Get to know your brain!

Do we really only use 10% of our brains?
Am I making my baby smarter by playing Mozart?

In their book, “Welcome to your brain: Why you lose your car keys but never forget how to drive,” Authors Sandra Aamodt & Sam Wang discuss answers to these common questions from a neuroscientist’s point of view. They happen have an article today in the New York Times, “Your Brain Lies to You” that discusses how people end up believing falsehoods that’s an interesting read.

Below is a YouTube video of their presentation at Google HQ, where they share more of the fascinating insights from their work.

The other tragedy of war - PTSD and suicide among soldiers

When we think of war, we think of a lot of things. Movies. Death. Destruction of property. Ideals. Security. Safety. Risk. Rewards.

Yet it seems we know just a little of the sacrifice we accept from our warriors. Yes, we know that we’ve lost over 4,000 of America’s heroes in battle, not to mention the untold numbers of Iraqi soldiers and civilians. We know that far more American soldiers have come home injured and permanently disabled. But do we realize what we ask of our soldiers psychologically? Do we understand how their lives, hearts and minds are transformed by the horrors of what they witness?

Data now shows that 2007 was the bloodiest year of the Iraq war to date, and one has to consider the connection between the increased violence and another alarming trend - the increase of soldier suicides and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A new report due to be released this week shows that suicides of US soldiers in Iraq increased 13% in 2007 over the previous year. Another indicates that there was a 50% increase in PTSD among soldiers in 2007.

What’s causing this trend? Experts say there are a number of factors, including longer deployments and re-deployments of soldiers. Frequency and duration of exposure to traumatic events are among the most important risk factors in determining whether one develops PTSD, so it’s clear that the lengthening of tours and the number of deployments are having serious consequences for America’s heroes.

Some reports suggest that nearly 30% of Iraq war soldiers experience symptoms of PTSD. If you’ve never had these symptoms, it may be difficult to grasp how difficult they are to live with. Many people are familiar with the term “flash back” from movies, which refers to re-experiencing traumatic events in real time, as though they were happening all over again. But not as many are aware that PTSD symptoms also include recurring nightmares, intrusive, unwanted thoughts and memories about traumatic events, trouble sleeping, heightened sensitivity to sights and sounds, and feeling as though one is in danger all the time. Also, PTSD can bring symptoms of emotional numbing, which feel like - and can lead to - serious depression.

And it’s here where you can see the relationship with suicide. PTSD is a type of anxiety disorder that is extremely painful to live with. It can wear people out or shut them down emotionally so they feel like they are “living dead,” - alive, but unable to really experience much. When these feelings persist, people become increasingly vulnerable to suicide.

Suicide continues to be an enormous risk for veterans. According to Kerri J. Childress, a Veterans Affairs department spokeswoman, there are an average of 18 suicides a day among America’s 25 million veterans and that more than a fifth are committed by men and women being treated by Veterans Affairs. From the same article in the New York Times:

Experts agree that veterans are more likely, perhaps twice as much, to commit suicide as people who have never served in the military. Meanwhile, a study released last week by the RAND Corporation estimates that roughly one in five veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which heightens the risk of suicide.

Other complications include any tendencies to use alcohol or substances to help relieve symptoms of PTSD, which is common among those in general who have PTSD. Because many of the symptoms are due to a hyper-aroused nervous system, alcohol or drugs can take the edge off of these effects. The seriously dangerous and unfortunate consequence is a lowering of inhibitions towards self-harming thoughts or behaviors, and the lapses in judgment that come from using substances.

From the US Army (via the AP article today)

“Since the beginning of the global war on terror, the Army has lost over 580 soldiers to suicide, an equivalent of an entire infantry battalion task force,” the Army said in a suicide prevention guide to installations and units that was posted in mid-March on the site.

“This ranks as the fourth leading manner of death for soldiers, exceeded only by hostile fire, accidents and illnesses,” it said. “Even more startling is that during this same period, 10 to 20 times as many soldiers have thought to harm themselves or attempted suicide.”

