Life as Art

Hollywood Portrayal of Thinness, Success, and Butter

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:13:48 +0000

Anorexia Nervosa is a great American tragedy. It's the most deadly of psychiatric illnesses, killing almost 20% of those afflicted. Media portrayal of unhealthy thinness as the ideal of feminine beauty is one (but certainly not the only) contributing factor to this devastating illness. That's why it's so refreshing to see Hollywood offer us a glamorous, oversized, butter-eating role model.
I just saw director/writer Nora Ephron's new movie Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child. First, let me say that the movie is absolutely charming, and from an entertainment perspective, it is superb - I hope all of you will see it because it deserves to be a box office hit. However, the film has important psychological undertones that are worthy as well.

One of those undertones involves the relationship of thinness and beauty to happiness and success.

Hollywood, as well as other media outlets, has long promoted this connection. As media consumers, we are constantly bombarded by images of women, such as Kate Moss, who are impossibly thin and gorgeous living the high life and having sex with equally gorgeous men. Several studies dating back to the 1990's indicated that the "ideal" female body as portrayed by the media has become progressively (and more unrealistically) thinner with each decade since the 1950's.

Unfortunately, young women are susceptible to these portrayals, and an alarming increase in life-threatening eating disorders on college campuses, as well as in high schools, middle schools and even in elementary school-age girls, has paralleled this media trend toward unhealthy thinness. While media portrayals are certainly not the sole cause of anorexia or bulimia, they have been implicated as a contributing social factor.

Enter Julia Child (or at least Julia Child as portrayed by Meryl Streep and Nora Ephron). This portrait of the oversized and definitely-not-gorgeous Julia is so glamorous that it partially neutralizes the negative effects of all those can't-be-too-thin fashion models and movie starlets. The non-anorexic Julia lives in fabulous apartments in Paris, she meets with influential editors in New York, and she definitely has an active sex life! But more importantly, she loves life (and butter!) - and she spreads that joie de vivre to everyone she meets, from the Parisian apple vendor to the American ambassador. In one scene Julia and her equally-oversized sister (played by Jane Lynch) are admiring themselves in a mirror before a social event. Julia, upon seeing the reflection, says something like "Not bad. Not great...but not bad!" The sisters then collapse in laughter and hugs. It's clear that looking "great" is not an essential ingredient in their enjoyment of the good life!

Hurray for a positive media portrayal of a woman who is not on a diet of mineral water and rabbit food and whose beauty is not surgically-enhanced! Hurray for a role model whose inner beauty, kindness, and willingness to pursue a dream (even if that dream involved lots of butter!) are rewarded by acclaim, a long happy marriage, and lots of good times and friends.

I'm not advocating overeating as a path to happiness and success. I am suggesting, however, that a positive attitude, a love of good food and good company, and a dream that you pursue on a daily basis (all of which are Julia traits) will take you further down the path to well-being and success - and even long life (Julia lived to be almost 92) - than will starvation and the fear of fat that permeates our media.

Thank you, Julia Child, Meryl Streep, and Nora Ephron, for reminding us that butter is not the enemy!

Novelty-Seeking, Hospital Beds, and the Spirit of Exploration

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:02:51 +0000

It is 8 pm EDT on July, 20, 1969. Anticipation and excitement grip the nation. Sometime within the next few hours, the hatch of a small vehicle will open and history will be made.
I sit on the edge of my bed in the hospital pediatric ward of St. Joseph's Hospital while a nurse empties the contents of a scary syringe into my arm. She tells me the shot will put me to sleep in preparation for the next day's operation.

Wait a minute, I think. Put me to sleep? Oh no! I can't go to sleep! As soon as the nurse disappears down the hall, I jump up and convince my young roommate to get up, too. Within a half hour we have made the rounds to most of the rooms in the pediatric ward and now lead a small army of kids - who like us are scheduled to have their tonsils removed the following morning - through an assortment of calisthenics as we desperately try to keep our eyes open.

