Some writers read a lot more into that statement than was actually there. Science 2.0 — a website that claims it houses “The world’s best scientists, the Internet’s smartest readers” — had this headline, “NIMH Delivers A Kill Shot To DSM-5.” Psychology Today made the claim, “The NIMH Withdraws Support for DSM-5.” (The DSM-5 is the new edition of the reference manual used to treatment mental disorders in the U.S.)

So is any of this true? In a word, no. This is “science” journalism at its worse.

NIMH’s Research Domain Criteria

For the past 18 months, the NIMH has been working on a different categorization system to classify mental disorders, to help further its research efforts (the NIMH is primarily a research-driven organization). It’s called the Research Domain Criteria project:

NIMH has launched the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project to transform diagnosis by incorporating genetics, imaging, cognitive science, and other levels of information to lay the foundation for a new classification system.

The proposed classification system works under these assumptions:

• A diagnostic approach based on the biology as well as the symptoms must not be constrained by the current DSM categories,

• Mental disorders are biological disorders involving brain circuits that implicate specific domains of cognition, emotion, or behavior,
• Each level of analysis needs to be understood across a dimension of function,
• Mapping the cognitive, circuit, and genetic aspects of mental disorders will yield new and better targets for treatment.

In short, the NIMH is trying to find a new categorization system that takes into account more of the biology, genetics, brain circuitry and neurochemistry that we’ve discovered in the past three decades’ worth of research is becoming increasingly relevant to understanding mental disorders.

Does it Replace the DSM-5?

Will this replace the DSM-5? No, because as Dr. Insel notes, “This is a decade-long project that is just beginning.” If the NIMH effort ever replaces the DSM, it will be a long time from now.

Somehow, though, Science 2.0 and Psychology Today believe this letter suggests the NIMH has “withdrawn” support for the DSM-5, or has delivered a “kill shot” (whatever that is!). Are these kinds of characterizations accurate — or indeed, helpful?

We reached out to Bruce Cuthbert, Ph. D., the director of the Division of Adult Translational Research at the National Institute of Mental Health for clarification.

“As with most shifts in science, changes in research priorities require a transition,” said Dr. Cuthbert.

“Because almost all clinical researchers today grew up with the DSM system both clinically and in research, it will take some time to get a “feel” for the relationships between DSM disorders and various kinds of RDoC phenomena (both in terms of the types of symptoms, and in overall severity), learn how to write grant applications with the new criteria, and evolve new review criteria. So, there will be a period of some time while these crosswalks are worked out.

“I also should point out that these comments reflect [only] our translational research portfolios.

“Our Division of Services and Intervention Research mostly supports research conducted in clinical settings that is relevant to current clinical practice and services delivery. Thus, [...] grants in these areas will continue to be predominantly funded with DSM categories for some time.”

That’s a far cry from the entire NIMH withdrawing support for the DSM-5. The NIMH is simply saying (in my opinion), “Look, we’re unhappy with the validity of the DSM and its lack of support for biomedical markers for mental disorders. We’re working on a different schema, especially targeted at researchers. It may have greater relevance someday — that’s our hope and vision.”

Why a New Diagnostic System?

But then again, researchers in mental illness have been promising biomarkers for at least two decades as well — with little notable progress to show for their efforts.¹

Why is a new diagnostic system needed?

“For psychiatric disorders, we cannot effectively use very much of the knowledge we have gained about the brain and behavior over the last 30 years because of our symptom-based diagnostic system. In other words, the categories defined by symptoms simply do not map onto all the knowledge that we have gained about brain circuits, genetics, and behavior,” replied Dr. Cuthbert.

“We know that many different mechanisms are involved in any one DSM disorder (heterogeneity), while any one mechanism (fear, working memory, emotional regulation) is typically involved with many different disorders. [This] heterogeneity frustrates attempts to develop new treatments.”

Indeed, as John Horgan over at Scientific American wrote,

Ironically, some pharmaceutical companies that have enriched themselves by selling psychiatric drugs are now cutting back on further research on mental illness. The “withdrawal” of drug companies from psychiatry, Steven Hyman, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Harvard and former NIMH director, wrote last month, “reflects a widely shared view that the underlying science remains immature and that therapeutic development in psychiatry is simply too difficult and too risky.”

Pharmaceutical companies say that, on average, a marketed psychiatric drug is efficacious in approximately half of the patients who take it. Dr. Cuthbert from the NIMH suggests that, “One reason for this low response rate is the artificial grouping of heterogeneous syndromes with different pathophysiological mechanisms into one disorder.”

So the NIMH’s regrouping appears to be as much of an effort to spur new drug development as it is an effort to rethink the classification system of mental disorders. Which is a bit odd, if you think about it, since there is a rich research foundation showing that non-medication treatments — such as psychotherapy — work equally well (if not better) for the treatment of many mental disorders.

If these were pure medical diseases with clear and readily defined biomarkers, that shouldn’t be the case. After all, positive thinking can’t cure cancer.²

“Thus, mental disorders are an area where we must transcend the current symptom-based system if we are to advance,” concludes Dr. Cuthbert. “Among other things, if you have to wait until a full-blown set of symptoms is present before you can define a disorder (and there is no quantifiable data regarding risk states, as there is for, say blood pressure), then prevention is — by definition — impossible.”

This is simply untrue, in my opinion. There is a solid and growing research base already demonstrating that we can detect mental illness through a number of early screening and symptom measures and implement prevention measures. Other studies demonstrate significant correlations with certain characteristics — signs that can also be used to implement effective prevention.

“The research process will necessarily involve complex science to understand how we can relate more neuroscience-based measures to more specific and quantitatively-defined symptoms and clinical outcomes,” says Dr. Cuthbert from the NIMH. “This does not necessarily mean, however, that the diagnostic systems of the future will necessitate such a complex battery. As with biomarkers in other areas of medicine, a subsequent phase will be to find assessments that can be obtained feasibly in clinical settings (although this is unlikely to mean, as is the case now, that all disorders can be diagnosed simply sitting in a clinician’s office).”

Is It All About the Money?

