Friday Factoids: Imposter Syndrome

Although the imposter phenomenon is not an official diagnosis listed in the DSM, it is a very real form of intellectual self-doubt that can significantly impact one’s social and emotional well-being. Further, imposter feelings are often accompanied by anxiety and depression.

 

Imposter Syndrome is a fear of being discovered or unmasked. Many graduate students question whether or not they are prepared or truly worthy of doing the work that they are tasked to do. Often the work is being done well but the pervasive feelings of self-doubt, fraudulence, and insecurity dismiss successes and chalk it up to timing, luck, or a divine intervention. Imposter feelings often presents when students question how they ever got accepted into graduate school or matched through the stressful APPIC process. These students often view everyone else as a better candidate and continue to worry they don’t belong.

 

The following are ways to overcome imposter feelings while learning to acknowledge your strengths:

  1. Learn to accept praise.
  2. Create a visual tally of your accomplishments.
  3. Process your feelings of anxiety and inadequacies through journaling, and/or talking to trusted others.
  4. STOP FEELING LIKE A FRAUD AND ENJOY YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS!

 

Georgetta Harris-Wyatt, MS
WKPIC Doctoral Intern

 

Friday Factoids: Good Gifts vs. Bad Gifts!

Can giving your significant other an undesirable gift impact the relationship? Research says yes, if the person receiving the gift is a male.

 

Men felt less similar than the gift giver when the giver was both a new acquaintance or a significant other.  The receipt of an undesirable gift also negatively impacted the men’s view of the relationship.

 

Women, on the other hand, saw no change in similarities when they received an undesirable gift from a new acquaintance. However, when the undesirable gift was received from a significant other, the perceived similarities and view of the relationship increased. It is suggested that this occurs because women feel the need to guard the relationship, even when they do not do so intentionally.

 

Women reported that they too believed that receiving an undesirable gift would impact their view of the relationship in a negative way, just like the men.

 

They were wrong!

 

References
Dunn, E. W., Huntsinger, J., Lun, J., & Sinclair, S. (2008). The Gift of Similarity: How Good and Bad Gifts Influence Relationships. Social Cognition, 26(4), 469-481. doi:10.1521/soco.2008.26.4.469

 

 

Crystal Henson, MA
Doctoral Intern

 

 

Friday Factoids: Keeping the Magic of Santa

 

 

Around age of 6-9 years, children begin to question the idea of Santa Claus. Suddenly, rather than asking questions to learn more about “Santa’s magic,” they begin asking questions regarding the plausibility of Santa. It is around this age that children become skeptical of the stories they have been told. How is it possible for him to visit every house in the world in just one night? How can he fit down the chimney?

 

As children develop conceptual abilities, the stories of Santa Claus no longer seem plausible. For some children, this can be validating in that they have confirmed their perception of reality. For others, it can lead to anger about being “lied to” by adults. The acceptance of this new reality doesn’t have to be a negative experience. Explaining your idea about the spirit of Santa Claus and allowing your child to participate in creating the “magic” for others can help create a smooth transition to this new line of thinking.

 

 

Shtulman, A., & Yoo, R. I. (2015). Childrens understanding of physical possibility constrains their belief in Santa Claus. Cognitive Development, 34, 51-62. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.12.006

 

When Your Child Asks, Is Santa Real? (2016, July 17). Retrieved November 27, 2017, from https://psychcentral.com/lib/when-your-child-asks-is-santa-real/

 

Crystal Henson, MA
Doctoral Intern

 

Friday Factoids: Altruism–Is It Innate Or Taught?

Research has shown that altruism increases positive feelings. Many parents often wonder how they can increase their child’s empathy and kind behavior. There has been some debate as to whether this is a characteristic that individuals are born with or learn from their environments.

 

Numerous studies have shown that children as young as 1 year old can be observed participating in altruistic acts, suggesting that this was an innate ability. However, more recently there have been studies completed showing that children aged 1 – 4 years showed participation in more altruistic acts when they had recently been involved in reciprocal play. This implied that children who are exposed to others who help them, or are in environments where they observe others helping each other, are more likely to engage in benevolent behavior.

 

If you want to increase a child’s number of altruistic acts, you can increase the number of reciprocal acts they are involved in with others.  Children who observe environments where reciprocity is taking place are more likely to pick up on social cues that someone may benefit from their “help.” However, children who received material reinforcement for their helping behavior were less likely to continue the behavior in the absence of a tangible reward, regardless of the environment. Children should be exposed to others being kind to one another in an attempt to increase the likelihood that will continue to show kindness to others just because it feels good.

