and cookies). He crawls into his stroller, and I push him part of the way home, until he finishes the bottle. Then he gets out and walks again - sometimes HE pushes the stroller. Once home, he takes a trowel from one of the planters and starts digging around the tree. Eventually, a parent looks out and asks if he wants lunch or dinner. Our expedition is over.

And neither Cash nor I is saying whether he has climbed up any slides.

Does infant video dependence cause autism?

Stanton Peele — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:49:05 +0000

New research has once again upped the ante on autism. A study published this October in the journal Pediatrics found that autism now occurs in more than one percent of children (1 in 100). In 1980, 1 in 10,000 children was diagnosed with autism. The autism rate has risen about 10 percent each year since.

As to whether (and to what extent) this is due to an actually greater incidence or to changes in diagnosis, here is an analysis from WebMD:

Dr. Morton Ann Newschaffer: There is no doubt that numbers of children with an autism diagnosis or special education label has increased tremendously over the past two decades [this was 2005]. These numbers are clearly beyond what we would have anticipated using historical estimates of autism prevalence. The real question is what proportion of this increase is attributable to a real change in the risk of autism and what proportion is attributable to changes in diagnosis/labeling tendencies. . . .I believe that there currently is little strong evidence supporting either hypothesis.

Although thoughtful and well-informed, Dr. Newshaffer's analysis gives us little to go on. And so let me turn to a more impressionistic analysis of children's lives today:

Play, Empathy and TV
by Patty Wipfler, August 2009 column for "The Connected Parent" at Cleverparents.com

Q. It seems to me that children aren't playing with each other the way they used to. Sometimes, it looks to me like they hardly play with each other at all--they act out imaginary scripts, and they're each in their own little worlds, next to each other. What can I do to get them really playing again?

* * *

I have to agree! Something important has happened gradually over the past 20 years to children's play. The play in schoolyards and preschools has slid toward more scripted acting. . . . An important determinant of a child's empathy and flexibility in play is how much TV and video programming he is exposed to. [emphasis in original]. . . .The TV or video experience tends to isolate the child. As he plays, his attention is on the images in his mind, not on the child next to him.

Does acting in terms of an internal script - as opposed to reacting and being sensitive to others - sound familiar? It certainly has tones reminiscent of autism.

As I have said, I fear to wade into this emotional debate, beyond noting that every reputable epidemiological and medical organization (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences) says the science - and logic - do not support the thimerosal-in-vaccines explanation. Besides, autism has continued to grow despite mercury-free vaccines.

At the same time, of course, we cannot blame individual parents for something so widespread.

This leaves broad environmental effects. I find it hard to accept some specific toxin has so rapidly seeped into our worlds that it has caused a huge increase in this specific childhood psychosocial malady and no other measurable consequence within such a short period.

Is exposure to video entertainments from earlier and earlier ages a contributing factor to autism?

If this argument is correct, then the massive Baby Einstein industry was not only a giant hoax, but a dangerous one. According to a 2003 study, a third of all American families with children ages 6 months to 2 years old owned a Baby Einstein video. But research has found that, although infants become engrossed in these videos (there are Baby Mozarts, Baby Shakespeares, etc.) , they offer no intellectual benefits. As a result of this finding and threatened law suits, the Walt Disney Company, which produces Baby Einstein, is now offering refunds to purchasers.

What a strange world we live in, where commercial interests market products to parents who pray their children will become intellectually advanced, when the extreme opposite may be true.

Although it does not link autism and TV, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies under the age of 2 should not view videos or television at all. Ms. Wipfler goes further: "It may sound radical in the electronic age, but I urge parents to set the policy that they watch TV only when the children are not present, and keep their children away from TV and videos until they are well into elementary school."

That's not going to happen! Of course, one prime motivator for parents' reliance on video babysitters is the rampant fear in our society of sending children outdoors due to the perceived threat from infections, kidnappings, violence, et al.

What a pickle we're in.

P.S. Several commenters (such as MJ) have questioned the association of television viewing with autism on the grounds that the latter is such a severe condition it can't be likened to a casual, everyday behavior.

There are four key characteristics of an Autism Spectrum Disorder:

1. COMMUNICATION IMPAIRMENT: Individuals with Autism have difficulty in all areas of communication; verbal & non-verbal. There is an absence of language development, or a delay in the development of language in early childhood.
2. SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS/INTERACTIONS: Difficulty with social relationships range from indifference to others, to highly inappropriate behavior.
3. IMAGINATION & CREATIVITY: Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder are restricted in their imaginative play. Play is often limited to one or two activities, involving repetitive actions.
4. REPETITIVE & RITUALISTIC BEHAVIORS: Individuals with an Autism Spectrum Disorder develop repetitive behaviors, rituals, and obsessions, which help them to order their world, creating some predictability.