Horgan suggests, perhaps, some ulterior motives for NIMH’s statement:

NIMH director Insel doesn’t mention it, but I bet his DSM decision is related to the big new Brain Initiative, to which Obama has pledged $100 million next year. Insel, I suspect, is hoping to form an alliance with neuroscience, which now seems to have more political clout than psychiatry. But as I pointed out in posts here and here on the Brain Initiative, neuroscience still lacks an overarching paradigm; it resembles genetics before the discovery of the double helix.

I’m not as skeptical as Horgan, but do believe the timing of Dr. Insel’s letter is a little curious — right before the launch of the DSM-5, and right after the public commitment of $100 million to brain research.

What is clear is that the NIMH is not withdrawing support for the use of the DSM-5 anytime soon. It is the reference manual all researchers and clinicians use today to speak the same language of mental illness. Without the same reference frame, research — and treatment — would become impossible.

Further Reading

Scientific American: Psychiatry in Crisis! Mental Health Director Rejects Psychiatric “Bible” and Replaces with… Nothing

Science 2.0′s article: NIMH Delivers A Kill Shot To DSM-5

1. David Kupfer, who chairs the DSM-5 Task Force, told Pharmalot: “The promise of the science of mental disorders is great. In the future, we hope to be able to identify disorders using biological and genetic markers that provide expreciseact diagnoses that can be delivered with complete reliability and validity. Yet this promise, which we have anticipated since the 1970s, remains disappointingly distant. We’ve been telling patients for several decades that we are waiting for biomarkers. We’re still waiting.”
2. Although, to be fair, positive thinking can definitely help in its overall treatment.

In fact, however, a real struggle with OCD is a manifestation of anxiety that creates an actual disturbance in one’s life.

Lena Dunham, creator/ writer/ producer/ star of the HBO award-winning series “Girls,” showcased the leading character, Hannah, (played by Dunham herself) in very raw and honest encounters with the illness toward the end of this past season. Hannah had dealt with OCD in high school. It resurfaced when she was faced with two significant stressors: trying to write an e-book in a short time frame, and dealing with the rocky aftermath of a breakup.

Whether the scenes illustrated episodes of relentless tics, counting, or a compulsive habit that brought her to the emergency room, “Girls” took on authentic territory that invited other OCD sufferers to feel less alone.

An article here on Psych Central characterizes obsessive-compulsive disorder as “recurrent and disturbing thoughts (called obsessions) or repetitive, ritualized behaviors that the person feels driven to perform (called compulsions).”

Unwanted impulses and bothersome images may also invade the psyche of a person with OCD. While compulsions are usually served to neutralize the excessive thoughts or obsessions, those acts may spark further anxiety since they become very demanding to maintain.

Allison Dotson’s recent article featured on the Huffington Post discusses how the OCD storyline on the series allows other people, dealing with the disorder, to relate.

“As someone with OCD, I find it refreshing to see this often-misunderstood illness portrayed in a realistic way on an acclaimed television show,” Dotson said. She remarks how OCD may be presented as a “charming slapstick character trait,” but “Girls” definitely wasn’t gunning for easy laughs.

“In the real world, OCD symptoms can rear their persistent head just as Hannah’s did under the pressure of a book deadline,” Dotson noted. “Mine certainly did – new obsessions would pop up at bedtime and stick around for months.”

Lena Dunham talks about her own experiences with OCD to Rolling Stone in their cover story, “Lena Dunham: Girl on Top.” She was diagnosed at age 9, after displaying recurring symptoms.

“I was obsessed with the number eight. I’d count eight times … I’d look on both sides of me eight times. I’d make sure nobody was following me down the street, I touched different parts of my bed before I went to sleep, I’d imagine a murder, and I’d imagine that same murder eight times.”

While she tapered off her medication toward the end of college (which produced unpleasant side effects, including extreme exhaustion and night sweats), she still takes a small dose of an antidepressant to alleviate her anxiety.

I have nothing but respect for Dunham, who shared her private (and sometimes dark) history with OCD to the public via “Girls.” A disorder that may be portrayed in the media as humorous or lighthearted now is receiving a bit more attention and awareness. Others who are faced with OCD’s symptoms may be able to connect to Dunham’s character, identifying right alongside her.

“These episodes of ‘Girls’ appear promising,” Kent Sepkowitz wrote in his article in the Daily Beast. “They are ready to show, I hope, that real mental illness is not eradicated by a pill or a better diet, by three visits to a shrink, or by a thoughtful walk along the beach.”

It then shows the man sitting in the cabin, waiting to die.

A few frames later, the garage lights come back on, and the man opens the garage door. The tag line is, “The New ix35 with 100% water emissions.”

Yes, very tasteful. Maybe if you were brain and dead and haven’t been alive for the past three decades. Nothing like making fun of people with mental illness, clinical depression, or a disability, is there Hyundai (and Innocean)??

Warning, we’ve included a copy of the video below. Do not continue on if you don’t wish to watch it.

I can imagine some of the other ideas that Hyundai and Innocean are also discussing right now:

• A cancer patient is shown dying in a hospital bed, and asks for one last drink of water. They wheel her out to the ix35′s exhaust pipe and instruct her to drink away.

• Lawn need watering? Just start up the ix35 and continually drive it around the yard, letting the water from the tailpipe drip onto the grass.
• A poor family is shown holding their cupped hands under the ix35′s tailpipe, dying for a drink of water.

Here’s the offensive video. You’ve been warned, so don’t view it if someone you know has died by suicide in this manner:

This ad has particular poignancy for me — and I suspect tens of thousands of other people around the world — as I knew someone who took their life via this method. Rob was my childhood best friend, and one of the primary motivations for me going into public education and advocacy as my career rather than providing individual psychotherapy to patients. He died November 8, 1990, and his death is a memory that I’m reminded of nearly every week as I work on the resources that go to make up this site.

Seeing such a vivid depiction of the end of a man’s life — to sell cars no less — is not just in poor taste. It is thoughtless, and even mean-spirited. As though human life is worth so little, we can demonstrate someone failing at taking their own life to help promote the attributes of this stupid pile of metal. A Hyundai.

