Frustration Tolerance and Us

In writing a blog, my goal is to find a new and unusual take on a commonplace topic about which much has already been written.

Frustration tolerance seems to be a particularly relevant because President Trump manifests so little of this quality essential for coping with life’s challenges. He doesn’t tolerate differences in opinion from his advisors and fires dissenters, them, he doesn’t take advice that he doesn’t like.

Although Trump’s ultimate impact on us, our nation, and our world can’t be determined, the situation has called for an increase in frustration tolerance from many of us concerned citizens.

As most of us know, life involves varied and frequent kinds of frustration that we can’t avoid, from delaying gratifications to negotiating with others.

According to Dr. Albert Ellis, the father of rational emotive therapy, frustration leads to distress and unhappiness, and conversely, the ability to tolerate frustration leads to relative contentment.

Individuals who suffer from low frustration tolerance, don’t tolerate unpleasant feelings or stressful situations.  They have trouble accepting reality, and think the world should conform to their expectations. These expectations lead to an increased sense of frustration.

An intact nervous system is the required equipment for handling frustration, and ideally, we learn to tolerate frustration in our developmental years. Many factors affect this ability, including mood disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, as well as attention deficit disorder, addictions and diseases of the nervous system, like dementia.

Common problems arise from the belief that we must never experience and therefore avoid it, or that we must always contain it. Either extreme leads to problems.

Inability to tolerate frustration leads to all kinds of social isolation and/or addictions. In my practice, I’ve seen the dire consequences of acting out of a sense of frustration. For example, Mr. Y. expected others to live up to his own standards. When they disappointed him, he cut off all contact. Needless to say, he has ended up without any friends.

On the other hand, Ms. W., unaware of her level of frustration, which then reached an intolerable level, screamed at her boss and lost a coveted job.

What matters is awareness. When we are aware, we have choices that grant a sense of control about to handle a given situation.

A great asset is the ability to tolerate frustration and discern how to manage it: what to tolerate, what we can change about the situation and when we can do so, when to change our attitude, when to distance ourselves (many of us limit our exposure to the news, for instance) or even walk away.

We live in frustrating times. Lyrics of the popular song,  “Mutual Admiration Society” today could be appropriately modified to: “We Belong to a Mutual Frustrating Society”. Trump is frustrated by the limitations and rules that apply to a democratic presidency, and in frequently pushing the envelope of his office, he frustrates many of us.

Conclusion: More than ever before, life calls for tolerance, self- awareness, and  frustration tolerance.

Dear Reader, I look forward to your comments.

jsimon145@gmail.com

Our Memories: Our Selves

I began to research this post because I was curious about the enormous variability of what anyone remembers and forgets. The memory seems to be very fickle and  yet is vital to who we are, a major part of our identity. If we could not remember past events, we could not learn or develop language, relationships, or identity.

Over the years, I’ve noticed how our memory is affected by anxiety, depression, negative thoughts like self-hate, anger and rage. In brief, our emotions noticeably affect our recall.

Furthermore, as people get older, many are concerned, but don’t want to hear about, memory loss. Presumably, they don’t think there is anything they can do about it, or if there is, it would require too much effort.

Researchers have been studying the subject of memory and its loss for years. Learning ways to prevent memory impairment is important, especially with longer expected life spans and the increasing prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease, a terrible malady that entails the loss of personhood in a gradual, downhill course. (Mercifully, we now have medications that retard the process.)

Thanks to the relatively recent fMRI (magnetic imagining of the brain in action), portions of this organ involved in memory storage and retrieval have been identified, although no specific cells and synapses can yet be connected to a specific memory. Nor do we yet know if every memory exists forever in the mind of the individual, stored somewhere in the brain.