Thankfully the nurses, once they understand what we're up to, realize the historic nature of the night. They don't break up our little group until sometime after the grainy footage of that One Small Step for Man - footage that to this day sends a chill of excitement up my spine - has been broadcast and then rebroadcast over the small TV in a hospital room filled with excited kids fighting off sedation. We cheer and dance, and I, like every kid in that room, plan to be an astronaut someday...plan to bring back rock samples from Mars or study the rings of Saturn up close and personal. On this night, there is no conceivable limit to what we humans can accomplish!

Fast-forward to 2009.

It's now been forty years since the space program motivated, united, and inspired a generation of Americans to accomplish things that no nation has done before. Yet our space program is in danger of dissolution. After seven more flights, our space shuttle fleet is scheduled to be decommissioned. At that point, we will no longer have the ability to put an astronaut into orbit. Are we really thinking of abandoning space?

Critics of the space program claim that it's too costly to continue in these economically-challenging times. However, our newly-enacted stimulus package provides funding for everything from waste disposal to tax breaks for Hollywood movie producers. These earmarks will not spark the economy - or the imagination - the way a program to send a human to Mars will do. For over a century, the dream of space exploration has symbolized the human desire to broaden the boundaries of what is known and what is possible. By stretching beyond our earthly bounds, we reinforce our commitment to continually expand our horizons. This brings hope and courage to all humankind.

Because we humans are by nature creative, we're equipped with a propensity to seek out that which is new and novel. We receive an internal reward (in the form of dopamine release in the reward centers of the brain) for exploration of the unfamiliar. Whether it's adding an exotic ingredient to a tried-and-true recipe or venturing into the unknown realms of the solar system, the incentive for exploration is actually built into the human brain. This explorer's spirit is what keeps us - as individuals and as a species - moving forward. It's what drives us to seek new problems and find new solutions.

Like my little companions in the hospital ward so long ago who fought off sedatives to be present for that historic Giant Leap, I hope that we as a nation will refuse to be lulled into sedation by what are often petty, self-serving, and divisive personal and national concerns. I hope we will experience a resurgence of that spirit of exploration that has united us in the past and that has made our nation great. I hope - and I believe that our novelty-seeking creative brains will insist - that we continue to find inspiration and motivation in the last great frontier of space. We have so much more to explore.

Creativity and the Aging Brain

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:59:22 +0000

The aging brain resembles the creative brain in several ways. For instance, the aging brain is more distractible and somewhat more disinhibited than the younger brain (so is the creative brain). Aging brains score better on tests of crystallized IQ (and creative brains use crystallized knowledge to make novel and original associations). These changes in the aging brain may make it ideally suited to accomplish work in a number of creative domains. So instead of promoting retirement at age 65, perhaps we as a society should be promoting transition at age 65: transition into a creative field where our growing resource of individuals with aging brains can preserve their wisdom in culturally-valued works of art, music, or writing.

In a recent study, psychologist Lynn Hasher and her group at the University of Toronto found that older participants were (as many seniors will attest!) more distractible than their younger counterparts. However, members of this older, distractible group were also better able to use the distracting information to solve problems presented later in the study. This work, along with other studies on aging and cognition, suggest that the aging brain is characterized by a broadening focus of attention. Numerous studies suggest that highly creative individuals also employ a broadened rather than focused state of attention. This state of widened attention allows the individual to have disparate bits of information in mind at the same time. Combining remote bits of information is the hallmark of the creative idea.

Other studies show that certain areas of the prefrontal cortex involved in self-conscious awareness and emotions are thinner in the aging brain. This may correlate with the diminished need to please and impress others, which is a notable characteristic of both aging individuals and creative luminaries. Both older individuals and creative types are more willing to speak their minds and disregard social expectations than are their younger, more conventional counterparts.

Finally, intelligence studies indicate that older individuals have access to an increasing store of knowledge gained over a lifetime of learning and experience. Combining bits of knowledge into novel and original ideas is what the creative brain is all about. Thus, having access to increased internal warehouse of knowledge provides fertile ground for creative activity in the aging brain.

