Scribem

I haven’t blogged in years (if I consider what I did years ago as blogging!) and have decided to give it another go in 2012. I hope to encourage healthy discussion about the interaction between Christianity and psychology, and later on, my other interest, the Chinese people! So here goes…

As a clinical psychologist who is also a Christian, I get asked a lot by friends for a recommendation for a Christian psychologist. Given that I am not doing private practice at this point in time (I work for a public hospital clinic) and that even if I were I can’t have as a client anyone that I know (that would be a ‘dual relationship’ which can impair objectivity and/or judgement of the psychologist), I try and find someone for them to refer to (although I don’t know a great deal of psychologists who are Christian so let me know if you are one!). Though technically, all clinical psychologists should be sensitive to a clients’ religious background and it shouldn’t matter that much whether they are Christian or not. Besides, the clinician’s particular branch of ‘Christianity’ may differ to yours.

Whether or not someone is seen by a Christian or non-Christian psychologist, I think the important thing is that one is able to understand how their particular problem affects, or is contributed to by, one’s religious beliefs - whether a clinician helps in that process, or you piece together the connections yourself (through talking with your pastor, friends, family). What matters is that therapy is delivered in a religiously sensitive way. It may contribute a lot or none at all. Of course, if you have a sense that your particular problem is intricately linked to your attitudes towards ‘grace’ or some other Christian doctrine or idea, then it’s probably a good idea to speak to someone who knows what you’re talking about.

If you’re thinking about seeking help, also remember…

1. Psychological therapy is not a substitute for God

Just because a Christian goes to see a psychologist, does not mean that they stop trusting in God. Going to see a psychologist doesn’t mean you’ve given up on the ’spiritual’ and traded it for the ’secular’. Like other physical problems such as having the flu, chronic health problems, or cancer, where God works through doctors, medications to heal a person physically, God can work through counsellors / psychologists to heal a person emotionally / psychologically. We can trust God AND actively seek help. Like any other stressor in life, such as having upcoming exams where we can ask God for a favourable outcome but also study hard at the same time, we can pray for emotional healing but also put into practice what the psychologist has taught in each session.

2. Struggling with a psychological problem does not mean you are a ‘weak’ Christian

Some well meaning people can advise those with emotional problems such as depression and anxiety to ‘pray more’ and ‘trust in God more’, which can come across as implying that those who are struggling don’t do it enough (they may well be). Those struggling with these issues may feel like they are not as strong as others who on the surface, seem to be happy all the time.

The predominant explanation behind ‘why you feel the way you do’ is that unhelpful beliefs and attitudes triggered off by current events and developed throughout the years (particularly when you were a child) are responsible for why you are feeling the way you do. You’ve also learnt various ways of dealing with problems, and over the years have learnt ways to cope (can be positive or negative). For example, you might have a deep seated belief that ‘I’m not good enough as a person’ which makes you feel down, and you cope with that belief by working really hard to achieve in life. A friend of yours may have a similar belief and emotion, but cope with it by consuming alcohol.

We all have different beliefs and attitudes with varying levels of ‘helpfulness’, but for some, under certain circumstances, unhelpful beliefs have been triggered and have led to their current problem. These problems can feel like a ‘test’ for your faith, as it questions the things that you know about God, yourself, the world, others; and what you experience in the world can seem to contradict what you have read in the bible. So, this does not mean you are a weak Christian, put simply, a normal person going through a hard time and struggling to cope with it due to what kinds of beliefs and coping strategies and predominated so far in life.

I hope to write more again soon, so let me know if there is anything you want me to write about!

I recently came across this article that outlined an experiment performed by the Psychology Department of North Carolina State University.

In a nutshell, the participants were asked to watch something that mimiced loading of medical websites, and were asked questions about these sites.  Thrown in for good measure were some fake popups, and the researchers were really only interested in how the participants would respond to these popups.

Now, I haven’t actually read the full experiment and its findings, so I can only go by what the article says.  Apparently, the conclusion was that users are still clueless to popups because they’d click on them even when they’re fake.  I’ll let you read the article yourself for the gory details.

I wonder whether the researchers considered the fact that people probably cared less about malware on public university computers, than their own.  It’d be interesting to repeat the experiment, but the participants were required to view the websites on their own computer.  Would they expect to see the same “idiocy” rate?

[Now that Joyce's thesis is finished, and Grace and Chris' wedding is over, time for me to finish off said half-baked posts...]

She had everything to live for — a “beautiful and bubbly” girl that was described as “intelligent, successful, talented and popular”. However, her friends and family were stunned when Charmaine Dragun took her own life at The Gap.

Nobody saw it coming.

Despite her cheerful appearances, impressive social circles and other external factors, deep down she was really troubled. She effectively lived a life behind a mask of faux happiness, keeping up a positive image of herself, while deep down her hurts were slowly driving her over the edge.

