Redovni rezultati ispita za vanredne studente i vanredni rezultati ispita za redovne studente

Janićijević Emilija 25 29 38 92 10
Vuksanović Nataša 19 15 37 71 8
Leković Luka 25 26 32 83 9
Majstorović Jovana 13 18 38 69 7
Čkonjević Marko 25 30 43 98 10

Dodatni termin za upis ocena

je u utorak, 16. juna, od 14 do 16h na 1. spratu. Ako neko ni tad ne može da stigne, neka se javi na mejl.

Rezultati ispita iz prvog semestra

Čkonjević Marko 25 28 33.5 86.5 9
Deh Dragana 25 30 41 96 10
Gavrilović Jasmina 25 24 34 83 9
Karan Sanja 25 24 42 91 10
Marković Danica 13 24 34 71 8
Mataruga Nikola 25 28 30 83 9
Šeatović Marija 10 28 21 59 6 (duguje rad)

Studenti I godine FMK koji su nešto radili u II semestru i šta

Rezultati ispita za studente I godine FMK

Prezime i ime Bodovi (prisustvo, kolokvijum, ispit, ukupno), ocena

Aleksić Marija 19 26 29 74 8
Antić Sandra 25 30 41 96 10
Arsenijević Ivana 25 30 43 98 10
Balaž Bojan 25 29 30 84 9
Belušević Biljana 25 30 40 95 10
Bijelić Anita 25 28 29 82 9
Blagojev Tamara 25 28 33 86 9
Bojić Jelena 25 30 43 98 10
Boltić Ana 19 - 38
Budimirović Sandra 25 30 31 86 9
Cerović Ivana 25 26 28 79 8
Čeković Nejla 25 23 37 85 9
Čiča Marijana 22 23 35 80 8
Čkonjević Marko 10 30 43 83 9 (duguje rad)
Daćevac Sofija 25 30 43 98 10
Damnjanović Tijana 10 25 38 73 8 (duguje rad)
Divjak Vladimir 10 25 31 66 7 (duguje rad)
Drašković Miroslav 25 20 30 75 8
Đorđević Ana 25 27 43 95 10
Đukić Jelena 22 28 41 91 10
Đurđev Đorđe 25 29 45 99 10
Đurđević Milica 25 27 30 82 9
Đuričić Jovana 22 30 44 96 10
Đurić Jelena 25 28 41 94 10
Gajić Branimir 10 30 duguje rad
Gajić Sanja 19 - 34
Glavinić Aleksandra 25 30 42 97 10
Jerić Vladimir 25 30 43 98 10
Jovanović Marina 25 30 42 97 10
Jovanović Uroš 25 30 42 97 10
Jovičić Bojan 25 25 42 92 10
Kenig Darko 25 30 34 89 9
Kolenović Veljko 10 30 40 80 8 (duguje rad)
Konjikušić Andrea 25 27 27 79 8
Kosanović Marija 25 26 41 92 10
Kovačević Gordana 25 28 40 93 10
Kovačević Una 25 29 44 98 10
Krsmanović Elena 25 30 44 99 10
Kučan Tamara 25 26 35 86 9
Lazarević Jovana 16
Lazić Milena 25 30 43 98 10
Leković Luka 25 26 32 83 9
Madić Aleksandar 25 30 43 98 10
Majstorović Jovana 13 - 38
Maksić Milica 25 29 38 92 10
Maksimović Miloš 25 27 29 81 9
Maletić Marija 25 30 34 89 9
Marinković Iva 25 29 35 89 9
Marinković Marko 25 30 43 98 10
Marković Danica 22 25 34 81 9
Mastilović Milena 13 30 37 80 8
Mataruga Nikola 10 24 duguje rad
Mijović Jovana 25 25 32 82 9
Milinković Monika 25 25 33 83 9
Milković Sara 25 24 42 91 10
Milojković Marija 25 28 31 84 9
Milojković Rastko 25 30 44 99 10
Milovanović Nataša 25 30 43 98 10
Mrdaković Anica 25 29 38 92 10
Narančić Andrea 25 30 41 96 10
Nikolić Jovana 13 24 29 66 7
Nikolić Mina 10
Novičić Marko 25 30 45 100 10
Novović Dejan 25 30 43 98 10
Pavlović Jelena 10 ? 33 duguje rad
Petrović Aleksandar 25 26 32 83 9
Popović Relja 25 29 38 92 10
Pražić Strahinja Aleksandar 22 24 35 81 9
Puškar Adam 25 29 41 95 10
Radojević Ana 25 30 45 100 10
Radojević Ivan 25 30 43 98 10
Rajković Katarina 25 24 42 91 10
Ristić Ljubomir 10
Ristić Nikola 25 29 42 96 10
Saičić Aleksandra 16 28 31 75 8
Savić Nemanja 25 27 41 93 10
Stevančević Kristina 25 29 45 99 10
Stević Mikaela 25 27 30 82 9
Stević Vesna 25 30
Stojanović Jelena 25 25 31 81 9
Stojanović Slobodan 25 28 40 93 10
Štilet Ana 22 30 37 89 9
Tešić Vanja 25 24 35 84 9
Vidanović Marija 25 25 29 79 8
Vorkapić Borjana 13 24 35 72 8
Vujović Dunja 25 28 31 84 9
Vujović Goran 25 30 39 94 10
Vuković Teodora 25 28 31 84 9
Vuksanović Nataša 19 - 37

