Anxiety and Psychotherapy

I have a short story in this! Yes, you read that right: A short story. It is available now.  

I’m in the internets, playing on your radios. I was pleased to say a little about social anxiety and how to get help for it for a youth-focused program on the UK-based internet radio station W!ZARD (the Saturday, 4/29/17 show for “Awkward Questions,” if you’re coming to this later). My part is about 17 minutes in. Toward the end, my colleague Michelle Lim talks about loneliness.

I sound a little like I’m calling in from space because of the connection. (Unless I was really calling in from space [spoilers, I was not calling from space]).

I am honored and excited to be one of 40 Independent Investigator Grantees! 

Look, there I am (under depression, which might seem odd, but it’s true that depression is one of the issues at hand):

Thomas L. Rodebaugh, Ph.D., Washington University, Dr. Rodebaugh will examine the biological mechanism through which loneliness can lead to poor health and increased mortality, particularly among older adults. Social support reduces loneliness and shields against mood consequences of stress. The hormone oxytocin may play a role in the protective effects of social support. Dr. Rodebaugh’s team will measure circulating oxytocin levels in the biological samples of an ongoing longitudinal study of older adults to examine associations between this hormone and indices of social function and experience. The findings will also reveal whether oxytocin level can act as a potential biomarker for future vulnerability to loneliness and mental health symptoms.

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1UYCQbZg6yd8N

. . . to protest the federal hiring freeze affecting VAs. Claire McCaskill has already signed a letter protesting this, and Roy Blunt’s people politely wrote down my concern. A special shout out to how receptive, interested, and engaged Ann Wagner's people were. They were concerned about not only the general health care issue (why should our vets have longer lines to see a doctor because new ones can't be hired?) but also the training issue on the psychology side. 

Right now, clinical psychology students around the country are questioning whether they can expect that VAs will be training sites for them for their internships--internships that are required for their program of study, that involve them providing a lot of clinical care for little pay, and that they have to submit their rankings for in less than a week.

Generated through the “Small World of Words” project. This looks remarkably like the kind of fear network I might draw on the board while explaining the Foa and Kozak “fear structure” concept. 

The theory behind the interpersonal circumplex tells us that how people act around and toward other people is interpreted on two major dimensions. These dimensions are dominance and warmth. So, how you act toward someone else can involve asserting your dominance or submitting to someone else’s. It can also involve opening up to someone else and giving them the sense that you’re on the same team--or holding back, being aloof, making it clear that you’re not on the same team. These two dimensions combine, of course: “We’re on the same team, but I’m in charge.” 

I do believe that most scientists primarily want to determine and communicate the truth. In theory, interpersonal behavior can be entirely neutral on dominance and warmth. Entirely neutral interpersonal behavior might be appropriate for scientific communications, but, in my experience, even when scientists attempt to be neutral, their communications still come across as involving dominance and warmth. 

How is who ends up an author on a study, as well as the order, determined? Hopefully largely by who contributed and how much--but those authors affiliated somehow, and at least some of the time the order might be partially a result of dominance behavior rather than pure contribution. Standing up and speaking at a conference generally comes across as dominance behavior: So much the more so does asking a challenging question from the audience. When scientists get together at a conference and share a meal, they invariably spend some of their time puzzling through other people’s behavior, including dominance and warmth behavior. 

Poll: Conservatives most likely to be offended by holiday greetings

No comment on the election results, except that this is my playlist right now.