In reviewing the topic, I’ve corrected some of my misperceptions and found hope. Our minds and memories are never static, as had been previously thought. In addition, a memory is altered each time it is recalled. (another meaning for the saying, “You can’t step into the same river twice.”) Memory formation includes encoding, or the storage of information, recall or retrieval, and consolidation. A July 1 article in the New York Times discusses the advantages of forgetting (also referred to nowadays as “retrieval failure.”)! Knowledge actually deepens as the individual attempts to retrieve the memory. This process, known as reconsolidation, was first described years ago by the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus.

in The Brain Book, Peter Russell says that memory is not like a container that gradually fills up, but more like a tree growing hooks onto which the memories are hung. Everything we remember creates another set of hooks on which more new memories can be attached. So the capacity of memory keeps on growing. The more we know, the more we can know.

Memory can be remarkably enhanced as Joshua Foer relates in his entertaining 2011 book, Moonwalking with Einstein:The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, in which he tells the exciting journey of how he trained his “mediocre” memory to win the U.S. Memory Championship. Great memories are learned. We remember when we pay attention, find colorful associations, are deeply engaged, and find meaning in what we’ve learned. He concludes that memory champions aren’t smarter, but rather practice elaborative encoding, finding meaning through memory palaces, or colorful, raunchy scenes to which huge amounts of data can be pinned.

In the course of his story, Foer writes about fascinating cases of people with loss of memory and those with extraordinary memory. Reassuring to note:  A superior memory for everything isn’t necessarily an advantage. In The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book About a Vast Memory, A.R. Luria writes about S, a man who remembered every detail. Because he wasn’t able to sort out essential from non-essential information, he couldn’t hold a job. In other words, to make sense of the world, we have to filter our perceptions and to some degree, release our immediate memories.

Our brain is the most powerful organ in our body, and its delicate nature leaves it vulnerable to many types of damage and disease. Hugely complex, 100 billion neurons passing signals to each other via 1000 trillion synaptic connections, it continuously receives and analyzes sensory information of high-order thinking, learning and memory that give us the power to think, plan, speak, imagine, dream, reason and experience emotion. The brain occupies 2% of body’s mass but uses up a fifth of all the oxygen that we breathe, and a quarter of all the glucose. Foer emphasizes that in terms of energy, the brain is a most expensive piece of equipment.

Conclusion: Nurturing this vital organ, the house of our functioning and our identity, is essential. Good nutrition and mental gymnastics, like crossword puzzles, card games, reading and writing, stave off memory loss and even Alzheimer’s disease. Memories are malleable and our ability to enhance them is available to any and all of us.

Dear Reader, I welcome your thoughts. jsimon145@gmail.com

Robots and Us

Question: Why should a psychiatrist devote a blog to discuss robots and artificial intelligence?

Answer: More and more, computers, including those with a bodily presence like robots, disrupt aspects of our daily lives.  As the technological evolution marches on, so does change, which occurs at an increasingly accelerating rate, unnerving many of us, and causing symptoms of anxiety, fear and depression.

According to a June Psychology Today article, AI will affect our identity, our sense of privacy, notions of ownership, our patterns of shopping, the hours of work and leisure, our skills and careers and interpersonal relationships, if doesn’t already.

Transformations are occurring in every industry:  In his August 2 New York Times editorial, Tom Friedman states AI can analyze (see patterns that were always hidden before); optimize (tell a plane which altitude to fly each mile to get the best fuel efficiency); prophesize  (tell you when your elevator will break and fix it before it does); customize (tailor any product or service for you alone) and digitize and automate just about any job.

So, on the positive side, computers can perform amazing feats and improve our lives.  In the field of medicine, they do as well or better in diagnosis and prognosis. They can detect the spread of breast cancer into lymph nodes with accuracy comparable to pathologists. They can report changes of diabetes in images of a patient’s retinas. They can diagnose tuberculosis in chest x-rays with the accuracy of a radiologist.

To the dismay of many of us, they can imitate us to the point that we can’t distinguish them from us and in the future, they will become even better at fooling us; Sony is working on the ability of robots to simulate human emotions.

