the decline of violence

I have just begun reading a fascinating book with a bit of crappy (or at least obscure) title. it is "The better angels of our nature" by a Harvard Cognitive Psychologist, Steven Pinker. This book examines the (for many people) surprising observation that from a historical perspective violence has seriously and dramatically declined in our society.

This book is particularly relevant for the anxious amongst us who argue till they are blue that we live in a violent and frightening world and if it wasn't for their excessive hypervigilence we would all be murdered or raped and our children stolen.

Anyway... Professor Pinker provides considerable information to demonstrate that we in the early 21st century in western countries live extremely peaceful lives by historical standards. We are dramatically less likely to die early fro violence than in any other period of our history. he reviews the kind of violence experinced in prehistory, ancient greece and rome, in the early christian era, in the middle ages and also in early europe and america. All these times of history are demonstrated to be considerably more dangerous than today. People were very easily murdered raped and totured in these periods without much of a fuss at all. it was considered commonplace.

He spends considerable time on the "the civilising process" that he considers an important part of the change in people that have lead to the decrease in violence. He proposed that over around five hundred years from the middle ages European people learned to manage their impulses, look to long term consequences and thought about other people's thoughts and feelings. This civilising began in the aristocrats but eventually became a part of the whole society. According to Pinker the civilising process occurred because government got its act together over this time, smaller fiefdoms and baronies combined into nations that could support and organise police and military. It also occurred because commerce developed so that work was rewarded over theft and violence.

so far..so interesting... much much more to come!!

Parenting Back to Basics

Recently I've confronted by how difficult it is to work with children with behavior problems without simultaneously dealing with parenting. Many parents send us their children to "fix." Their child might have shown signs of aggressive, violence, defiance or refusing to contribute. parents will make the phone call to us and ask, "is there something wrong with him/her." Often (but not always) parenting is the first place to start.

I recently reviewed some of the basic principles of parenting that should be checked with any family with a "child with a behavior problem." Any one reading this stuff that wonders about how to implement it or needs help with their kids please contact us for some assistance.

Basic ideas that should be assessed:


Parents model behaviour.
Parents need teach their kids how to relate to others by their speech tone, the words they use, the pitch and their use of language. They need to get very clearly that their children parrot their own behaviour. If they hit, their children will understand that it is OK to hit, if they yell so will their kids, if they swear so will their kids, if they scream and throw tantrums so will they. Parents need to look closely and honestly at their own communication patterns and honestly appraise them - and then change them.


Find the good behaviour to reward.
Parents need to identify even the slightest good behaviour, or even an approximation of good behavior and verbally encourage it. Parent often feel this is a weird strategy and that it feels false or forced. They sometimes need to have someone demonstrate what it means because many have had so little contact with encouragement themselves in their own childhood that they couldn’t even imagine what that might sound like until it is demonstrated. So, for example, if they child (for the first time) puts one toy away, they need to be praised for the one toy before being helped to put away the rest.


More tangible rewards need to be explicitly planned.
Finding the reward is often the creative challenge. Use charts if this is appropriate. They are fairly easy to construct and many are available commercially. I draw up some fairly crappy ones in session, i don't think they need to be sophisticated, just interesting. They need to be changed regularly and need to be easily completed. The behaviours need to be easily achieved, almost “a give away” for the kid, at least to start with. Start with a star in the balloon for putting one toy away, or a day speaking nicely.


Tangible rewards only work ‘tho if the child’s life is not flooded by indiscriminate treats.
Check that the child is not given treats “to keep them quiet,” “for peace,” or because it is just easier to say yes than to say no. Every treat should be connected to behaviour. The children need to be taught the principle that life is better if they make the right choice and so they learn to make the choices themselves.

phew.... more next time.

can we "profile" bushfire firelighters?

In a recent edition of "Psychiatry, Psychology and Law" researchers looked at whether fire lighters are psychologically different from non fire lighters. They wanted to know if it is possible to identify characteristics of a fire lighter that can predict if they will re-offend.

There has been research previously published categorising fire setters in a urban setting in other countries but there does not seem to be any clear previously published look at Australian bush fire lighters. In urban setting there has been a few categories identified. There are the people who light fires for financial gain or to cover a another crime. There are people who light fires because they are angry with the world and want the world to know. There are a disproportionate number of fire setters who are mentally ill or disordered. They might have schizophrenia or have alcohol or drug problems. There are a small number who are known as pyromaniacs, those people who are unable to resist the urge for fire setting and have increased tension before the act.

when risk factors for fire setting is looked at a list of characteristics are roughly agreed on. The offenders tend to be young males with interpersonal difficulties and alcohol or drug addictions, show evidence of unstable childhoods and some form of mental health problems. In other words they are pretty much the same as all offenders.