A bit over a year ago, I had the unfortunate experience of being informed that Andrew, a co-worker who I was working closely with at the time, committed suicide. None of us saw it coming neither — he was similarly positive, good-natured and had a carefree attitude towards life. It would appear that not even some of his recent setbacks had affected him much.

Oh, how wrong we were.

Continue Reading »

Tags: depression, suicide

I’ve noticed that recently I’ve done a lot of experiments with clients that included facing their fears. It’s actually not that difficult technically to do it, but emotionally it is quite scary for clients. Many times it is the anticipatory anxiety that is the worst, rather than the actual experience of the feared thing itself. I’m going to write a bit about how to face your fears below for you all so that you can tackle any fears that you may have

Continue Reading »

Recently, Joyce and I have been discussing about personality types. In particular, our own (rather different) personalities based roughly on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Now, I have my reservations about putting too much faith in any sort of psychological profile, and the MBTI is no exception. I just think that it’s somewhat limiting categorising human personalities in just four dichotomies (which I think aren’t as orthogonal as they should be, and don’t encompass the full gamut of human personalities… hmmm… sounds like an incomplete basis for a vector space… but I digress, as usual).

Hence, I view these “indicators” as simply a rough guideline of my functional preferences – not a definitive labeling of my personality. That being said, I can say that according to the MBTI, I am an ESTJ. After reading a profile of a typical ESTJ personality, both Joyce and I agree with the classification (in fact, Joyce said that she laughed out loud when reading it because she said that “it was just so you”).

Continue Reading »

I’m not sure about everyone, but I seem to pay pretty much no attention to email signatures. Now, I’m not a psychologist, but I think this has something to do with operant conditioning (see Joyce… I do listen).

To quote from Wikipedia:

Extinction is the lack of any consequence following a response. When a response is inconsequential, producing neither favorable nor unfavorable consequences, it will occur with less frequency.

So, in this case, the response is reading the signature. Reading the signature is inconsequential (and often full of disclaimers about receiving this email in error, yadda yadda). Every time I read an email signature, I get neither a positive nor negative (well, sometimes) response. Hence, according to the concept of extinction, I’m going to read email signatures with less frequency.

Oh, and the fact that I get many emails where the signature is longer than the body of the email itself, doesn’t exactly motivate me to read them at all.

Do you read signatures every time you get an email? Do you actually “notify the sender of this email and delete this copy” every time you receive an email in error? Feel free to drop a comment on your response to email signatures.

Often people ask, “When is the right time for me to go out with someone? How do I know I’m ready?” Even if you’re not dating or not thinking about dating anyone soon, I think it’s still helpful to read the stuff below. These are just a collection of thoughts accumulated over the years from books and observations from others.

Continue Reading »

I’m pretty sure that most readers of this blog know that Joyce and I are really different people with substantially different personalities. We are aware of this ourselves, but we didn’t really know how different we are and in what areas.

Hence, we decided to take one of those personality tests (so feel free to interpret the results with a grain of salt, though we both reckon it’s pretty accurate in describing us). The test scored you in a number of different personality traits, with 0% and 100% being at opposite extremes. Here are the top three highest/lowest scores for both of us, along with their interpretation:

Joyce:

• Neatness (91%, Keith = 87%) – planner, clean, anal.
• Self-Discipline (84%, K = 84%) – responsible, efficient.
• Co-operation (82%, K = 12%) – conflict averse, meek.

• Liberalism (3%, K = 3%) – conservative, traditional.
• Impulsiveness (5%, K = 8%) – high self control.
• Intellect (8%, K = 92%) – instinctive, non-analytical.

Keith:

• Confidence (94%, Joyce = 50%) – confident in work.
• Intellect (92%, J = 8%) – intellectual, analytical.
• Aggressiveness (92%, J = 24%) – predatory, domineering.

• Liberalism (3%, J = 3%) – conservative, traditional.
• Vulnerability (3%, J = 16%) – resilient, unphased.
• Impulsiveness (8%, J = 5%) – high self control.

Another thing that we noted was that my scores tended to be more on the extreme ends of the spectrum (either really high, or really low), whereas Joyce’s scores were more spread out between the extremes.

So what did this tell us? Well, it gave us an idea as to the extent of our differences in personality. This will be really helpful when we go through difficult circumstances, and will help us understand how the other person views conflicting situations. I guess one of the more difficult things for us right now is where to make concessions and yield when we enter… erm… robust discussions.

All part of the fun in getting to know the other person better

Did anybody watch Insight on SBS this evening? The topic of discussion was about twins, and there were many pairs of twins in the studio audience commenting on their experiences as twins. Some wanted to remain the same, others wanted to be as different as possible. There was also considerable discussion about the contribution that twin research has about our understanding of the differential contribution of genes and the environment on a variety of different things, such as illnesses, preferences and behaviours.

Continue Reading »