I have seen enough episodes to ask the question, “Why?”

What draws people to watch faithfully every week or watch every series every week? What satisfaction is had by watching women backstab each other, trash-talk each other behind each other’s backs, steal each other’s men, lie and manipulate others for attention, and flaunt their excessive lifestyles?

In short, what is to be gained by watching women treat each other so poorly?

This type of show seems only to feed the drama and stereotypes often associated with female friendships. Somehow it has become “entertaining” to watch women beat each other up mentally, emotionally, and in some cases physically each week in the “entertainment” boxing ring.

In an effort to learn more about the appeal of the “Real Housewives” antics, I started to wonder if those addicted to the show related in any way because of their own real-life friendships. Do the most loyal fans watch to find out why these women behave the way the do, or do they watch because they can resonate with them or find aspects about the “characters” they relate to or even secretly admire in some cases? Loyal fans have their favorites and in most cases fans seem to be drawn to the most outrageous, vindictive, and despicable woman among the group.

Some fans argue they watch the show because it is like a train wreck that they can’t help but watch. However, the difference between a train wreck and the “Real Housewives” is that unlike a train wreck, which is a horrible accident, the “Real Housewives” is a horribly staged event with the sole intent of setting women up to knock each other down.

So for all of you who Real Housewives fans, I challenge you to take this mini-quiz to see how your real-life friendships stack up to the ones on this widely popular show.

1. Do you spend most of your time with your friends gossiping and judging other friends or people in general? Or do you find the time you spend with your friends is often spent listening to them gossip about and judge other people?
2. Do you gossip about your friends behind their backs rather than talk to them directly about something that’s bothering you or about some ongoing conflict? Or do your friends gossip to you about friends they are having issues with versus talking to that person directly?
3. Do you get defensive if a friend tries to communicate to you their feelings or take it as an insult or criticism? Or do you find that when you try to talk to your friends about something they said or did that upset you, they react in ways that make you feel like you did something wrong and even some cases they stop talking to you?
4. Do your loyalties shift depending on which friend you happen to be with at the moment? Or do you find your friends’ loyalties seem to shift depending on who they are around?
5. Do you find you have very little to say to a friend if you aren’t gossiping about another friend or passing judgment on others in general? Or do you find your friend has very little to say to you other than sharing gossip or criticisms of others?

If you have answered “yes” to any of these questions, then it may be time to take a closer look at the quality of your friendships, and even how your friends would rate you as a friend. Are these the type of friendships you want to put your energy into, and is this the type of friend you want to be considered as by others?

If you are guilty of any of these “Real Housewives” types of behaviors, it is pretty safe to assume that the ones you are exhibiting this behavior with are doing the exact same thing with the other “housewives” in your group when you are not around.

In fact, in a talk posted on YouTube, Gladwell goes even further, saying, “In absolutely every system in which hockey is played, a hugely disproportionate number of hockey players are born in the first half of the year.” He says this in the context of a talk about society not taking advantage of opportunities to improve human potential.

“Logic tells us there should be as many great hockey players born in the second half of the year,” suggests Gladwell, “as born in the first half. But what we can see here, there’s almost no one born it the end of the year, everyone’s from the beginning.”

But is this actually true — are more elite hockey players born in the first half versus the second half of the year?

I was listening to this talk and couldn’t help but wonder, “This seems like a really perhaps-too-neat result. Is this actually true? Does the relative age effect impact your likelihood to be a great hockey player?”

So first I went over to Wikipedia and found this list, List of 100 greatest hockey players by The Hockey News from 1998. This is a quick and dirty way of testing the hypothesis at face value — are the hockey greats of the world more likely to have been born in the first half of the year?

Only 39 of the hockey players on the list have Wikipedia entries, so they were the easiest to verify their date of birth. Of those 39 players, 20 were born in the first half of the year, and 19 were born in the second half. Hmmm… that doesn’t really seem to jive with Gladwell’s claims.¹

So finding some support that perhaps the issue isn’t as clear-cut and dried as Gladwell suggests, I turned to PsycINFO, the psychological research database. It didn’t take long to find a study that had the same questions I did — does the relative age effect (RAE) actually predict excellence in sports?

Gibbs, Jarvis & Dufur (2012) suggest that the answer is no. In a far more systematic approach than my quick and dirty review of a top 100 list, the researchers examined the distribution of birth months for the first round draft picks of Canadian players in the NHL for the years 2007-2010. Then they looked at 1,109 players who played on major league rosters from 2000-2009.

Last, they examined All-Star and Olympic hockey rosters from 2002-2010. These are the elite players of hockey — the cream of the crop.

So what did they find?

In our analyses, we found a strong relative age effect that eventually fades, then reverses across levels of hockey play among Canadian-born players.

In our first data, early birth-month advantage is apparent in the Medicine Hat Tigers championship roster of 2007
(56%) and for their opponents the Vancouver Giants (44%), but it is less true of the same teams three years later (33% and 39% respectively). [These were the teams Gladwell highlighted in his book chapter.]

The effect is also apparent among Canadian-born first round draft picks, with 40 percent, 41 percent, 47 percent, and 33 percent born in the first quarters of 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 respectively.

But for the average player in the NHL, the effect seems to fade. Although the first round draft picks confirm Gladwell’s law (33–47 percent across 2007–2010) — a reflection of their Major Junior Hockey performance — the percent of all Canadian hockey players in the NHL born in the first three months is a modest 28 percent.

But it gets worse. Among the most elite hockey players, the effect completely reverses — it’s better to be born later in the year if you want to become one of the great hockey players: “The combined average of the All-stars and Olympic rosters [born in the first three months of the year] is 17 percent.” Compare this to the 28 percent noted above and you see that it actually hurts your chances to be born earlier in the year if you want to play in the Olympics or on an All-Star team.

Last, the researchers found one more perhaps-not-so-surprising result — players born earlier in the year have shorter hockey careers — an average of a year less than those born in the last three months of the year (Gibbs, Jarvis & Dufur, 2012).

The incongruous findings come from Gladwell confusing simply playing on a team with being an elite player in that sport. He defined success in hockey as simply making the team — a way most people who play sports probably wouldn’t agree with. The researchers sum it up nicely:

Our findings illustrate how critical it is to define hockey success. When hockey success is defined as playing Major Junior Hockey, the effect is strong, as Gladwell reported in the popular press.