Criticism of the Hyundai Video

The Hyundai ad is incomprehensible in an age where we are finally making inroads in the public understanding of mental illness… Of reducing the discrimination and prejudice against those who have one. A depiction of suicide in the media — even when reporting on a news item — can up the rate of suicides temporarily, referred to as suicide contagion. Did the ad agency who produced this ad even know that? Did they care?

Does it make a point? If one can get past the gruesome darkness of the ad, I suppose the point that you can’t kill yourself in this particular Hyundai is noted. But really? Out of all the options you have to demonstrate a car’s eco-friendliness, this is the one you go with?

Hyundai North America is distancing itself from its European counterparts with this statement:

We at Hyundai Motor America are shocked and saddened by the depiction of a suicide attempt in an inappropriate UK video featuring a Hyundai. Suicide merits thoughtful discussion, not this type of treatment.

Further criticism and commentary can be found over on this article by Matthew Herper, Update: Hyundai North America Disavows ‘Particularly Graphic And Dangerous’ Car Ad.

I just have to shake my head that this ad got through multiple levels of management review and approval in two different companies. Everybody probably was congratulating themselves on producing an “edgy” or “thought provoking” ad — while trying to sell pieces of steel on wheels.

With social media a major part of teens’ lives, it’s important they have a healthy relationship with the Internet. What does this look like?

According to Udall-Weiner, it resembles any healthy relationship: It has boundaries.

It also shouldn’t have to meet all their needs, including emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual, she said. For instance, sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest should never replace face-to-face interactions, she said. Instead, they should supplement them. That’s because online interactions lack the emotional depth and support of real-time relationships. “…[I]t’s hard to know whether someone is trustworthy, loyal, and invested in your well-being.”

The Internet also lets people keep a comfortable distance from others. Udall-Weiner cited MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who believes the Internet provides “the illusion of companionship, without the demands of friendship,” and “people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people, whom they also keep at bay.”

Fortunately, parents can teach their kids to use the Internet in healthy ways. Below, Udall-Weiner shared five strategies.

What Parents Can Do

In Udall-Weiner’s experience, parents approach Internet use with extremes: “they either prohibit it, or they pretend it doesn’t exist, since they’re quite terrified to find out what their child is really doing online.” Instead, she suggested communicating with your kids and teaching them to be more aware of how they use the Internet.

1. Talk to your teen about their time online.

Talking to your kids about how they use social media and technology helps them break out of autopilot and become more mindful of their actions and reactions, Udall-Weiner said. “[This] is an important skill when it comes to developing emotional competence.” It’s important for teens to understand how being online affects them (such as their mood).

She suggested asking your kids these questions: “Which websites do you often visit?  How do you feel emotionally, both during and after using these sites? Have you ever had any uncomfortable experiences online, or seen anything upsetting? Do you believe that there are any downsides to viewing the sites you regularly visit, or to using the Internet in general?”

2. Teach your teen to be media literate.

A mistake parents often make, according to Udall-Weiner, is that they don’t teach their kids about media literacy. But it’s vital for kids to understand that what they see isn’t what they get online. For instance, “Parents need to actively remind their children that images are not reality—that no one is as thin, perfectly-muscled, unwrinkled, or flawless as that person in the ad.” She suggested visiting Media Smarts for more information.

3. Set time limits on Internet use.

Teens are still developing their executive functions, which include monitoring behavior, organizing information and setting goals, she said. Plus, spending too much time on sites like Facebook can make teens feel worse. “My clients regularly tell me that they become very upset after looking at Facebook, since everyone looks happier, thinner, or more popular than they feel.” So parents might need to set restrictions on Internet use.

4. Surrender all phones before bedtime.

“This is a way to ensure that kids aren’t up late texting or surfing the web, rather than getting precious sleep,” Udall-Weiner said. This rule also applies to parents’ phones, “since kids emulate what they see.”

5. Know the research about Internet use.

Research has suggested that looking at images of thin models — which are splashed all over the Internet — may be associated with various negative consequences. “After seeing these images, people report things like decreased self-esteem, poor body image, depression, guilt, shame, stress, and an urge to engage in eating-disordered behavior, such as restricting food intake,” said Udall-Weiner. She also specializes in body image and eating disorders and founded ED Educate, a website with resources for parents.

Research also has suggested that the Internet makes us feel more disconnected from others, she said. “It’s important for teens to know the research on Internet use.” Talk to your kids about these findings.

Udall-Weiner shares more information and tips on supervising your child’s Internet use in this video.

Other countries have long had to deal with seemingly random bombings in urban areas; the U.S. is relatively late to this particular brand of horror. I’m not sure how one ever gets used to the idea that by just going shopping or watching a parade or sporting event, something really bad could happen.

But life carries on — we cannot stop living out of fear.

With the prevalence of always-on media, it’s tempting to keep updated when tragedies like this strike by monitoring the news 24/7. But that would be a mistake, as we become overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of information (at first), and then the agonizingly slow trickle of new information (later on).

But there are some things you can do to help yourself — and others.

Elvira G. Aletta, Ph.D., for instance, had these helpful suggestions after the Newtown, CT shootings:

• Share in our humanity. Highly sensitive people (and who among us is not?) feel empathy profoundly. Just because it has not happened to us directly does not mean we do not grieve. Even from a great distance we are sensitive to the depth of loss. Cry, be sad. Allow grief to happen. Then wash your face, breathe deeply and allow life to happen, too.

• Turn off the radio, television, step away from the computer and put down the newspaper. Allow yourself the space to adjust to the news at your pace, not theirs.
• Do good. I do not mean make a donation or give blood. Although all that is good, there is more we can do. I mean what Chris said in a comment he left on my blog the day of the shooting, let us out-grace one another. Let us look for opportunities to act with kindness. Pay forward the kindness received from others. Let us breathe in the healing love and goodness in the universe and breathe out the poison.
• Stop the hate. Now that I’ve breathed out the hate I am hopeful I can let it go.

These are still helpful suggestions today. I would also add:

• Talk about it. Get together, face-to-face, with some friends or family members to share in your grief, or just the need to talk. Spending more time with others helps reinforce those emotional and social bonds that help us feel safe and secure.