It’s clear our military needs more help. Yes, they need better armor and better benefits. They also need fewer and shorter deployments, first and foremost. Regardless of our varied political opinions about the war, the surge has taken a tremendous toll on our soldiers and has increased casualties in a wholly unanticipated way. Americans must stand up to support our troops, demanding their ability to access benefits and treatment in a timely way, and to support efforts to ensure they are given adequate respite and recovery between deployments.

If you are a soldier or know of a soldier who is struggling with trauma symptoms and/or depression, I highly recommend EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) treatment. It has shown great promise in effectively reducing the severity of trauma symptoms in a short period of time. The VA is strongly recommending this treatment as well. If you are a clinical practitioner interested in trauma treatment, following the link above will take you to information on how to become trained to provide EMDR.

Supporting our Troops must go beyond bumper stickers and car magnets. A real, human approach to understanding the total sacrifices of our bravest Americans and taking care of them body, mind and soul when they make it home is where the real support they need.

Laws catch up with cyberbullying after 13 year old’s suicide

It’s a sad, sad case.

A 13 year old girl, Megan Meier, took her life after receiving a nasty message from what she thought was a 16 year old boy - but turned out to be a 49 year old woman. Lori Drew, a mother herself, now faces up to 20 years in prison for her role in this tragedy.

From the New York Times:

The woman, Lori Drew, was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization and via interstate commerce to obtain information to inflict emotional distress. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Ms. Drew lives in O’Fallon, Mo., where, according to the indictment, she created a MySpace account under the name Josh Evans in 2006. Prosecutors said she used the social networking account to contact a young girl named in the indictment as M.T.M. with sexually charged messages from “Josh.” The girl, who has been identified by her mother as Megan Meier, was a former friend of Ms. Drew’s daughter.

After a few weeks of chatting, “Josh Evans” began to send Megan nasty messages, via the MySpace account, ending with one that suggested “the world would be a better place” without her. Megan, believing she had been rejected by “Josh,” committed suicide in her home.

Missouri law enforcement officials said they had not found enough evidence to bring charges in the case, and Ms. Drew, who was 48 when Megan died, has repeatedly denied creating the account.

But because MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, is based in Beverly Hills, Calif., and its server is here, federal prosecutors decided to wield a federal statute that is generally used to prosecute fraud that occurs across state lines.

The statute applies in the case, the indictment says, because by violating the user agreement of MySpace, which prohibits phony accounts, Ms. Drew was seeking information “to further a tortuous act, namely, intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

We’ve known for awhile now how bullying is linked to suicide. What we’re now seeing is the myriad different avenues available for people to inflict harm on one another.

According to Megan Meier’s parents, Megan had been in treatment for mental health disorders - Attention Deficit Disorder and “Depression” (as per the AP). It’s important to note this because kids who have psychiatric disorders are going to be more at-risk for suicide, and plenty of kids diagnosed with ADHD and depression spend time online - often at places like Myspace.

I’m never one to advocate for socially restrictive or regressive tactics - like prohibiting Myspace or never letting kids online. The kids tend to just be more secretive about those very behaviors in response, and we need for parents to have *more* supervision of these online activities - not less. I wrote in a previous blog post here in relation to the teenagers in Florida who had kidnapped and beaten a girl, again over Myspace conflicts, about the need to teach our kids appropriate online behaviors. I think this unfortunate case is underlining that need with law.

Lori Drew is facing serious legal consequences to her part in this cyberbullying/suicide case, and in this situation, “cyberbullying” goes beyond overt threats of harm to statements that simply make people feel terrible. How we make others feel is, actually, the crime of any kind of bullying, and the essence of what leads the victims to suicidal thoughts.

Still, I do not know how legal it is or will be to make a kid feel terrible - this battle has yet to fully play out in court. I do know it raises some serious questions about how our culture is handling the new world of communications.

I still say we need to actively teach our kids how to treat others, and we need those lessons to reach into the online world now. They must be told that their behaviors online will have as serious consequences as their behaviors in the school yards. All adults need to be guardians in this sense.