Eventually, they may be able to take over some tasks of the psychotherapist. Although this humane capacity is perturbing, after working with some well-meaning parents who haven’t been taught or learned parenting skills, I have envisioned that robots could help teach parenting skills and basic principles of child psychological development to benefit us all.

According to a survey by The Financial Times, one-half of computer scientists say that AI will outsmart humans by 2040, while 90% expect the task will be accomplished by 2075.

Most experts now agree about the ability of AI to develop the power to destroy us.  The risks of AI concern inventor Elon Musk, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Microsoft co-founder Steve Wozniak and computer scientist Ray Kurzweil.

Disaster could occur in the following scenario: AI, programmed to accomplish a geo-engineering project, develops a destructive method and, instead of helping, wreaks havoc with our ecosystem. Human intervention to stop it, could be perceived as a threat, at which point the robot might turn against us and attack.

On the other hand, computer scientist, Dr. Jurgen Schmidhuber, has a slightly sunnier view. In his opinion, AI will outstrip our intelligence by 2050, but he doesn’t think these genius computers will pay attention to us. They will see “little point in getting stuck to our bit of the biosphere. They will want to move history to the next level and march out to where the resources are. In a couple of million years, they will have colonized the Milky Way.” Furthermore, he doesn’t think they will enslave us, because we’d make bad slaves for an entity that could build robots far superior to us.

“They will pay about as much attention to us as we do to ants,” he adds.

He offers advice that few could or would debate: He tells his two daughters: “Just prepare to learn how to learn.” As computers take over old jobs, new jobs like professional video gamers and YouTube stars emerge.

Speaking historically, he sees two possible solutions for us humans: to collaborate or compete.  In his opinion, when we encounter this fork in the road, collaboration wins out.  He appears to be the optimist among computer experts as Dr. Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature, is the optimist among psychologists.

In my opinion, evolution is dialectical:  That is, thesis (or positive, the beneficial) is followed by the opposite, or antithesis (the negative aspects). Eventually, thesis combines with antithesis to merge into a new and novel synthesis.

History has worked in our favor, witnessed by our survival thus far. In the past, we’ve coped with solving the problems that have emerged with   progress: The power of antibiotics to cure has come with the creation of resistant strains of pathogens.  The benefits of nuclear energy convey the power to destroy nations and the world. Fossil fuels have powered industries but have resulted in the dangers of global warming. (The Paris Accord demonstrated the great potential of nations to collaborate, aided by environmentalist Al Gore—please see his new movie, An Inconvenient Truth— until president Trump threatened to unravel the progress).

As we have in the past, let’s hope we continue to optimize the benefits and minimize the destructive potential of new developments. At present, computer experts agree that we humans have the upper flesh and blood hand. But to maintain our superior position, we may have to collaborate to avoid programming AI to the point that it develops the capacity to destroy us and our planet.

In view of these uncertainties, we’re entitled to, and share anxieties and fears in the present and about the future. It is helpful to think of our great potential to collaborate on all levels of our existence: individual, familial, national and international.

Dear Reader, Please write to me: jsimon145@gmail.com

Let’s Make Room for Eureka Moments

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg advised this year’s graduating Harvard class to distrust “the idea of a single eureka moment”—that instance when “a lone thinker has a groundbreaking epiphany.” In a June 11 New York Times article,  Dr. John  Kounios, author of The Eureka Factor, took issue with Zuckerberg's statement and inspired this blog.

A eureka moment, also known as the  ‘aha’ experience, is a sudden solution to a baffling problem that has plagued an individual for some time. Suddenly, the answer seems to appear from thin air or nowhere at all.

The Greek word eureka actually means “I found it” and stems the days of ancient Greece, when Archimedes stepped into his bath and noticed that the volume of the water displaced was equivalent to the volume of  his submerged body.  In his joy, he raced through the streets crying, “Eureka.”