But the effect diminishes when success is defined as making the NHL, and fades when performance and skill are considered.

When hockey success is defined as the most elite levels of play, the relative age effect reverses.

Who Will Tell YouTubers?

Now here’s the real problem — these YouTube talks and videos don’t get updated or removed. Nobody is going to come along and point out that the things Gladwell says in this talk aren’t necessarily true based upon our latest understanding of the research.²

Remember his line, “Logic tells us there should be as many great hockey players born in the second half of the year.” Well, actually the data suggests that this is, in fact, true after all.

And that’s the challenge of disseminating pop-psychology tidbits on video and in books — their conclusions will remain forever etched³, while the science and research data continue to march forward.

Finally, it’s a reminder that psychology and sociology data rarely results in neat, clean conclusions. While initial research might draw such conclusions, later more-nuanced, rigorous research often demonstrates the problems with those first studies.

Watch the Gladwell YouTube talk: Malcolm Gladwell Explains Why Human Potential Is Being Squandered

Read Ben Gibbs’ blog entry on his research: Relative Age Effect Reversal Found At Elite Level of Canadian Hockey

References

Barnsley, RH, Thompson AH and Barnsley PE. (1985). Hockey success and birthdate: The relative age effect. Canadian Association of Health, Physical Education and Recreation (CAHPER) Journal 51: 23–28.

Gibbs, B.G., Jarvis, J.A., & Dufur, M.J. (2012). The rise of the underdog? The relative age effect reversal among Canadian-born NHL hockey players: A reply to Nolan and Howell. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 47, 644-649.

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown.

1. Yes, I realize this isn’t robust research — it’s an arbitrary list and only 39 out of 100 datapoints were examined, but there’s no reason to suspect that those 39 datapoints were not fairly random.
2. Gladwell’s talk was apparently conducted in 2008, prior to the new research being published.
3. Unless someone goes back and edits these things, which is rarely done.

Clearly, people have been perceiving love as a force incapable of perceiving the flaws of others for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Even a verse in the Bible states that “[love] keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:5-6).

But here lies the conundrum: how can love both “rejoice in the truth” and “keep no record of wrongs”? Wouldn’t ignoring the wrongdoings of love be an untruthful perception of it?

And yet this is the theory behind the love-is-blind bias.

The love-is-blind bias describes the tendency to perceive those we love (particularly those we love romantically) in an extra-positive, but also less realistic, light. These so-called “positive illusions” were first specifically analyzed by psychologists Shelley Taylor and Johnathon Brown in 1988. They concluded that an individual’s blindness to another person’s flaws is actually correlated with greater psychological well-being of that individual.

Since this discovery, many researchers have corroborated the beneficial effects of positive illusions in romantic relationships. However, as this topic unfolded, research has also questioned the flip side of love: what happens after disillusionment? After all, positive illusions can only take you so far.

Although positive illusions, or experiences of the “love-is-blind bias,” can be correlated with level of satisfaction in the relationship, Swami et al. (2009) discovered a negative relationship between the degree of blind love and relationship length. This suggests that as a relationship progresses and an individual gets to know her or his partner better (or possibly with decreasing satisfaction derived from the relationship), the love-is-blind bias may decrease in strength.

But if this glowing perspective decreases as time passes, wouldn’t the perceived quality of the relationship also decline?

After the positive illusions have diminished, one might start to look for better alternatives to the person they once thought was “perfect.” At this point, the satisfaction and commitment to the relationship would also be compromised and the relationship might be worse off than if those positive illusions had never existed in the first place.

In a more recent study, Swami and his colleagues discovered a positive correlational relationship between positive illusions in relationships and certain types of jealousy, especially anxious jealousy (2012). Anxious jealousy refers to a process where an individual ruminates about the possibility of a mate’s infidelity, and experiences feelings of anxiety, suspicion, worry, and distrust (Barelds & Dijkstra, 2006). After all, if you perceive your partner as perfect, wouldn’t you be concerned that others perceive him this way as well?

But what about even more extreme cases of disillusionment? What happens after Adam betrays Eve?

In cases of relationship betrayal, commitment to the relationship, rather than positive illusions of the other, tends to be the strongest motivation for forgiveness and continuing the relationship (Finkel et al., 2002). After all, without true commitment to each other, a relationship based on positive illusions alone is merely a fatuous love and cannot be sustained in the long term.

This situation certainly holds true for many celebrity relationships, which are typically short-lived and end in some sort of grand catastrophe such as infidelity. Since celebrities are the ultimate icons of positive illusions, it’s easy to understand how a relationship could be built on false impressions and quickly become unsustainable.

In general, it seems that positive illusions might be beneficial during the “honeymoon” phase of the relationship. But after that stage is over, acceptance of the other’s flaws, not just overlooking them, is truly what will sustain a healthy and prosperous relationship.

References

Barelds, D. P. H., & Dijkstra, P. (2006). Reactive, Anxious and Possessive Forms of Jealousy and Their Relation to Relationship Quality Among Heterosexuals and Homosexuals. Journal of Homosexuality, 51(3), 183-198. doi: 10.1300/J082v51n03_09

Swami, V., Inamdar, S., Steiger, S., Nader, I. W., Pietschnig, J., Tran, U. S., & Voracek, M. (2012). A dark side of positive illusions? Associations between the love-is-blind bias and the experience of jealousy. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(6), 796-800. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.06.004

Swami, V., Stieger, S., Haubner, T., Voracek, M., & Furnham, A. (2009). Evaluating the physical attractiveness of oneself and one’s romantic partner: Individual and relationship correlates of the love-is-blind bias. Journal Of Individual Differences, 30(1), 35-43. doi:10.1027/1614-0001.30.1.35

Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103(2), 193-210.
doi:10.1037/0033-2909.103.2.193

In October 2012, Taylor Swift became the first female artist in Nielsen SoundScan history to break record sales twice. “Red,” her latest album, sold over one million copies in its first week, and she reached that impressive mark with “Speak Now” (2010) as well. Not to mention, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” her catchy hit single, is taking over the radio airwaves.