• Engage in self-care. Now is not the time to challenge yourself to start a new diet, or challenge some habit or behavior you’ve been meaning to change. Instead, ensure you are getting your emotional needs met — ask for a hug, give a hug. Let others know what you need, and take the time you need to keep yourself together.
• Volunteer. While the Red Cross in Boston isn’t in need of blood donations right now, they will again in a few weeks. Commit to helping by giving blood, or donating in some other way that can help the victims of this tragedy (or even a recent tragedy closer to your own home or local community).

Our hearts and prayers go out to those who were injured or lost a loved one in the Boston Marathon bombings.

The bystander effect is a psychological phenomenon whereas the more people that are present when a person is in distress, the less likely anyone intervenes to help that person. Both cases involved a young girl being sexually assaulted and raped while at a house party with other teenagers.

Add alcohol to the mix — and the emotionally-based (often poor) judgment associated with the teenage years — and yes, it appears to be the perfect recipe for disaster.

The bystander effect first became popularized in the media in the case of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese. On March 13, 1964, New York City resident 28-year-old Genovese was returning to her home in Queens from work that day. As she approached her apartment entrance in the Kew Gardens neighborhood, she was attacked and stabbed by a man.

About a dozen people in the apartment building had heard the attack (as they later told police) and also heard Genovese’s calls for help. But rather than responding immediately — either by actively helping the victim directly, or by calling the police — nobody did so. It took about a half hour before someone finally picked up the phone and called the police. By the time the police arrived, Genovese was dead.

Dozens of more modern psychology experiments have been conducted to confirm the existence of the bystander effect since then. Modern research finds that, in general, the bystander effect disappears when the situation is perceived as being a dangerous emergency (because others are seen more as potential helpers, not as people who will socially judge or otherwise intervene instead).

But some things make the bystander effect even stronger — making people less likely to intervene when another is in distress — according to researchers Fischer et al. (2011):

• More people present (it’s a linear, direct relationship)

• If most of the people are strangers to one another (as opposed to friends)
• More females present (males appear to be less affected)

We don’t know the makeup of the parties that these two young girls participated in, but if it’s like most teenage parties, it’s safe to guess there was a mix of friends and strangers who didn’t know one another.

While we don’t know if the sexual assaults took place in a bedroom — largely shielded from most party-goers’ view — we do know that in Audrie Pott’s case, one of the photos taken of the assault apparently made the rounds at the party itself. And still nobody apparently did anything to stop it or to help Audrie.

We hope a clear response to these incidents is justice — significant jail time for everyone who participated in the sexual assault and rape. And despite these teens being “just children” (in Audrie Pott’s case, the perpetrators were 16 year olds), their names should also be released to the public.

There is no better justice than ensuring that the public never forgets the identify of these criminals, and what they did to helpless girls — both of whom ended up taking their own lives.

And listen up if you’re a teen — do not let this happen again. If you see something that you know is wrong — stop it. Get others to help you stop it. Call the police if you need to. Do not be a victim of the bystander effect — take charge, take action, and let’s prevent these horrible incidents from ever occurring again in the future.

Reference

Fischer, Peter Krueger, Joachim I. Greitemeyer, Tobias Vogrincic, Claudia Kastenmüller, Andreas Frey, Dieter Heene, Moritz Wicher, Magdalena Kainbacher, Martina. (2011). The bystander-effect: A meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 517-537.

Read more: How Bad Is ‘Viral’ Rape Shame? It Pushes Teenage Girls into Killing Themselves

The article, published in Psychology Today, is titled “Ahead of the Curves” and the brilliant tagline? “Men know something vital about women’s body shapes that women don’t. Plus: How big hips make wise women.”

It is six pages long and features illustrations of women who look more like playmates than the women who have the aforementioned “big hips” and are “wise” because of it. One of the illustrations boasts a sexy blonde wearing a pastel-pretty bra and tight briefs. She is pursing her red lips — ready to kiss! She is rather revolting and her hips, well, they certainly are not wise.

That alone is irritating but this is the part that really makes me question my taste in literature: This lengthy article is written by two men.

Their respective names and impressive education are listed in very small font. I wondered: How can these two men possibly educate and enlighten women on their sex appeal and bodies? Well, they certainly gave it a good shot. But not good enough.

The first paragraph states that “American males, it has been calculated, spend some $3 billion a year to gaze at women with hourglass figures, those whose small waists blossom into sinuously curvy hips.”

My first thought? Where does this “calculation” come from? Furthermore, how does gazing at women connect to “$3 billion a year?” They don’t explain this. Maybe men take time off work to gawk at women? Unlikely.

I have to give credit where credit is due: They do include research done by the late Deborah Sing — 20 years ago. This is the only mention of a female contribution to the piece and does not extend past one measly paragraph which tells the eager reader: “. . .Men all around the world. . .Prefer a similar shape.”

We are then told that when men view a curvy woman their brains respond in a similar fashion to cocaine and heroin. Hmm. That’s a strange statement with no research provided to the reader.

Even so, the following paragraph takes the cake:

Even a thin woman carries an astonishing amount of fat in her legs and hips–about a third of her body weight. Men everywhere admire the fat located here. . .Only bears ready to hibernate, penguins facing a sunless winter without food, or whales swimming in the arctic waters have fat percentages that approach those in normal, healthy, trim young women.

Well, that’s lovely! Female readers have now been compared to bears, penguins and whales. Furthermore, the word “astonishing” used in relation to our apparent “fat” probably does not make us smile. I am currently grimacing.

For diversity’s sake (or perhaps the editor was concerned about backlash from readers) a few paragraphs are devoted to explaining that American women are in dire need of more omega-3s.

Unfortunately, I believe more women have read this article than men. The pages are laced with bright pink script. I kid you not. Literature like this confuses both genders and, in my humble and currently sarcastic opinion, the size of my hips does not make me “wise.” And neither did reading this article.

Reference

Lassek, W. & Gaulin, S. (2012, August). Ahead of the curves. Psychology Today, 45(4), 74-77.

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.

One of the things you may have also missed, though, was Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence speaking about mental illness and the stigma and prejudice that still surround people with a mental health concern.