I wish Lori Drew had helped her daughter step away from the initial conflict she’d had with Megan Meier, instead of taking on whatever role she may have played in intensifying the drama. But according to this indictment, she didn’t, and the consequences were much worse than I’m sure Drew would have guessed.

I hope in the future, all kids and their parents recognize that the on and offline squabbles of teen girls and boys are opportunities for such lessons in interpersonal skills, and that kids need us - are counting on us - to show the way.

Trauma and Youth Training, May 21st

Presented by Amy Jacob, LCSW
May 21 2008, Edison NJ

Who should attend? Guidance counselors, clinicians, case managers, social workers, child study team members, in-home behavioral health providers, teachers, parents, advocates, and others who work with children and adolescents who have experienced trauma.

What Will Trainees Learn? This workshop provides practical strategies for those who work with youth who have experienced trauma and may be manifesting behavioral health issues as a result. The presentation includes:

Signs and symptoms of trauma in children and youth

Types of trauma and their effects

Neurobiological impact of trauma

Life domains affected by trauma

Promising treatment approaches and their core components

Practical strategies for working with youth who have experienced trauma

Vicarious trauma and self care for workers

Creating safe environments for youth and families

This dynamic, interactive program will include activities, video illustrations, and small group activities, and discussions.

Location and Time : Holiday Inn, Raritan Center, 3050 Woodbridge Ave., Edison NJ,08837(directions below) Wednesday May 21, 2008, 9 to 1 pm., Continental breakfast provided

Fee: $85 per person

REGISTRATION: Please email sourcesforhumanservices@comcast.net to register

About the Presenter: Amy Jacob, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker in Middlesex County, NJ with a career history spanning 15 years of service to children, families, and child-serving organizations. She currently has a private practice providing intensive in-home clinical services to adolescents and their families.

Jacob is also a Training Consultation Specialist for the Violence Institute of NJ as well as project coordinator and lead trainer for “Creating Safe and Respectful Environments,” an initiative through UBHC-UMDNJ funded by the NJ Juvenile Justice Commission. In this role she coordinates a training program for juvenile detention centers and state run secure care facilities and residential centers on the topics of mental health disorders among adolescents, crisis intervention techniques and suicide prevention. In her private practice she also provides training to schools and other community groups in New Jersey on these topics.

Jacob served as the Middlesex County Coordinator for the Traumatic Loss Coalitions for Youth Project from August 2001 through July 2006. The Traumatic Loss Coalition brings together professionals from schools, mental health agencies, law enforcement, clergy and other community organizations in order to identify and coordinate resources for school communities after traumatic loss events.

Jacob has worked extensively with children and adolescents as a clinician with University Behavioral Health Care’s Child and Adolescent In-patient and Regional Response Units. In this role she provided crisis intervention, evaluation, and ongoing therapeutic services as well as advocacy on behalf of adolescents and their families.

Prior to obtaining her MSW, Jacob served as a Policy Advisor for Children’s Issues to Governor Jim Florio of New Jersey. In that role she served as the Governor’s liaison to various child-serving boards and organizations, providing regular policy briefings and recommendations to the Governor. She also served as staff to inter-agency advisory boards and workgroups charged with streamlining service delivery to New Jersey’s children across bureaucratic government systems.

Directions to hotel: Holiday Inn, Raritan Center, 3050 Woodbridge Ave., Edison NJ, 08837, 732-661-1000; NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE (NORTH/SOUTH): TAKE TURNPIKE TO EXIT 10 AND BEAR RIGHT. AFTER TOLL PLAZA TAKE HWY 514 W. FOLLOW SIGNS TO RARITAN CENTER. STAY IN RIGHT LANE & FOLLOW THE CURVED ROAD TO LIGHT. TURN LEFT ON KING GEORGE POST RD. HOTEL ON LEFT

Restaurant: Have a delicious lunch at Harold’s’ New York Deli Restaurant next door

The world kids live in today - the internet, social media and teens

Eight teens from central Florida kidnapped and brutally beat another teenager from their town, filming the entire event for YouTube.

