The Boston Marathon Bombing: As Mr. Rogers says, "Look for the helpers"

"So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."...Patton Oswalt

Once again, we find ourselves watching the television news gripped by clutching fear and horror. The Boston Marathon is usually a day filled with triumph and celebration; instead, it has been corrupted into a day full of shock, grief, and terror.

A question I keep hearing over and over is, “Who would do such a thing?” I believe it is safe to say these bombings were perpetrated by someone who was angry, malevolent and cowardly. We can’t allow people like this bomber to take away our freedom and confidence and destroy what is best in our lives by making us afraid. That is how terrorists really do their dirty work. Remember that dreadful events like those seen at the Boston Marathon are thankfully rare. My heart goes out to the victims and their families but we should not dishonor those so grievously affected by letting our lives be ruled by fear.

What has impressed me the most is not the damage and devastation. Instead, I am deeply inspired by all the people who ran towards those who had been harmed, rather than running away from the carnage. As soon as the blasts went off, first responders were helping the injured and clearing debris. Their calm, capable efforts must have been a tremendous comfort to those who were harmed in the blast.

Bad things happen but good people step forward and do what is needed to help. People who didn’t know each other that fateful Monday went from strangers to family in an instant. The death and injury toll would have been so much higher if ordinary people and first responders had not acted with such courage and dedication. The City of Boston had trained for catastrophe and that preparation paid off with an effective well-orchestrated emergency services response.

As we empathize with the day’s pain and grief, we must also take pride in the many acts of heroism and bravery witnessed as the tragedy unfolded. Uninjured marathoners who had just finished running 26.5 miles went straight to area hospitals to donate blood. National guardsman and other emergency services personnel turned towards the devastation without concern for their own safety. On site medical staff originally expecting to assist participants with nothing worse than twisted ankles and dehydration treated those with severe and life-threatening injuries instead. Hospitals mobilized to provide emergency services and continuous hours of intensive life-saving surgery. The FBI and the Boston City Police collaborated at the crime scene. Individuals and local businesses offered photographs and video footage to assist with the investigation. Bystanders consoled one another while the media provided interviews, information and updates which brought us together in our grief.

It turns out that the Boston Marathon of April 15 2013 was still a day of triumph, just not in the way we had all expected. While the loss and pain leaves us with heavy hearts, the day’s many acts of heroism should be cause for quiet celebration. In the long run, goodness and beneficence will always prevail over evil and malevolence. There are so many more of us then there are of them. This truth is a much greater comfort than might be expected. Hold on to that comfort and it will carry us forward with strength and determination. In the face of our shared courage, virtue, and solidarity, the terrorists will never win. 

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Yes, There's an App for That: Useful Apps for Psychologists and other Mental Health Practitioners

If you've been wondering if there are any good apps available for use by mental health professionals, I have good news for you.  Here is a list of some top rated free smart device apps used by psychologists and other behavioral health care professionals. The choices come from recommendations made by psychologists on the APA Division 42 (Psychologists in Independent Practice) Listserv. I’ve downloaded and tested all of these app so I know they do what they promise and are easy to use. All of the apps on the list are available free from Apple’s App store and iTunes for use on iPhones, iPads and iPod touch. Some of them are available for other devices as well:

3D brain is a really elegant app that lets you navigate a three-dimensional graphic of the brain on your device. It can be very helpful for refreshing your knowledge of neuroanatomy as well as serving as a useful reference tool for helping patients and their families understand and visualize the brain structures impacted by neuropsychological trauma and injury. FREE 

Co-Occurring Conditions Toolkit is a resource published by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology to help clinicians identity common co-morbid conditions in mild TBI patients. FREE

PAR Assessment Toolkit is a utility produced by the psychological test publisher PAR as a handy reference for psychologists and other mental health practitioners who administer standardized tests. Features include a graphic of the normal curve with conversions, a stopwatch function, age calculator and compliance calculator. FREE 

Psych Drugs provides a comprehensive reference for reputable information about the major classes of psychotropic drugs including SSRIs, anitpsychotics, mood stabilizers, and ADHD, insomnia and anti-anxiety medications. It includes generic and brand names, class, indications, dosages, half-life and side effects.  FREE

PFA Mobile is a Psychological First Aid Tutorial developed by the University of Minnesota School of Public Health to provide a convenient resource for first responders and mental health professionals providing assistance following a traumatic event, natural disaster, emergency or crisis. FREE

Medscape from WebMD is a popular and well-respected medical resource app used by millions of health care professionals.  It provides comprehensive reference data about prescription drugs, diseases, conditions, procedures, medical terms and medical calculators (like BMI). An added feature is daily updates about medical news and critical alerts. It also allows searchable access to Medscape News and MEDLINE databases. FREE

ICD 10 Lite 2013 gives you convenient free access to the complete ICD 10 right on your iPad or iPhone. FREE

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Redefining yourself and embracing possibilities or why exactly did I move from Texas to Colorado anyway?