Rezultati ispita za studente psihologije

Prezime i ime prisustvo kolokvijum ispit ukupno ocena

Aleksić Mina 25 29 44 98 10
Arsić Suzana 25 24 41 90 9
Avramović Vesna 16 23 38 77 8
Bibovski Aleksandar 25 25 44 94 10
Bulatović Violeta 7 24 39 70 7
Deh Dragana 25 30
Đenić Marijana 25 28 45 98 10
Đuranović Isidora 25
Ikonić Strahinja 25 30 44 99 10
Jakovljević Marina 25 30 42 97 10
Janićijević Emilija 25 29
Janjušević Velibor 19 24 42 85 9
Jokić Andrijana 25 19 41 85 9
Jovanović Damjan 16 20 43 79 8
Karanović Miloš 25 27 40 92 10
Kovačević Uroš 25 26 42 93 10
Krnjajić Nikoleta 13 26 37 76 8
Latković Jelena 25 23 43 91 10
Lukić Suzana 10 25
Ljubičić Žuna 25 28 44 97 10
Majstorović Ina 25 28.5 44 97.5 10
Maltez Marija 25 28 44 97 10
Mešković Daniel 25 30 45 100 10
Milačić Jovana 13
Mirić Milena 25 27 44 96 10
Mitrović Mirjana 25 30 44 99 10
Mlađenović Marija 25 27
Nedić Jelena 25 29 41 85 10
Obračević Jovan 22 29 44 95 10
Pantić Miloš 25 43
Plazić Sonja 25 30 42 97 10
Pokrajac Saša 16 30 44 90 9
Poluga Jelena 25 29 43 97 10
Radonjić Olga 25 22 35 82 9
Rađen Stefan 25 29 40 94 10
Savić Aleksandra 25 28 43 96 10
Spasić Ivana 25 30 43 98 10
Spasić Ninoslav 25 27 42 94 10
Topalović Emilija 25 28 44 97 10
Trajkovski Pavle 25 30 43 98 10
Vavić Sonja 25 30 41 96 10
Vučićević Jelica 25 28 43 96 10

Rezultati ispita Engleski jezik IV

Studenti II godine FMK koji su davali znake života u II semestru:

