Meditation Training Promotes Positive Psychology and Better Cellular Health

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Francisco have discovered links between the positive psychological changes that occur from meditation and greater Telomerase activity. Telemerase is an enzyme which is important for cellular health and helps rebuild and lengthen telomeres.

Participants in the study also had numerous psychological benefits from meditation training at the same time as decreasing negative emotionality. The effect is attributable to psychological changes that increase the ability for a person to deal with stress and maintain their feelings of well-being.
Clifford Saron an associate research scientist at the University of California, Davis centre for Mind and Brain said "We have found that meditation promotes positive psychological changes and that meditators showing the greatest improvement on various psychological measures had the highest levels of telemerase". The research findings are not suggesting that meditation directly increases telomerase activity and therefore a persons health. But rather that mediation improves a person's psychological well-being and that these changes are connected to telomerase activity in immune cells, which then has the potential to endorse longevity in those cells. Activities that increase a person's sense of well-being will have a huge effect on the most primary aspects of their physiology.

To read the article in full visit: http://clinicallypsyched.com/meditation-positive-psychology-improved-cellular-health-research/

Intensive care diaries

Intensive care patients are particularly vulnerable to one of the key risk factors for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); failing to fully process a traumatic experience, this is due to the sedation, sleep deprivation and delirium.

One in ten patients who are in intensive care for longer than 48 hours later develop PTSD according to a recent estimate. A new study has suggested that an effective way to reduce this risk could be through the use of a daily text and photo diary. This diary would be kept by the patients nurse and family. Christina Jones at the University of Liverpool and her colleagues recruited 352 intensive care patients. They were randomly allocated to receive the diary one month after discharge (a doctor or nurse explained its contents but not how to use it), or in the control group.

PTSD symptoms were recorded at the one month stage and two months, the controls also at this point received their diaries. The main findings were that 5% of patients in the diary group developed PTSD between one and three months after their discharge compared with 13% of patients in the control group. The comments of the patients were also very positive.

When compared with providing formal therapy to all patients struggling to cope with what they have experienced, diaries are likely to be cost-effective at the same time as being effective in helping intensive care patients. However two new studies by Dr Alex Mitchell, a consultant psycho oncologist at Leicestershire Partnership Trust, suggest that nurses involved with patient care struggle very often to detect depression in patients. Most receive very little training in mental health, therefore it may be unrealistic to expect nurses to remember complex criteria to enable them to detect depression and apply lengthy screening tools.

To read more this article can be found in The Psychologist, November 2010 issue. Vol 23 no 11.

Commitment to Psychological Therapies in the Spending Review 2010

The Spending Review 2010 Presented to Parliament by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (see this link for full review) states that despite vast cuts across other departments the Department of Health settlement includes a commitment by the government to “expanding access to psychological therapies”. George Osborne speaking in the House of Commons stated “We will expand access to psychological therapies for the young, elderly and those with mental illness."

This commitment has been welcomed by many including Professor Peter Kinderman, a Clinical Psychologist and Member of the British Psychological Society; the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the mental health charities, Mind, Rethink and Young Minds, particularly because previous expansion of psychological therapies via the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Programme, has focussed on working age adults with difficulties that could be classified as mild to moderate depression or anxiety.

At this stage no further information has been provided on the form this expansion will take, or the timescale for the changes, but the Spending Review highlights the Government’s position “that while it should continue to fund important services, it does not have to be the default provider. This stifles competition and innovation and crowds out civil society”. Therefore the Spending Review announces that to address this and create new opportunities for non-state providers “the Government will pay and tender for more services by results”. Again, at this stage, there is no further information about how results will be measured and therefore how services will tender for mental health or psychological therapies contracts, but this is likely to be an important time for innovation and development within the private sector.

Psychoanalysis: The Unconscious in Everyday Life

A new exhibition entitled Psychoanalysis: The Unconscious in Everyday Life opened yesterday, 13th October 2010, at the Science Museum in London. The exhibition uses historical artefacts and contemporary artworks to explore the workings of the unconscious and its influence on everyday life. The exhibition is free and open until 2nd April 2011.

See www.sciencemuseum.org.uk for further information and the exhibition catalogue.

 

Psychology in the media - “Please don’t take our child”, Panorama, BBC

On Monday 23^rd August 2010 the BBC broadcast a Panorama programme entitled “Please don’t take our child”. This programme portrayed the story of the Ward family, who had been investigated by police and social services when they were unable to explain serious injuries to their three month old son. After two years the family were cleared of causing non accidental injuries to their son and the programme focussed on the family’s fight to be able to speak openly about their case, including identifying the names of the expert medical witnesses who they believe made significant errors in their provision of evidence. A bill was passed in the final week of the last Parliament which rubber stamped the Ward ruling that paid expert witnesses could be identified.

As one of Psychology Associates’ expert witnesses in child and family cases I was interested to read the comments on the BBC blog following the programme. I wondered how the programme would influence the public’s perception of expert witnesses. However, very few respondents appeared to pick up on the key theme in the programme about changing the rules regarding identifying expert witnesses. Instead the majority of the comments were criticisms of the Local Authority, or narratives about the bloggers’ own experiences of being investigated by the Local Authority. There were in addition some comments which supported Social Workers and the necessity of investigating cases of unexplained injuries in children.

