Read: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

Not your average Valentine’s Day bouquet of standard roses, this book offers a more creative delight to the senses. While the title may sound like another in the sea of mindfulness instruction manuals, it is something else entirely. Jenny Odell manages to invert how we experience our consciousness on quite a broader level. She pulls equally and effortlessly from ancient philosophy and modern art, to track the multitude of ways humans have been challenging the perimeters of perception for centuries. Certainly not your typical pop psych book, Odell is more historian and philosopher.

I find this book challenging to summarize as it is truly expansive and multifaceted. However, here are some of my favorite passages that highlight how “monoculture,” has corrupted and limited our individual imaginations.

“Just as practices of logging and large-scale farming decimate the land, an overemphasis on performance turns what was once a dense and thriving landscape of individual and communal thought into a Monsanto farm whose ‘production’ slowly destroys the soil until nothing more can grow. It extinguishes one species of thought after another, it hastens the erosion of attention.”

Odell asks very simply over and over, “productivity that produces what? Successful in what way, and for whom?” These are the questions she echoes throughout the book and ones I think we need to be asking ourselves far more often. I find that the most well-adjusted young adults I work with, were once teenagers and children who were given the freedom to explore these questions or to witness their parents doing so. But in a culture that pushes over-scheduling and a blind march towards the uniformity of college, these individuals are becoming more and more rare.

Without adults willing to ask these questions, the next generation is growing up blind to the influences that will narrow the development of their very identities. “When the language of advertising and personal branding enjoins you to ‘be yourself,’ what it really means is ‘be more yourself,’ where ‘yourself’ is a consistent and recognizable pattern of habits, desires and drives that can be more easily advertised to and appropriated, like units of capital.”

But Odell offers us hope, a way out beyond, “loudly quitting Facebook and then tweeting about it.” She suggests, “a real withdrawal of attention happens first and foremost in the mind…what is needed is not to just withdraw attention, but to invest it somewhere else, to enlarge and proliferate it, to improve its acuity.” She explores how resisting the attention economy means so much more than our individual battles with these forces, it ultimately will require social change and activism on a large scale. But for now, this book is a good place to begin.

Read: Burnout, The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle

I can think of no better suggestion to kick off the New Year and new decade than this book! I know I am making two Emily Nagoski suggestions back to back but consider me an official fangirl!

This time of year we will all be bombarded by messages telling us to reinvent the wheel of our lives in a multitude of ways. For many of us, this is the last message we need. So instead, let me offer you some wisdom from this book and suggest instead, that the wheel does not need reinventing, it needs a break! Emily co-authored this book with her sister and the two of them explore the various components of burnout which they define as a combination of emotional exhaustion, depletion of empathy and feelings of futility.

They discuss the various social constructs that have lead to what they coined, “Human Giver Syndrome,” something that predominantly impacts women in our culture but certainly not exclusively, “At the heart of Human Giver Syndrome lies the deeply buried, unspoken assumption that women should give everything, every moment of their lives, every drop of energy, to the care of others.” She explains how this imbedded cultural assumption leads to perpetual feelings of guilt around self-care. This is something I see in the women I work with in my practice all the time. It’s not exclusive to adult women, I see it in teenagers who have incredible difficulty saying no to plans or commitments despite massive amounts of overwhelm or who have intense guilt going to sleep before exams when they feel every moment should be spent on “productive” studying late into the night. This book tackles the general concept of how we define productivity in our culture, something I have long taken issue with in my own clinical work.

The heart of the book is the explanation of the importance of completing the stress-response cycle and the many dangers of failing to do so, emotionally and physiologically. While they lay the science out clearly and inarguably, they also nod to the ways our culture has made completion of this cycle challenging when emotional expression of hardship has been largely considered taboo and a sign of weakness. However, they offer a range of ways to address this through emotional and physical outlets both independent and social. Couple all of this with the social pressures around body image which they endearingly coin, “The Bikini Industrial Complex.” While the address the ways in which this particular complex leads to disordered eating, they also explore the more general psychological toll that captures a wider pool of victims.