In the movie she won the Best Actress Oscar for, Lawrence plays a character who befriends Bradley Cooper’s character, who has bipolar disorder. Her performance is simply wondrous, and given her age at the time of the filming — just 21 — also quite extraordinary.

“I think that there’s such a huge stigma over it [mental illness], that I hope we can get rid of, or help… I mean, people have diabetes or asthma and they have to take medication for it. But as soon as you have to take medication for your mind, there’s this instant stigma. Hopefully we’ve given those people hope, and made people realize that it’s not–”

Click through to watch the interview…

She also said in a separate interview, “I don’t think we’re going to stop until we get rid of the stigma for mental illness. I know [director] David O Russell won’t, and I hope that this helps.”

By the way, if you haven’t seen Silver Linings Playbook, now’s a good time to fix that.

We hope Lawrence goes on to do more great work in Hollywood, making movies with meaning and a message. But using her voice during the Oscars to speak up for people with mental illness and mental health concerns is a great start. Thanks, Ms. Lawrence, for that effort!

Now they’ve moved on to something that, in my opinion, looks a lot like deception.

In today’s email box, we found an email from “Jeffrey Redd, Project Outreach Director” with an email address of jeff@va.gov.samhsa.net sharing with us “a guide about finding treatment, free of cost.” Wow, really? A new fantastic resource from the folks over at SAMHSA?

But wait, hold on a minute. That email address doesn’t look quite right…

Here’s the, in my opinion, seemingly deceptive email:¹

SAMHSA stands for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration — an arm of the U.S. federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services. The official SAMHSA website is at: www.samhsa.gov

SAMHSA.net, on the other hand, is a domain owned by a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm, Website Consultants Inc. of North Fort Myers, Florida:

[Click for larger image]

The email address “Jeff” sent from — jeff@va.gov.samhsa.net — is meant to invoke a government association with these three words: SAMHSA, “gov” (which is where all the government domains reside), and “va” which might stand for Veterans Administration (or Virginia). After I spoke with Beachway representatives on Wednesday — but before I spoke to the SEO firm — this domain’s ownership was hidden behind a proxy service.

SEO firms work to improve the search engine rankings of their clients’ websites. SAMHSA.net had a single page of content (since removed, but here’s copy of it) that had been rewritten from SAMHSA.gov’s legitimate content. The title of the deceptive page was “The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration” and there were no disclaimers to suggest that it was not an official federal government resource.

In this case, the client was a firm called Beachway Therapy Center, located in Delray Beach, Florida. I first spoke with the COO of Beachway, to understand who Jeffrey Redd was, and why he was telling me — unsolicited — about a “white paper” (about how to receive “free” treatment) that resided on Beachway Therapy Center’s domain.

The COO didn’t know anything about it and referred me instead to Stephen Howley, the admissions director of Beachway. During a brief telephone conversation, he also said he didn’t know any Jeffrey Redd, and at first suggested that this was a work of a competitor trying to steal or infringe upon Beachway’s branding.² He also suggested perhaps it was something sent out by his SEO firm, but he thought it unlikely.

Then I asked Mr. Howley for the name of his SEO firm. “Website Consultants Inc.,” he replied.

I pointed out that the exact same firm is responsible for registering the domain name, samhsa.net, and so it was unlikely this email was sent out by a competitor. “I’ll have to have a talk with them,” said Mr. Howley.

When asked if he knew of this apparently deceptive email being sent, Mr. Howley replied, “I can assure you 100% that we had no prior knowledge of this sort of thing.”

We contacted the SEO firm and spoke via phone and emails with Sean Callahan, the president and co-founder of Website Consultants. He also didn’t know who Jeffrey Redd was, so he asked for a copy of the email. After reviewing the email, he pegged the errant email on a link-building firm that he said had leased the domain SAMHSA.net: “They are obviously abusing the domain we leased to them, so we have terminated the agreement effective today.” Mr. Callahan refused to name the link-building firm, citing a non-disclosure agreement.

I understand it’s hard to get your name out there if you’re a treatment or rehab center. It’s even more difficult to appear higher up in search results. But good content gets indexed by Google and Bing, plain and simple — there are no tricks you need to employ in order to get it indexed. Yes, it takes time, and yes, it takes even more time to build up an online reputation for your domain. Seeking ways to circumvent the system or hurry up the process may work (at least temporarily, until the algorithm changes yet again) — but also may bring you unwanted publicity.

Sometimes rehab centers get a bad name because of their aggressive strategies for trying to attract new patients. It’s no wonder.

1. I left off the legally-meaningless confidentiality notice that nobody reads — including me — from this email copy. But the SEO guy pointed out that buried in the middle of it was this sentence, “We are in no way related, or representing any government agency.”
2. Which can be a legitimate concern in this cut-throat industry.

I recall the first time I encountered a computer — it really was an encounter as the machine looked rather frightening to my 10-year-old eyes. It was grey and weighed at least 25 pounds. It took what felt like forever (minutes — in its later years, hours) to load.

And it made a strange ticking noise, a repetitive sound not unlike the clock that hung in our living room, or the motion of my foot hitting the side of the metal desk as I waited for the noise the machine made once the screen finally appeared. I loved that noise. If the computer could talk I was certain it was telling me, whispering among the ticking, Welcome Home, Natalie! Enjoy your stay!

It was 1995. My two siblings and I fought over that large machine, forcing my parents to give us each an allotted amount of time. We cried and we kicked once 30 minutes had passed, 45 minutes if the gods were smiling down on us or my mother was taking a nap.

When I was 14 years old I found immense pleasure in setting up an alias online, entering a chat room, and pretending I was psychic. I predicted, tapping away at the keyboard, great fame and fortune for dozens of anonymous people… Even if it wasn’t completely honest, it was fun.

This was before technology captured and completely enraptured my teenage years. This was before cell phones and iPads and everything made by Apple, Inc. Technology was still a fantastic novelty.