Many seniors are already making a mark for themselves in creative fields. Consider Millard Kaufman, who wrote his first novel, the hit book Bowl of Cherries, at age 90. Then there's 93-year-old Lorna Page, who caused waves in Britain with her first novel A Dangerous Weakness. Following in the footsteps of Grandma Moses (who did not take up painting until in her 70's), former patent attorney John Root Hopkins turned to art in his 70's and had a showing of his work in the American Visionary Art Museum at age 73. There are numerous examples throughout history of the creative power of the aging brain: Benjamin Franklin invented the bifocal lens at the age of 78, Thomas Hardy published a book of lyric poetry at age 85, Frank Lloyd Wright completed the design of the Guggenheim Museum in New York at and 92, and Giuseppe Verdi wrote Falstaff, perhaps his most acclaimed opera, at the age of 85.

I suggest that we change our expectations of the elderly. Instead of referring to "the aging problem," we should expect our seniors to be productive throughout the lifespan. I challenge each citizen, whether you are currently a senior citizen or a senior-to-be: first, consider one life lesson that you would like to pass on to future generations. Second, decide upon a creative medium in which you could embed this lesson - perhaps a novel or a painting or a musical piece. Then make it the work of your post-retirement years to grow proficient in that medium and to produce a work that embeds your message.

References:
Kim, S., Hasher, L., & Zacks, R.T. (2008). Aging and a benefit of distractibility. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 301-305.
Horn, J.L. & Cattell, R.B. (1967). Age differences in fluid and crystallized intelligence. Acta Psychologia, 26, 107-129.
Lehman, H.C. (1949). Some examples of creative achievement during later maturity and old age. Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 49-79.
Salat, D.H. et al. (2004). Thinning of the cerebral cortex in aging. Cerebral Cortex, 14, 721-730.

“How to Be” in the Age of Obama

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:07:49 +0000

"Change" and "Hope" are the buzzwords of the new Administration. They're also the buzzwords for survival in the 21st Century...at the individual level, the business level, and perhaps (given the unrest in our post-atomic age) the level of our species. Whether you're a poet, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a linebacker, a parent, or a mid-level corporate manager, you will not thrive going forward in the Age of Obama unless you're optimistic, creative, and flexible.

Think about these facts:
• There are currently over 150,000 books available on amazon.com that deal with optimism
• Positive Psychology was the most popular course offered at Harvard last year
• Most Fortune 500 companies and many government agencies have hired a creativity consultant within the past year
• The number of Business Schools offering courses in creativity has doubled in the past five years.
• Forty-three books and 407,000 websites are devoted to creative parenting alone

It's clear that our current culture values - indeed insists on - optimism and creativity at the personal and institutional level. Clearly (as demonstrated by the number of businesses seeking bailouts from us the taxpayers), any corporation mired in the business plan of the last century is passé. Corporations (and their employees) must find innovative ways to survive. Gone is job security, company loyalty, and the gold watch and pension you expected at age 65. Speaking of which, the very concept of retirement itself is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Most retirement-age individuals I know are not going out to pasture on the golf links of Florida; they're getting involved in start-ups, volunteering at non-profits, teaching yoga, skydiving, and organizing political fund-raisers.

Look at how our families have changed. The makeup of the 20th Century family included a mom, a dad, two and a half kids, and a dog. Today's prototypical family may include two moms, four kids (adopted from Africa, Colombia, Viet Nam, and Russia), and a tree (instead of the dog, whose rights would be violated by pet ownership).
Look also at how education has changed. Students at liberal arts colleges in the 20th Century majored in Classics, World History, English Literature, or Psychology (based on Freudian theory). Today, my students major in Women's Studies, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, World Health, Urban Planning, African and American Studies, and Psychology (where by the way, Freud is barely mentioned).

If you're an artist or a musician today, you need to be more than the talented painter, sculptor, or composer that got you noticed in the last century; today you need to be a brand, a marketing commodity. One of my creativity students (a talented artist herself), for example, conducts a course for artists, teaching them how to dress, interview, and develop a web "presence" to get their stuff "out there."