Was it the desire for attention? Was it desensitization to violence? What allows teens to become so polarized in their social circles that they can brutally victimize one of their own?

I find particularly interesting the argument about the role of the internet in this case. The NY Times article this story appeared in focuses heavily on the fact that the fight was allegedly started over comments on MySpace. From the article:

Grady Judd, the Polk County sheriff, released three minutes of the videotaped beating, which went on for roughly half an hour. Before the gag order stopped him from doing interviews, he said the attack might have been retaliation for comments Ms. Lindsay posted on her MySpace page about some of the other girls.

By his account, the eight teenagers under arrest….were not initially remorseful. He said he hoped that the attention
the case had drawn would raise awareness about the Internet’s power to desensitize young people to violence.

The victim’s parents have taken a similar line. “For whatever reason, this MySpace, my-you, this YouTube has gone too far,” said Talisa Lindsay, in an interview outside their home. “It’s just too much.”

Her husband, Patrick, who stood beside her, went even further, declaring that Internet companies were to blame for what happened.

“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “MySpace is the Antichrist for children.”

Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know that teenagers have a lot of unsupervised access to other people, strangers and friends alike, via the internet. The internet offers unparalleled opportunities for social connectivity, especially via the web 2.0 social networking sites, which include MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and a host of others as new places pop up all the time. And while for many people web 2.0 is a very positive development in technology, offering new avenues for friendship and professional networking, it’s not a place to leave your kids unsupervised. Yet, from lack of knowledge about this booming social technology many parents do just that.

Consider this. When your child becomes old enough that you are comfortable dropping them off at the mall to meet their friends, you’ve probably - hopefully - had some long talks with them about how to behave and how to protect their safety. If you are going to let your teenagers use MySpace - and in my opinion that’s okay - you should also be talking to them about internet safety, supervising their profiles (they are public, after all!) and communicating with them about the things that concern you.

Over the internet, teens tend to gravitate to places like YouTube and Myspace, where they can create profiles, upload media of themselves (photos and video often taken with cell phones) and leave comments for each other. They also use Instant Messaging (known as IM) programs (like AOL Instant Messaging-AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, etc.) that allow for instant communication with text. As an aside, they often have cell phones with text messaging as well.

When kids communicate via these other mediums and not in person or even on the phone, they miss a lot of social cues that help regulate communication between individuals. For example, if you can’t see the body posture or hear the tone of voice of the person you’re insulting, you may not understand how the person you’re talking to feels about what you’ve said. Or you may not have the right amount of caution or remorse when choosing your words.

There’s a young woman I’ve worked with who is near and dear to my heart, who is the one who first introduced me to MySpace in 2004. I can’t recall the number of times she’s been incited to physical fights (which never manifested, luckily) over hostile, provocative comments some strange teen she’d never met made to her on IM or left on her profile. (Often, it’s someone such as the ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s sister from three towns away who out of boredom starts trouble…)

If parents or other adults are going to allow access to the internet and all of the communication tools that modern culture affords us, then we’ve all got to get a bit more educated about how kids are using these things. And like any other part of a child’s life, we need to stay involved. The internet is this wild west for kids - they can go wherever and do whatever without the watchful eyes of parents. So of course it’s a dangerous place for them.

The world is a dangerous place for kids without the right level of support and supervision from their parents. The internet is no exception.

In a word, teach your kids how to be safe and responsible on the internet, just as you would teach them about their safety riding public transportation or going off to camp.

Media - television, movies, video games and the internet - are powerful shapers of culture. We are all adopting attitudes and beliefs based on what we absorb from the media, whether it’s CNN, Fox “News,” YouTube or Family Guy. So of course, our children and teens are too.

But, if our kids are learning their core values from the internet or other media, maybe it’s because that media is filling some kind of other need for social connectivity they’re not getting elsewhere.

Just a thought.

The role of environments

Here’s something to consider. In 1979, an angry, depressed gorilla was moved from it’s home of a barren, empty cage at the Seattle Zoo into a revolutionary new environment designed to mimic his natural environment, and was totally transformed. Monkeys in a Princeton University Laboratory are found to grow more or less neural networks (in their brains) depending on the complexity and stimulation of their environments, one study shows.