This spring, my family and I moved to our own little corner of paradise. After 22 years in San Antonio Texas, I relocated to Eagle Colorado, a small town in the Rocky Mountains near Vail. We’ve been here for almost 9 months. I still wake up each morning with a smile on my face and the vague desire to pinch myself to prove I’m not still asleep and dreaming.  “Yes, I REALLY do live here.  WOW!”

When I was young I thought a lot about where I wanted to live someday. My dream was to live someplace with no winter where professionally I could be a “big fish in a medium sized pond". I also wanted to have a really great house, something I came to jokingly refer to as "house lust."  Of course, I also wanted (among other things) a wonderful husband, wonderful kids, wonderful friends, good health, money in the bank and career success.  But this second list was more general because it wasn’t location specific.  

I knew I couldn’t have everything on my list if I stayed in California.  San Antonio appeared to fit the bill reasonably well so I moved there in 1990.  Over time, I found myself growing tired of the constant heat, the rather generic suburban life style and engaging professionally in that “medium sized pond”.  It was time for a little soul-searching and I began re-evaluating my dreams.  I’d always thought of myself as a beach person.  When I lived in California, I was only a short bike ride away from the Pacific.  Of course, when I settled in San Antonio, I had to make peace with the fact that it took much more effort and planning than hopping on my bicycle to get to the coast.  I came to accept that while I did indeed love the ocean, it was pretty easy to visit wonderful beaches so it was perfectly fine not to live near one.

 I found myself waxing nostalgic about fall and spring and bright clear winter days.  In particular, I yearned for the crunch of leaves underfoot and cool autumn nights hinting of a winter that was just around the corner.   I missed the warmth of toasty fires in the fire place, the wonder of snow flakes falling, the fresh clean smell of coldness and the pleasant feeling that comes when chilly cheeks begin to warm upon stepping into a heated house.   I longed for the promise of a spring filled with young plants emerging from cold damp soil, gentle rain, burgeoning flowers and that clean fresh scent of newness that permeates springtime air.  I missed the comforting rhythm of the seasonal march and the pleasant anticipation of the changing weather, activities and scenery that come with each new season. I came to realize that I was ready for four seasons again, so long as winter wasn’t bitterly cold. I’d always loved playing a mental game in which I would ponder questions like, “beach person or mountain person”? Well, I’d enjoyed the beach when I was young, now I wanted the mountains.  Specifically, I wanted scenery and skiing.  

The other locale question I’d often asked myself was “urban vs rural.”  When I was a child, living in New York City, I had always dreamed of living in a pretty suburb or a small friendly semi-rural town.  When I made my decision to move away from Los Angeles in my 20s, San Antonio had seemed to offer a very nice compromise.  It is a big city that feels like a small town.  We were fortunate enough to live close to where we worked with woods in back of our house and a park with hiking and biking trails just one block away.  But, it was still very suburban in what I eventually came to see as rather bland. I was ready for something a little more rural where I could be closer to nature.  I’d never lived in a small town but  I’d always been charmed by them. I am very happy to be living in one now. So far, its all I had hoped it would be.

Making a life transition of this magnitude involved a great leap of faith.  We had comfortable lives and successful careers in San Antonio.  Sometimes though, you have to take a chance and try something new.  I don't recommend taking foolish and ill-consdered risks. But, I also don't recommend sticking to what you know simply because its comfortable and you've never made the effort to question where you stand and consider alternatives.  Ideally, you should be happy where you are, but you should still maintain your sense of possibility and wonder. Be open to options you haven't yet considered.  And if all roads seem to point in the direction of change, be brave and take a chance.  At the end of their lives, most people don't regret the things they did, they regret the things they didn't do.  So dwell in possibility and try something new if it seems right for you, even if it involves risk and change. Of course there are no guarantees in life, but if your experience turns out anything like mine has, you will be so glad you did.