This leap of thought (also referred to as an epiphany) may change the life of an individual, a nation or even the world. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., wrote, “A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.”

Scientists, artists and philosophers have described their eureka moments including Isaac Newton, who elucidated the theory of gravity, Paul McCartney who composed many Beatles’ ballads, and the Buddha, who came up with an explanation for human suffering.

(In earlier writings, I’ve described one of my Eureka moments, as I broke out of my narcissistic shell to perceive that I was not indeed the center of the world. We can only pray that our president will have this kind of eureka awakening).

Why, then, did Zuckerberg debunk these moments? My guess is that he doesn’t fully grasp the experience. Certainly, eureka episodes don’t happen overnight; they’re the culmination of time spent stewing on problems.  Scientist Louis Pasteur, father of the germ theory, discoverer of vaccination and pasteurization, clearly indicated his understanding when he said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”  In his book, Kounios details the typically long and arduous path toward the eureka experience, including the stages of immersion, impasse and diversion preceding the aha moment.

In other words, hours to years of thought and discipline may lead up to these joyful eureka moments. Much goes on in the brain beyond our conscious awareness.

Although the eureka phenomenon has been a bit controversial, now brain-imaging studies support its validity.  These moments are associated with a burst of high-frequency activity in the brain’s right temporal lobe. And the highlight is preceded by a “brain blink” signifying that the individual has been less aware of the environment.  These patterns aren’t seen during analytic thinking.

Interestingly, this brain pattern coincides with what some of today’s great minds do to foster this thinking. Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, cherishes moments of silence with himself in the shower. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, spends a month by himself in a cabin. During these solitary moments, they are less aware of the environment and open the an aha insight.

Conclusion: Our minds commonly fall into the trap of either/or thinking, but to solve our problems that loom ever larger and more complex, we best embrace the full capacity of our brain that includes analytic thinking and sudden insight.  There is no downside to the uplifting experience of a Eureka moment.

Dear Reader, Please send your comments to me at: jsimon145@gmail.com

The Paradox of Impatience

By definition, impatience is an urgent desire for relief or change, and includes restlessness and intolerance for whatever thwarts or hinders the goal. We’re triggered when we realize achieving our goal will cost us more than we bargained for.

Paradoxically, impatience sometimes pays, and sometimes costs. (Self disclosure: Writing this blog has helped me curb my chronic problem of impatience so I hope you, dear reader will read on.)

We can benefit from impatience by trying to save a few minutes to have more time (or other commodities). Conversely, we could lose a lot of the thoughtful consideration that leads to us making sound decisions and the understanding that some enjoyable things in life require time.

According to Tara S. Sonenshine,  under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, society’s rapid functioning feeds impatience in the following ways:

1. Cash machines allow us to avoid long lines at the bank.

2.Movie tickets on-line or videos downloaded on demand give us instant access to entertainment.

3. Paying extra secures early boarding and deplaning from a jet.

4. The struggle to find work and feed families after the economic crash of 2008 has increased some peoples’ frustration and impatience.

5. Because of the downhill slide of political leadership and the persistence of war, our patience with politics and leadership has declined.

Speed: a Behavioral Addiction

Greater speed with which events occur leads us to expect and tolerate more speed. We may even develop a psychological and physical tolerance to a fast pace and hunger for more and more as if it’s a drug, a kind of behavioral addiction.

From standing on a particular line at the supermarket to a major monetary investment, the outcome can drive up our blood pressure and damage our health to the extreme, even leading to a heart attack or a stroke. On the other hand, it’s true that impatience can occasionally save lives. Often, we can’t fathom the outcome until the particular situation concludes.

For instance, those who were able to exit the towers on 9/11 survived. Some patiently heeded the loud speaker advising them to remain in the building.  In Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, later adapted to a film with the same title, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Thomas waited at his desk, leaving phone messages for his son Oskar before the line went dead and he perished in the towers.