Listen to the story of the role of environments on these animals, from WNYC’s Radiolab, here:

Just imagine, how do our environments affect us human types? How do our schools affect our kids? How do our workplaces affect us?

The boy who didn’t cry wolf

A boy the bullies love to beat up is the frustrating tale of Billy Wolfe, a high school student at Fayetteville High School in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Billy is one of those kids that looks fairly average to those of us long out of high school, but looks quite different to a certain other kind of kid. To his aggressors, he looks like a target.

You’ve got to wonder how it is that after so many years of school yard bullies, schools have not figured out how to create safe learning environments for kids. From guns to ridicule to violence, it’s little wonder that things like the home schooling movement get legs even outside of conservative or fundamentalist religious circles.

Billy’s story is the kind of story that school professionals know too well and don’t know what to do with. I get that sense from the training I do on suicide prevention in public schools around New Jersey. I always point out that being bullied increases a student’s risk for suicide, and always there are reactions from teachers. They know both the bullies and the bullied, but they seem frustrated with how those situations are handled in their schools.

Zero tolerance doesn’t seem to cut it. Otherwise, since the tragedy of Columbine you’d think bullying and school violence would be less, not more of an issue. Nor does the policy of “pretend it doesn’t exist,” which I hear too often from teachers who quietly speak their frustration and anxiety over the issue to me when the training sessions end.

After reading the above mentioned New York Times article, I searched for some NJ resources on bullying. One good one seems to be the New Jersey Coalition for Bullying. There you can find a lot of important information, from legislation to research abstracts to meetings. They also have information on cyberbullying, which is a whole brave new world of youth intimidation through places like AIM, myspace, facebook, and live journal.

A site for kids is the US Health and Human Resources Administration’s site, Stop Bullying Now! This site has a bunch of information for young people, including what to do if you are being harassed, what to do if you see someone else being bullied, and information for kids to figure out if maybe they are bullies themselves.

We need to all work to create environments for students and faculty alike that promote pro-social behaviors imply safety and respect for all. Meaningful opportunities must be created for all students to participate in school life. School communities must embrace all students - bullied and bullies - in the journey of learning. Consequences for aggressive kids should teach alternative behaviors and seek to bring those students into the school community in a different role whenever possible. As we all know, alienating aggressive kids by trying to simply rid them from our school communities can breed a dangerous resentment.

Yet the kids targeted by bullies need protection as well. They need to know their schools are well supervised. That language and behavior that is seen as disrespectful and intolerant does not go unaddressed by the adults who witness it. That there are viable channels for assistance when feeling unsafe.

All kids need to feel that they are valued by their schools. In my experience working with teenagers, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Of course, I have worked with teens that have had problems, and by and large these are the youth who most need the school’s support and while they may get it in terms of dollars, often don’t in terms of opportunities and relationships.

But addressing school violence and bullying behavior isn’t just a job for schools. All adults need to participate in creating a culture that teaches young people the value of respect for one another. Parents, aunts, uncles, professionals, family friends can all play a role in helping our young people make sense of the world around them. Those kids are watching us, all the time. What do we teach by our examples?

Race and Oppression in American Politics

Some things just need to be said.

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone in American politics address race better than Barack Obama did today in Philadelphia.

The aftermath of school violence - Repost

It saddens me a great deal to be reposting this less than a year from when I first wrote it, but as I’m sure people are searching for this information, here it is again. It is imperative that we all learn to spot early warning signs of trouble in young people so we can all do more to help prevent these tragedies. Although reports from the Northern Illinois University shooting say there was no history of mental illness or arrests for Steve Kazmierczak, the shooter, I can’t help but wonder if there were any clues or warning signs that might have been spotted had people had the knowledge. Sometimes there are - and sometimes there are not.