So far, then, the research says that fire lighters are just like all other offenders and that fire lighting is to some degree just another criminal activity. Mmmmm.......

why the Myers-Briggs is crap

i was reminded today of why i get so angry about the Myers-Briggs "type indicator." The Myers; Briggs is a pseudo psychological test often used in work places to help individuals discover their strengths and their personality "type." Wikipaedia reports it was first developed around the second world war to help newly employed women identify their strengths and interests. It was first published to be used publicly in the 60's, so despite over fifty years of psychological development it has no changed.

The main idea of the test (from what i remember from uni) is that personalities can be measured on four different qualities of personality. These qualities are assumed to be dichotomies; that is individuals are assumed to be either introverted or extroverted, sensing or intuitive, thinking or feeling, judging or perceptive.

These are opposite qualities, at either end of a continuum. Now here is the problem. The scoring. If an individual scores (say) fourteen on one of the qualities. they fall into one end of the quality but if they score (say) sixteen they fall into the other. so for example, if someone scores fourteen they are introverted, but if sixteen they are extroverted. that might only be a difference of two questions and yet the test identifies the individual as completely different, actually opposite. I know that is complicated but hang in there with me.

So to the example i was reminded of. a young man who i had been treated went to a "consultant" for career advice. She gave him the MBTI. He dutifully filled it out and brought me the results. The report he was given identified him as perceptive along with other categories. The other three were reasonably accurate but the "perceptive" was clearly at odds with his personality. I asked him about this because it was directing him to a whole raft of jobs that just would have driven him mad. he explained that he answered a few of the questions the way he thought he should have answered him rather than how he truly felt. We changed two questions and he then moved into the "judging" category. Remember they are opposite categories with only a single score between them. When he changed two answers the outcome was totally different.

The upshot is that psychologists understand that qualities are not two opposite categories. People are, for example more or less introverted with a million shades between totally introverted to totally extroverted. in fact most people are somewhere in the middle. so splitting people down the middle where one side is extroverted and the other is introverted is totally simplistic and frankly highly inaccurate. But people still pay lots of money for the privilege.

flying phobia: treatment in process

today i had a session with a client who was referred after a very frightening flying experience. She had previously been a very confident international flyer, having flown many many times. after a particulalry turbulant flight with screaming crying and hand holding she has developed a phobic fear of flying.

Some twelve months after the flight she found herself crying and panic just thinking about flying again. Seeing a plan sent her into a panic, imagining flying made her cry and talking about the incident she ended up sobbing.

So we launched into a fairly standard CBT-type program for trauma based avoidance. we began by developing some strong anxiety management skills. She trained herself in relaxation techniques for a few weeks. we talked through the incident every session but then put those techniques into practice.Each week has "homework" that involves taking on a carefully graded challenge.

Well today we past the six session mark and she has made great progress. She has sat for a long day at the international terminal and can easily speak through the incident without tears. We planned a trip to melbourne early next year and she will be scanning the net for bargains. only a few months again she couldn't read about flying without tears.

a bit of good news.

when does an friendship become an affair?

so you have a huge amount in common. you like the same books, tv shows, conversations...you laugh at the same things. You send links, poetry and clips. you write every day but you still only know each other online. you make each other smile and type about the way things might have been, if only....

You never type about sex, never even muse about anything physical. You don't play act or "get out the web cam'" Your relationship is purely an intellectual, non-physical one.

But you look forward to the inbox. You smile when you think of how much you are alike. When your mind wonders during the day it wonders to your online "friend."

when is it "an affair?" When does it "cross the line?" At what point has too much transpired to tell your partner about it? Do you know that line when you see it and cross it?

Does it hurt just as much when it ends?

why does a twelve year old run away from home?

i worry that this blog sees too much of the dark "underbelly" of life, that i report on the failures and mistakes a little to often. I make a pledge that after this one i will resist the urge to write about the trauma and abuse I have way to much to do with.

let me paint a picture: a loving family has migrated from Europe. The parents already have two boys but are yearning for a baby girl. They got the opportunity to adopt a beautiful baby girl when their own boys were around nine and ten years old. The next thing we know our beautiful baby girl has become "uncontrollable." She is angry and anxious and keeps running away. Her parents who love her dearly cannot fathom her behavior. They cannot make sense of this distress when they and the boys love the little girl and care for her. Eventually she was made a ward of the state and sent to a "training" centre for uncontrollable juveniles. Once it was suggested she return home, but she screamed ran away and became so violent she never was returned. No one could figure out why this had happened.

The cause is almost comical it is so obvious in hindsight. No one questioned why a seventeen year old boy would wish to shower his sister. No-one noticed that the door was locked. No one else knew that bath toys were used to "loosen her up" until she was seven when full sexual intercourse took place.

That was the start of a life easy to imagine. Drug abuse, parenting problems, ongoing conflict and only recently a criminal offence related to violence. Hopefully she will be forced to seek treatment and hopefully things will improve.

I wonder if this could possibly happen in 2011. Do we know enough now to ask why? Do we not assume that our beautiful loved boy could do something horrible if not watched? These days do we watch a little closer and ask a bit more? My God I hope so.