The Panorama programme, in reporting one family’s story, was explicitly one sided. I reflected (as did some of the BBC blog respondents) on the response of the media and the general public to cases where a family has been cleared, in comparison to cases where a family has been found guilty, or where a child has been harmed or killed. I wondered if there is a psychological task in relation to providing psychoeducation around managing the media and emotional response to issues which are hugely publicly important and emotive?

 

Psychology in the media - Be a better parent – and improve your child's mental health, The Guardian

An article in the the Guardian newspaper on 24th August 2010 reports on a pilot project called “Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities”, in Southwark, South London, which offers courses on ‘Being a parent’ and provides training to parents who have completed the course who then wish to go on to become facilitators of the group in order to share their learning within their local community.

The Southwark Council website indicates that  Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities is an 8 week course for parents and carers, of children aged two to 11 years old, to “learn practical communication skills for everyday life and develop their abilities to bring up confident, happy and co-operative children”.

The programme is funded as a two year outcome study and is being evaluated by Dr Crispin Day, Clinical Psychologist at the Centre for Parent and Child Support, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Research Unit, at the Institute of Psychiatry. He is quoted in the Guardian as saying that “about half the children whose parents are on the course have difficulties which would be equivalent to a diagnosed disorder, but the parents who go to the group are reporting that their children are showing a significant reduction in the severity of their behaviour problems”.

The Guardian article lists some “lessons to learn from the course” which include thinking positively about yourself as a parent; thinking about your own experiences of being a child and trying to act from this awareness; being specific when praising and stating what you want your child to do, rather than what you do not want them to do; explaining your own behaviour and trying to understand your child’s motivation for behaving as they are; and using star charts to reward good behaviour and discourage bad behaviour.

Further findings should be published as the study continues.

Psychology in the media – Between Ourselves, Radio 4

A recent Radio 4 programme “Between Ourselves” interviewed Clinical Psychologist Oliver James and Educational Psychologist Laverne Antrobus about parenting.

When asked what a child needs more than anything else Oliver James replied “all they really need is responsive, sensitive care from the same person” and Laverne Antrobus replied “a very reliable adult who is really prepared to think of them, and have their mind available to them”.

Oliver James said that he believes it is really important for one parent to stay with the child until three years of age. He said that parents can become focussed on parenting methods, whereas the needs of children under three are very simple. He said that the most difficult task as a parent is “actually getting your head into the right place”, and he recommends that for mothers especially, (because mothers still tend to be the primary caregivers), there are three things they need to consider in depth about themselves in order to be able to get into the right frame of mind to parent effectively. He said these are:

· their own childhood and how that impacts on how they behave as a parent

· the conflict between their identity as a mother and their identity as a worker

· their relationship with their partner and how that can be modified to the maximum advantage of each partner and the child/children

He suggested that it is important for mothers to make arrangements that really suit them and enable them to meet the needs of their under threes, or to employ another individual, such as a child minder, to fulfil this.

Laverne Antrobus agreed and said that in our consumer driven society some parents perceive children as “an accessory” to their lives, and this creates problems because parents may not be prepared for instances when the child inevitably does not fit in with their plans. She said that she is concerned that people do not seem to think seriously enough about having children before they become parents.

Oliver James described three trends in parenting in the Western world that have grown in the last ten years that he considers to be concerning. The first trend is day-care. He suggests that parents have been persuaded by the idea that children need stimulation and the company of other children, but there is no evidence for this, whereas there is a lot of evidence that what they need is the attention of one adult who is familiar to them. The second trend is ‘positive psychology’ which encourages the accentuation of the positive and the elimination of the negative. He said this again is not well supported by the evidence and in contrast attempting to boost children’s self esteem regardless of good or bad behaviour has been shown to encourage antisocial behaviour. The third trend is for strict behavioural routines, as taught by proponents of such things as the naughty step and time out. He gave a caveat that such strategies may be important where parental management of a child’s behaviour has completely broken down, as a first step to regaining some consistency.

Laverne Antrobus disagreed with this third point and said that she had used time out with her children because this would allow her some cooling off time if she felt an interaction with them had become difficult. Oliver James agreed that time out would be preferable to a parent losing their temper with their child.

When asked by the interviewer about “monster children” who assault or kill other children, Oliver James said that we know that extreme maltreatment in childhood produces such behaviour and it is nothing to do with their genes, so they should not be described as evil. Laverne Antrobus said that as a society it can be unbearable for us to accept our responsibility in allowing such extreme maltreatment to occur and that is why she thinks it is reported as it is in the media. Oliver James pointed to evidence that abuse in childhood affects brain development, and both interviewees raised their concern that there are some children for whom the abuse and maltreatment they have experienced has been so severe that no intervention is going to be able to repair this damage.

In conclusion Laverne Antrobus and Oliver James agreed that in ordinary circumstances ‘good enough’ parenting is sufficient, and what all parents should aim for, and the most important elements of this are love and empathy.