Since “Speak Now,” I’ve become somewhat of a “Swiftie” listener myself (apparently that’s the name of her fan club), and I was curious to see how her stories in “Red” would unfold. While her vocals matured, and the styles of music blur between pop, country and some rather eclectic dub step, I was even more pleasantly intrigued by her songwriting. Its bold nature discloses personal details about her life, her words reminiscent of words you would only find on a page in a diary.

Is this why so many adolescents and twenty-somethings can relate to her music?

I would argue that her specific writing style works — it allows the listener to capture his or her own emotions and confront those feelings in the moment. After all, isn’t it better to deal with those unresolved sentiments or pesky triggers head-on?

“Red” was the title track she wrote about a relationship “that was the worst thing ever and the best thing ever at the same time,” Swift said on an episode of VH1’s “Storytellers.” The color red covers a wide spectrum of emotions, the singer explained. Whether she’s focusing on its positive associations, such as passion, affection and fearlessness, or its negative connotations of anger, frustration and jealousy, she correlates her feelings to this strong color.

“All Too Well,” my personal favorite, showcases Swift on guitar with a very raw and nostalgic set of lyrics, as she depicts the beginning and end of an intense romantic relationship and all that’s in between. This song may strike a nerve and resonate with many, mainly because of how honest the singer is. There’s not much to decipher — it just feels very genuine and breaks your heart.

“For me, there are several songs I can relate to on the album, but it also depends on my mood,” Karen Sadetsky, an avid Swift fan, said.

“If I am looking for a fun, upbeat song, I most definitely would go with ’22.’ The pre-chorus, which lyrically states, ‘we’re happy, free, confused and lonely in the best way, it’s miserable and magical,’ describes the ups and downs of not knowing what a lot of 20-somethings want to do with their life. Swift is basically saying it’s okay to feel all of these emotions, and to just go with the flow and enjoy yourself now with all of your friends.”

“Holy Ground,” another lively track, epitomizes an aura of heartache, but also expresses gratitude for what was once very real.

Since I’ve listened to this album on loop and poured myself into these lyrics over and over, I really only have good things to say about Taylor Swift growing as a songwriter, and becoming an artist we can truly identify with.

Sure, some critique this album as lacking a “spark” that was present in “Fearless,” which she released as a young teenager. However, despite more of a collaborative production with newer sounds, I found quite a few precious and relatable gems on “Red,” which will definitely hold me over till her next venture.

While many people point to the cause of his death connected to the overzealous prosecution by U.S. District Attorney Carmen Ortiz, it’s unlikely that a single thing led to his decision. If Aaron Swartz was like most of the 100 people every day who take their own lives in this country, the biggest thing that likely led to his death was untreated or under-treated depression.

Which comes as no surprise to people who knew him and have written about him. Nor after reading his own struggles with depression earlier in his life.

His passing is indeed a tragedy. But it’s time to realize that he lived and thrived in a technology sub-culture that mostly doesn’t understand — or care much — about mental illness.

While loved ones often search for answers after someone they know takes their own life, the answers are never very satisfying. In Aaron Swartz’s case, it appears that the jump to the cause and effect conclusion that his legal troubles led to his decision is overly simplistic. Young adults get into legal troubles all the time — especially in certain disadvantaged parts of this country. The vast majority of them don’t take their own lives.

But we know that in most cases of suicide what is nearly always present is a history of clinical depression. And at the time the person has taken their life, it is depression that is either not being treated at all, or being treated inadequately. Swartz seemed to understand this, as he thought a great deal about depression, and linked to this description by George Scialabba:

Certainty that an acute episode [of depression] will last only a week, a month, even a year, would change everything. It would still be a ghastly ordeal, but the worst thing about it—the incessant yearning for death, the compulsion toward suicide—would drop away. But no, a limited depression, a depression with hope, is a contradiction. The experience of convulsive pain, along with the conviction that it will never end except in death—that is the definition of a severe depression.

Clinical depression — like all mental disorders — is exacerbated by stress. The more stress you have in your life, the worse the problem is usually going to get. Getting the book thrown at you by a federal prosecutor and facing the possibility of months (the last plea deal the U.S. Attorney was said to have offered was 6 months) or even years in jail is stressful. To a sensitive, brilliant person — as Aaron Swartz was reported to have been — it was probably beyond stressful.¹

Put those two together — depression and a huge stressor — and you have the recipe for a classic case of suicide.

And some people picked up on his down mood, as danah boyd said:

I knew he was struggling, but he was also a passionate activist and I genuinely thought that would see him through this dark period.

Which is a sentence we read time and time again from friends or family members after someone takes their own life. “I knew he was struggling…” and yet… I thought he would be okay.

Silicon Valley is a Culture of Denial & High Stress

Not surprising, for people who are predisposed to depression, some work environments are not ideal. Wall Street, for example, is not a good place to work for a person with depression. Neither is Silicon Valley or really in any startup.

Startups, by definition, are high-pressure work environments, where a small group of people (usually young, white males) work 18- or 20-hour days to produce a product or service they believe will be The Next Big Thing (ala Facebook).

But because startups don’t live in a protected bubble, they’re going to suffer from the same human problems any company comprised of ordinary humans is going to suffer — people with mental illness. After all, 1 in 10 people among us have one. Silicon Valley and tech startups are no different.

As investor Brad Feld notes,

“Many entrepreneurs don’t feel like they can talk openly about their depression, as they don’t want their investors, employees, or customers to know they are struggling with it,” he says. “For anyone who has been depressed, not being able to be open about it with the people around you makes depression even harder to deal with.”

Startups think they are “special” because they have some money and an idea. What they often don’t realize is that when it comes to the messy human things — like emotions or health problems — they are just like every one of us.

Fixing the Problem

Every tech startup, every VC firm, and indeed, every workplace has the power to help reduce future suicides. All they need do is to stop tolerating discrimination and prejudice against those who have a mental illness. If someone speaks up about their own depression or other mental illness, they should be met with the same open empathy you might give someone who was just diagnosed with cancer or diabetes. You make adjustments to help them make it through this period of their lives.

This sounds easy, but is harder than you might realize. Stigma still exists in many parts of our society, and often found among people who don’t think twice about health problems. There are still many — too many — who believe mental illness is a “made up” problem and that people can just help themselves out of the problem if they only put their mind to it.