UPDATE: Current reports have mentioned that Steve Kazmierczak was taking some type of medication and that since stopping it, he had shown signs of “erratic” behavior. There is no confirmation that his medication had been prescribed for a psychiatric condition.
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The aftermath of school violence - helping youth cope (Originally posted 4/17/07)

As a therapist who works with young people, the utterly devastating tragedy at Virginia Tech has me reeling personally and as a professional trying to understand how these things happen and how to help kids cope afterwards.

Events such as these slam our assumptions that the world is safe, that we can send our kids off to college and have our worries contained to normal troubles they might get into, like underage drinking or unprotected sex. It shakes our belief that we can go to school and pursue academic goals in relative safety and comfort, putting our attention towards grades and perhaps weekend socializing.

Right about now, VT students should be worried about final papers and exams. But I’m sure they’re barely able to focus on those things, their hearts and minds troubled by much more significant dangers than a missed deadline.

It’s hard to know what to say to kids at at time like this, even the kids up here in Jersey, which seems fairly distant from the Blue Ridge. But kids all over the world are reading the internet, watching the stories unfold on CNN, seeing the cell phone footage and the weeping faces of their counterparts at VT. (Not to mention that many of our kids in Jersey are also in the middle of coping with devastating floods and evacuations.)

To help out, the good folks at Traumatic Loss Coalitions for Youth, UBHC-UMDNJ have prepared some information specifically for times like these.

If you’re looking for a way to talk to kids about the shootings at Virginia Tech, you can download this Word Document, “Helping Children Following School Violence.” The document has good, specific guidelines for adults helping kids deal with fear and regaining a sense of normalcy. While it was written in response to the series of school shootings last fall, it’s information will be helpful for what we face today. And don’t be put off by the fact that it was written for kids - most of its information is perfectly applicable to college students and adults as well.

A lot of times after situations such as these, those of us who do work with kids will start to thumb through our mental list of kids we know. Could one of them ever do something as horrible as this? Another useful document in this case is “Identifying Youth at Risk for Violence.” (also downloadable as a Word document.) As much as stereotypes of violent youth exist, there is no one specific profile of a “school shooter.” There are, however, some characteristics that violent youth have in common that indicate the need for some intervention. The document above outlines what these are and what to do when we see them.

And hey, major news outlets, would it be so difficult for you to include some resources on coping with trauma on your webpages, where you so brilliantly recount in horrifying detail these terrifying events? If you’re going to bombard us all with traumatic images in the name of reporting, let’s at least see a list for traumatic stress resources with some links, please.

Since they haven’t (from what I’ve seen, anyway), here’s one I made. Many of these links have information that is absolutely relevant in the aftermath of the flooding and evacuation we’re dealing with here in the garden state.

• The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies has about the most comprehensive listing of resources related to this incident on the net. It includes information about school safety, trauma and traumatic grief, how to help a loved one who is traumatized, manuals and training slides on Psychological First Aid, and a virtual ton of other important information. Make this your first stop, and you may need to go no further. But if you do, check the following:
• The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (on the right side, in the sidebar look for resources on Psychological First Aid and School Shooting Resources)
• American Psychological Association - Talking to your kids about school shootings. In my opinion, the TLC material is stronger and more specific, but there are links to other resources here as well. (And for shame, National Association of Social Workers! - nothing on the front page about this event at all? Strange considering the legions of social workers I’m sure are preparing to respond to this event in some way.)
• The National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - Information Center. There’s good info here about what happens after trauma, what PTSD is, and a special tip sheet on PTSD in children and adolescents.
• The Center for Disease Control - School Associated Violent Deaths Fact Sheet. Facts about school violence, the ongoing research of the CDC in this area, and a list of good resources on school safety and violence prevention.

Like most of the rest of the world, my heart goes out to the students, staff, faculty and families of Virginia Tech.

How NOT to talk to kids

Kudos to the youngster who had the nerve to keep the camera rolling. Here’s an example of an officer who desperately needs a vacation, and the reason training in verbal judo or other communication skills is absolutely critical.

And by the way, for any of us who work in a position of power over another human being, and especially over kids, it should go without saying that if you wouldn’t do it on camera, don’t do it.