America, We have a Problem

…And by the looks of it, it is out of control. Sadly, this graphic is not a surprise to me. I see the repercussions of this situation all too often. It is a huge frustration, and a constant source of extra work I have to do in my office before I am able to truly help someone.

Let me tell you a little bit about what this chart represents, and why it’s a problem.  Take a closer look here, as you might not catch all the details.

As you can see at the top, in the year this data represents, 2009; “doctors wrote more psychiatric prescriptions than there are people in this country.” Apparently, we all need a pill to set our minds right.

On the lower left, you will notice that $4.5 billion was spent on pharmaceutical advertising in 2009. $4.5 BILLION!!! Why do you think that is? It is estimated that the alcohol industry ‘only’ spends an estimated $750 million each year. If these drugs are meant to be selected and offered only in very specific situations, why should they be marketed so heavily? SO YOU WILL BUY THEM.

If you look to the right of the chart, you see the list of what these substances are meant to treat – EACH ONE of those diagnoses have been found through empirical scientific research to respond best with a COMBINATION of medication and some form of talk therapy (except fibromyalgia, which has pain management therapy), but how many of the people receiving these prescriptions receive a referral for the help they require to get better?

In fact, anxiety, depression, “panic”, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and PTSD can reach a point of improvement through psychotherapy, within a relatively short amount of time; less than 1 year in most cases, that medication CAN BE DISCONTINUED. Yet, all too often patients are kept on medication far past a year, long after the positive effects have lost their strength.

The facts that really drive me up the wall, the ideas that really just push my buttons and just tick me off: the three substances used for “A” and “P” – anxiety and panic. If you are being treated for these diagnoses, or know somebody who is, please take a moment to read my rant on it.

Anxiety and panic disorder medications – Xanax, Ativan, and Valium are CONTRA-INDICATED for the treatment of anxiety and panic disorders. That means they have been proven NOT to work time and time again. So much so, that not only can you find it in medical, psychiatric, and psychological journals, but in undergraduate level textbooks – the one form of documentation slowest to change! All the research and teaching states that these medications DO NOT WORK to treat anxiety and panic, so why are they two out of the top three mediations prescribed nationally?!

Panic and anxiety are best treated using a variety of thought changing techniques to alter patterns of behavior and the client’s anxious/panic reactions. Have you ever tried one of these substances? For most people, it is difficult to HAVE a thought while under the influence of these, much less work on changing thoughts. These substances act by numbing the entire central nervous system, brain to spinal cord, often freeing the patient from anxiety by making them unconscious, or so sleepy they can’t think straight. This is not a “treatment”, it is knocking the person out so that they don’t worry.

Just like any substance we use over extended periods of time, our body builds up a tolerance to these substances. The effectiveness at the begin doseage wears off, so that the patient needs more to have the same effect. Over years, this becomes extremely dangerous, and has the potential to turn in to addiction.

There are so many “other” and “better” opportunities to help these situations, we don’t have to be a nation of drug users.

If you are receiving medication for any of the concerns listed on this chart, make sure you are talking to your doctor about when to get off the medication – none of these should be a life-sentence. Better yet, if you or anyone you know is taking these meds, talk about the idea of getting help outside of the pill.

Are You Striving or Status Quo?

We can get pretty caught up in our classification of each other from time to time – race, culture, age, gender, occupation, cheese pizza or supreme.


On any given day, I can lump all of humanity into just two catergories:

The Strivers and The Status Quo.

The Status Quo can typically be found on the couch, playing video games, complaining about work while not doing anything to improve it. They have a vast collection of movies, DVR’d shows, Netflix channels, and satellite tv stations, all existing on one gargantuan media center (“television”).

Strivers are characterized by constantly moving about from project to project, idea to idea, and having far more goals than they can achieve. They can be overheard loudly talking about their last great adventure, business venture, or night out, or they are planning their next one. They are often defined as “ADHD” or “Type A”.

The funny thing is, we are all BOTH Strivers and Status Quo. I guess I am wrong to characterize these as categories – not very therapist-like of me – they are more like two ends of a spectrum:

Striving……………………..Middle…………………………Status Quo

As I think about it, we all seem to fluctuate back and forth on. Just like any spectrum, going too far to one extreme and staying there for too long can be dangerous or unhealthy. Never moving from a particular spot on the spectrum can boring for you, and tiring some for those around you.

So where are you on that spectrum? Where are you today, where are you this year, and where do you WANT to be on it?

What are you going to do about it?

Me, I love striving. I’m a big fan of getting out there and DOING something with my family, my health, and my career. Racing, hiking, writing, DOING things. New things, different things, setting goals and moving forward. But I sure do enjoy falling into the couch to play a good round of mindless video games for an hour or two (3….maybe 4… hopefully never more than 4….). And I have NO PROBLEMS hanging up the hammock and disappearing into it for a few hours, if I’m allowed to.

I am, by no means, perfectly balanced in this spectrum. I find myself going to far to either end from time to time, and it takes a bit of encourage to find my way back. The important thing is to find your way back. To set some goals, but allow time to relax.

How do you manage this see-saw?

If you need help Striving, check out the works of Seth Godin and Hugh MacLeod, two of my favorites over the past few years.

If you need help relaxing with the Status Quo, there is no better teacher than “The Dude”, the anti-hero from The Big Lebowski who sparked an entire ‘religion’ around relaxing.

Where ever you find yourself on the spectrum on any given day, I hope it suits you. If it doesn’t, do something to change it. If you can’t do something about it, talk to somebody who can help you do something about it.

How Do You Feel Love?

