Psychful

I (re)learned a valuable lesson yesterday involving the importance of good communication between therapist and patient. It’s humbling to have to relearn things that you know intuitively as well as learned through long professional experience. The humility should serve me well. Humility has a way of doing that. 

After training a seven year old boy with severe ADHD for about 12 sessions with neurofeedback, I was discouraged by the lack of progress that was reported by his mother. My solution was to change the reward frequency I had been using in his training. Instead of remaining in the infralow frequency range (.0001 Hz), the current iteration of the Othmer Method of neurofeedback, I raised his reward to 7 Hz based on the recommendation of a colleague who reported success in many cases of treating ADHD with this intervention. The youngster was unaware of the frequency change and continued to sit comfortably watching “Barnyard” on the computer monitor with the EEG leads on his scalp.

This particular boy had been on Concerta for the last 2 1/2 years, and as is often the case, the effectiveness of the prescription medication had waned to the point where he had regressed to engaging in dangerously impulsive behavior. That is what triggered the call for my neurofeedback services from his mother.

I knew I should share my intervention with his mother so that she could be attentive to any symptom changes or possible side effects from the change in reward frequency.  I told mother about the change and explained my reasoning was based on the lukewarm treatment progress she had reported to date. Mother replied with an apology. She had not intended me to interpret her reports of progress as being limited in scope. This was her first experience with neurofeedback and she had no basis for comparison.  She had only my initial presentation of the possible treatment outcomes for training away symptoms of ADHD using neurofeedback.

I decided to inquire a little deeper to better assess her report of her son’s treatment progress.

(Me) I understand that when your son began using Concerta he quickly showed a tremendous positive response to the medication.  What percentage of that initially great medication response was lost by the time you called me for neurofeedback?

(Mom) About a 75% loss. It was so much that he was engaging in dangerously impulsive behavior, like riding his bicycle out into traffic at major intersections of busy streets without my knowledge. This was happening even when he was taking the medication.

(Me) Since we have been training him with neurofeedback, what percentage gain would you estimate he has made towards that originally good response he got from the medication?

(Mom) 60-75%.

(Me) Your saying that in these 12 sessions of neurofeedback your son’s symptoms of ADHD have remitted to nearly the point he was at when he first started the Concerta?

(Mom) Yes.

Glad I asked! I had been interpreting her someone stoic appearance and cautious reports of treatment progress as being lukewarm and needing an intervention to increase the effectiveness of the the neurofeedback.  But making a 60-75% improvement in symptom reduction with a few weeks of neurofeedback training was hardly lukewarm!

Mom had tried withholding the Concerta on a weekend day and her son, quite naturally at this point, responded by becoming wholly undisciplined. His treatment progress while on medication reveals the fact that significant measurable changes are possible in treating children with ADHD using neurofeedback even while they are on prescription medication.

Now I will need to evaluate the merit of changing that reward frequency. We weren’t doing so bad after all!

It should come as no surprise that American tobacco companies have lied to the public for decades. They denied that cigarette smoking was addictive, that they manipulated the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to hook smokers, and they lied about the lethal consequences of cigarette smoking. The truth: Smoking kills 1,200 Americans. Every day.

Now the Justice Department wants the tobacco industry to advertise these facts about tobacco as part of a legal settlement. Unable to win financial penalties in the billions, the Justice Department seeks a court order to force the tobacco industry to advertise their sins, just as Hester Prynne wore her scarlet letter in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic. The Justice Department has submitted 14 proposed statements for U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler to approve. Among them:

A federal court is requiring tobacco companies to tell the truth about cigarette smoking. Here’s the truth:…Smoking kills 1,200 Americans. Every day.

For decades, we denied that we controlled the level of nicotine delivered in cigarettes. Here’s the truth: …We control nicotine delivery to create and sustain smokers’ addiction, because that’s how we keep customers coming back.

We told Congress under oath that we believed nicotine is not addictive. We told you that smoking is not an addiction and all it takes to quit is willpower. Here’s the truth: Smoking is very addictive. And it’s not easy to quit.

The Surgeon General has concluded that children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems and more severe asthma.

The story reported by Pete Yost of the Associated Press includes several other proposed statements to be used in the advertising campaign. Of course, through legal wrangling, the enforced penitence of the tobacco industry may never see the light of day.

What this legal matter does reflect is the massive decades-long campaign of lies to the public by an enormous private industry. Government estimates are that 435,000 people die each year due to the effects of tobacco smoking. We spend billions of dollars a year to finance wars against other countries who may, or may not, have attacked us on 911 causing 3,000 deaths. But every day we lose 1,200 people to the effects of smoking tobacco.

As Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway detail in their excellent book, Merchants of Doubt, it took only a few well-paid scientists to assist the tobacco companies in their massive campaign of distortion and lies about the real science behind tobacco. When big companies want to distort the truth for profit, they will find the few professionals needed to report distorted evidence to make their case to the unsuspecting public.  It was done for decades by the tobacco industry, and it is being done today by other multi-national corporations.

Few citizens have the time, persistence or desire to cull through scientific research and accurately assess the veracity of claims made by corporations who have a profit to make. As a result, reporters and other critically thinking individuals need to tediously discover the truth and make those truths known to whoever is listening. Are you listening?

Whether you’re aware or not, we are all drowning. The world is drowning, in information. The once remote ice caps of knowledge are melting and oceans of information are rising across our planet. As our friends at ShiftHappens report in their videos Did You Know? 2.0 and 4.0:

One million books are published worldwide each year.

130 million blogs and one trillion web pages now exist on the Internet.

More exabytes of unique information will be generated this year than in the previous 5000 years.

It is impossible for anyone, or any organization, to distill the collective wisdom from this unyielding flow of information. It’s more than Wikipedia can handle.

We cannot stem the tide of new information. For our very survival, as individuals, nations and as a planet, we must do what humans have done for millennia; we must adapt. Adaptation in this information-rich environment requires learning new skills.

Learning these skills means our process of education must change. Memorizing selected data points from the waves of evolving knowledge can no longer constitute “education.” Education must place less emphasis on mental data storage and more on data discernment, developing the cognitive skills to separate informational wheat from chaff. When faced with oceans of data, two skills are essential: the ability to find needed information, and the ability to assess the value of the information. Google may facilitate the search, but discerning the value of information is the skill of critical thinking.

Critical thinking has been defined as “reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do” (Ennis, 1995), and “the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it” (Paul & Elder, 2002). Both definitions emphasize a conscious cognitive skill developed through practice. The mental sloth of uncritical thinking is often biased, uninformed or prejudiced. To be educated today, to avoid drowning in the data, we must literally learn to think, to develop the cognitive discipline of critical thinking.

One of the simplest ways to begin critical thinking is to ask questions, and one of the most basic questions is, “how do you know”? How do you know what is accurate and reliable information? How do you know if something you read on the Internet or see on television is free from bias? If you are unfamiliar with a topic, how do you know who to trust in reporting that topic? You may be able to readily access information, but how do you know that it is good information? To better understand the critical need for critical thinking, consider just one area of concern; the effect of media bias on politics.

Media Bias in Politics

All of the information we attempt to understand today is presented to us through various media: newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, radio, television, You Tube, etc. None of these media are free from bias. All media have a target audience, and in order to be popular with their target audience, all media naturally focus their news and information towards their audience demographic. In the political domain, liberal or progressive media focus their “news” to those on the left, while conservative media slant their information so that it is palatable to consumers on the right.

Walter Cronkite was once considered the most trusted newsman in America. Now it’s Jon Stewart. Television shows like Fox’s O’Reilly Factor and MSNBC’s former show Countdown with Keith Olbermann have abandoned objectivity for advocacy. They purposely provide passionate news with a slant their audience finds appealing, stimulating their base much like a football team stimulates the passion of its fans. The goal of advocacy journalism is less to inform, more to overwhelm, to beat the other side in a news ratings contest.

Even mainstream journalists tend to focus their assumptions, point of view and conclusions to fit a narrative consistent with the perspective of their audience and culture. At one time in our history the media discussed slavery in rational, naturalistic terms. The same U.S. media that repeatedly condemned Nazi atrocities in World War II barely mentioned the 200,000 civilians killed in Hiroshima by a U.S. atomic bomb. As Paul & Elder note, all journalists intuitively select terms to reflect the perspective of their audience:

“We plan…they plot. We have convictions…they are fanatics. We build weapons to defend ourselves…they build weapons to threaten us. We intervene…they invade. We are freedom-fighters…they are terrorists.”

If journalists failed to provide this familiar sociocentric perspective, their audience would accuse them of being tainted, biased, or unprofessional. It appears that in our capitalistic system, media bias is here to stay. Now there’s a critical need for critical thinking.

For some reason the “controversial” article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in January 2010 has not had much effect on the practice of prescribing medications for depression. In summary, the JAMA study reported:

“Antidepressant medications represent the best established treatment for major depressive disorder, but there is little evidence that they have a specific pharmacological effect relative to pill placebo for patients with less severe depression.”

A fairly rigorous study published in one of the most prestigious medical journals tells us that antidepressants are the way to go even if they are no better than sugar pills. With US sales rising to nearly $10 billion in 2009, it is clear that antidepressants are here to stay despite being what Sharon Begley of Newsweek has called “expensive Tic Tacs”. Despite Irving Kirsch’s 1998 and 2002 studies revealing antidepressants were only marginally better than placebo, the number of Americans taking antidepressants doubled from 1996 to 2005. Science is rarely deterred by conflicting evidence when billions of dollars are at stake.

Ask most television viewers what causes depression and you are likely to get a reply that mimics the ubiquitous ads run by the pharmaceutical industry: it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain that needs to be corrected with medications. This theory, which dates back to the 1960s, has changed little over the years and continues to drive the search for medications to treat depression. And it is wrong.

As Kirsch and others have shown, the chemical imbalance theory of depression is only a “useful metaphor”, a phrase attributed to Wayne Goodman while chair of the FDA psychopharmacologic advisory committee in 2005. If depression is the result of low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, as is suggested by popular SSRI antidepressants like Prozac, then why does the French antidepressant Stablon (tianeptine) work equally well by lowering serotonin levels in the brain?  You can’t have it both ways.

Kirsch makes a good case that whatever benefit is realized by taking antidepressants can be explained as being a placebo effect.  All FDA-approved medications must be shown to be more effective than an inert placebo (sugar pill) in at least two trials in order to receive the FDA’s seal of approval.  Kirsch’s studies reveal that antidepressants barely meet the mark when the studies are carefully examined.

What none of the pharmaceutical studies are required to do is show a benefit over an active placebo. If you give one group of depressed patients an antidepressant and another group an inert placebo, only one group is likely to respond with side-effects. But if you give one group an antidepressant while giving the other group an active placebo, like an antihistamine which causes side effects but has no antidepressant properties, the antidepressant won’t show any benefit over the placebo. Side effects tell the subjects in the study they got the “real” pill, and they are more likely to report “real” benefits.

The truth is we are not yet clear on what causes depression and so we are limited in our methods to correct the condition. The stress model of depression has been recently challenged in animal studies at Northwestern while further debunking the chemical imbalance theory of depression. Only further research and critical thinking will enable us to break free of the dominant theoretical models promoted for financial gain by a wealthy pharmaceutical industry. Who else can afford to pay for research like this? In the mean time, we will likely follow the advice of Adolph Hitler: “If you wish the sympathy of broad masses then you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things.”  Hold on, America.

Craig Ferguson’s new documentary “Inside Job” makes the “Wall Street” character Gordon Gekko look like a chump. The so-called bankers in our country today have acquired what Gordon Gekko could only imagine: unprecedented wealth while producing nothing of value.

Wall Street “bankers” have evolved into aristocratic bookies who set the odds and gamble with the life savings of millions of the world’s citizens. They produce nothing tangible, no product or service that the mass consumer can acquire. They simply repackage overrated loans for investors seeking a reasonable return on investment. Because of the deceit of the bankers and rating agencies, the AAA-rated “investments” eventually explode leaving investors, home owners and retirees holding nothing of value while the “bankers” reap billions in bonuses for a job well done.

Those who dismiss “Inside Job” as a leftist propaganda film fail to consider the truths it contains.  The disparity between the wealthy and the poor in the US has grown dramatically since 1980. The near extinct middle class, now represented by the few remaining labor unions, has only a marginal voice in national politics. The growth of too-big-to-fail businesses has resulted in an aristocratic tail wagging the nation’s dog.  And our increasingly polarized political system only displays bipartisanship when supporting the continued rise of the fiscal elite.

Anyone who dares to challenge this growing wealthism will likely be branded socialist or communist.  The simplest way to dispute critical thinking is through fallacies and inflammatory labels.  But for those who bother to look beneath the facade of modern “banking”, you will discover a terrifying and increasingly corrupt system destined to repeat a bubble bursting history that could eventually take down this country and its position in the world.

As “Inside Job” reveals, the 2008 crisis was foreseeable as is the economic future fueled by wealthism.

Central to each person’s psychological health is the concept of respect. Respect is one of those common concepts that nearly everyone can describe.  If I ask a big-city gang member or a Baptist minister, both will agree that respect is important to human beings and critical for social relations.  Their definitions of what constitutes respect may differ, but they both understand the concept, and they know it when they see it.  It is worth understanding respect in more detail.

For our purposes, there are basically three types of respect; self-respect, respect for others, and respect from others. People who manifest good psychological health appear to practice all three types of respect.  Those with poorer mental and emotional health may suffer in the healthy application of the three types.

Self-Respect

Basic self-respect is critical for a person’s psychological well-being.  Sometimes called self-worth, self-concept, self-regard, or simple pride, self-respect is the basic sense of being a good and decent person.  This means that out of self-respect I live my life in a healthy manner.  I practice good physical health, good emotional health, and good social health.  I avoid excesses, and I live with dignity. I look out for me in a healthy way because I respect myself.

Self-respect can be considered along a continuum from very low levels of self-respect on one end to excessively high levels of self-respect on the other end.  On the low end of self-respect we may find people who lack confidence, who neglect themselves, and who are dependent on others for their feelings of worth or basic respect.  Lacking self-respect can be so painful that these individuals may numb their painful feelings with alcohol, drugs, sexual activity, or risk-taking.

On the other end of the self-respect continuum are those people who appear to have enormous self-respect but may be compensating as well.  These individuals may appear overly confident, boastful, and arrogant.  They may act as though laws and rules do not apply to them or that they deserve greater attention and admiration in social or business settings.  They may feel they are worth more than others and somehow entitled to be treated as superior individuals. This excessive self-respect may reflect narcissism at its finest.

Somewhere in the middle of the self-respect continuum are those psychologically healthy individuals who believe they are basically good and decent people, no more and no less.

Respect For Others

If it is good for each of us to have a healthy sense of personal self-respect, then it logically follows that other people are entitled to a similar benefit.  If I have good self-respect, then I must respect others as well. This is the basic healthy position popularized in 1969 by the book, “I’m OK, You’re OK”. To believe differently is hypocritical, or a sign of prejudice or psychological impairment.

By showing respect for others, I affirm my own self-respect.  It’s following the Golden Rule.  If it’s good for me, it’s good for you.  Anything less suggests there is a problem.

If I fail to respect others, perhaps I am acting hypocritically, not practicing what I preach. Perhaps I am not good at managing my emotions and tend to snap back at others when I perceive the slightest of insults.  If I am too sensitive to criticism from others, perhaps my self-respect is wanting.  If I feel superior to others and demonstrate less respect for them, perhaps I am compensating by maintaining an excessively high sense of self-respect.

It is not unusual for individuals who lack self-respect to have excessive respect for others, feeling unworthy of respect in return but able to demonstrate respect for others.  This is not a sign of psychological health.  If others repeatedly behave in a manner that we cannot respect, we may lose respect for them, “fall out of love with them”, and begin to emotionally or physically withdraw from them.  They may then need to ‘earn’ back the respect we once had for them.

Respect From Others

If we have basic self-respect, and we show basic respect to others, then it follows that we will not tolerate disrespect from others.  If I allow another to be disrespectful to me, then I am not acting with self-respect.  The problem, of course, is that I cannot force others to treat me with respect.  Attempting to do that would be disrespectful to others.  Yelling at another, “Stop being disrespectful to me!” is hardly being respectful and violates the Golden Rule. The challenge is to insist on being treated with respect from others, and if that respect is not forthcoming, to withdraw from the abusive treatment.

If I am in a restaurant and the waiter appears to be providing poor service by being inattentive to my needs as a customer, I can attempt to get his attention and repeat my request for service.  If the waiter ignores my request, then I may need to speak with the manager, or simply leave the restaurant and not soon return.  I cannot make the waiter treat me with respect, but I can practice assertiveness in a respectful manner in an attempt to achieve respect from the waiter.

If I am in an intimate or family relationship with someone who is disrespectful to me, I am obligated, out of self-respect, to try to correct the disrespectful behavior.  If my acquaintance is yelling at me I may indicate we need to take a time-out from our unproductive conflict and allow reason to return.  If the other will not stop yelling or being otherwise disrespectful, I may need to leave the scene until reason can return.  Allowing someone to treat me with disrespect reflects a lack of self-respect.

If I allow myself to become angry and yell back, I have fallen into a trap: two wrongs don’t make a right.  By yelling back I have failed to manage my own emotions, failed to consider the other person’s point of view, and failed to show the respect I am insisting on from the other.  Little good will come from such an unproductive conflict.

By becoming aware of the three types of respect in everyday life and practicing all three types, we have an actionable way to improve our own psychological health as well as contribute to the health of others.

Aftermath of St Valentine's Day massacre 1929, courtesy Wikipedia

Sadly we will always have people who decide to do dangerous or unhealthy things. Emphasis here is on the word “always”. No amount of prohibitionist legislation will free society from the thrill of temptation, or the quest for variety.  Even now as several states contemplate referenda about decriminalizing marijuana, a new cry is heard for outlawing the recent fad among drug users, herbal incense. The herbal concoction laced with synthetic cannabinoid is simply the next in a litany of products that will forever be pursued by those who wish to alter their mental state by ingesting chemicals. Because there is a rise of emergency room admissions from smokers of the incense, the prohibitionists in the US and several other countries are now clamoring for criminal penalties to prevent the possession and use of this potentially dangerous substance. Last century we prohibited alcohol by the 18^th Amendment to the US Constitution and fourteen years later passed the 21^st Amendment to repeal our failed attempt at Prohibition. This was our nation’s only repeal of a constitutional amendment.

We have regulatory agencies that, if properly funded, could do a better job of insuring that products sold in our country did not contain truly dangerous chemicals in their composition. By regulating the production of commercial products designed to alter one’s state, the most dangerous aspect of drug abuse could be prevented, that being the consumption of poison. Prohibitionists want to skip that step and go straight to criminalization so that unwary drug users can then be arrested and sent to overcrowded courts and prisons to make an example to others who would consume these products.  That worked so well in the 1920s it’s worth repeating.  Criminalization is the quick fix to social problems, and like most other quick fixes, it doesn’t work and creates even bigger problems.

Politicians and the simple-minded are the proponents of prohibition.  For politicians it is an easy sell to those who simplistically think using drugs is bad and should then be outlawed.  This is, unfortunately, a sizable portion of our electorate. Politicians are then perceived as protecting society and they can move on to other pressing issues.  Complex issues can be dangerous for politicians as evidenced by our recent foray into healthcare reform.  Politicians and the simple-minded just want to say “no” to the would-be drug users and allow legal consequences to guide the decisions of the citizenry. They continue their linear thinking by later funding more police to enforce the expanding criminal drug problem, more courts to prosecute the abusers, and more prisons to house the easily convicted. And the electorate is later outraged by the need to raise taxes to pay for this prohibition.

Every night on the evening news we are reminded of politicians’ contribution to protecting society with graphic stories of arrests, shootings among drug dealers, and human interest stories of the innocent being killed in collateral damage.  And none of this news would exist each night if they had not first criminalized possession and distribution of the chemicals. The St. Valentine’s Day massacre of 1929 affected the public’s perception that Prohibition might not be working. Perhaps this is what will be needed to bring 21^st century America to its senses.

Nothing can be simpler, or more difficult than apology.  For minor slights, a quick and clear, “I’m sorry” may be all it takes to begin healing the hurt you caused.  When the hurt is more severe, then we move into a different realm of apology.

Most of us men and women (mostly men) could stand to do a much better job with apology.  It’s not complicated, but it is something we don’t often see well done.  We may not have seen our parents make heartfelt apologies to one another in times of need.  There are not many good examples to follow in the media, especially on television.  Occasionally a good romantic movie will demonstrate a dramatic and loving apology by the main (male) character.  But these “chick-flicks” are rarely watched by guys, with interest.

Apology, the “A” part in the LEAP formula for Healing Hurts can be learned by anyone who is motivated to develop this skill.  Even guys.  As a male marriage and family therapist for over thirty years, I have had plenty of occasions to intervene with couples who are stuck in hurt from poor attempts at healing.  I’ve learned it is possible to teach someone how to apologize effectively.

Before we cover the steps involved in making a good apology we must first consider your motivation in making the apology.  If you have really hurt your loved one, intentionally or unintentionally, and you want to do the right thing to help heal this wound, you’re off to a good start.  If you have screwed up again and just want her to get over it, then there’s a motivation problem, and the following steps will not work for you.  Think it over, big guy.  What’s more important, remaining cool, detached, in control and losing the love of your partner, or letting go of your emotional armor and letting your empathy shine through to the one you love?  I know what the female readers are thinking.

Fueled by sincere motivation to do the right thing, a full and complete apology for major hurts consists of five steps: Admission, Sorrow, Change, Request, Thanks.  Sorry, I can think of no good acronym for these steps; you’re on your own.

Admission

Letting down your emotional shield means making a sincere admission of what you did wrong.  You may have learned this by following the Listen and Empathize steps listed previously.  Keep it short and sweet and to the point.  Don’t wander; you’ll be more likely to get into explaining or justifying what you did, which is not a good plan.  This is where you say, “I was wrong when I….” Insert your understanding of what it was you did that hurt your loved one.  If you did a good job listening to her pain, you will know the correct answer for this statement.  If you didn’t listen well, then you will have trouble successfully completing this statement, and she will confirm that by her reaction to your lousy admission.  Non-admissions include, “What’s the big deal?”, “I don’t see what you’re so upset about”, and “Baby, can’t you just get over it?.”  These are not statements of admission for having done wrong, and these statements will not help healing; they will be just another emotional wound.

Sorrow

After having expressed accurate understanding of the hurt you have caused, you may now express your sorrow.  Here is where you say, “I am sorry” with no add-ons.  “I am sorry, but…” is a trap; don’t go there.  Adding a “but” to the end of an apology destroys the apology, just as adding “but” to the end of a compliment destroys the compliment (“You look real pretty today, but…”). Non-sorrow statements include, “OK, OK, I’m sorry”, and “Sorry. There, I said it, OK?”  Again, these are just more hurts piled on top of the original offense, and may explain why your loved one has handed you this article to read.

Change

First time offenses may not need a statement of change following the sorrow message.  But if you have hurt your loved one badly, or if this is not the first time you have hurt her in this way, just making another nice apology may not create the trust that things will be different in the future.  What is said here depends on the circumstances of the situation.  A decent general statement of change might be “I don’t ever want to hurt you this way again.  I will do better.” Non-change statements include “I couldn’t help it”, “That’s just the way I am”, and “It will never happen again.”  Never say never.

Request

If you have really harmed your loved one, and followed the previous steps properly, it may then be necessary to request forgiveness.  After all, your motive for making this artful apology is really two-fold; you want your loved one to heal (not scar) and you want to be forgiven.  Examples of good requests for forgiveness include, “Will you forgive me?”, or, if you need to hedge your bets a little, “I hope you will be able to forgive me.” Non-requests include, “I’ll be glad when you get over this”, and “Cheer up, will you?”

Thanks

If you have hurt your loved one so deeply to need to request forgiveness, and as a result of your artful apology she does forgive you, be big enough to thank her for her forgiveness.  Her forgiveness is her gift to you.  Your expression of thanks is a gift back to her.  A simple “Thanks for being honest with me” because she explained her pain and gave you the keys to a successful apology may be helpful and bring a little closure to this apology process.  Ending it with a sarcastic “Thanks a lot!” is not indicated.

So what do you think?  Does this help?

I admit I was dragged kicking and screaming to Facebook by my old friend @JodiUnderhill. I had heard about it, regarded it as a young person’s fancy, and avoided it until Jodi persisted and won. Now, of course, I thank Jodi for her persistence. I enjoy connecting with old friends and family members, seeing regular photo updates of my grandson, planning reunions, and sharing my photos and videos with those who may be interested. I learn of the interests of my friends and family and stay better connected than I could by using email and the phone. Not bad for free.

Having sipped from social media, and enjoying the taste, I eventually investigated this even more inscrutable phenomenon, Twitter. No one dragged me here; I went on my own. I had the common bad impressions of people “tweeting” they were at lunch or on the toilet, 140 character snippets of baseless narcissism, but why the tremendous growth, I wondered. It had to be more than a simple extension of Facebook.

Now I know. Take whatever interests you have; politics, favorite authors, topics of interest, favorite magazines, hobbies, and yes, even the President and movie stars. Now imagine being able to directly connect with these sources, without the need of “friending” and receive instantaneous updates about these areas of personal interest, 24-7. And not only do they update your interests in very brief posts, they provide links for more information, photos and sometimes videos to expand what they are tweeting. Again, not bad for free.

So I invite my boomer companions to consider Twitter. It is simple to sign up, and if you are confused at all by the process or language, there is plenty of help available online, for free, or you can spring for a copy of  Twitter for Dummies. Soon you will understand [Pls RT – Petition to @msnbc to reinstate @KeithOlbermann has exploded – have u signed? Help them get to 300,000 http://mmflint.me/aKOwch] to mean today filmmaker Michael Moore is asking me to retweet (send this message to my followers) and then click on his link to cast my “vote” to encourage MSNBC to return Keith Olbermann back to his TV show. Your personal politics aside, this is communication, information, and action unparalleled in history. If you’re not interested in a tweet, you simply read the next one in your areas of interest.

As a result of my limited time on Twitter, I find I read fewer newspapers, watch less political news on TV, and I am better informed than ever. I have a constant stream of information from a variety of psychology professionals from around the globe providing me links to journal articles, blogs, and other sources of information to read or view. I can tell that in time I will become friends with some of these new “colleagues” of mine, and the only place we’ve met is on Twitter.

Social media is here to stay, dear boomers. You can cling to your home phone and newspapers, but you’re getting further behind everyday. If you’ve had the courage to try Facebook, consider Twitter.

In apology, timing is crucial.  Offered too early, you appear anxious for her to “get over it” and move beyond her present hurt. You may have overlooked the source of the problem in an effort to quickly gain relief from your misdeed.  Apology offered too late may appear to be reluctant resignation.  Having found no other way to resolve the hurt you “throw in the towel” as a final step designed to end the ongoing grievance.  Either way, your apology appears insincere and fails to achieve any healing, or forgiveness.  Her likely reply, “You’re not sorry.”