There is hope — there is always hope. If anything good can come from a tragedy like this, perhaps it is helping others to better understand the vicious cycle of depression — one that can ultimately lead to suicide for some.

Remember Aaron Swartz

Activist Aaron Swartz’s suicide sparks talk about depression

1. Please don’t write me about how it’s inappropriate to discuss Aaron Swartz’s depression after his suicide — suicide is caused by untreated or under-treated depression. He was an activist, so he — of all people — would understand.

However, it wasn’t the great acting or directing that had me so glued to the screen that I was afraid to reach for popcorn.

Lincoln has been my mental health hero ever since Joshua Wolf Shenk, who has since become a friend of mine, published his acclaimed book, “Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness.” Shenk took seven years to research and write the masterpiece, and it gained attention right as I had graduated from one psych ward unit and was going into another one.

The afternoon I sat in the lobby of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Clinic waiting to be evaluated by a team of psychiatrists (after my first hospitalization), I read Shenk’s interview with Karen Swartz, M.D, the Director of Clinical Programs and one of the physicians who evaluated me.

I learned that Lincoln shared my greatest fear: that he would go insane only never to regain his sanity.

In one of his depressive spells, he wrote:

“I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were distributed to the entire human family there would not be one happy face on the Earth.”

He had all of the same symptoms of acute depression that are found today in the DSM-IV: social isolation, suicidal ideation, loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating. He told one of his friends that he felt like committing suicide often.

Shenk writes,

“One friend recalled, ‘Mr. Lincoln’s friends … were compelled to keep watch and ward over Mr. Lincoln, he being from the sudden shock somewhat temporarily deranged. We watched during storms, fogs, damp gloomy weather … for fear of an accident.’”

Another neighbor recounts, “Lincoln was locked up by his friends to prevent derangement or suicide.” An older couple in the area took him into their home to keep him safe for a short while. The fact that Lincoln’s behavior provoked a suicidal watch meant that he must have suffered intensely.

Yet, despite his acute pain, our president was able to transcend the crippling nature of his depression and hold on to hope. Explains Shenk in his interview with Johns Hopkins:

“The essential question that Lincoln grappled with during his lifetime was how you have hope in the face of great suffering. That question never ceases to be relevant for him. To me, Lincoln was a main who suffered more than anyone in his circle of contemporaries, and a man who achieved more than anyone in his life. And the reason he was able to succeed all came down to hope. It’s as if Lincoln were saying, ‘In my darkest moments I am still capable of seeing a great life.’ It is a matter of belief: No, it can’t be demonstrated empirically. But the peculiar and grand mystery to it is this: If you believe in hope, then you are on your way to making it true.”

Whenever I remember the story of this great man, I breathe a sigh of relief that I am not alone in my chronic struggle with sadness. His happy ending makes me feel less pitiful and weak about my obsession with death. And I wonder if there may be hope for me even if I, like Lincoln, never stop battling the beast of melancholy.

Lost in the tragic suicide is the likelihood that nobody would even know or care about this incident were it not for the fact that the nurse was on reception duty for Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, who put the call through to Kate’s nurse. In the U.S. alone, over 30,000 people commit suicide each and every year. Some of them are nurses.

Also lost in this tragedy is any sense of perspective — as though a single action, incident or behavior could lead someone to end their lives. While I’m sure it could happen in some fictional world, in the real world most people choose a suicidal act only when at the end of a long, desperate rope of depression.

So while haters will hate, anybody hating on the DJs — who had no way of knowing the mental state of the people they were contacting for an otherwise harmless prank — has completely lost it.

The two DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian from Sydney-based 2DYFM in Australia, called the hospital early on Tuesday morning posing as the Queen and Prince Charles to obtain details of the medical condition of Kate, who was being treated there for pregnancy-related sickness.

Jacintha Saldhana, an Indian-origin nurse of King Edward VII hospital, put the call through to Kate’s nurse. Two days later, she was found dead in her house in an apparent suicide.

Some people put 2 + 2 together, and think that since the prank call preceded the suicide, obviously the prank call caused the suicide. But everything we know about suicide suggests a more nuanced likelihood.

Calmer minds should prevail and most people know that correlation does not equal causation. So it’s time to put aside the emotional response to the suicide (and frankly, all suicide is tragic), and stop the blame game. Stop the hating.

Jill Stark, over at the Australian Great Lakes Advocate, has a good story on the importance of not putting the blame on the DJs, since it’s highly unlikely the DJs’ actions were the direct cause of the nurse taking her life:

But leading psychiatrist and former Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry called for calm, saying suicide was a complex issue that was unlikely to be caused by one individual factor.

“I feel sorry for them because they obviously had no intention of causing any harm. Blame is hardly ever useful,” Professor McGorry said.

“Most people are in a state of mental ill health leading up to when they kill themselves and it would have needed more than just that trigger to actually bring that about.

“You could say that a stressful life event like this was a contributory cause – and maybe she wouldn’t have killed herself at this point in time without that having happened – but it was likely that there were some other factors going on too.”

Frank Quinlan, chief executive of the Mental Health Council of Australia, said there was a risk of compounding the tragedy by targeting the radio presenters.

“It’s hard to imagine that the vitriol and hatred and anger that we’re seeing in this case is going to result in anything positive,” he said.

If anyone is to blame, it’s not the DJs. It is a society that turns a blind eye to the epidemic problem of suicide — except when it happens to someone connected to a celebrity. That is the real place to point blame.

It’s a society that turns into a virtual lynch mob when anyone connected to a celebrity is affected. But could care less when a nurse, physician or therapist in their own community commits suicide.

It’s a society that wants the fun, zany behavior of morning DJs (a staple of modern radio for decades now), but doesn’t want them to do anything that could unintentionally cause a tragedy of this nature. You know, a safer kind of zaniness perhaps — like listening to someone slipping on a virtual banana over the air instead.

A measured, thoughtful response to such a suicide is what’s called for. Unfortunately for the DJs, however, that means they were taken off the air “until further notice.” It means the hospital — who obviously had insufficient security for screening phone calls to celebrities staying in their care facility — is looking into possible legal action against the DJs, who reside half a world away from them.