One more example of the change (and also the hope) to come: psychologists are no longer limited to face-to-face office meetings with clients to conduct therapy. New and innovative ways to deliver help to clients is available through teletherapy, web-based therapy, and in-home computer programs (for instance, check out afterdeployment.org, a free site devoted to helping troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan deal with mental health issues in an anonymous environment).

The way I see it is that we have two choices:
1) We can complain about the fast-paced changes occurring in our institutions and businesses and long for "the way things used to be" (this choice will soon render us irrelevant).
2) We can indeed meet these changes with optimism, flexibility, and creativity.
In future posts, I'll be discussing some of the strategies we can use to inject optimism and creativity into our personal and professional lives. Change is upon us. Only by actively, creatively, and hopefully taking part in change, can we manage it and direct it to the benefit of ourselves and our society.

How Do You Keep On Playing When You Know the Game Is Lost?

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 14:20:53 +0000

This has been a week for great victories and great defeats. I'd like to muse on the defeat side of the issue for a few minutes. Like millions of Americans I watched both John McCain's gracious concession speech and Barack Obama's eloquent victory speech. The speeches of both men on this historic night brought me to tears.

Then yesterday I received an email from a student who was suffering from more than tears over McCain's defeat. She had been unable to get out of bed since the election. "It's so unfair. How could they let such a decent man lose?" she anguished. I'd actually heard some similar remarks earlier in the day and it got me to wondering: do young people think that being a decent person entitles you to win? My concern is that, in an era of entitlement, young people are not learning that - despite good effort and decent behavior - you may not win the prize.

That's why I think sports are part of a good education. Three days before the election I had witnessed the defeat of my son's college football team against their arch-rival. It was an important game. If my son's team won, they would be in contention to win the league title and go on to post-season opportunities. If they lost, they would be mathematically eliminated from winning the title and faced with several "meaningless" games to finish out the season. By the middle of the fourth quarter, it was obvious that the arch-rivals would win, and a pall settled over our visitor's side of the field.

After the game, during those precious few minutes we parents get with the players before they load up onto their luxury coaches for the long ride back to their campus, the young men were subdued but not destroyed. I heard one of the say with his voice choking, "Yeah, we'll feel bad - really bad - for a couple of days...and then we'll move on." I cried over that, too (hmmm, Mom cries over everything).

Student athletes have had the opportunity to lose many times over their careers and to learn to find a motivator to get up and play again. I was talking to my son yesterday and wondering how the team would get psyched up to play their "meaningless" game this week. He replied, "This is the seniors' last home game. We'll play hard to make it a good memory for them." Then he laughed. "There's always some reason to play hard, Mom."

In politics and football, there are winners and losers. Defeat is bitter, but it is oh so important in developing resilience. Without the experience of defeat, you don't learn that it's possible to "feel bad - really bad - for a few days, and then move on." Without the experience of defeat, you don't learn that you can readjust your goals and that there's always "some reason to play hard" - even if it isn't for the goal you thought you couldn't survive losing. I know that John McCain will continue to redefine his goals and play hard to reach them. He comes from a background that allowed him to learn from defeat. I'm happy that my son is learning from defeat as well.

What I worry about are the many young people that have grown up without the opportunity to learn from defeat, those that grew up in the "self-esteem era" of the "80's where no child was allowed to lose. The theme I see as a college faculty member (which was evidenced by my student's email quoted earlier) is that losing is a form of punishment and that if you follow the rules and try hard you deserve to win. Let me provide more evidence: after every midterm or final exam, a number of students set up an appointment to tell me how hard they studied; they believe that studying hard should earn them a higher grade despite their actual performance (and this is at Harvard, no less).

Our cultural institutions - from Congress to the school systems to the legal system to the multitude of media outlets - send a message that you're entitled to win, and that all experiences should be win-win or they're not fair. If something goes wrong in your life, you have legal recourse to sue over it; if you start to feel bad (don't let that happen!) you take Prozac or Xanax. How then can our young people learn to tolerate the ups and downs of existence? How can they learn that they can survive "feeling bad - really bad - for a few days" and that they can actually grow stronger - and ultimately happier - from experiencing defeat? How then can they learn to pick themselves up after they fall down if we encourage them to sue someone every time they fall? Life isn't always a win-win proposition. And learning to lose - as John McCain and my son's football team affirm - definitely does not make you a loser. In fact, learning to lose well and move on is - in politics, football and life - the ultimate form of winning.