Reality television had yet to dominate the time many people had previously spent reading (actual paper books!) and eating family dinner at a table, the children arguing and squirming as children do. Maybe those were the good old days, before writing became my sole vocation and left me staring at my laptop screen eight hours each day.¹

In contrast to my experience, growing up alongside Bill Gates and wireless Internet, my father recalls a much different time. And when he does, his eyes glass over, he smiles slightly, and he tells me about a simpler time. My father grew up on a farm in Edmonton, Alberta, where he was taught how to kill his own dinner and catch the mice that populated the stacks of hay. I cringe when he tells me this — but he remembers this time fondly.

He tells me, while I am checking listings on eBay, that the best years in his life occurred sitting in front of a radio. Yes, a radio. He has a picture of it and I can only describe this single photograph as ancient-looking: black and white, the edges curled and yellowed. The radio itself looks archaic; the antenna nearly reaching the ceiling.

The entire family, once per week, huddled together near the fireplace and listened eagerly to the infamous Hockey Night in Canada. Sure, they had television — a few channels — and watched scratchy black and white cartoons, but it was the radio that mattered. The simplicity of it and what it represented: time spent with family and with friends.

Having heard this story once again, I wondered if perhaps a life defined by technology, social networking and television was lacking in something. Lacking in life.

I briefly considered writing an article focused on the impact of social networking and then realized that in order to do this it would require a large amount of social networking. Much too ironic, I concluded.

So I made things simple: I closed my laptop, unplugged the television, placed my iPad in my nightstand drawer and waited. I lasted exactly thirty-four hours and immediately realized that technology — for better or for worse — has a large place in our lives. But listening to my father talk about life before my wireless keyboard, well, that must have been pretty nice.

Old radio photo available from Shutterstock

1. I am certain there will be a massive class-action lawsuit based on strange eye afflictions directly caused by computers.

Instead, they — like many well-meaning but apparently brain-dead newspapers — tie the need to fix our mental health care system — something others have been advocating for for decades — to recent headline-news grabbing acts of atrocious violence.

Only buried in this hypocritical, two-faced gutter-piece editorial do you find the truth — “Only the tiniest fraction of the mentally ill ever become violent, and then, usually when they fail to get treatment.” It’s even worse than that — statistically speaking, mental illness is a horrible predictor of violence, and nobody who’s read the research would ever suggest otherwise.

I have no problem with you advocating to help people with mental health concerns. I have a big problem if you’re doing so because of violence in America. The two have little to no connection with one another.

People let to get all riled up and angry when something tragic occurs. It’s one way many of us cope and try to figure out such events. But when we respond to tragic events with action, we’re likely to do so in a way that makes little sense in the overall, broader picture.

The fact is people with mental health conditions are no more likely to be violent than is the general population.
~ Wayne Lindstrom

For instance, every year in America, over 12,000 people a year are murdered — most by some sort of gun. Nobody gets upset at that huge number, or that 30,000+ people a year who take their own lives.

Instead, the thing that USA Today wants us to get motivated by are these horrific acts of violence that barely read in the overall number of deaths per year due to gun violence. USA Today doesn’t seem to care about the 30,000+ people each year who, because of untreated depression or other mental health concerns, choose to end their lives.¹

Wayne Lindstrom, the CEO of Mental Health America, on the other hand, gets it right in his response to the crummy piece of what passes for “insightful opinion” at USA Today:

The premise that we can predict or prevent violent acts is unsupported. Even in the case of severe mental illnesses, mental health professionals possess no special knowledge or ability to predict future behavior.

The fact is people with mental health conditions are no more likely to be violent than is the general population. Continuing to link violence and mental illness only stigmatizes people and deters them from seeking care.

We whole-heartedly share and endorse these words. We stand proudly with Mental Health America and other organizations who’ve read the research and know that linking mental illness to violence is like linking terrorism to a specific religion — it’s a feel good strategy imbeciles do to make themselves feel better.

USA Today rues the good ole days, when we could lock up anyone society disagreed with or didn’t like the looks of in a mental hospital (nowadays referred to an inpatient psychiatric hospital): “Many states have become so strict that it is almost impossible to get people committed until they are in deep crisis, or try to commit suicide or harm someone.” Awww, what a shame — we actually have a reasonable, humane standard before trying to take someone’s freedom away from them.

USA Today should be ashamed of itself for publishing an editorial that only reinforces the discrimination, stigma and prejudice against people with mental health concerns. They continue to spread misinformation about the link between mental illness and violence,² and suggest we have some sort of magical powers of foresight that would allow us to predict these kinds of incidents with such accuracy, it would be like the science-fiction story, “Minority Report” (we don’t have such magical powers, sorry).

USA Today crap editorial: Editorial: Fix broken mental health system

Wayne Lindstrom’s response: Opposing view: Don’t link violence with mental illness

1. Worse, they cite the example of Seung-Hui Cho — who actually had contact with mental health professionals!
2. There really isn’t much of one, according to you know, the actual research.

But the recent suspension — and possible expulsion — of San Francisco high school student, Courtni Webb, is a fine example of how not to deal with suspected school violence.

Ms. Webb was suspended, according to news reports, for writing a poem about the Newtown killings, which apparently violated the school’s policy against threats of violence.

Poets, of course, have been deemed a threat to society ever since Plato banned them from his ideal “Republic.” Poetry, Plato argued, spoke to the heart, not the mind — and thus encouraged rebellion against the natural order of things.

But having heard Ms. Webb read her poem in its entirety, I found little in the way of violent rebellion, and certainly no overt threats to her classmates. Yes, the poem might be called self-absorbed — but isn’t that part of normal adolescence?

When Ms. Webb writes, “When you don’t feel loved/ you hate the world,” she could easily be expressing the feelings of thousands of alienated young people from time immemorial. Most of the poem seems to be an attempt to express her personal frustrations, and to understand the motivation of the Newtown shooter — not to threaten new violence.

We would be fortunate, as a society, if more lonely and alienated young people expressed their feelings in poetry, and fewer, through acts of violence.

We have yet to create a well-validated “profile” of those who carry out acts of so-called targeted violence, such as school shootings. The evidence to date suggests that perpetrators of such attacks tend to have very low self-esteem, a “persecutory/paranoid” outlook, depressive symptoms, narcissistic traits, and feelings of rejection. Perhaps one can find intimations of a few of these characteristics in Ms. Webb’s poem.