MJ - Don't these characteristics of the disorder suggest TV-inspired behavior? Rather than positing bizarre, unrelated sources for autism (what, if vaccines cause autism, is the relationship between mercury-poisoning and this list?), doesn't it make sense to explore these similarities? Terry's list of measured impairment in heavy youthful TV includes these: that children "uttered fewer vocalizations, used fewer words and engaged in fewer conversations"; and that heavy TV viewing "in early childhood can lead to behavioral problems and poor social skills."

If we consider autism to occur along a spectrum currently, noting more and less severe varieties of autistic syndromes and behavior, doesn't it make sense to view the continuities between a diagnosable disorder and the standard experiences of many children, especially since we can't identify anything else that has risen along with autism rates but which (unlike weather) seems to have such direct links to the traits in question?

P.S.S.: Kids watch more than a day of TV each week
The latest figures from Nielsen have children's TV usage at an eight-year high. Children's health advocates warn of adverse effects.

By Matea Gold

October 27, 2009

More than an entire day -- that's how long children sit in front of the television in an average week, according to new findings released Monday by Nielsen.

The amount of television usage by children reached an eight-year high, with kids ages 2 to 5 watching the screen for more than 32 hours a week on average.

POPULAR: Nickelodeon's children's shows include "Dora the Explorer"

Does Good Sex Make Sports Heroes? (Or is it love?)

Stanton Peele — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:07:52 +0000

Viewers of Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" will recall - where Robert de Niro as boxer Jake La Motta fought a war with himself over screwing his luscious wife Vicki - the issue of having sex before a sports performance is an ancient debate. Of course, the La Motta's had a mad, destructive relationship.

Here are the two opposing perspectives from sports greats themselves. Muhammad Ali, believing it sapped an athlete's strength, wouldn't have sex for six weeks before a fight. The ancient Yankee philosopher, Casey Stengel, on the other hand, quotith: "I'm less worried about a player having sex the night before a game than him being out all night looking for it."

Exercise physiologists and other researchers now pooh-pah that sex before a sporting event diminishes performance - as long as the athlete gets a good night's sleep. Once again, the gnarled old sage Casey is proved right.

Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees - who currently lead their best-of-seven league championship series with the Los Angeles Angels 3-1 - further proves this point. In the best-of-five series just prior, the Yankees' swept Minnesota 3-0. Featured regularly in the stands was Kate Hudson - yes the darling daughter of Goldie Hawn. She was there for Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is no minor sports star - he is arguably the best baseball player of his generation. He is an outstanding fielder, base runner, and hitter - at age 34, Rodriguez is currently eighth on the all-time career home run list.

But Rodriguez has regularly disappointed the high expectations of Yankees management and fans in post-season, championship-determining play. Rodriguez himself admits, “I will say that in other postseasons I failed, and sometimes failed miserably.” The Yankees obtained Rodriguez after the 2003 season, when he was the American League's most valuable player. The Yanks lost the World Series that year to the Florida Marlins. They haven't gotten to the Series since.

This year is different. Rodriguez has now tied a record set by Lou Gehrig almost eighty years ago by knocking in runs in eight straight post-season games. In this year's post-season, he is batting .407 with five homers, 11 runs batted in, and 9 runs scored.

What's more - he is likable again. For years, Rodriguez had been viewed as high maintenance, spoiled, and possibly a faker - yes, there was that unadmitted steroid use. Having his picture on the front page of the tabloids with other women while he was married didn't help his reputation.

And, oh, last year there was the Madonna fling - that sex didn't help his playoff performance.

But now, Rodriguez seems at peace. Pitchers beware! So maybe it's not sex after all - but love that makes for the contented, successful athlete. Do a prominent star descended from Hollywood royalty and a great athlete raised in New York's Washington Heights barrio seem an unlikely couple?

Here is what is on Kate's mind, according to a friend: “She just turned 30 and she’s ready to have her second child. She wants Ryder to have a sibling, so she brought up the idea to Alex and told him that they would make a beautiful baby together, and that she would assume all financial responsibility.” (Rodriguz is the highest paid player in baseball, and made $35 million in 2009.)

Hmmmm. Can love conquer all? We'll have to see about this one. In the meantime, New Yorkers will settle for a World Series victory. If that prayer is answered, chalk it up to Venus, goddess of love.

P.S.: Then again, Kate has been bragging about sex with Alex, according to Us Weekly. "They love sex!" says a friend. "They talk about it all day. Kate gets graphic talking about his body, even to her parents."