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Bibliotherapy and Beyond 6/2010: So Much to Read and So Little Time

So much to read, so little time!  We have paperbacks, hardbacks, ebooks, audiobooks, books on CD or MP3, books for  iPod,  iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Nook and the Sony ereader, magazines, newspapers, as well as emails, blogs and all the other tantalizing material on the internet.   And what about professional reading, journals, newsletters, listserve entries and pamphlets? At any given time, I find myself “reading” several magazines or journals, my book club book, a professional book, an escapist utopian science fiction novel, an audiobook on MP3 in my car and an audiobook on my iPhone.   One or more of these books is usually on my Kindle, which, in my opinion, is the best thing to happen to reading in centuries.  I can put my Kindle down on my nightstand and resume from where I left off on my iPhone while waiting at a restaurant and then pick right back up on my computer at the office.  When I want to read in bed before falling asleep, I grab the Kindle from my nightstand and it knows right where I left off on my computer before leaving the office.  What a miracle of technology!  And I can control the font size to accommodate my less-than-perfect vision.  Changing pages just requires the flick of a finger and the Kindle is lighter than most hardbacks and easier to manage nimbly than most paperbacks.  Apparently it can even read the book to you with its text to speech feature, although I haven’t found any need to experiment with that yet.  An author who is a Facebook friend even suggested putting the Kindle in a zip lock bag to read in the bathtub (and yes, it works great!).  Many self-help books, textbooks and professional books are now available for the Kindle and in other ereader formats, as are some journals, magazines and newspapers.  Another helpful feature with the Kindle is the ability to download the first chapter of a book before actually purchasing it.  I’ve spared myself quite a few duds taking advantage of this feature.  This new technology can help even the busiest among us grab precious snippets of blissful reading when presented with a little spare time, no matter what the location or circumstances. 

Recently, I find particular delight in audio books.  I had eye surgery several years ago and I was unable to spend more than a few minutes reading ordinary written text for months.  For me, reading is as necessary to life as eating so this presented a formidable challenge. I decided I would rise to this challenge by exploring the world of audiobooks and I have been a fan ever since.   I am a member of Audible, an online audiobook club recently purchased by Amazon.  For a basic monthly membership fee of $14.95, I can choose one audiobook each month.  I used to get 2 books for $22.95 but I got backlogged so I dropped down to the basic membership and I just buy extras as I need them.  The quality of audiobooks has dramatically improved in recent years, with professional readers who have delightful accents, lovely voices and excellent diction.  Many audiobooks have unique actors or separate voices for different characters which creates dramatic flair and really enhances the timeless pleasure associated with having someone read to you.

FYI, I have no vested interest in Audible, Kindle or Apple.  I just think they offer wonderful products and services to those who love (or have) to read.  I’ve done a lot of research on these resources, which you can benefit from without having to reinvent the wheel on this issue unless you choose to do so.

I’ve recently listened to several excellent audiobooks, but one in particular was a real stand-out.  For my book club last month, we read a memoir, called “The Kids Are All Right” by Diana Welch, Liz Welch, Amanda Welch and Dan Welch.  These four siblings experienced the death of both parents before they were grown.  At the time of their mother’s death they ranged in age from 8 to 19 years old.  Their parents had not made plans for this eventuality so the children found themselves split up among different families with limited contact with one another and minimal practical or emotional support.  They reconnected as young adults and started sharing memories of their parents and childhood experiences.  To their surprise (but hopefully not ours), they discovered their memories of the same events were wildly different.  So they decided to write about their shared past in a way that would candidly reflect their diverse recollections.  The book recounts the time from their father’s death in a car accident, through their mother’s illness and death from cancer 3.5 years later and the time they were separated from one another.  It’s a raw, honest, poignant account that will touch you deeply.  The siblings abiding love for one another and triumph over adversity is truly inspiring.  I was privileged to have Liz Welch “attend” my May book club meeting via Skype.  I put my laptop on a stand at the head of my dining room table and dialed her up (by prior arrangement, of course).  She was articulate, open, thoughtful, frank and funny.  She had marvelous insight, much of which she admitted had come from a wonderful relationship with an excellent therapist (yay us!).   The discussion that night was one of the best we’ve ever had.  This is no small statement considering my book club has been around for over 20 years and this was not our first meeting with an author in attendance.  I highly recommend this book for fellow psychologists since the opportunity to understand real life events from four separate, insightful, articulate members of the same family is a rare opportunity.  Take advantage of it, you will be glad you did.

Until next time, grab your ebook, audiobook, paperback or hardcover whenever you can, enjoy the summer, and HAPPY READING!    

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