Along with the rapidity of our electronic world comes the expectation that we humans should be as fast as the materials powering our robotic tools. Obviously, flesh and blood moves at very different rhythms from silicon crystals and Xeon processors.

The hasty tweeting of our president raises the question of the difference between impatience and impulsiveness, or the tendency to react to internal or external stimuli without regard to negative consequences.

Neither impulsiveness nor impatience is a plus in a president.

But it’s helpful to recognize that impatience doesn’t necessarily imply impulsiveness. Impatience can work for us when we ponder a matter from several angles.

That our impatience could work against our survival if we  dismiss the danger of global warming is a horrifying possibility. The Arctic will be melted in 50 years, a reality that impatient people may not accept or act to change. In this case, impatience could lead to our extinction. If we don’t embrace patience in caring for our environment, our planet won’t be able to sustain human life.

What are some tactics to help us tone down impatience:

1.Tuning into music or an audio book can help some to slow down.  Attaching to musical notes or words can ground the impatient.

2. We can step back and ask: What is the hurry? Where am I going? Will I really save time and if so, what will I do with the extra seconds, minutes, etc.?

3. Meditation lengthens the breath, slows the brain waves slow down, and puts matters in perspective for some people.

4. Recognizing tension in the muscles and trying to relax them by stretching and massage can slow our minds.

5. Becoming curious of the possibilities of a predicament can help. For example, thinking about what the Trump presidency tells us about the state of the world can lead us to address the underlying issues that led to Trump’s rise.

6.  Some may be curious about the psychodynamic causes of their impatience. (I was the eldest of five children and my highly responsible, overwhelmed, working Mom barely had time to attend to all of our needs. Perhaps the impatient ones reaped more attention. )

7. Like a physician treating a patient, we can assess the risk/benefit analysis of the tendency to change this particular circumstance.

Conclusion: Impatience is a normal phenomenon, and accepting that we can’t always make the best decision helps us cope and learn from the outcome.

Dear Reader, I welcome your thoughts. jsimon145@gmail.com

Trump, Narcissism and Parenting

President Trump’s children seem dedicated to serve their father, who, on the surface, appears oblivious to the needs of others and seemingly obsessed with details that boost his ego. For me, these observations invite a discussion of narcissism and narcissistic parenting.

Complying with a rich powerful father doesn’t necessarily put a child at a disadvantage. But not all children of narcissistic parents fare as well as the Trump offspring.

(Self-disclosure: I had a father whose parenting showed narcissistic tendencies, and in rearing my children, I wasn’t free of narcissistic behavior either.)

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is defined as a mental disorder. A person suffering with this malady has an inflated sense of his own importance and a deep (and preoccupying) need for admiration coupled with a lack of empathy for others. A mask of appearances ( at times, even grandiose) hides a fragile ego that is especially vulnerable to criticism. As confident as he seems, his actions reveal that he lacks genuine self-esteem as a result of narcissistic parenting.

According to the literature at least 6% of the population has experienced clinical NPD from some angle at some point in their lives. Most of us have some narcissistic tendencies, and most parents don’t fall entirely into the extreme.

Often this psychological makeup causes problems in relationships, work, school, and financial affairs. When not granted the special favors or admiration they expect, people with NPD are unhappy and often find relationships unfulfilling.

Rather than condemning or judging the phenomenon, we best try to understand how this propensity is transmitted through the generations. One salient question can distinguish a narcissistic from a healthy interaction between parent and child. In a healthy interchange, a parent’s words show that he cares about his child’s wellbeing. He might say, “I want you to feel good about yourself.”

By contrast, a narcissistic exchange focuses on the quality of a child’s performance and accomplishments. For example, a parent might say,  “That wasn’t very good. What will my friends think?”

   

The young child finds this kind of parent(ing) confusing and unpredictable. Whether he realizes it or not, the child of a narcissist reflects and serves the parent; his or her development may be diverted from their natural inclination. For example, when a parent insists on choosing a child’s profession, the child may concede to please their powerful progenitor.