The Good Side of the Bad Economy

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:12:15 +0000

I have a friend, Lisa, who's been going through a personal transformation. It seems to have been spurred by the downturn in the economy. She has a gorgeous SUV. She bought it about this time last year. She had to have it. It had a ridiculous price tag, but, hey, she had wanted it and her husband finally gave in, even though gasoline prices were going through the roof (and this thing positively guzzles gas). Lisa also has a gorgeous house (this is MacMansion #2. It's on the same street as the MacMansion #1, but #2 is bigger and has a better view so she and her husband sold #1 and moved up). She's also been planning the "wedding of the century" for her oldest daughter. These things - getting the SUV, decorating the house, arranging the big wedding - have been the focal points of Lisa's thoughts for the last two years.

A group of us meet for breakfast once a month. Last month Lisa started questioning why she ever wanted the SUV so badly. She started complaining about heating all those rooms she doesn't use in MacMansion #2. And she began thinking that maybe the smaller destination wedding that her daughter actually wants would be okay after all. (What's going on here, the rest of us wondered.)

I just had breakfast with Lisa again. She thinks maybe she'll use the SUV to deliver meals on wheels. She feels embarrassed by the size of her house and hopes to sell it when the market improves. And she's thinking about going back to school to learn art therapy. It's like her whole focus in life has changed since the economy started to dive.

Several generations of Americans, from the Baby Boomers through the X and Y Generations, have grown up in a state of mind called the "more" mentality. The motto of "more" is this: If I can only get the bigger, better, more expensive version of (fill in the blank), I'll be happy. The underlying philosophical premise is: My self-worth is defined by the "stuff" I own. Coincidentally (or not), the rate of depression has increased with every generation from the Baby Boomers on. While the high rate of depression cannot be blamed entirely on blatant commercialism, I do believe this "more" mentality is a contributing factor. Hello. "More" is not the path to happiness.

The good side of the currently faltering economy is that it will force a large number of us to move (as my friend Lisa has done) from the "more" mentality to the "no more" mentality. We will stop occupying our free hours with thoughts of how we can get "more" to thoughts of how we can be of service to others in the tough times that are surely to come. In my capacity as an undergraduate advisor at Harvard, I have already noticed a rise in the number of students switching from a concentration in Economics (traditionally the number one choice of Harvard undergrads) to Psychology and other social sciences. I like to think this trend is linked to a movement away from the "more" philosophy.

I do not mean to imply that the bad economy will be good for everyone's mental health. There will be true hardship for many who will lose their jobs and who will struggle to feed their families. And we all need to be sensitive to those around us who are genuinely suffering. I predict there will be a short-term spike in depression rates as some people deal with the losses associated with individual financial disasters. However, for those of us who do not find ourselves in total disaster mode, the worsening economy may have an upside. It will give us the opportunity to take a fresh look at what's important. We may decide that, by losing "more," we will be free to find a more genuine path to self-fulfillment. And, as financial success becomes less easy to attain, perhaps aspiring to other more healthy types of life success will become the focus for the generations to come.

Sports Grief, Roller Coasters, and Sarah Palin

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:23:24 +0000

It's a dull ache in the throat and stomach, accompanied by a sudden sinking feeling. I started noticing these physical symptoms of melancholy last week but couldn't put my finger on the cause until I reread a Psychology Today blog post on Sports Grief by colleague Steven Kotler that first appeared on June 25th. Then I realized that my symptoms coincided with the onset of the NFL season...and that my subclinical case of sports grief (I'm a diehard Patriots fan) had been rekindled by sights and sounds ("Are you ready for some football?") that in previous seasons used to ignite excited anticipation in me. And as if reliving the unimaginable (to Patriots fans and Vegas odds-makers) disaster that occurred in Super Bowl XLII weren't enough, now Patriots fans have another cause to grieve: our hero, the exalted Tom Brady, is out for the season!