No, we seem to live in a world where serious mental health issues like suicide only enter into mainstream discussions when they impact someone connected to a celebrity. And will this then lead into a serious policy discussion of how we as a society can work to provide better services to those who are suicidal in order to help prevent future occurrences?¹

I doubt it.

Read the full article: Prank callers not to blame, say mental health experts

1. Hint: it has nothing to do with radio DJs trying to make a living.

It’s been hard in recent years to ignore young entertainers’ breakdowns, drug habits, and bad behavior. Demi Lovato, a 20-year-old singer/songwriter, actress, and newly appointed judge on the talent show “The X Factor,” has endured much internal struggle.

But she has courageously sought mental health assistance and boldly documented her journey to share with others for inspiration. Along with her “stay strong” motto, she’s demonstrated that obstacles can be overcome, which is what ultimately highlights her as a different type of role model.

Katie Couric (who struggled with an eating disorder during her college days) interviewed Lovato earlier this year. In a heartfelt discussion, the young celebrity opened up about the origins of her body image issues, and the time she spent at an Illinois treatment facility for anorexia, bulimia and self-mutilation.

“I always had self-confidence issues in my body and self-image problems,” Lovato said. “It also didn’t help that I had kids at school at such a young age that were really, really naturally thin, so I always felt like I was the bigger one of the group.”

She initially dealt with her insecurities by overeating, which then turned into starvation, along with binging and purging. Lovato said that certain traumatic situations could trigger those destructive habits, and she candidly spoke about being teased and berated by other peers at school.

“People don’t realize how badly cyber-bullying and verbal harassment affects you,” she said.

With regard to her eating disorders, she confirmed that being in control was important, and those unhealthy patterns developed as a coping mechanism. “Some people don’t want to feel the emotions that they have — I think I just didn’t want to feel.”

After Lovato instigated a physical altercation with one of her friends, she realized her emotions were out of control, and she knew she needed to get help. She checked herself into a rehab center shortly after the incident.

“Treatment was so difficult at first,” she said. “I remember walking around saying ‘I’m in prison,’ and they needed to have strict rules in order for me to understand how sick I was.”

The “X Factor” judge admits that while she’s currently in a comfortable place, these issues most likely will stay with her for the rest of her life. She noted that during these past two years, however, a new mindset recently clicked; a mindset of acceptance and embrace for her natural body.

This past July, Lovato told “Good Morning America” that she’s happier allowing others to see her flaws, and that’s what defines her as a new kind of role model.

“That’s what being a role model is about,” she said. “It’s not about being perfect. It’s about speaking about your issues and inspiring others to get help.”

There’s a profession that does something like this. They’re called publishers, and they publish tripe such as “Us Weekly” and “Star” magazine. They take a piece of gossip and write an entire story based upon nothing more than speculation, imagination and hype.

So I found it more than a little disappointing (but perhaps not surprising) to find a representative of the mental health profession, Dr. Keith Ablow, on Fox News Sunday night doing just that. He spoke during a “Medical A-Team” segment where a group of doctors talked about the vice-presidential debate.

Should a psychiatrist be discussing differential diagnoses of the Vice President of the United States — especially if they’ve never even met the man?

Of course, he prefaces his comments with a standard disclaimer media doctors often try to use to make it sound more ethical:

“I did not evaluate Joe Biden…”

Well, if you did not evaluate Joe Biden face-to-face, and you apparently know nothing about him (Dr. Ablow later claimed Biden’s blood alcohol level should also be checked, although it’s well-known that Biden doesn’t drink alcohol), what are you doing babbling about him on national TV?

Here’s the clip:

Now, tell me if that fits within the spirit of the American Psychiatric Association’s ethical principles:

3. On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.

Dr. Keith Ablow acknowledges he’s never seen Joe Biden in a professional capacity. Yet, Dr. Ablow is discussing differential diagnoses about Biden as though he had. He’s suggesting specific psychiatric diagnoses to examine, without any knowledge or history of Biden’s medical or psychiatric background.

Instead, he’s doing it based on a single, solitary public performance. Would anyone feel comfortable being judged by a medical professional like Dr. Ablow based upon a single incident like this?

I should take all of the public interviews Dr. Ablow has given on Fox News, and in a purely hypothetical exercise, determine what sets of diagnoses we should consider giving him. I will be quick to say, “I’ve never examined Dr. Ablow, but… here are a set of differential diagnoses we should consider for him.”

But I won’t, because I don’t believe we should be playing armchair psychiatrist or psychologist or whatever from afar in this manner. It does nothing to help illuminate the debate, or to offer any actual insight into a person’s behavior. If anything, it only brings attention to yourself.

And perhaps that was the goal all along.

Read the full article: Fox News' Dr. Keith Ablow: Joe Biden May have Dementia

Awhile back I interviewed Eric Marcus, author of the sobering book, “Why Suicide?” He has now launched a blog with the same title, “Why Suicide?” where he will be posting essays and memories of persons who have taken their own lives. I’m certain it will become a healing forum for many.

Both of us have published a comprehensive list of celebrities and notable leaders or artists from the past who are suicide survivors. Dan Fields of the Grief Support Services program of Samaritans, Inc., has compiled the comprehensive list.

Thank you, Dan, for taking the time to compile this list, so that other suicide survivors feel less alone.