Several weeks ago, The Terminator inspired a few articles on preserving, protecting, and improving your marriage. This week, I wanted to share with you one final resource in that work. This book and Gottman’s 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work that I wrote about last week sit side-by-side in my office, as they go together very well to prevent marriage difficulties, or to help solve them when they arise.


Gary Chapman has written several helpful books for couples, families, and parents based on the same principle, The Five Love Languages. These are EXTREMELY helpful books to take a look at before marriage, during the good times or rough times of marriage, and when it comes to raising children.

I will share with you the basic premises of the book, but I encourage you to pick up a copy and keep it on hand as a reference throughout your family life.

The basic premise is that we all have a “love bank” or bucket that our spouses or family members either deposit into or make withdrawals from. Making frequent deposits results in an abundant, happy, and healthy family life and marriage; too many withdrawals and your account will be overdrawn.

The trick from Chapman’s point of view is that we all experience and express love in different ways based upon our family of origin, what we were taught about love, our personal preferences, and a host of other variables. If we express love in a way that is different from the way our spouse feels love, then we have a disconnect – even though you might be trying your hardest to express your love, your spouse might not feel it, because they experience love in a “different language”.

The goal then is to understand what language both you and your spouse (or children) feel and experience love, and how to step outside what may be your normal expression of love to meet their needs.

Fortunately, the Chapman books break this down into FIVE easy to understand ‘love languages’, and provide a few different inventories to see which language is yours.

His five love languages are:

- Words of Affirmation – giving and receiving words of kindness and encouragement

- Quality Time – not just spending time together, but being fully present

- Receiving Gifts – as simple as it sounds, but hard to get right

- Acts of Service helping out, finishing the ‘honey-do’ list, making the coffee

- Physical Touch – hugs, kisses, holding hands, high-fives, intimacy

Looking at these written here, they appear very basic, almost simple to do. But it’s not always that easy. It takes hard work and insight for us to understand our significant others primary love language, and then a committed effort to act in that manner to express our affection.

If you can identify your primary love language, and your spouses, you are half way there. But it takes time and perseverance to learn how to express your love in a way they will feel it most. Keep at it. If you need a little help, I highly recommend taking a look at the book, and reviewing it as much as possible.

7 Principles for Making Marriage Work - A Review

Can you believe it only takes seven steps?


This is not my title, not my idea, but that of John Gottman and the Gottman Institute. They have been researching couples, their communication, and relationships for quite a while now. I’ve enjoyed the Gottman collection of works in my own married life for quite a while, and I have prescribed this particular volume for most couples I work with. Not only is it a great reference with empirically based suggestions, but it also works to give us a common language to discuss common difficulties most couples are confronted with at some point.

I wanted to introduce this work to you in more depth and share some of it’s teachings. You can use some of these as a defense against issues getting worse, or you can use them to work your way out of relationship pitfalls. If these concepts resonate with you, click on the link and pick up a copy for yourself, or for someone you think might benefit from it.

The Seven Principles are fairly basic, but require a consider amount of work to put into place. Therefore, each one comes with a list of suggested exercise to engage in.

I will warn you, as I do everyone I recommend this book to, the first three chapters can be quite abysmal and depressing. They highlight Gottman’s technique for “predicting divorce” and suggest several obstacles, or “The Four Horsemen”, of relationship destruction. If you can get past these first three and digest what they have to offer, then begin the exercises, you will be well on your way.

Principle One is “Enhance Your Love Maps”; or what I like to think of as getting to know each other again, and again, and again. It is amazing how relationships change over the course of years. What might be even more amazing is the amount of people who don’t expect them to change and are blindsided by it. We need to continually get to know our significant other through talking, dating, and engaging in connecting activities. There is a great exercise at the end of this chapter that simply involves asking each other questions and finding out what you don’t know about your spouse.

Principal Two is about continuing to grow closer, and is titled Nurture Your Fondness and admiration. This principal offers steps to continue to build appreciation in your relationship so that it doesn’t face too much challenge. It is really about looking deeply to find what you like, admire, and appreciate about your significant other.

Principal Three suggests that we Turn Toward Each Other, Instead of Away. Another, more common way to state this is to WORK WITH your partner, rather than against. But in the daily struggles and trials of work, relationships, parenting, etc; it can be very difficult to engage in that behavior consistently. This principal suggests we think of our relationship as having an “emotional bank account” (a common concept in marriage books and theory) that we must continually make more deposits than withdrawals.

Principal Four, a tough one for us men, is to Let Your Partner Influence You. This concept suggests that we continue to increase our connectedness, admiration, appreciation, and emotional bank account simply by allowing ourselves to be influenced by our spouses thoughts and feelings, especially when it comes to critical decisions.

Principals Five and Six get right to the heart of most problems – conflict, disagreement, discord – whatever you want to call it, these two principals deal with identifying a relationships “Solvable Problems” and determining how to “Overcome Gridlock” of those problems that may not be solvable. If you find yourself able to do these two things well in your relationship, you are ahead of the game. If not, these two chapters will be worth their weight in gold.

Finally, Principal Seven, the ‘fun’ Principal, is about “Creating Shared Meaning” in your relationship. In order for a relationship to continue to be healthy and to flourish, the people in the relationship need to share commons goals and meaning in their individual lives, and as a couple. This final part of the book offers suggestions on what to do to get to that shared meaning.

I find myself ‘prescribing’ this book more and more lately. Therefore, I thought it might be helpful if I offered a synopsis on why I have found it so helpful, and why so many couple I have worked with have benefitted from it.

This can be a great resource to prevent certain pitfalls in relationships, and even more so, can help you get out of trouble spots when they occur. If you think you might benefit, if there is the slightest tinge in the back of your mind, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy.

You can find out more about the book, or order your copy here: