Dr. James Husen, Licensed Psychologist, Licensed Attorney, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

More of Dr. Jim / James Husen reading from Dr. Childress's book on An Attachment-Based Model of "Parental Alienation"             This time I'll be reading Dr. Childress's chapter on Attachment and Personality. Dr. Childress describes the internal working model and defensive structure of persons with disorganized attachment.  Dr. Jim reads Dr. Childress on Attachment and Personality, Part 1 Dr. Jim reads Dr. Childress on Attachment and Personality, Part 2 Dr. Jim reads Dr. Childress on Attachment and Personality, Part 3 Dr. Jim reads Dr. Childress on Attachment and Personality, Part 4

Dr. Jim Reading From Dr. Childress's Book on  An Attachment Based Model of Parental Alienation       I've been reading a really interesting book by Dr. Childress and thought I'd read a section in the book where he talks about splitting. Splitting as many will know is a psychoanalytic term describing a person's inability to integrate good and bad. The result is appraisals of others that are overly idealized or overly demonizing.  Dr. Jim reads from Dr. Childress's Foundations An Attachment Based Model of Parental Alienation

Mindfulness reduces stress and improves health. This is a robust scientific finding supported by many recent scientific experimental research. If you want to benefit from this, you can start being mindful right now.            1.  Pay attention on purpose to your thoughts and feelings. You don't have to close your eyes but that may help. You can also add some soothing music.            2.  In addition to paying attention to your thoughts and feelings you can also purposely slow and deepen your breathing.           3.  In paying attention on purpose (called monitoring) you will also purposely ACCEPT Your thoughts and feelings even if you don't agree or like them.           R ecently published scientific research highlighted this acceptance component of mindfulness. Using a dismantling technique in a randomized and controlled test of three different groups, Chin et al. (2019) identified acceptance as a "key ingredient" responsible for mindfulness mediated

             Grice (1975) wrote that effective human discourse must be cooperative (p. 46). He called it the Cooperative Principle. This principle informs good communication. Grice described cooperative discourse by breaking it down into four constitutive factors: “Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Manner” (Ibid).              Hesse (1999) succinctly defined these four features of collaborative discourse as follows: Quality—be truthful, and have evidence for what you say. Quantity—be succinct, and yet complete. Relation—be relevant to the topic at hand. Manner—be clear and orderly. (p. 404).              Grice (1975) called Quality a “supermaxim” whose emphasis upon truth includes by implicature to never promote a known falsity. He also called "perspicacity" a "supermaxim" of cooperative communication. By which he meant on the positive side that cooperative communication involves joining what is said with what is meant or what one intends to say in wa

Wikipedia points out that pleiotropy "occurs when one gene influences two or more seemingly unrelated phenotypic traits" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiotropy#Etymology). I like the word because it describes a dynamic I see in Toastmasters -- a great organization that helps people become better communicators and leaders. With Toastmasters you learn how to communicate and lead in a safe and supportive environment. This enables you to practice and learn communication and leadership skills in a place that promotes growth and encouragement. As you grow in the group it becomes pleiotropic because it begins to improve your relationships and performance outside the Toastmaster meetings into your work, family and other involvements. So I encourage you to join a local Toastmasters and give it a shot. You'll probably begin to see pleiotropic communication and leadership skills in not just one but several areas of your life. You are encouraged to come visit the Lemon Str

Ever wonder why your kids are smarter than you were at their age. I have and I think the Flynn Effect offers something of an explanation. According to Flynn, if people took IQ tests standardized to today's children, they would receive a score of about 70 (which would result in their being categorized as intellectually disabled (2 standard deviations below the mean). On the other hand, children on average today would be considered geniuses with a score of 130. Flynn (2014) att ributed this phenomena to a growing ability to take hypotheticals seriously--an ability which he points out enable moral development https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vpqilhW9uI Others have explained the Flynn effect as a symbiotic effect upon brain structure and function in the interactive interface between brain and artifacts/technology such as books, internet, computers and so forth (Forsythe, Liao, Trumbo & Cardona-Rivera (2014, pp. 140-142)--"the google effect". References Flynn,

Stress, Cognitive Reserve, and Dementia I've been studying the importance of taking time to engage in leisure activities that improve or contribute to your cognitive reserve (CR, Scarmeas, Levy, Tang, Many & Stern, 2001, p. 2240). These include "reading, visiting friends or relatives, going to movies or restaurants, walking, and going on excursions" all contribute to cognitive reserve (Ibid). CR represents the brain's capacity to cope with stress and injury ensuring on going functionality especially as we age (Stern, 2006). This psychophysiological ability of the brain and mind to cope and work around the wear and tear of stress becomes increasingly important as we get older and the prevalence of dementia and cognitive decline dramatically increases. I'm disappointed though. I hoped binge watching television and lying sedentary while eating ice cream, chips, and drinking beer might be healthy. They're not on the list. However, watching televi