My husband laughs at me because I take sports so seriously. But, psychologically, becoming emotionally involved in sports is serious and important business. I see it as a form of exposure therapy. Sports grief allows us to taste the physical and emotional changes that are associated with true grieving. It helps us rehearse for the inevitable personal losses that will come during our lives, so that we are better able to manage our emotions and continue to function in the face of real adversity. The thrill of victory in sports, on the other hand, helps strengthen the neural pathways of our brain's reward system, so that we are primed to experience joy in the future. All in all, I see sports fanaticism as a type of emotional regulation training.

Just as sports grief can train us to tolerate loss and sadness, other events can help us learn to tolerate fear and anxiety. Take roller coasters, for example. Many people who won't ride roller coasters do not abstain because they feel the ride is unsafe. Rather, they're afraid of feeling fear. Psychologists call this fear of fear anxiety sensitivity. But if you allow yourself to go ahead and ride the roller coaster, you learn that you can be gripped by fear, ride it out, and return to baseline none the worse. The next time you get on the ride (or face another fear-invoking event), you'll be less afraid of your own fear.

Another way to learn fear and anxiety tolerance is to witness other individuals successfully handling anxiety. We saw a great deal of this during the Summer Olympics, but perhaps the greatest recent example was Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention. You didn't have to agree with her politics to understand that this woman was facing a do-or-die moment. Prior media coverage had placed incredible importance on her performance, and most reports suggested that, with no experience on the national (let alone the international) stage, she wasn't up to the task. I was already feeling embarrassed for her as she walked to the podium (I mean you'd have to go back to my ‘70's high school yearbook to see other examples of that hair-do). I felt my own pulse increasing as she began to talk. (It's so hard to watch when you expect someone fall on their face.) Somewhere in the middle of the speech, I realized that I was no longer feeling embarrassment but was feeling the thrill of victory...not because I agreed with the political ideology but because I was witnessing a heroic triumph over negative expectations. Palin's delivery of that speech modeled anxiety tolerance for all of us in the face a serious personal challenge.

So what do sports defeats, roller coasters, and Palin's speech have in common? We can use all of them to gain practice experiencing and coping with negative emotions. And next time your wife (or husband) complains that you're taking sports too seriously, reply that you're merely working on your emotional regulation skills.

Depression, Creativity, and a New Pair of Shoes

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:05:09 +0000

After reading a newspaper article about some of the current research linking depressive disorders to creativity, an artist friend of mine commented, "Well, I guess now all I have to do is get depressed and my work will improve."

Since the time of Aristotle, creativity in the arts has been linked to melancholia...but depression itself doesn't necessarily enhance creativity. Quite the opposite: most poets, artists, and composers have reported over the years that they are decidedly unable to work during episodes of severe depression. In fact, many have found their inability to create while depressed to be an impetus for ending it all. Virginia Woolf, for example, unable to write during the onset of a depressive episode, filled her pockets with stones and submerged herself in the River Ouse.

So if depression inhibits creativity, why the long-standing recognition of a connection between the two?

Here are four suggested theories: First, some artists and writers admit to engaging in their craft as a kind of auto-therapy for depression (a more healthy coping mechanism than booze but lots of artists and writers use that, too!). So depression (or the effort to avoid depression) may provide an incentive to do creative work that wards off melancholia. A second theory is that the experience of depression may provide subject matter for artistic creations: Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream and Emily Dickinson's "There's a Certain Slant of Light" are just a couple of examples. A third theory, one held by many Romantic-era luminaries, is that one cannot truly comprehend the human condition (or convey it meaningfully in creative work) unless he or she has experienced the highest emotional highs and the lowest lows. Thus, depression provides the existential angst from which great art arises.

Finally, recent research on mood disorders and patterns of creativity suggests that it may not depression itself but recovery from depression that inspires creative work. Kay Redfield Jamison found that periods of creative productivity occur when individuals are either transitioning out of a depressive episode or are transitioning from normal mood into a manic or hypomanic episode (more on mania and manic depression in my next post). In other words, creative productivity is linked to upward changes in mood. This dovetails nicely with work done by Alice Isen's group at Cornell which found that people scored higher on creativity measures after a positive mood induction in the lab. Positive mood was induced by giving study participants a small, unexpected gift.