Lost a Child

President John Quincy Adams (son)
James Arness, actor (daughter)
Marlon Brando, actor (daughter)
Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway (son)
Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (daughter)
Judy Collins, singer/songwriter (son)
Tony Dungy, football coach (son)
Robert Frost, poet (son)
Major General Mark Graham (son)
Eric Hipple, NFL quarterback (son)
Brit Hume, TV journalist (son)
President Andrew Johnson (son)
Walter Koenig, actor (son)
Art Linkletter, radio/TV personality (daughter)
Willie Nelson, singer/songwriter (son)
Carroll O’Connor, actor (son)
Marie Osmond, singer and actress (son)
Senator Gordon Smith (son)
Danielle Steel, romance novelist (son)
Gloria Vanderbilt, fashion designer (son)

Lost a Parent

Mikhail Baryshnikov, ballet dancer (mother)
Richard Belzer, actor (father)
Larry Bird, basketball player and executive (father)
Drew Brees, NFL quarterback (mother)
Sarah Brightman, singer/songwriter and actress (father)
Frederick Buechner, writer and theologian (father)
Perry Farrell, singer/songwriter (mother)
Jane Fonda, actress (mother)
Peter Fonda, actor (mother)
Mariette Hartley, actress (father)
Christopher Hitchens, writer (mother)
Randi Kaye, CNN anchor (father)
Joshua Logan, stage and movie director (father)
Archie Manning, NFL quarterback (father)
Chester Marcol, NFL kicker (father)
Freddie Prinze, Jr., actor (father)
Senator Harry Reid (father)
Melissa Rivers, TV personality (father)
Linda Gray Sexton, writer (mother: Anne Sexton)
Michelle Ray Smith, actress (father)
First Lady Bess Truman (father)
Ted Turner, media tycoon (father)
Kurt Vonnegut, writer (mother)
Jake Weber, actor (mother)
First Lady Ellen Wilson (father)

Lost a Sibling

Clay Aiken, singer/songwriter (sister)
Robert Antonioni, Massachusetts State Senator (brother)
Anderson Cooper, CNN anchor (brother)
Cameron Crowe, screenwriter and movie director (sister)
Mia Farrow, actress and humanitarian (brother)
Julia Glass, novelist (sister)
Mariel Hemingway, actress and writer (sister: Margaux Hemingway;
also lost grandfather: Ernest Hemingway)
Katharine Hepburn, actress (brother)
Michel Martin, NPR host (brother)
Patrick Swayze, actor (sister)

Lost a Spouse

Stephen Ambrose, historian (wife)
Louise Erdrich, novelist (estranged husband)
Henry Fonda, actor (wife)
Katharine Graham, Washington Post publisher (husband)
Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany (wife)
Courtney Love, singer/songwriter (husband: Kurt Cobain)
Helen Steiner Rice, poet (husband)
Joan Rivers, comedian (husband)

Lost Other Loved One

David Bowie, singer/songwriter and actor (half-brother)
Carmen Electra, actress and model (half-brother)
Eminem, singer/songwriter (two uncles, one of whom he regarded as a father)
Sylvie Fréchette, Canadian synchronized swimmer (fiancé)
Ferguson Jenkins, baseball pitcher (fiancée)
Senator John Kerry (grandfather)
Eli Manning, NFL quarterback (grandfather)
Peyton Manning, NFL quarterback (grandfather)
Liza Minnelli, singer and actress (aunt)
Demi Moore, actress (stepfather)
Denis Potvin, hockey player (cousin: Marc Potvin)
David Spade, actor and comedian (stepfather)

Compiled by Dan Fields for the Grief Support Services program of Samaritans, Inc., Boston (July 2011)

On a recent episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, the Kardashian clan decided to visit a family therapist. The family’s innermost emotions and struggles came to light as they met with Dr. Nicki J. Monti.

Dr. Monti utilized the systems approach of family therapy to understand how each individual family member is impacted by the larger family system.

Rob, Kim, Kourtney, Khloe and Kris participated in their first family therapy session. So what happened and what can we learn from it?

Rob, Khloe and Kourtney expressed that Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner have a very tight bond. They also expressed that they sometimes feel left out and underappreciated by their mother. It seems to them that Kim is always put on some sort of pedestal in their mother’s eyes.

Kim Kardashian admitted that she and her mother are very close, and remarked that Khloe and Kourtney are very close as well. Kim expressed that she feels left out when Khloe and Kourtney hang out without her. On last week’s episode, Kim was very hurt when she learned that Khloe would be granted emergency guardianship of Mason if anything happened to Kourtney and her boyfriend, Scott Disick.

Khloe also spoke about being bullied as a teen. Kris Jenner stated that it’s very important for all family members to have lines and boundaries that they shouldn’t cross. Kris also remarked that it’s important to maintain “appreciation” within the family. There’ve been many instances on past episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians in which the family did not show respect for Kris Jenner.

The family described Rob Kardashian as a “simmering volcano.” Rob remarked that much of his anger stems from the family thinking he’s a “loser” and the fact that he hasn’t met his career goals yet. Rob expressed feeling very “misunderstood” by his family. He left the family therapy session crying, and Dr. Monti went to talk with Rob privately.

It was important for the Kardashian family to air out some of their frustrations and grievances in a safe, therapeutic environment. In moving forward with the therapy sessions, it will be important for the family to understand how to respect and appreciate one another.

Family therapists view dysfunction as resulting from the communication and feedback loops that occur within a family structure, rather than solely on the mind and brain of the individual.

The ultimate goal of family systems therapy is to understand the relationships that are occurring within the family, develop new, healthier patterns of relationships within the family and reach optimal levels of growth as a result of the repaired family system.

Larissa Rzemienski is The Managing Editor at TvFilmNews.com. She is also a Licensed Professional Counselor, University Faculty Member in Psychology, and lover of Hollywood.  She links the field of Psychology to Hollywood stories. Follow Larissa Rzemienski on Twitter @larissar6

More related love content from YourTango:

• How ‘Hope Springs’ Gets Couples Therapy Right
• Anxious Parenting: Are You Guilty Of It?

It’s no wonder we have both increasing incidents of eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, as well as increasing prevalence of binge eating disorder and rates of obesity.

Navigating this confusing world without falling into an eating- or weight-related disorder does require a return to some basic facts.

There are truths about eating and bodies which seem to get lost somewhere between childhood and teenage years. Young babies and toddlers generally find joy in their bodies, no matter what their size or shape, and they listen to their bodily cues such as eating when they are hungry and stopping when they are full.

But somewhere in the preteen years, these certainties shift and doubt takes over. A negative body image can, and often does, lead to serious, life-altering illnesses in millions of Americans.

The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) is an organization that supports families and individuals who are battling eating disorders. NEDA offers information, resources, action-oriented advocacy and media campaigns to educate the public and policymakers about eating disorders. Another critical and vibrant part of NEDA relates to prevention of eating disorders, highlighted specifically during the Eating Disorder Awareness Week each February.

7 Steps for Success

Based on facts which have been promoted by NEDA, there are seven steps for success when it comes to preventing an eating disorder.

