Relationship

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 14 Issue 48

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Holidays and Connection

The Christmas and winter holiday season is a unique time to sit back reflect on the past year. To behold the timeless beauty of life. The shared time offers us an opportunity to pause and connect with those who matter or should matter most in our lives. I love the bathroom plaque that says at the end of life it won’t matter what you owned or what you knew, but rather the impact you had in a child’s life. Fortunately, for us, the holidays bring a chance to foster authentic human connections. To actually sit in conspiracy together. These moments are more than just traditions, they are essential for our emotional, mental, and even physical health. In the hustle of modern existence, where schedules dominate and technology often mediates relationships, we are losing this skill set, especially for the younger generations, making it more important to stay focused now.

Let us define human connection: Human connection is the act or feeling of being seen, heard, cared for and valued by another person or group. It is a most primary need for humans starting in infancy when a child needs a mother’s touch and milk. It arises from the countless meaningful interactions that foster mutual understanding, trust, empathy, and shared emotional experiences that ultimately lead to a child’s feeling of safety. The critical time period to establish attachment and connection is the first 2 to 3 years of life. Plus a section of literature review and a recipe of the week.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 14 Issue 43

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Finding a relational balance with any person or persons can be a struggle if one side of the relationship dyad has a strong need for a gain to feel safe or whole. For example, a parent in a poor quality marriage or with significant childhood wounding may turn to the child for happiness and love when it is missing otherwise. A child in turn being young will often, out of filial love, try to meet the needs of the parent. These types of relationships can take on many forms and can become dysfunctional over time.

I remember a parent child dyad from many years ago that was a budding enmeshed/codependent relationship between a mother and her son. Mom was absolutely unable to draw boundaries with her son as she felt all of his pain and reflected all of her childhood trauma onto the child’s life with boundary-less smothering love and control. She simultaneously would restrict any behavior that she perceived as unsafe controlling his environment while drawing zero boundaries with regard to his behavior toward her and others within this controlled small world. He was a holy terror by 4 years of age. His mother was crying for help while being indignant that he was sweet and well meaning while she enabled every choice that he made. Her fear of drawing boundaries because of her own childhood restrictive parenting wounding left this child completely attached to her yet abusive because he felt completely out of control. The psychological pathology was exhausting for all in the room. Recommendations for therapy and interventions were met with scorn….plus a literature review.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 14 Issue 38

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Section I

Are Smart Phones a benefit or a curse for the teenager in school? This is becoming a huge topic this past year or so. Logic would seem to dictate that this is a curse more than a benefit, but what does the data and expert opinion show?

The Scientific American article “Do Phone Bans Help Students Perform Better in School?” examines the growing trend of banning smartphones in schools to enhance student performance and well-being. Numerous U.S. cities, including New York and Los Angeles, have recently implemented or are considering bans on phones in classrooms. Schools use tools like the Yondr pouch, which locks phones away during school hours, to enforce these bans. These measures are popular with educators and parents, with 60% of likely voters in New York State supporting such restrictions. Charlotte Schools has this policy: “In accordance with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Student Code of Conduct, personal technology devices, including cell phones must remain off and put away during school hours. Violations will result in confiscation of the personal technology device. The district is not responsible (monetary value or replacement) for theft, loss or damage to personal technology or other electronic devices brought onto CMS property.” (CMS) My informal poll has a higher number of parents interested in phone ban restrictions in North Carolina….plus a section on teen anxiety.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #76 – Ken Pelletier, MD, PhD – Choice and Love

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Kenneth R. Pelletier, MD, PhD is a Clinical Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine; Department of Family and Community Medicine, and Department of Psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine (UCSF) in San Francisco. He is Director of the Corporate Health Improvement Program (CHIP) which is a collaborative research program between CHIP and 15 of the Fortune 500 corporations including Ford, Oracle, Prudential, Apple, Dow, Lockheed Martin, Pepsico, IBM, American Airlines and NASA.

Dr. Pelletier served as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona School of Medicine and Stanford University School of Medicine. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, studied at the CG Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland and has published over 300 professional journal articles in behavioral medicine, disease management, worksite interventions, alternative/integrative medicine, and epigenetics.

At the present time, Dr. Pelletier is a medical and business consultant to the US Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Business Group on Health, the Federation of State Medical Boards, and major corporations including Cisco, IBM, American Airlines, Prudential, Dow, Disney, Ford, Mercer, Merck, Pepsico, Ford, Pfizer, Walgreens, NASA, Microsoft ENCARTA, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Health Net, the Pasteur Institute of Lille, the Alpha Group of Mexico, and the Singapore Ministry of Health.

Dr. Pelletier is the author of fifteen (15) major books, including the international bestseller Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer and Change Your Genes – Change Your Life: Creating Optimal Health with the New Science of Epigenetics.

Today we enjoy the amazing viewpoint that Dr. Pelletier has for humanity. We have control over our destinies individually and collectively. This conversation is the culmination of years of incredible study.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

 

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 14 Issue 16

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Teenagers and tweens are a challenge to any parent as they embark on their identity development. These are years filled with angst, joy, love and pain, as our kids develop physically, mentally, and emotionally. As we attempt to guide but not control, we struggle watching them make and maybe repeat obvious mistakes. We, so dearly, want them to make the right choices (in our mind) and respect their bodies.
What can we do to help?
Dictating to teens will never work. They are more likely to sabotage their own lives in order to prove that they are in control. The tighter parents squeeze, the more the adolescent rebels.

I think of this stage of parenting as motivational interviewing…. and a literature review.

Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #69 – Stephen Porges, Ph.D. – Polyvagal Theory

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This week I sit down with Dr. Stephen Porges,
He is a Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland.
He served as president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences and is a former recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development Award. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers across several disciplines including anesthesiology, biomedical engineering, critical care medicine, ergonomics, exercise physiology, gerontology, neurology, neuroscience, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, psychometrics, space medicine, and substance abuse. In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders.
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He is the author of multiple books on his Polyvagal Theory: including the Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation, as well as Polyvagal Safety: Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation. His newest book cowritten with his son is called Our Polyvagal World, How Safety and Trauma Change Us. Dr. Porges is the creator of a music-based intervention, the Safe and Sound Protocol ™ (SSP), which is used by therapists to improve social engagement, language processing, and state regulation, as well as to reduce hearing sensitivities.
This is such a fascinating conversation. He brings the worlds of psychiatry and anthropological physiology into union for us to understand the why of trauma reactions and the future unwinding that is now possible. This is a must listen to conversation if you know anyone with trauma history.
Please enjoy my conversation with Professor Porges,
Dr. M
His recent paper in Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience
Website for Dr. Porges
Newest Book – Our Polyvagal World

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 14 Issue 13

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To Forgive
The act as defined as I see it – to release consciously another person from your negative feelings based on an event that was hurtful toward you from them whether it is perceived on your part or known by both parties.
What I find fascinating is that often the act of forgiveness may have to push past an unconscious threat injury in order to take root. This is to say that we can be harmed at a conscious and an unconscious level. The unconscious harm is understood at the vagal nerve level which is a primitive emotional safety response state that all mammals have that developed a long time ago. This is the essence of polyvagal theory which states that when humans feel safe, their nervous system supports the homeostatic functions of health, growth and restoration, while simultaneously become accessible to others without feeling or expressing threat and vulnerability. (Porges S. 2022) Thus, the opposite exists, when humans are threatened, their nervous system supports a break in homeostasis that can be short lived or long persistent based on the severity and chronicity of the harm. This break can lead to persistent mental and physical health challenges….. and a section on sleep followed by the recipe of the week.
Enjoy,
Dr. M

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