Prezime i ime Bodovi (prisustvo, kolokvijum, ispit, ukupno) i ocena

Abinun Lea 22 29 45 96 10

Antić Maja 25 27 41 93 10

Arambašić Srđan 25 27 38 90 9

Babić Vanja 25 28 31 84 9

Balać Kristina 25 30 41 96 10

Banjac Brankica 16 28 41 85 9

Beatović Milena 25 29 40 94 10

Čigoja Danica 25 29 43 97 10

Čokić Aleksa 25 29 40 94 10

Devetak Jana 16 25 42 83 9

Dimitrijević Ana 25 26 39 90 9

Drljević Itana 22 25 38 85 9

Drobac Aleksandar 25 30 38 93 10

Dunjić Miloš 25 26 34 85 9

Đorđević Dunja 16 28 39 83 9

Đorđević Maja 25 28 42 95 10

Đorđević Nemanja 25 27 38 90 9

Đukić Ljiljana 25 25 44 94 10

Đurđić Olena 30

Erceg Miloš 25 29 39 93 10

Garić Zoran 25 25 41 91 10

Granić Tamara 22 30 44 96 10

Herman Nikola 25 30 38 93 10

Janevska Dejana 25 30 38 93 10

Janjić Nikola 25 28 40 93 10

Jerić Vladimir 25 30 43 98 10

Jovanović Nadežda 25 26 39 90 9

Jović Ana 25 24 40 89 9

Jovićević Mihailo 25 26 38 89 9

Jovović Neda 25 29 34 88 9

Karan Sanja 25 29 45 99 10

Kele Anđela 25 28 43 96 10

Koncul Ana 25 30 45 100 10

Krstić Srđan 25 29 43 97 10

Kujić Svetozar 25 30 43 98 10

Lazendić Nataša 25 26 44 95 10

Lončar Luka 25 27 40 92 10

Maksimović Marina 25 29 38 92 10

Malbašić Damjan 25 30 43 98 10

Marović Igor 25 27 40 92 10

Mevorah Reuben 25 26 44 95 10

Mihailović Milena 25 28 42 95 10

Mijović Milica 25 29 39 93 10

Milenković Marija 25 30 44 99 10

Milić Ljubomir 25 26 39 90 9

Milošević Julija 25 30 43 98 10

Mitrović-Rajšp Jovana 16 30

Nikčević Jovana 25 28 38 91 10

Nikolić Emilija 25 30 38 93 10

Nikolić Jelena 25 28 39 92 10

Nikolić Miloš 25 25 43 93 10

Ostojić Vladimir 25 24 37 86 9

Panjković Aleksandra 25 30 39 94 10

Paunović Lada 25 30 45 100 10

Pavlović Jelena 25 24 26 75 8

Pecelj Pavle 25 26 36 87 9

Perunović Andrea 25 23 36 84 9

Petković Aleksandra 25 27 31 83 9

Petković Ivan 19

Petković Tanja 25 30 36 91 10

Petrović Aleksandra 33/07 22 24 42 88 9

Petrović Aleksandra II 180/08 22

Petrović Jovana 25 30 39 94 10

Popović Jelena 16 20 34 70 7

Pražić Dajana 25 27 43 95 10

Preočanin Marija 25 30 43 98 10

Rajković Sanja 22 29 42 93 10

Ranković I. Ivana 25 28 40 93 10

Rašić Aleksandra 25 21 39 85 9

Rodić Marko 25

Rogić Aleksandra 13 23 35 71 8

Sabo Kornelija 25 26 44 95 10

Savićević Maša 10 28 34 72 8 (duguje jedan rad)

Stamenović Lena 25 30 44 99 10

Stević Jovana 25

Stojanović Tijana 25 30 43 98 10

Stojičić Dunja 25 22 44 91 10

Stojković Katarina 25 28 41 94 10

Šćepanović Aleksandar 10

Šeatović Marija 10 29 37 76 8 (duguje jedan rad)

Škorić Jovana 25 30 40 95 10

Škundrić Aleksandar 22 26 44 92 10

Šolak Miloš 10 24 41 75 8

Šolak Mladen 25 27 41 93 10

Štrbić Ivona 25 23 33 81 9

Tićak Marko 25

Trpčevski Trena 25 23 40 88 9

Vasiljević Petar 25 23 34 82 9

Veljković Ana 25 29 40 94 10

Vulević Naida 10 23 40 73 8 (duguje jedan rad)