But as my colleague, Dr. James Knoll, has pointed out, focusing too heavily on these factors by “profiling” students would deluge school officials with “false positives.” Profiling alone — in the absence of careful, on-site assessment — casts far too broad a net to be useful.

Furthermore, as Prof. Eric Madfis of the University of Washington at Tacoma has pointed out, “zero tolerance” policies with mandatory arrests, suspensions and expulsions appear to do little to thwart targeted violence in schools.

Rather, schools do best by heeding the early warning signs of planned, targeted violence, such as when a would-be perpetrator “leaks” elements of the plan to another classmate, or posts threats on a website. Indeed, research from Finland found that adolescents aged 3-18 who expressed “massacre threats” online were a riskier group than adolescents who expressed the threats offline — for example, those who made online threats had often begun making actual preparations for the attack.

Of course, utilizing these early warning signs presupposes that knowledgeable peers or family members are willing to come forward to school authorities or police — and this happens all too rarely. As Prof. Madfis has noted, there is often a “code of silence” among adolescents that discourages coming forward with such information — which is widely regarded as “snitching.”

Nevertheless, the recent case of Blaec Lammers, in Bolivar, Missouri, shows that timely, personal intervention can make a huge difference. The young man’s plans for an Aurora-style movie theater massacre were thwarted when his mother reported him to local police.

Perhaps the most sensible recommendations for preventing targeted violence in schools come from the Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence, writing in the aftermath of the Newtown, CT shootings. Among their conclusions was that the most effective way of preventing violence targeted at schools is by

“…maintaining close communication and trust with students and others in the community, so that threats will be reported and can be investigated by responsible authorities.”

The group did not endorse the use of “profiling” or checklists of personality traits. Rather, they urged the use of trained staff members who would investigate specific instances of apparent threats. Of course, schools strapped for funding will find it hard to implement such staff training — yet arguably, this may be more effective in preventing violence than posting armed guards at all our schools.

I also believe that greater cooperation between school health personnel and outside mental health specialists is sorely needed. For example, the school nurse or school psychologist could meet periodically with family physicians and psychiatrists in the community, to discuss students believed to be at high risk for targeted violence. This could be done via anonymous case presentations that would protect the privacy of potentially innocent students — and without simplistic “profiling.”

Some of these adolescents might be tugged off the path of violence through appropriate, voluntary counseling or mental health intervention. In cases of extreme or imminent threats of violence, involuntary treatment might be required, via appropriate judicial processes.

What will not help, in my judgment, is targeting students like Courtni Webb, who engage in acts of poetic expression, rather than savage violence.

References and Further reading    

Sankin A:  Courtni Webb, San Francisco High School Senior, Suspended For Writing Poem About Sandy Hook Shooting. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/courtni-webb_n_2376833.html

Dibble L: 3Qs: Analyzing and preventing school shootings. Accessed at: http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2012/03/madfis/

Zarembo A: Plotters of school killings tend to tip off someone in advance. Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23, 2012. Accessed at: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/23/nation/la-na-massacre-prevention-2012122

Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence.  Accessed 12/20/12: http://curry.virginia.edu/articles/sandyhookshooting

Knoll JL: Mass Shootings: Research & Lessons. Psychiatric Times (in press).

Knoll J: Mass Shootings and the Ethic of the Open Heart. Medscape Psychiatry Dec 20, 2012. Accessed at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776427

Nina L, Atte O, Eila S, Riittakerttu KH: Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about? Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health., 2012; 6(1):39.

However, that hasn’t stopped the news media from focusing on some statements of relatives who believe Lanza either had a “personality disorder” (says his brother), “was autistic” (again, his brother), or had Asperger’s syndrome (told by an unidentified member of the family).

This second-hand information is then held up by both the news media and now by the National Rifle Association as evidence that Adam Lanza must’ve been “crazy” or “insane” to have killed 20 innocent children, and six adults who tried to protect them.

After all, who would do such a thing but someone who’s crazy?

Without evidence, it is premature to suggest Adam Lanza, an honors student who kept to himself, had murderous thoughts that could’ve been somehow magically detected by the authorities beforehand. As this AP article notes, we have no reliable methods for detecting violent behavior before it occurs:

But warning signs “only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.

“They’re yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled,” he said.

But after the article lists a number of these “warning flags,” the author fails to note the most important point — the vast majority of people (greater than 99 percent) who have one or more of these warning signs doesn’t commit murder, much less an atrocity of this proportion.

We don’t know what tips the balance in a criminal’s mind — where they go from hurting someone to killing them. We have a lot of theories, but theories don’t matter much when a person demonstrates quite clearly how easy it is to take a life.

The NRA’s Prescription

Sadly, the NRA’s prescription to stop these rare incidents from occurring are short-sighted, prejudiced, and discriminatory — more guns, a national blacklist of people who are mentally ill, and censoring Hollywood.

More Guns!

Wayne LaPierre suggests that what we need are not less guns, but more guns — every school should be equipped with armed security guards who could put an end to violence as soon as it begins (after children have already apparently been killed).

But we already know that doesn’t really work in the real world. Columbine had at least one armed security guard (and perhaps two) on campus that fateful day on April 20, 1999 when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and one teacher. The chances of a shooter being in proximity to one or two security guards roaming a large school building are probably less than 50/50. Meaning that while an armed guard might help contain the sheer amount of killing, it would do little to stop it.

Let’s Keep Track of the Crazies

LaPierre also says a national database on anyone who has a mental illness is needed:

The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn’t planning his attack on a school he’s already identified at this very moment? [...]

A dozen more killers? A hundred? More? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?

As we’ve shown time and time again, there is little relationship between mental illness and an increased risk of violence. The landmark 1998 study showed no significant relationship between mental illness and violence. The relationship can only be found when substance abuse enters the picture.

The link between Asperger’s or autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and violent behavior — much less a murder spree — is even weaker. As Mouridsen (2012) reported, “Currently, there is still no body of evidence to suppose that people with ASD are more prone to commit offences than anyone else.” Furthermore,

Insofar as people with [autism spectrum disorders] have offended, it has typically been connected with arson and sexual abuse. But due to lack of valid community based studies of offending relating to people with ASD, these findings must be interpreted with caution.