Overall, the book reads like a deeply validating friend, pointing to all the ways our society sets women up for burnout from all angles. But we are not doomed! For each component of burnout there are numerous ways to combat that harmful influence and complete the stress-response cycle to prevent things piling up and leading to burnout. So this January, I highly suggest getting a copy of this book, questioning your definition of productivity for a little while and curling up for a beneficial and delightful read.

Read: Motherhood In The Age of Fear by Kim Brooks

Summer break is upon us! All of my teenage clients are officially in countdown mode, some desperately white-knuckling to keep their focus in school and others who have already succumbed to the end of the year summer trance. While this is a time of much anticipated relief and excitement for kids and teens, it is one that is often mixed for parents. There is excitement for more time spent together as a family, the possibility of travel to new places and/or the comforting repetition of summer traditions spent outdoors in the backyard. However, there is also an increase in parental anxiety with summer being a time that begs for freedom, to stay out late with no school-day curfew in sight and to go on spontaneous adventures with friends, the final locations of which couldn’t be named in advance when asking for parental permission. Parents navigate the desire to give their kids independence and freedom while holding back their own fear when they do or their guilt when they don’t. While this article focusses on the mother’s perspective, parental fear and guilt is certainly not gender specific. In my practice I work with kids ages 13 and up, but these articles touch on the importance of freedom and independence beginning in earlier childhood as well.

This article by Kim Brooks, “Motherhood in the Age of Fear,” does a wonderful job illustrating the pain and power of going against the motherhood grain in today’s culture. The article examines the unique cultural context of raising kids today in the United States, and the mass amounts of fear that parents face daily. The article examines the history of how parents became so fearful, how childhood became so sanitized and the costs of the smooth-edged playgrounds of today’s youth on overall development. The author also illuminates the challenges of raising kids in a culture where parents often feel under surveillance by other parents, or even by the law, to parent according to the same fear-based rules and structures. It also beautifully touches on where the rigidly hands-on approaches rooted in hypervigilance can foster legal injustices and fear within lower socio-economic circles, where parental responsibilities may not allow for this mandated ever-watchful eye.

Ultimately, it begs the question, who benefits from this fear-driven approach? It certainly isn’t parents, and if you’re looking for more exploration on the impact on children, I highly suggest the book, “How To Raise An Adult,” which I reviewed in the previous post. Spoiler alert- kids don’t benefit either.

Another New York Times, article that pairs nicely on this theme is, “From Tokyo to Paris, Parents Tell Americans to Chill,” by Lela Moore. It compiles a range of different parenting comments from all over the world that help to illustrate just how culturally unique the fearful American parenting approach truly is and how we may benefit from getting out of our myopic cultural bubble when it comes to the theme of freedom in childhood.

“What really struck me was when I started to notice groups of mothers having coffees together: The Anglophone mothers sat next to each other facing outward, watching their children the whole time. The Swiss mothers sat facing each other around a table having a nice chat, with their backs to the children playing around them.” - Wrike, Switzerland

I can bet that the mothers who were able to turn towards their friends and give full attention to their adult relationships in those few hours then returned to their children substantially more emotionally fueled. Yet, for so many American parents, guilt would prohibit even this slight shift. As a culture, we let the guilt of turning away for a brief moment inhibit the enormous value of what is brought when we then turn back towards our children with a more filled self.

I hope parents read these articles, take a deep breath, and send their kids outside this summer on their own to have a grand adventure, even if it’s just down the block. I hope that when we see parents at the playground reading their books rather than supervising their children’s play, we give them a gentle nod of solidarity and encouragement. I hope parents can begin to challenge their moment to moment guilt for the bigger long-term gains for both their own senses of self and the independence and self-efficacy of their children.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/opinion/sunday/motherhood-in-the-age-of-fear.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/reader-center/free-range-parenting-outside-united-states.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Read: Sick Enough by Dr. Jennifer L. Gaudiani MD, CEDS, FAED

It is highly unlikely that you will find any other medical text recommended on this platform. That is not, as one might assume, due to the unique and niche role that this text fills for the field of eating disorder work, but rather, because the ease with which it can be understood sets it apart from the vast majority of other texts of this caliber.  