Rodriguez update: The Yankees won the 2009 World Series. According to the Times: "in the process of winning his first World Series championship, Rodriguez became a fallen hero on the rise. . . .Thanks to a solid season and a grand postseason, he has reclaimed his legacy. In fact, he has watched it grow." Viva la romance!

Is managing psychoactive substances an essential life skill?

Stanton Peele — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:49:59 +0000

I have read fellow PT blogger Jann Gumbiner's posts with interest. She speaks for America's temperance tradition, which is alive and - in some ways - stronger than ever, despite how obvious its failures are (100 million Americans have smoked marijuana, prescription drug abuse is the fastest growing form of dangerous drug use, half of 21-year-olds binge drink).

It seems that every adult she knows who drinks is a secret alcoholic. (My question for her, do you think alcohol plays a positive role in many people's lives?)

Then, in the obligatory American temperance lecture, she notes that kids are doomed to drink excessively, and perhaps to become alcoholic. (In this case, she engages in a prolonged discussion with one commenter who suggests teaching kids to drink moderately, a suggestion which seems to be the most novel idea she has ever heard.)

Now she queries readers about whether marijuana is unhealthy, indicating by her response (she thanks profusely the one commenter who points out the "marijuana is bad" page on the NIDA Web site) that the answer is "yes."

But her timing shows just how strange her neo-Temperance approach is. The Obama Administration has just ordered that the federal agents leave alone medical marijuana dispensaries and users in California and elsewhere (14 states now permit medical marijuana use, and almost as many more are currently considering doing so). Many people yolk medical marijuana to legalization of all marijuana use - which seems more likely than ever (California will have it on the ballot, the latest Gallup Poll says that 44% of all Americans, and a majority of Americans under 40, now favor legalization).

It is now completely obvious, if it wasn't before, that somehow, at some time (alcohol is legal - 90% of 21-year-olds have drunk) kids have to learn how to consume alcohol, that since marijuana use is now widely accepted some standards for moderate use of that drug need to be taught, and that since legal and illicit psychoactive pharmaceuticals permeate the lives of our youth, learning skills and attitudes that guide people in dealing with psychoactive substances is now an essential survival skill. Indeed, I have written a book about this skill.

Preaching to young Americans not to drink or smoke marijuana is, at best, doomed to fail. At worse, it promotes the extreme ambivalence and dangerous use of these substances that marks our culture.

Ballooning Depression Among Women

Stanton Peele — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:33:57 +0000

Maria Shriver has issued a report on the status of women, A Woman's Nation, which emphasizes women's growing economic role. Just as A Woman's World is appearing, however, there is a deluge of "we need to diagnose more mental illness - particularly in women."

Here are three women who have led prominent lives in past years which they subsequently announced were ruined by mental illness. All have written (or plan) books that suggest contemporary life for women is overhwelmed by unrecognized emotional disorders.

Jane Pauley. As co-host from 1976 to 1989 of the leading morning news program, The Today Show, Pauley was one of the most visible women in the United States. She embodied the new American woman by maintaining her career while being married to cartoonist Garry Trudeau, with whom she raised three children. Eventually pushed out at Today by the younger Deborah Norville, Pauley moved on to co-host Dateline from 1992 to 2003. Following Dateline, Pauley hosted a daytime talk show, but it was cancelled after a year.

When she launched her own short-lived show in 2004, Pauley simultaneously released a memoir, Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue, in which she revealed her bipolar disorder. This was striking because Pauley had previously kept her personal life under wraps. She was first diagnosed with the disorder in 2001, which was near the end of her skein atop network television - although she reports she had dealt with emotional issues for a long time. Pauley has since promoted the recognition of depression, participating in the PBS special, Depression: Out of the Shadows, which aired in May 2008.

Margaret Trudeau. Trudeau led a more openly troubled life than Pauley's. At age 22 in 1971 she married the much older Pierre Trudeau, who was Prime Minister of Canada. She quickly tired of that role and moved on to the party scene in the United States. She often left her children behind to dance at Studio 54 and to have affairs with Ted Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, and Warren Beatty. In 1984 the Trudeaus officially divorced, and Margaret quickly remarried and had two more children. In 1998 her son died in an avalanche and she had a breakdown that led to her second divorce.

In 2006, Trudeau revealed that for 30 years she had been "fighting a lonely battle" against bipolar disorder, which she had refused to acknowledge. She now speaks publicly about the need for people - particularly women - to come forward and accept such a diagnosis like she did. She has a book about her bipolar disorder scheduled for publication in 2010.