Okay, so maybe my artist friend doesn't need to get depressed to improve her work; maybe all she needs is an unexpected gift (a manicure? a new pair of shoes? an unexpected snuggle from her four-year-old?). The point is, perhaps an upward change in mood can mimic recovery from depression and increase creative thinking.

If you're currently suffering from creative block, try the "unexpected gift" strategy. You could either arrange for someone to surprise you with a small unexpected gift...or you could find a small, unexpected gift on your own (a flower growing in a crack in the sidewalk, a full moon rising over the trees, or the taste of a ripe strawberry - anything that inspires unexpected joy.) By keeping your senses open to unexpected pleasures, you may be able to get your creative juices flowing.

References:

Ashby, F.G., Isen, A.M., & Turken, U. (1999). A neuropsychological theory of positive affect and its influence on cognition. Psychological Review, 106(3), 529-550. Jamison, K. (1989). Mood disorders and patterns of creativity in British writers and artists. Psychiatry, 52: 125-134.

How "Thin" Are Your Boundaries?

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:35:27 +0000

Personal space is a very individual matter. Each of us has a certain amount of physical space we like to maintain between ourselves and someone with whom we're interacting. This physical space acts as a boundary between self and others that may reflect the thickness of our psychic boundaries in other areas. Recently, I was watching one of my friends, a highly creative individual who is very popular with both faculty and students, as he made the rounds at a social event in our department. I noticed that most people, even as they jockeyed to get into the circle that always surrounds my friend, were backing away from him as he spoke to them. My friend has "boundary issues" and he admits this. He tends to violate other people's personal space because he feels so emotionally connected to everyone.

My friend describes himself as having thin boundaries. People with thin boundaries are open, overly-trusting, and easily intimate with others. They experience the border between themselves and others as porous and transparent. People with thick boundaries, on the other hand, are rigid, well-defended, and almost seem to be wearing a suit of armor. They experience the border between themselves and others as solid and difficult to breech; they often have trouble with intimacy.

This concept of thick and thin boundaries is elucidated by Ernest Hartmann, in his 1991 book Boundaries in the Mind. In this classic, Hartmann notes a number of other characteristics of individuals with thick and thin boundaries. For instance, people with thick boundaries tend to be quite organized and keep everything in its designated place. People with thin boundaries appear to be somewhat unorganized and to operate spontaneously rather than according to a planned schedule. People with thin boundaries may have difficulty distinguishing dreams from memories (did that really happen or did I just dream it happened?). They are also more likely to spend time daydreaming and to suffer from nightmares. Thin-boundaried people tend to fall in love more easily; they may have more identity issues; and they may experience themselves as both child and adult, or male and female, at the same time. They are more prone to unusual perceptual experiences (such as déjà vu) and feelings of clairvoyance or premonition. Hartmann found that both psychotics and artists tend to have thin boundaries.

In contrast, people with thick interpersonal boundaries may tend to feel alienated and out of touch...out of touch with their own intuitions and feelings as well as out of touch with other individuals.

Hartmann found that thick and thin boundaries extend beyond intra- and interpersonal preferences. For example, people with thick boundaries may also prefer thick boundaries in the external world. They may prefer realism in art over impressionism, and they tend to support strong borders between nations. In their homes, they prefer rooms with specific functions (walls between the kitchen, dining room, and living room) rather than an open floor plan.

Back to my friend who has thin boundary issues. He is loved by both students and faculty ...but he has constant "drama" in his life due to his thin interpersonal boundaries. By letting so many people "in," he has created an inner space where someone close to him is always in crisis and needs his attention. This constant drama has cut into his ability to be productive in his creative career.

What, then, is the optimal thickness for our boundaries? Do highly creative people in general tend to have thinner boundaries than less creative people? And do we have some control over how thick or thin our boundaries are? Think about your own boundaries and decide how you would answer these questions.