Sick Enough, is of critical value to any practicing medical professional. Regardless of specialty, at some point, there will be an interaction with a patient that either counters weight bias and the varying stigmas that minimize and/or perpetuate eating disorders, or there will be a missed opportunity that quietly lays root to harm. If those stakes feel high for medical practitioners, they should.

Luckily, in addition to various medical interventions, the book is capped with a number of actions that can be taken by providers and loved ones alike so as not to be paralyzed in the face of concern. This book will leave every reader armed with knowledge and grace to feel capable in the critical role of support.

Dr. Gaudiani is as adept at capturing and distilling medical nuances as she is with broadly addressing a multitude of social issues that not only impact this population, but the vast entirety of our diverse and complex culture. Sadly, I find it as rare in the medical community as I do refreshing, how Dr. Gaudiani languages issues pertaining to the social oppressions that so many patients face. Her unique approach  to zoom out far beyond the physical human body and into the social realms and constructs impacting each individual, truly exemplifies whole person care.

Anyone who is a provider, despite efforts to be as non-hierarchical as we can, is in a position of power. Dr. Gaudiani tackles this truth with deep humility and powerful dedication towards her role as a pioneer in the medical field for truly doing no harm on a much more influential level.

This book is as critical for the education of providers and supports as it is for the validation of those living with eating disorders.  

https://www.amazon.com/Sick-Enough-Medical-Complications-Disorders/dp/0815382456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539097995&sr=1-1&keywords=sick+enough

Read: Why Therapists Should Talk Politics by Richard Brouillette

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/why-therapists-should-talk-politics

As a social worker, I feel grateful to have a background that encouraged me to zoom out into broader circles of influence when looking at the roots of what a client is bringing to the table in therapy. Social workers are encouraged to look closely at culture and politics and economics and gender etc. The list is long when it comes to variables other than diagnostic criteria. The article even states that this wider angle lens is one that is historically associated with social work, but deeply translatable to the wide realm of therapeutic approaches.

Often a client will come into therapy with a problem that is felt to be internally located, “I am anxious, I am an addict, I have anger management issues…” and this perspective is one that can quickly lead to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Zooming out to locate broader threads behind the concern allows that person space to engage and grapple with the problem and not identify as the keeper and holder of the problem at all times. This article does a beautiful job of looking at the powerful impact of this therapeutic strategy.

“This is, in ways, an old quandary in psychotherapy. Should therapy strive to help a patient adjust, or to help prepare [one] to change the world around [oneself]? Is the patient’s internal world skewed? Or is it the so-called real world that has gone awry?”

In today’s world, there is a delicate balance for many providers between remaining impartial and removed from politics or other major events and naming where there may be injustice in certain structures for a client’s well-being. Last week, in my own practice, it would have been arguably harmful to ignore the sociocultural context of the hearings as it was actively impacting so many of my clients, especially my clients who have experienced sexual assault. The pain they were and are experiencing is amplified and echoed by these events in their cultural context. Without locating the context they are operating within, their pain becomes further isolating and silencing and the problem can again feel located in them. We are constantly asking our clients to use their words to speak to their experiences and story them. I love that this article makes the case that we as providers, might need to join with our clients in this dialogue with a little more frequency.

“You would be surprised how seldom it occurs to people that their problems are not their fault. By focusing on fairness and justice, a patient may have a chance to find what has so frequently been lost: an ability to care for and stand up for [oneself].”

*Quotes have been adjusted for more gender inclusive language.

Listen: This American Life, Episode #647 "Ladonna"

Privilege is a tricky thing to illuminate. This is because if you happen to be benefiting from privilege, it is more often than not, somewhat invisible to you. On the other side of the coin, if you are at the expense of someone else’s privilege, that can be either incredibly overt or deeply insidious and hard to even pinpoint. It is the insidiousness of the privilege/oppression cycle that I find myself drawn to illuminating most often.

