Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Public Privacy
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 20th, 2011.
Writing a blog makes me a little uneasy. Every time I hit “Publish,” I feel exposed. Sharing personal stories in such a public forum doesn’t come naturally to a digital immigrant like me– especially one whose professional code of conduct requires the keeping of secrets.
Which brings me to the subject of confidentiality. I want to assure everyone who may think they recognize themselves in a post I’ve written—family members, friends, colleagues, and, particularly, patients—that the situations I describe are based on actual events, but any similarities to any person living or dead are merely coincidental. In certain cases, incidents, characters, and timelines have been changed for dramatic purposes. Certain characters may be composites, or entirely fictitious. I throw all the personal details into my brain’s Vitamix blender, and they come out unrecognizable from their original form.
Except when I talk about my dogs. Everything I write about them is 100% true. They don’t seem to mind as long as I feed them.
Tags: confidentiality
Posted in Disclaimer |
Dog Days
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 16th, 2011.
One of my hobbies is dog training. You can learn a lot about psychology from dogs.
Take Baxter, my 10-year-old Cocker Spaniel-Poodle mix. Baxter isn’t the smartest dog on the block, especially next to our 3-year-old Australian Shepherd, Freddie. (But we try not to compare. Each is special in his own way.) When Baxter was young, we enrolled him in a puppy class at PetSmart. The trainer was an old school type. He believed that the best way to train a dog is to admonish him for disobeying a command with a jerk on a metal-pronged collar around his neck, thus teaching him to respect you as “the leader of the pack.” Caesar Milan is still practicing this method of dog training. (Don’t get me started.)
Baxter graduated at the bottom of his puppy class. He was the only student who didn’t master “the down” at the end of eight weeks, despite the frequent leash pops he endured. I feel bad about this now. But at the time, I thought he was being stubborn. The teacher, whose own unleashed Golden Retriever impressed me by lying immobile on his bed, said Baxter knew full well what he was supposed to do. He was just being “passive-aggressive.”
Really? I can’t presume to know a human’s hidden motives let alone a canine’s (clinical bias alert). Speculating about the underlying cause of a behavior can be an interesting intellectual exercise, but it’s not very useful. Especially when it comes to dogs. They live completely in the moment. They don’t fret or harbor resentment. And they don’t connect the present with the future. (“How could she leave me all day? I’ll show her! I’ll pee on her Manolo Blahniks!”). That’s why it’s pointless, and quite unfair, to yell at a puppy when you discover a housetraining transgression that may have occurred hours ago.
Fast forward ten years. Baxter has learned many—well, at least, a few—tricks since his school days, and he can be very clever when he really wants something. Like vegetables. Given the choice, he’ll devour broccoli and carrots before steak any day. (I tested this.) He’s found a way to break through three layers of plastic to get into my garden this summer. I keep discovering partially digested globs of green tomatoes on the living room rug and new holes in the impenetrable deer fencing–proof that an old dog can learn new tricks when he wants to.
Baxter long ago figured out what “Down!” means. And now he hits the deck in no time flat, even faster if there’s a cucumber or pepper in it for him. Dogs learn more quickly—and have more fun learning– when we reward them for their efforts.
People too, for that matter.
Posted in Behavior Change, Dogs, Motivation |
“How I Spent My Summer Vacation”
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 12th, 2011.
I just read another article about what high school students are doing–with the help of their parents and high-end, private admissions consultants–to market themselves to colleges. [Eye roll]
One eighteen-year-old heading to Yale in the fall turned himself into an old China hand by studying Mandarin on native soil after his sophomore year and returning to the country the following summer for an internship. He drew on his experiences to craft an application essay about “calmly sipping green tea” in the mountains of Nanjing. Come on. Do deans of admission really buy this stuff?
I’m not knocking the kid. He developed a business plan to get into an Ivy League school with the guidance of a consulting firm called Everything Summer—and it worked. The company suggests trips to help teens “augment who they are and discover who they are” with a laser eye on the competitive admissions process. Anxious parents are flocking in droves to companies like this, hoping to unlock the secret of success for their children.
Heck, I was an anxious parent once, too, though never anxious enough to pay for college admissions advice. I was perfectly capable of coming up with my own hare-brained ideas. Like the plan I concocted for my artistic daughter to turn her talent for custom-painting old jeans into a business to highlight her entrepreneurial skills. Never mind that she doesn’t have an entrepreneurial bone in her body. We created a company to beef up her college application and even talked about it on TV in a local news segment about college admissions stress.
Contrast the resumes designed by the consultants cashing in on the collective panic about college admissions with the real-life experience one DC businessman is offering students. He hires young people to run his frozen yoghurt stores. Their on-the-job training teaches them business skills. And, for many who don’t have families who can afford to send them to China for the summer let alone pay for tuition, it helps them earn enough money to put themselves through school.
My daughter’s “business” folded. She only sold two pairs of jeans. And, anyway, the acceptance letter was already in hand. Today she holds many academic honors and a liberal arts diploma from a prestigious university. But she’s having trouble finding a job. Her high school venture isn’t on her resume.
Tags: college admissions, stress
Posted in College |