When my parents opposed my choice to become a psychiatrist, I became a pathologist. After I completed the board exams in pathology, I had the courage to begin a course of psychotherapy to examine the motivation behind my ongoing wish to study psychiatry. Once the therapist confirmed that my interest was genuine, I followed my true path. To recognize the narcissistic features in my own parenting took a few more years. But the journey has been fascinating.

Conclusion: Narcissists are bred, not born and in some cases, can learn the error of their ways and improve their relationships with others.  Positive parenting has the power to prevent narcissism.

Dear Reader, Your comments are welcome. jsimon145@gmail.com.

Surviving in Our Orwellian Times

George Orwell’s mind-boggling novel 1984 has been produced as a play, currently running at the Hudson Theatre in NYC. At the suggestion of a friend, I saw it, and was surprised by the degree of violence I’d never witnessed on the stage before.

I asked myself why stage 1984 now? Published in 1949, Orwell’s novel was based on his experience of the totalitarianism. George Orwell  fought against Spanish dictator Franco in 1937, and ten years, later wrote, “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I know it.”

Orwell’s writing has become frighteningly relevant in 2017.

Donald Trump’s presidency, which at first appeared chaotic, when compared with other examples of authoritarianism, assumes a kind of order. Robert Reich, a Berkeley professor and the author of Saving Capitalism for the Many, not the Few, said, “Viewed through the lens of authoritarianism, Trump’s approach to governing is logical and coherent.”

Authoritarianism is a form of governing that values control over personal freedom, and seeks to concentrate power in the hands of a single “strongman.” Trump assails those who disagree with him. He doesn’t follow the rules that he dislikes and seeks to intimidate and discredit the press.

In Orwell’s novel, the pleasure of exercising power is emphasized in the relationship of Winston with his torturer, O’Brien. The Inner Party to which O’Brien belongs worships power for its own sake, and uses what it calls “reality control”   to eliminate “objective” truth, and subjugate  the citizens.

We have experienced how Trump and his team bend the truth to suit their goals and promulgate the term “fake news” to discredit facts (e.g.,   global warming and the need to protect the environment, among many other instances).

Many of us are shocked by the loss of democracy.

Families are split in a way we haven’t experienced before—accompanied by feelings of loss, sadness and isolation. We’ve witnessed the increasing numbers of hate crimes throughout the country spurred on by anger and rage inspired by Trump’s words and actions.

We ask, how long we will have to cope with this alien regime? Where will it lead? How long it will last? What will be the consequences?

We respond in various ways. Faced with fear, some of us have dreams or nightmares of being overtaken by a strong force.

To rationalize our bad behaviors we cite the president. “If the president can do such-and-such why can’t I.....”

 (In my blog of May 29, I’ve confessed how I rationalize my less-than-ideal behavior to use clichés.)

Here are some of the positive ways people are coping:

Mr. G. finds relief in tweeting about his disapproval of the president and his policies.

Ms. A. has confidence that the smart politicians in our country will remedy the situation soon and restore a democratic government.

Ms. K. focuses on the positive: In spite of her disdain for Trump, her portfolio of stocks is rising.

Ms. W. has a group of like-minded people with whom she can share her fears.

Mr. L. realized that he had to limit his exposure to the daily news after he became too upset to carry on his daily routine.

Mr. W. reads works of writers and thinkers who analyze the news and remain hopeful that the democratic underpinnings of our nation will triumph, and that order as we’ve it in the past will be restored.

Ms. T. focuses on the reporters who remind us of the bright side—that our Constitution was created with checks and balances to assure the separation of powers and prevent authoritarianism.

Conclusion: We do well to acknowledge the reality of our troubled time, to face our fears and resist paralysis. We can turn to avenues that give us confidence and faith that democracy will prevail.

Dear Reader, I look forward to your opinions. Please write: jsimon145@gmail.com