Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
It’s Taxing: Confronting the Inevitable
By Lynne Gots, posted on March 28th, 2012.
I just finished doing my taxes. By doing, I mean filling out the detailed, 27-page “Tax Organizer” my accountant gives me every year. She makes all the complicated decisions for me. My only task is to record my earnings and expenses in the spaces provided. That’s it. The calculations are basic—nothing more than simple addition–yet the whole process makes my head spin.
I’m what you’d call “math-challenged.” If I had to go up against a grade school child in an arithmetic competition, I’m pretty sure the fifth-grader would win.
How much computational anxiety do I have? So much that as an undergraduate psychology major, I decided not to take the then optional but strongly recommended Statistics 101. (Nowadays not only is Statistics mandatory for psych majors, but in some universities, so is Calculus, as my even more math-challenged daughter discovered when she was majoring in psychology). My advisor urged me to reconsider because the course was a prerequisite for admission to graduate programs in clinical psychology. But I held fast, insisting that I didn’t need statistics because I wasn’t planning to go on for a Ph.D. Hah.
Of course, I eventually did have to take Statistics—five graduate courses worth. And, being a conscientious student as well as an excellent memorizer, I somehow even managed to get As without understanding (or retaining) a single concept.
My aversion to numbers, coupled with my rather casual approach to keeping records, makes the whole tax preparation process an ordeal for me. My chest tightens, and I feel lightheaded. After ten minutes of sorting through receipts, I have to leave my kitchen table workstation in search of a snack to fortify me. Needless to say, nothing changes. The papers are still staring at me when I get back.
As it’s been famously said, there are only two certainties in life. One of them is taxes. So I have no choice but to confront my math phobia and do it anyway. Which, come to think of it, is a good approach for tackling any anxiety-inducing situation even when the IRS isn’t involved.
Tags: anxiety, math phobia, taxes
Posted in Phobias |
Self-Help and Change: No Quick Fix
By Lynne Gots, posted on March 26th, 2012.
I’ve alluded in previous posts to the misleadingly reductionist methods promoted by self-transformation gurus. In a recent article on the science website Big Think, Jason Gots (Full Disclosure: he’s my nephew) makes a similar point about the process of personal growth. I hope my recent meditation chronicles have also shown that it takes hard work to eliminate bad habits, adopt better ones, and rewire the brain.
Even the research tested, cognitive-behavioral treatment protocols—which in countless studies have proven to ameliorate complex psychiatric syndromes, such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social anxiety, insomnia, and attention deficit disorder, to name just a few—have their limitations when it comes to real world applications.
Why? Because the manuals presume an ideal situation in which life and people don’t muddy the pure, scientifically controlled waters.
In reality—that is, in settings like my office where clinicians see real people with complex problems and complicated lives, not carefully screened research subjects who get eliminated from clinical trials if they don’t precisely fit the study criteria, miss appointments or fail to comply with the treatment regimen—change just isn’t as straightforward as the books would have us believe.
One of the challenges I face as a clinician is managing expectations. If, from the outset, I don’t help patients anticipate the difficulties they may encounter with the therapy (and sometimes even when I do), they may get frustrated and end the treatment before they’ve given it a fair chance. I partly blame the self-help movement on causing some people—particularly many of the perfectionists I see, who tend to view the process of change through an all-or-nothing lens—to give up too soon when the results they envision aren’t as immediately forthcoming as they’d hoped.
I don’t mean to sound overly pessimistic about personal growth. If I believed that modifying the ways we think and behave were unreasonable goals, I’d be in the wrong line of work. But expecting an instruction manual to magically transform your life without requiring you to make a long-term investment of time, energy, and honest self-reflection amounts to believing in, well, magic.
Posted in Behavior Change, Mental Health and the Media, Perfectionism, Self-help |
Meditation Notebook: Days 6 and 7
By Lynne Gots, posted on March 24th, 2012.
I’ve meditated for five minutes a day, every day, for a week. That’s a total of thirty-five minutes of mindful breathing. Woohoo!
Maybe I should be expressing my pride in this accomplishment in a more restrained fashion, one more befitting the quiet, contemplative nature of the process. But if I’ve learned anything from dipping my toe in the waters of mindfulness, it’s that there is no right or wrong way to go about it.
On some days I felt jumpy and impatient. My mind wanted to review an earlier conversation or plan tomorrow’s dinner instead of attending to my inhalations and exhalations. On other days I felt tired and heavy-lidded. I’d like to say I also had Goldilocks days when it felt “just right,” but that didn’t happen.
Research has shown that regular meditation practice leads to changes in the brain structures associated with self-control, attention, and self-awareness. I’m all for giving my concentration and willpower a boost, so I plan to keep meditating, adding a few minutes to each practice every week, and hope that over time, I’ll improve my mindfulness skills. I’m going to have to wait before I decide whether it’s beneficial for me.
Tags: meditation, mindfulness, self-help
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness, Self-help |
