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February 02 2017

Friday Factoids: Robots could help solve social care crisis, and evolutionarily destroy the function of our mirror neurons at the same time! (How wonderful?)

International teams of engineers are developing humanoid robots to deal with our ‘social care crisis’.

Tasked with the responsibility to interact with the elderly in care homes, these ‘personal social’ robots will be able to be specifically programed to match the personality type of the people they will be working with. According to a British Broadcasting Communication (BBC) article, “It is hoped the new robots will help improve the well-being of their charges by providing entertainment and enabling them to connect better, through smart appliances, with family and the outside world.”

My question to you is, what would you do if you could build yourself a robot? Posing this very question to an exceptionally scholarly and brilliant 13-year-old girl (and highly favored niece), I attempted to address this issue. According to her, if she had a clone robot, she would have the robot do all her chores and homework, so she could have the free time to, you guessed it, socialize (the sweet irony of an upcoming Generation Z’er). I suppose this is the sentiment shared by most, which is to have technology do our dirty work, like making our food, cleaning up after us, and now doing our Therapy, so we could then have the free time to do what we really want, perhaps connecting with other people.

That is the purpose of technology in theory. In practice however, I am noticing the opposite. As we progress into the information age, where the world is flat; I recognize that people are becoming less connected. Yes, we are coming into contact with more and more people, but we are ‘connecting’ with fewer. Weekly, we are adding to the already hundreds of ‘friends’ we have on Facebook, while grandpa plays chess with a robot. In the information age, our communication is becoming limited to 140 characters tweets or less and Facebook postings of the Panera sandwich and Kale smoothie we had for lunch (because our friends really want to know). Still, we wonder why we feel depressed and lonely.

I have an idea. Maybe we should give grants to engineers to program robots to do our Tweeting, so we could have more time to spend with our grandparents.

Reference
Robots could help solve social care crisis, say academics<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38770516>[http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/16×9/p04r8ghc.jpg

Dianne Rapsey-Vanburen, M.A.
WKPIC Doctoral Intern

February 02 2017

Friday Factoids Catch-Up: If You Want To Be An Effective Therapist, You Should Learn How To Use POTT!!!

Research findings have finally drawn our attention to something tantalizingly useful: the benefits of POTT use among therapist. Even better news, its cost effective, sharing is encouraged and it is totally legal to use in any state at any time of the day. Now before you go running off to throw away that “medicinal” prescription sheet you have been hoarding in your nightstand and cancelling that dream vacation trip to Amsterdam; there is something you should be aware of. “POTT” stands for Person-Of-The-Therapist-Training. A unique training program offered to students, POTT was “designed to facilitate clinicians’ ability to consciously and purposefully use their selves to effectively connect, assess and intervene with clients,” within the treatment process (Nino, Kissil, Cooke, 2016.)

Building on a collective of other research that highlights the importance of the “therapeutic alliance” as being a definitive factor in most treatment successes. Person-Of-The-Therapist-Training aims to foster the therapeutic relationship between client and clinician, by identifying and building on the therapist empathic strengths (i.e. via past personal experiences).

The underlining theme to this body of research seems to be that the most effective asset in therapy is the human asset. The idea that a therapist can draw from his or her past experiences, and effectively transform this energy into highly effective, empathic skills is something of a phenomenon. The concept of the “wounded healer,” has often shown up in various forms of literature, over a vast multitude of disciplines. However, Person-Of-The-Therapist-Training appears to make an effort to capture this elusive dynamic system by packaging it into neat categories, that us clinicians cannot seem to live without, testable data. Whether or not rating and evaluating past personal experiences and training students to be empathic with clients is an actual thing (perhaps you have empathy or you don’t) one thing seems certain. Psychology (and all other related human service fields) is in the business of connecting to people and building relationships. It may not matter what theoretical orientation we come from, or what therapy language we use to convey our understanding and willingness to help someone in need. And since being human is not some part time job that can readily be dismissed, and may possibly be the most effective tool you have when trying to connect with someone in pain. Why not use it. Do we really need research and training, to confirm and teach us that?

Or maybe we could have just saved a ton of time and funding, and just watched the kids movie Kung Fu Panda:

“There is no secret ingredient in the secret ingredient soup….its just you.

References:
Niño, A., Kissil, K., & Cooke, L. (2016). Training for Connection: Students’
Perceptions of the Effects of the Person-of-the-Therapist Training on Their Therapeutic Relationships. Journal Of Marital And Family Therapy, doi:10.1111/jmft.12167

Dianne Rapsey-VanBuren,
WKPIC Intern

January 01 2017

Friday Factoids Catch-Up: City Interns Have Higher Burnout!

City Interns, have higher burnout rates!

Or, one current intern’s shameful –but heartfelt-plug, to incoming interns.

Going through this stressful ordeal only one year ago, I often wondered about the creators of the psychology internship process? Obviously, self-care, mindfulness and mental health were not the cornerstones by which this gem was hatched. The process starts when you are at the final stages of finishing your academic year, in addition to practicum (thankfully no other life exists outside these two realms for us budding psychologists).

Forcefully sucking out any refreshing accomplishment air, you attempt to gasp as you scramble to get your letters of recommendations and essays written before those heart stopping due dates. And as the first official semester break (and I use the term ‘break’ very loosely) approaches, you gather with family and loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving; those infamous letters start arriving! I mean really….Can’t we just at least enjoy a turkey leg in peace, without feeling so relentlessly pressured? I remember thinking about those sites who choose to send their rejection letters the day before, or day of Thanksgiving. Seriously? At least the pilgrims had the heart to offer corn before the big fallout. I simply emotionally bandaged myself up that day, comforted myself (CBT style), bowed my head with the rest of the family at the dinner table, and offered my own secret version of the Thanksgiving prayer: “Dear God, thank you for a bullet well-dodged.”

It is sometimes painful to watch what we psychologist do to each other, in the name of advancement. Not to mention our statisticians and psychometricians who for some reason fail to recall that the holiday seasons usually marks the height of suicide rate among our population and possibly not the best times to send those letters. Perhaps maybe it Freudian-slipped their minds. Nevertheless, we students bear and push through the pain, adding continuous enormous debt as we optimistically back-pack across the nation (again, statistically the worse time of the year for travel) in search of that perfect internship. Relentlessly we attempt to convince ourselves that sweet, peaceful, victory is just around the turn.

And, cue Burnout.

Where does it all end, or does it ever? Here is one article to consider when deciding how much emotional stamina you have left, as you prepare to assess and ultimately rank your internship interview experience: City interns have greater burnout rates.

Apparently the growing number of stress related symptoms reported by graduates seeking mental health services while on internship prompted Doctors in the UK to study the relationship between internship and burnout. What they found is far from any earth shattering enlightenment to our generation, which is, interns sleep less, are more sad and stressed out (simplifying the results to its bare minimum)–especially those interns living in big city, and working in high-paced environments.

Luckily, there are places that offer high quality, APA-accredited internship programs like WKPIC in Kentucky (yes, another shameless plug) that come without the high burnout price tag those big cities bring.

A small start, but definitely something to CBT about.

Reference:
Gallagher, P. (2013). City interns ‘are at greater risk of Burnout’. The Independent Retrieved from https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/docview/1426666006?accountid=34899

Dianne Rapsey-VanBuren,
WKPIC Intern

(Director’s Note: We at WKPIC approve this shameless plug!)

January 01 2017

Friday Factoids Catch-Up: CBT, Anxiety Reduction, and First Episode Psychosis

Did you know that teaching a single day CBT workshop on anxiety reduction techniques and interventions, can significantly help clients with First Episode Psychosis?

A study conducted with clients experiencing First Episode Psychosis with co-morbid anxiety symptoms who were offered a single day CBT workshop on anxiety reduction techniques yielded the following results:

1) Participants reported a lessening of anxious symptoms following intervention; and

2) Participants reported that they “felt they were more likely to make use of the skills in the future.”

This study seems to once again reiterate both the effectiveness and ‘cost benefits’ of CBT, within an ever-shrinking pool of resources within the health care field.

Maybe it is true what they say after all, “teach a man how to fish….”

Welfare-Wilson, Alison; Jones, Amy (2015). A CBT-based anxiety management workshop in first-episode psychosis. British Journal of Nursing, 24(7): 378-382. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.edmc.edu/10.12968/bjon.2015.24.7.378

Dianne Rapsey-VanBuren
WKPIC Doctoral Intern

January 01 2017

Friday Factoids Catch-Up: Kids and Coping

Coping skills are important not only because they allow children to manage their social emotional challenges, they may also contribute to their feelings of connectedness. Success for Kids (SFK) is a program that provides a curriculum for children’s social emotional learning (PR, 2011). Thought this Friday factoid is not an advert for program, programs like SFK bring to the forefront the importance of teaching children, early in life, how to manage the day to day stressors we can encounter, in hopes that it will contribute to their positive decision making later in life.

Programs like SFK highlight the needs for children to learn that coping skills also include facets of communication, problem solving, responsibility, empathy, respect for others, etc.… and cannot be reduced to a simplistic list of tasks like take ten deep breaths or walk away. We have to teach our children the how difficult and nuanced coping can actually be.

Puskar, Sereika and Tusaie-Mumford (2003) explored the effects of another program, Teaching Kids to Cope (TKC). Considering the amount of children that present with signs and symptoms of social emotional challenges, attention to how children are learning to cope in important. This study noted that children enrolled in this program, over time, began not only to identify strategies “to decrease the intensity of emotional reactivity and depressive thoughts” (p. 78) they also began to explore and openly discuss other related issues that emerged.

Though these are two of the many programs that are available across our country, the take home message is that being proactive in teaching our children how to cope may have a positive effect in their overall ability to manage stressors as they transition from childhood in to adolescence and adulthood.

PR, N. (2011, January 26). Social Emotional Learning Key to Helping Children and Adolescents Develop Purpose, Connectedness and Coping Skills. PR Newswire US.

Puskar, K., Sereika, S., & Tusaie-Mumford, K. (2003). Effect of the Teaching Kids to Cope (TKC) program on outcomes of depression and coping among rural adolescents. Journal Of Child And Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing: Official Publication Of The Association Of Child And Adolescent Psychiatric Nurses, Inc, 16(2), 71-80

Jennifer Roman, M.A.
WKPIC Doctoral Intern

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Friday Factoids Catch-Up: If You Want To Be An Effective Therapist, You Should Learn How To Use POTT!!!

Friday Factoids Catch-Up: City Interns Have Higher Burnout!

Friday Factoids Catch-Up: CBT, Anxiety Reduction, and First Episode Psychosis

Friday Factoids Catch-Up: Kids and Coping

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