"Designer" Personalities?

Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:06:25 +0000

The age of designer babies (in which gender, eye color, height, and even IQ of offspring can be preselected) seems to be looming in the not-too-distant future. But is the age of designer personalities (in which our personality traits can be pharmaceutically altered to achieve optimum success and happiness) already upon us? And if so, is this a good thing for society or a disaster?

I began seriously pondering this question after two incidents occurred on the same day last week. First, a colleague contacted me to see what I knew about the biological basis of sociability. Concerned parents had brought their teenage son in for treatment because he preferred solitary activities, didn't have many close friends, and was getting only mediocre grades in school. The parents were convinced that there must be a drug their son could take to make him friendlier and more motivated. Severe problems with asociality (lack of desire to engage in social relationships) and abulia (lack of motivation), such as are often seen in schizophrenic patients, can be treated fairly successfully with dopamine agonists (drugs that enhance dopamine functioning in the brain). Dopamine agonists are also prescribed for personality changes due to brain injury or dementia.

So why wouldn't concerned parents wish to use these same neurochemical treatments to try to give their child the best possible chance for success and happiness? On the same day, a friend called me to complain about her husband. He had lost enough weight recently that his doctor took him off the beta blocker medication that had been taking to control his blood pressure. My friend liked her husband better when he was taking the medication...she said his personality was less irritable and more easy-going. She even joked about sneaking some crushed form of the medication into his food to keep him amiable.

These two incidents got me to thinking about designer personalities and how parents and spouses are sometimes willing, nay eager, to alter the personality of loved ones a la Stepford Wives to achieve some ideal of behavior. As a psychopathologist I am all in favor of using drugs in combination with psychotherapy to relieve the suffering that accompanies diagnosable mental disorders, such as depression, Bipolar Disorder, bulimia, PTSD, or OCD. But every drug has side effects...that's why professionals are in favor of limiting drug use to disorders that cause dysfunction or severe distress. In these cases, the negative side effects of the drugs are outweighed by the negative effects of the illness they treat. However, there seems to be a growing trend to prescribe mood- and personality-altering drugs to individuals who have no psychiatric diagnosis. I know people who have been on drugs such as Wellbutrin and Prozac for years without being diagnosed.

One friend "went on Prozac" after having an argument with her husband and has remained on the drug ever since. She told me: "I used to get upset when we argued, but now it doesn't affect me at all. It's wonderful." One of my doctor acquaintances prescribes Wellbutrin to patients who complain that that they have no energy and that life has lost its zing. Think of the number of reports that suggest children who are hyperactive or disruptive may be put on Ritalin to "calm them down" without going through appropriate neuropsychological testing. A student of mine related to me that she had been on Ritalin five days a week since she was 12. She took weekends off the drug to reduce tolerance. She reported that she was "spacy," impulsive, fun-loving, but easily frustrated on the weekends when she was off the drug. The doctors and her parents had always told her that the drug let the "real" personality - the person she was capable of being if she didn't have ADHD - shine through. But Kate still wondered which was her "real" personality: the weekday Ritalin-regulated Kate or the weekend space cadet?

Of course, the idea that personality is mediated by biological chemicals is not new; it dates back to Hippocrates and the ancient Greeks. Remember their theory of the Four Humours? In this theory, the humours (or personality types) are associated with an excess of a particular bodily fluid: an excess of blood was associated boldness, impulsivity and arrogance; black bile was associated with a tendency to be sad or depressed; excessive yellow bile led to anger, aggressiveness, and need to dominate; and phlegm was associated with laziness and lack of motivation. Fast-forward to the 20th century: psychiatrist Robert Cloninger has developed an influential theory of the psychobiology of personality, in which each of the major personality traits is associated with one of the major neurotransmitters in the brain. We currently have pharmaceuticals that can alter the production of each of these neurotransmitters.

Shouldn't we be using our knowledge of neurochemical functioning to make people as happy and high-functioning as possible?
Or is life imitating art as we begin to enact Huxley's Brave New World by soma-tizing our personalities into mindless, unnatural contentment and complacency?