Kitty Dukakis. Kitty is the wife of former Massachusetts Governor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. She was treated for alcoholism in 1989, which she described in Now You Know. Dukakis labeled her drinking a reaction to the stress of her husband's campaign and the shock of his defeat. But this was not the end of Kitty Dukakis' mental health trials. Dukakis then was diagnosed as bipolar, and she felt that she relapsed beause this condition was missed during her alcoholism treatment. She later underwent electroshock for depression, which she discussed in a subsequent memoir, Shock, published in 2006.

All three of these women had high profiles at earlier points in their lives. All are now primarily known for their mental illnesses. Is there something telling in these stories, as though to fly so high was to tempt the fates? Were they ill prepared for the prominent roles they achieved, which led to their emotional problems? In fact, all of them reported that they fought mental illness most of their lives. But why are women so much more often subject to affective (depressive and bipolar) emotional disorders?

Maria Shriver's highly publicized new report doesn't discuss experiences like those described by Pauley, Trudeau, and Dukakis. Rather, the Shriver Report suggests that young women can anticipate entering a new world of opportunity, which should make them happier. But that's not what the data show. An article entitled "Explaining the rise in antidepressant prescribing" finds that young women's depression is increasing the most rapidly of any group: "between 1993 and 2005, there was overall a small change in the incidence of new diagnoses of depression . . . . However, there were more marked trends within age and sex, including a large rise in the incidence of new diagnoses among young women."

These are young women BEFORE they face the demands of home and work that the Shriver Report focuses on. Widespread mood disorders among youth are more fundamental than conflicts created by the corporate lifestyle, the world Shriver is most familiar with. The real woman's world may be better described as a depressed one. The question is, which of these - economic opportunity or emotional disorder - is the brave new world that young women will be entering?

P.S. At the same time as The Shriver Report was published and Maria was making the media rounds, Glenn Close was promoting the greater recognition and acceptance of mental illness with her bipolar sister. Two questions: Is there any contradiction between these two media efforts - telling women the world is their oyster and yet that depression is all around them? and How many times have we heard the call to destigmatize mental illness - including by Pauley, Trudeau, and Dukakis - and why are new calls always required?

Mindfulness in Addiction and Film

Stanton Peele — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:27:19 +0000

Mindfulness is a hot psychological topic. It appears frequently in PT Blogs, often in regard to diet, where it refers to being aware of eating (the taste of food, chewing) to control food and calorie intake.

Alan Marlatt, the great addiction psychologist, has specifically developed mindfulness as a relapse prevention technique, one that assists addicted people to combat cravings. In brief, a user may imagine the urge to use again as a physical challenge - like a wave - that he or she rides out.

Maurice Sendak's classic children's book, Where the Wild Things Are, is a model of mindfulness. Here is a description of the book's plot from the Times:

Max, a young boy in a wolf costume, makes mischief of one kind and another, is called "wild thing" by his unseen mother, and is sent to bed without supper. As he stews, his room transforms into a jungle. He finds a boat and sets sail across the sea to discover a land full of real wild things - big monsters with "terrible teeth" and "terrible roars." Max tames them, plays with them, sends them to bed without their suppers and then returns home, where he finds dinner waiting for him. "And it was still hot," the book concludes - a lovely and reassuring grace note.

"What an empowering, psychologically astute parable about a child learning that his anger, while sometimes overwhelming and scary, can be safely expressed and eventually conquered," Bruce Handy summarized (although he says this was only apparent to him as an adult). I and a colleague, John Conway, with whom I discussed the story (he has just bought it for his young son) both thought, "What an uncanny illustration of mindfulness - of an imaginary battlefield for combating unhealthy urges which then feeds back into Max's real life."

And the film is more so. There are few words in the original story, so that director Spike Jonze had to fill out the screenplay substantially. He embodies a rich interpersonal community among the Wild Things, one that Max joins and creatively and constructively participates in. The Wild Things are a screwy bunch - but not much more so than any group of West Side New Yorkers - which they consistently reminded me of.

Prior to retreating to Wild Things land, Jonze fills in Max's back story brilliantly and creatively. It seems Max is reacting badly to his home situation with his single mother (played by the estimable Catherine Keener). Max often acts out, to his own misery and detriment.

Max relates primarily to two Wild Things. One is a male character whose destructive impulses, created by unfathomable psychological issues he is fighting within himself, reflects Max's own. The other is a soothing female Wild Thing who offers Max protection from his own self-destructiveness. There is no one-to-one mapping of characters, and the motherly beast might also be Max's Super Ego to the first beast's Id. But this motherly figure also suggests the Keener character, who lovingly tries to respond to Max's wanton and hurtful behavior.

When Max leaves his imaginary land, he - like the Wild Things - has made substantial progress in resolving his demons and rectifying his relationship with his Mom. And once again, great art has encapsulated a crucial psychological vision.