• Everybody is different. We all have a different set of genes which determine much of our size, weight and shape. Even if everyone started eating the same things and did the same amount of exercise for a whole year, we wouldn’t look the same at the end of the year. Your “ideal” body weight is the weight that allows you to feel strong and energetic and lets you lead a healthy, normal life. Be comfortable in your genes and jeans.
• Listen to your body. Eat what you want, when you are truly hungry. Enjoy wholesome, nutrient-rich foods. Know that there are no good and bad foods, but rather those which have more or less nutrient qualities. Stop when you’re full. Eat exactly what appeals to you in a moderate, balanced fashion.
• No dieting. Dieting doesn’t work. Many individuals were dieting at the time they developed their eating disorder.
• Move often. Enjoy regular, moderate exercise. Do things you enjoy. Exercise for fun, fitness and function, not for exhaustion, deprivation or punishment. This will help you be strong, fit and relaxed.
• Reject weight bias. We aim not to judge others by the color of their eyes or skin; can you avoid judging others or yourself on the basis of body weight or shape? Respect someone’s character traits and accomplishments rather than their body shape.
• Avoid comparing your body with your friends’ bodies or with the people you see in the media. Choose role models who reflect a realistic standard and who stand for values of importance. Become a critical consumer of media and recognize its influential power on you.
• Handle life difficulties with healthy coping techniques, not through over- or undereating. Problem-solve, rather than create problems to avoid dealing with the true source of stress. Seek true forms of happiness and fulfillment.

If men, women, parents, teachers, coaches, children, teens, doctors, movie producers, advertising agencies and everybody started absorbing and practicing these invaluable truths, we might begin the journey of ending the existence of eating- and weight-related disorders.

For more information about NEDA and related resources, visit this site.

The stun of learning that Lance Armstrong will be stripped of his seven titles for doping by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency was the first time in more than a decade I can remember crying after hearing a news broadcast.  The last time was on the morning of 9/11.

Without a doubt Lance Armstrong was my hero.  A genuine, certified hero. 

No one in the history of the sport of cycling has won seven titles at the Tour de France, beat cancer, and became a beacon of hope for patients.  His legacy was a source of inspiration for millions. 

But in spite of his fundraising and being a cancer survivor-turned-spokesperson, he is no longer my hero. 

I am grateful for what he has done in raising cancer awareness and funds for cancer research, but now I must readjust my thinking about how he has represented himself.  I will need to accept the fact that Lance Armstrong has done a tremendous amount of good in the world and he is a fraud.  Because both things now appear to be true.

With his unimaginatively weak statement, the man who almost single-handedly galvanized attention, interest, and fascination in the Tour de France and in raising consciousness (and money) for cancer research and treatment has seemingly admitted to being nothing more than another sports hero impostor. 

The man who became famous for never giving up is giving up. If there was any truth behind his innocence, I believe that Lance Armstrong would have fought this — as he did his own cancer — until he was victorious.  But his giving up is, in my opinion, as clear an admission of wrongdoing as can be. It also stops the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency from pursuing further investigations — including apparently 10 former teammates waiting in the wings ready to testify against him. 

In my opinion, Lance Armstrong is a survivor and a liar. He is an incredibly strong man, and an incredibly weak man. Armstrong is a source of inspiration, and a source of disgrace and embarrassment. He is both a hero and a villain. In short, he has become the modern-day example of cognitive dissonance.

In 1957 Leon Festinger published a theory of cognitive dissonance. This theory has now been a central focus of research in social psychology for over half a century.  The theory points out that our cognitive process — how we think — can have a bias, what Festinger called “dissonance reduction.” 

In other words, whenever there is conflicting information, we try to find consonance — or balance — in one of three ways: we make one of the factors less important, we add components to our thinking to make greater harmony with our thoughts, or we simply change one of the dissonant aspects. 

If you ever had that little talk with yourself about ordering dessert, then you know about dissonance reduction.  The conflicting information is that the double fudge chocolate dipped brownie is famously delicious and you are five pounds overweight.  The dissonance reduction strategies you might use are:  The size of the dessert isn’t large and I don’t have to eat it all; I will work out a little longer tomorrow morning; and my personal favorite; I shouldn’t worry about one little dessert.

Lance Armstrong generates dissonance. He is both a winner and a loser.  When Muhammad Ali, three-time world heavyweight boxing champion, became a conscientious objector and refused to go to war, the comedian George Carlin offered the perfect way to cope with such dissonance, saying, “Ali figured it was all right to beat people up, but not to kill them.” 

But Armstrong’s clay-feet hero status is more difficult to navigate. The theory of cognitive dissonance would predict that people would strive for dissonance reduction by using these three strategies.  They might sound something like this:

“He shouldn’t have to keep defending himself against these charges.  He was right to give up;” “It doesn’t matter that they stripped him of his titles because he has already done so much good in the world;” “We don’t need false heroes to raise money for cancer treatment, there are plenty of other good people to do that.”

But the bias in doing so nudges us away from reality.  The truth now appears to be that Lance Armstrong is both good and bad; inspiring and despicable; a legend and a fake.

The struggle is in trying not to make this dissonance even out, take it away, or stop it.  Instead the work is to try to leave the truth as it is: Lance Armstrong is profoundly, unmistakably human.

Is there any good news in this?  Is there any possibility of joy or celebration available here? 

If Armstrong is stripped of his titles, they would normally be passed on to the second-place finishers.  Customarily I would throw my positive feelings toward them and celebrate their victory.  But there is another problem.  All of the second and third place finishers in every one of Armstrong’s victories have been identified in doping either through admission or investigation.

But even in this professional cycling mess, I am certain there are fourth- or fifth- or sixth-place winners who are true champions whom we can celebrate. 

We need to applaud these genuine heroes when we find them for two reasons.  First and foremost because they deserve it; and second, because it will help us cope.

Writer David Remnick interviews many Bruce Springsteen confidantes for the article, including his wife Patti Scialfa. In the article, we learn more about Springsteen’s battle with depression — even to the point of having some suicidal thoughts 30 years ago.