 

References
Barragan, R. C., & Dweck, C. S. (2014). Rethinking natural altruism: Simple reciprocal interactions trigger children’s benevolence: Fig. 1. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(48), 17071-17074. doi:10.1073/pnas.1419408111

 

Warneken, F. “The Development of Altruistic Behavior: Helping in Children and Chimpanzees.” Social Research: An International Quarterly, vol. 80 no. 2, 2013, pp. 431-442. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/528213.

 

Crystal Henson, MA
Doctoral Intern

 

 

Article Review: Bach, P., & Hayes, S. C. (2002). The use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to prevent the rehospitalization of psychotic patients: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 70, 1129-1138. Harris, R. (2009). ACT made simple.

If you work at an acute inpatient psychiatric hospital, you will see familiar faces as patients are readmitted.   It’s an evitable occurrence.  When this happens you can do one of two things, either continue with the same treatment approach or go back to the drawing boards and find new evidence based treatment techniques.

 

One new up and coming therapeutic approach that can be used in an inpatient psychiatric hospital is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).  ACT is a part of the third wave behavioral movement that focuses on allowing the client to take action in his or her own life (Harris, 2009).   In ACT, rather than focusing on solely reducing symptoms of the psychopathology the client will work to increase his or her positive psychological skills using techniques of defusion, mindfulness, and acceptance.  ACT therapy frequently uses metaphors to describe new skills such as placing all thoughts of a leave floating down a stream when discussing the topic of defusion.

 

Bach and Hayes (2002) sought out to determine if a brief version of ACT could reduce the number of hospitalizations of psychotic patients along with reducing the believability of the symptoms as reported by the patients.  The researchers conducted a randomized control study with 80 patients who were readmitted to a state psychiatric hospital.  All patients either reported experiencing delusions or hallucinations.  Individuals were excluded from the study if they had a diagnosis of a substance-induced psychosis, severe intellectual disability, or neurocognitive disorder (Bach & Hayes, 2002).  The study collected several different data items including the number of readmissions a patient had for a four month period following discharge, the frequency of symptoms, distress related to those positive symptoms, and self-reported reliability of symptoms.

 

Study participants were divided into two groups: treatment as usual (TAU) or treatment as usual with brief ACT therapy (TAU+ ACT).   Those in the TAU group received medication, attended at least three group therapy sessions a week, and had the chance to receive individual therapy once a week (Bach & Hayes, 2002).  In the TAU+ACT group, patients received four ACT therapy sessions with a psychology intern (see psychology interns can do a lot while on internship).  Each of the ACT therapy sessions lasted approximately 45 minutes.  During the first therapy session, patients were provided with an overview of ACT, how the patient had managed positive symptoms in the past, and learning to defuse from thought (Bach & Hayes, 2002).  Each additional session took place approximately 72 hours after the previous session.  The second session focused on accepting the positive symptoms by discussing how past attempts to control these symptoms lead to additional distress.  In the third session, the patient began exploring his or her own personal values and goals for life.  When looking at their values, the patient had the opportunity to see how past attempts to manage positive symptoms hindered reaching those goals. The final session was a review session to discuss how the patient could use the skills when discharged.

 

The study found that just four individual ACT therapy session was enough to reduce the rate of rehospitalization by 50% for a group of patients who were considered to be severely mentally ill (Bach and Hayes, 2002).  Additionally, the study found that those who received ACT therapy were more likely to report their symptoms to others, which aided in the patients being able to stay out of the hospital.  Furthermore, both study groups reported similar levels of frequency and distress associated with positive symptoms; however, the TAU+ACT group reported lower levels of believability in those symptoms than the TAU group.  This shows that even if the symptoms were still present that patients were able to understand that the symptom content was not reality-based.  By understanding that the positive symptoms were not reality-based, the patients were then able to turn their focus to more effective coping skills.

 

So before you become frustrated the next time you see that familiar face being readmitted take the time to look at different therapeutic approaches because you never know what will work until you try it.

 

References
Bach, P., & Hayes, S. C. (2002). The use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to prevent the rehospitalization of psychotic patients: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology70, 1129-1138.

 

Harris, R. (2009). ACT made simple. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

 

 

Anissa Pugh, MA LPA
WKPIC Doctoral Intern