In other words, even where there exists a weak relationship, we must be cautious in over-interpreting its meaning given the methodological concerns noted. And the relationship doesn’t highlight a relationship with violent acts of murder — but rather with a slightly elevated risk for arson and sexual abuse.

Another problem, as I wrote about in October, is that we do a pretty horrible job of enforcing the laws already on the books. Do we really need more laws, or a database of discrimination, when we don’t use the tools we already have?

And if you single out people with a mental illness to suggest they are not responsible enough to own a gun, your law will have a predictable, inevitable side-effect — people will just stop talking to health or mental health professionals about their mental health concerns:

In fact, such laws may have a serious unintended, negative consequence, as Applebaum & Swanson (2010) note: “The laws may deter people from seeking treatment for fear of losing the right to possess firearms and may reinforce stereotypes of persons with mental illnesses as dangerous.”

It becomes clear that more guns will only have the potential to reduce the amount of carnage after-the-fact, and that a national database of people who have mental illness will have no measurable impact on these events. In fact, it will further discriminate against people with mental illness, likely leading to people reporting fewer symptoms that might “give them away.”

Blame Hollywood and Video Games

Last, LaPierre continues to play the blame game on everything but guns — suggesting that violent video games, TV and films are also the root cause of such incidents. In other words, it’s not the easy access to guns that lead to the death of 20 children — it’s Hollywood’s fault!

We know from the research this is unlikely to be true. A good summary of the findings of the research in this area are presented in Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do. In 2011, the US Supreme Court and the Australian Government described the current research into the effects of video game violence on human behavior as “non-compelling and fundamentally flawed.”

A 3-year longitudinal study of 165 youths meant to help fill the gaps in our knowledge of the relationship between video games and violent behavior was published earlier this year. It found that “exposure to video game violence was not related to any of the negative outcomes:”

Depression, antisocial personality traits, exposure to family violence and peer influences were the best predictors of aggression-related outcomes.

The current study supports a growing body of evidence pointing away from video game violence use as a predictor of youth aggression.

Yeah, so much for pointing the blame on video games.

The Answer: There is No Answer

Gun owners should be upset with the NRA and its latest anti-common sense and anti-science rhetoric. The NRA represents a tiny fraction of gun owners in the United States (just 4 million, out of 80 million gun owners — that’s just 5 percent). The NRA’s extremist, discriminatory views are increasingly out of step with most American gun owners’ views. And they are based not on the data or science, but on fear-mongering and prejudice.¹

The real answer is something the news media, policy experts, and others don’t want to admit – it is nearly impossible to stop these rare acts of mass killings. No amount of laws, databases, or good intentions can stop someone who is dedicated to carrying out an act of violence. It’s like the TSA checking your shoes for the next possible bomb brought onto an airplane — nobody’s going to be hiding the next one in their shoes.

Does that mean we shouldn’t try? Of course not. But it does mean we should be careful and measured in our approach to trying to stop this aberrant behavior. Extreme actions — such as creating a national database of the mentally ill — are not appropriate and would do nothing to stop something like this from happening in the future.

We must also separate out the discussion of mass killings from mental illness. Repeating myths and half-truths about a relationship — where the science tells us time and time again that no strong relationship exists — is detrimental to anyone who’s ever been diagnosed with a mental illness.

References

Appelbaum, P.S. & Swanson, J.W. (2010). Gun laws and mental illness: How sensible are the current restrictions? Psychiatric Services, 61, 652-654.

Ferguson, C.J., San Miguel, C., Garza, A., Jerabeck, J.M. (2012). A longitudinal test of video game violence influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46, 141-146.

Mouridsen, S.E. (2012). Current status of research on autism spectrum disorders and offending. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 6, 79-86.

1. I should note that NRA’s angry rant on this topic includes zero references to research or science.

These events touched many families personally. For those of us not directly affected, they can still leave us with feelings of horror and wanting to hold our loved ones near.

As a nation and as individuals, we could not possibly have anticipated or planned to have to deal with the emotional consequences of such an event. And yet here we are… many of us saddened, enraged and overwhelmed.

In the midst of tragedy and crisis, it can feel as if life is spinning out of control.  An event like this can remind us of devastating events from the past, which in turn can trigger thoughts and emotions connected to our own personal misfortunes and heartbreak.

We can’t change what has happened, but we can use a few strategies can help get through intense painful feelings and do what needs to be done in our daily lives.

• Turn off the news. 

  Give yourself permission to take a break from the images, thoughts and emotions related to this tragic event.  As with a car accident, when something terrifying or tragic occurs, we can feel compelled to watch and gather information about the event.  But it’s important to your emotional well-being to get a break from it.

• Distract yourself. 

  If you’re plagued by persistent thoughts or painful emotions, try engaging in physical or mental activities that take your mind off of it.  You might try things such as going to a movie, exercising, doing a puzzle or playing a video game.

• Help others. 

  One of the most effective ways to feel better is to help others.  Whether it’s volunteering for a charity, watching a neighbors pet or saying kind words to someone else, helping others can improve how you are feeling.

• Do something opposite to how you’re feeling. 

  You may be feeling angry, sad or depressed.  Don’t take lightly the impact a pleasant experience can have on your mood and emotions.  Some things you might try include watching a funny TV show, talking to a light-hearted friend or listening to comforting holiday songs or upbeat music.

• Soothe yourself. 

  Often when we’re in the midst of painful emotions we neglect to do the things that can make us feel calm and relaxed. You might try lighting a scented candle, baking cookies, wearing soft clothing, putting on a special scented lotion or looking at pictures of loved ones or special times.

When you have good reason to feel bad, it can be hard to regain your equilibrium and get through normal daily activities.  A few simple coping strategies can make a bigger difference than you might expect.

If feelings triggered by the tragic events in Newtown Connecticut are interfering with your ability to function, it’s essential that you employ strategies that will help you bear the moment and get through this difficult time.  These strategies or seeking help from a professional are important.