It’s an interesting interview, but you need a good 30 or 40 minutes to read the entire thing. Not being a particular Springsteen fan, I learned a lot about him. It turned him from being “Oh, he’s just one of those rock superstars” to “Oh, he’s a guy who really had to fight, scratch and battle his way up not only in his career, but in his life too.”

I have a lot more respect for him now — and am glad he was successful in battling his depression.

The first mention of Springsteen’s depression is about three-quarters of the way into the article:

Springsteen was also experiencing intervals of depression that were far more serious than the occasional guilt trip about being “a rich man in a poor man’s shirt,” as he sings in “Better Days.” A cloud of crisis hovered as Springsteen was finishing his acoustic masterpiece “Nebraska,” in 1982. He drove from the East Coast to California and then drove straight back.

“He was feeling suicidal,” Springsteen’s friend and biographer Dave Marsh said. “The depression wasn’t shocking, per se. He was on a rocket ride, from nothing to something, and now you are getting your ass kissed day and night. You might start to have some inner conflicts about your real self-worth.”

He was haunted by his own success, but also by the history of his father’s own battle with depression and self-isolating behavior. He didn’t want to be like his dad:

Springsteen began questioning why his relationships were a series of drive-bys. And he could not let go of the past, either—a sense that he had inherited his father’s depressive self-isolation.

For years, he would drive at night past his parents’ old house in Freehold, sometimes three or four times a week.

In 1982, he started seeing a psychotherapist. At a concert years later, Springsteen introduced his song “My Father’s House” by recalling what the therapist had told him about those nighttime trips to Freehold: “He said, ‘What you’re doing is that something bad happened, and you’re going back, thinking that you can make it right again. Something went wrong, and you keep going back to see if you can fix it or somehow make it right.’

And I sat there and I said, ‘That is what I’m doing.’ And he said, ‘Well, you can’t.’ ”

Extreme wealth may have satisfied every pink-Cadillac dream, but it did little to chase off the black dog. Springsteen was playing concerts that went nearly four hours, driven, he has said, by “pure fear and self-loathing and self-hatred.” He played that long not just to thrill the audience but also to burn himself out. Onstage, he held real life at bay.

That an amazing way to try and cope with those feelings. It sounds as if Springsteen didn’t want to get off the stage because he was using his performance as a coping mechanism, just as surely as an alcoholic turns to booze. Springsteen appears to have turned to the “high” of performing in front of tens of thousands — and all the energy such a performance requires.

Luckily, Springsteen found a way through the darkness:

I asked Patti how he finally succeeded. “Obviously, therapy,” she said. “He was able to look at himself and battle it out.” And yet none of this has allowed Springsteen to pronounce himself free and clear.

“That didn’t scare me,” Scialfa said. “I suffered from depression myself, so I knew what that was about. Clinical depression—I knew what that was about. I felt very akin to him.”

I was glad to read he received treatment for his depression and that it was successful. But just as you can successfully battle and win over the flu or cancer, it can also always return. The same is true with most mental health concerns.

It’s a wise reminder that even when we’re victorious, we should always be on the lookout for a potential relapse. Even the Boss isn’t immune.

Read the full nearly 16,000 word article: Bruce Springsteen at Sixty-Two

Photo: TonyTheTiger at en.wikipedia

That’s the question Torrie Bosch asks over at Slate and arrives at this conclusion — yes, it is a politician’s duty and responsibility to offer full disclosure about their mental health concerns.

But I think Bosch is missing a key component here. When in the throes of a full-blown episode (whether it’s bipolar disorder, depression, or something else), one shouldn’t be making any life-changing decisions or decisions that could forever alter one’s future career.

While it’s easy to believe that politicians and celebrities are something special, underneath their public persona beats the heart of an ordinary person — someone who is entitled to his or her privacy. Especially for health or family concerns.

So why is Torie Bosch arguing that the Jackson camp needed to be up-front with his concerns and talk about them since he went into inpatient treatment for them?

It would have served at least two purposes. First, it would have been another step toward removing the stigma that still surrounds mental illness. I also believe his constituents deserve to know.

Is it Jackson’s job to help remove the “stigma that still surrounds mental illness?” No, of course not. While it would be admirable for him to do so, it isn’t a requirement. It’s also not a requirement that “his constituents deserve to know” immediately when something happens.

Do constituents also “deserve to know” immediately when your elected politician suffers from a broken knee or has migraines? What about diabetes? And if not for those concerns, why would we single out mental illness from that list — seemingly only reinforcing the very prejudice and stigma one would want to remove.

And maybe, just maybe, he was more than happy to talk about his illness when he’s had actual time to get it treated and is in stable recovery from it. In other words, maybe he — like many others before him — just needs some time to himself. It’s hard to get better when you’re in the glare of the public spotlight and people are demanding explanations from you.

But when I said earlier that Bosch was missing a key component here, she actually got it, but stuck it way at the end of her article:

While mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, when a person is in an acute state, their judgment and job performance can be affected.

Well, if their judgment can be affected, isn’t it best to let the person get the treatment they need in private and give them some time to heal, before they start talking about it left and right?

It’s also illegal to discriminate against a person in a job because of their mental health diagnosis. So talking about a person’s “job performance” being affected is offensive — as though a person with a mental health concern can’t work, or can’t work just as effectively once they come back from a medical leave. (Again, I doubt Bosch would talk this way about someone who just had an appendix removed and needed a few weeks off of work to recover from surgery.)¹

Sometimes there’s an unfortunate desire to hold politicians and celebrities up to some sort of model of behavior, forgetting they are just as flawed as you and I.

We all have our demons. Folks like Bosch should cut Jackson a break and give him time to recover. And also respect that if he wants to talk about his demons, that’s his choice — not his responsibility or duty.

Read the full article over at Slate: Jesse Jackson, Jr. should speak about his mental illness

1. Hypothetically, if a Jackson spokesperson said, after Jackson had an appendix removed, “Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. just had an appendix removed and is spending a few weeks recovering from the surgery,” would the press still be demanding more information and details? No? So again we see the double-standard, where mental illness is discriminated against — even by the very same people saying they’re asking these questions to “reduce stigma.” What they’re doing is subtly reinforcing the discrimination and stigma by demanding more specific answers, more information, and more details — details that wouldn’t be asked for a medical procedure.