This theme arises frequently in my practice with clients struggling with eating disorders and the size shaming, diet promoting dynamics that perpetuate oppression and privilege cycles amongst body types. It also arises in time spent with women who have been through sexual assault, who so quickly internalize feelings of fault and blame. It shows up in the day to day identity exploration with my LGBTQ+ clients in deep levels of being invisibilized by our heteronormative promoting culture. These are just a few frequent examples, the list is long.

As a social worker, a lot of my social justice work is slowly illuminating those dynamics of oppression and privilege. Without doing so, all too often people move through the world entangled in these webs without being able to see them, which makes them feel as though the problem must be located within.  

In this episode of my long-held favorite radio program, This American Life, a woman named Ladonna, walks us through her experiences of peeling back the curtain of her work environment to see the many layers of oppression at play to sustain privilege for some at the significant expense of others. Repeatedly throughout the story, as Ladonna makes progress moving up the ranks, the interviewer asks her, “did that make you feel powerful when…” to which Ladonna answers, “no it did not.” Ladonna answers the same way, every single time. The interviewer reflects on her surprise and her clear emphatic belief that it must somehow be getting better for her as she gains more authority in the system.

However, what Ladonna beautifully illuminates, are the massive invisible forces of racism and sexism, and the pain of noticing them and the ways in which institutions can uphold them, both unknowingly and then intentionally. The listener is left with accurate, if disheartening awareness, that something radical on a much larger level would have to shift in order for Ladonna to feel the way the interviewer so badly wishes for her to feel.  

The bittersweet realization that the problem is not just yours, but SO much larger than you, is powerful. It is both a relief and a daunting and exhausting call to action. As a provider, I repeatedly examine where I may unintentionally collude with invisible forces of oppression and where my privileges are sustained through it.

This is a listen for anyone who has ever felt unseen and powerless, but all the more so, for anyone who hasn’t.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/647/ladonna

View: Nanette, by Hannah Gadsby

You likely have already heard of the buzz swirling around the new Netflix comedy special, “Nanette,” by Hannah Gadbsy. The special has caught fire due to Hannah’s deft skill at addressing the painful themes of gender-based violence, social constructs behind gender-based oppression and her raw telling of her own repeated assaults, all within the platform of a comedy special.

The first comedy special I remember creating a similar frenzy of excitement and confusion was Tig Notaro’s stand-up special at The Largo, the day after she was diagnosed with severe breast cancer. Both comedians wrestle aloud with their difficulty pursuing their craft while struggling to process their own personal painful life experiences. Both use the raw themes of their life within the set, but both also note the difficulty to really effectively sublimate the material all the way. Use of pain for the purpose of artistry is often a valuable way of re-storying. 

However, both artists come up against their limitations in doing so. Tig encounters this in real time with a palpably confused audience and Hannah names her own refusal to continue using her pain in this way, ultimately leading to statements that she may have to leave comedy entirely. If Tig’s special was about using humor to cope with extreme grief, Hannah’s special is about abandoning humor and taking action to prevent it.

“Nanette,” rings as particularly critical listening as it offers both visibility for hard-hit populations including the LGBTQ+ population as well as those who have experienced assault or other gender-based violence. These are not themes commonly explored in the standup world, in fact, they are populations often exploited in it. Hannah struggles with how to use this platform to bring light to them, while in full transparent awareness that humor and comedy will not do them the justice they deserve and so she abandons that goal openly. It is a portrayal of an artist on the brink of relinquishing her craft because her tools fail to convey the portrait she is moved to create.

As a therapist, my role is continually helping to foster the art of storying and then re-storying the experiences of my clients. What I found so parallel in this performance, was the space we often find ourselves in with silence. The space where tension is created because words fail or because silence and helplessness within massive overwhelming tension are the story. We as clinicians have to become comfortable with tension and to explore where that is unsettling for us. In “Nanette,” the audience is asked to do the same thing and to take it further. Where might tension lead to silence that we need to face, and how do we uphold the social constructs that are behind that silence, or fight against them?  “Nanette,” is a window for empathy and a battle cry for social justice.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/oct/19/tig-notaro-reveals-cancer-on-stage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aE29fiatQ0&feature=youtu.be