Zajmović Mina 25 29 41 95 10

Zarić Maja 13 25 43 81 9

Zdravković Nikola 22 26 44 92 10

Žeželj Mayer Andra 10 20 43 73 8

Živanović Đorđe 16 30

Živanović Tamara 10 28 33 71 8 (duguje jedan rad)

Živković Marijana 25 27 40 92 10

Živojinović Gordana 25 25 43 93 10

Rezultati ispita...

će se pojaviti na blogu po sledećem rasporedu:

za studente II godine FMK u petak, 5. juna
za studente psihologije u utorak, 9. juna
za studente I godine FMK u sredu, 10. juna

upis svih ocena biće u četvrtak, 11. juna od 14 do 17h. Ako nekome ne odgovara termin, molim da mi se javi mejlom radi dogovora.

Ispit za studente FMK

Ispit se sastoji iz:

I) 15 pitanja sledećeg tipa:

The prisoner _______ the last meal. He said he did not find the thought of death appetizing.

a) deranged b) derailed c) declined d) devoted

(tačan odgovor: c)

II) 15 reči koje treba povezati sa sinonimima:

1. assistance a) cut down on
2. reduce b) perseverance
3. determination c) help

(tačan odgovor: 1c, 2a, 3b)

III) gramatičkog vežbanja u kome treba popuniti 10 praznina ispravnim članom (a(n), the ili /):

Ićm going to _____ hospital to visit _____ friend of mine. Do you think I should bring him _____ bottle of _____ wine?

(tačni odgovori: the, a, a, /)

IV) teksta sa 5 pitanja koja proveravaju razumevanje.

Psiholozi: o ispitu

Ispit za studente psihologije održaće se 2. juna od 18 do 19h u sali 8.

Ispit se sastoji iz:

I) 20 pitanja sledećeg tipa:

He _______ his mother for all his problems.
a) guilted b) famed c) blamed d) bent

(tačan odgovor: c)

II) 20 reči koje treba povezati sa sinonimima:

1. assistance a) cut down on
2. reduce b) perseverance
3. determination c) help

(tačan odgovor: 1c, 2a, 3b)

III) teksta sa 5 pitanja koja proveravaju razumevanje.

Rezultati kolokvijuma za sve 'zaostale' studente ;-)

Uz lament nad nekim jako dobrim radovima koji su zbog nenormalnog kašnjenja lišeni određenog brija poena, evo rezultata:



Čiča Marijana 23
Gavrilović Jasmina 24 (I sem.)
Janjušević Velibor 24
Jović Ana 24
Jovićević Mihailo 26
Mataruga Nikola 28 (I sem.) 24 (II sem.)
Mlađenović Marija 27
Ostojić Vladimir 24
Petrović Aleksandra 24
Sabo Kornelija 26
Savićević Maša 24
Škundrić Aleksandar 25
Šolak Miloš 24
Vorkapić Borjana 24




Šćepanović Aleksandar se poziva da se javi bilo kojom metodom komunikacije.

Svi tekstovi za studente FMK

Skenirani tekstovi:

http://www.fmk.edu.rs/en/65.jpg
http://www.fmk.edu.rs/en/65.jpg
http://web.fmk.edu.rs/files/blogs/2008-9/II/Engleski/eng01.pdf
http://web.fmk.edu.rs/files/blogs/2008-9/II/Engleski/eng02.pdf

Shouldn't Men Have a Choice, Too?
By Glenn Sacks

Jennifer was crushed when she was told that a baby was on the way. She wants to have children, but the right way--after she has found the right person and is married. But in Jennifer's country, she has no choice. "Jenn" cannot give the child up for adoption, and she cannot terminate the pregnancy. It is her burden to bear, for the next two decades, like it or not.What country is it which compels a person to have a child they don't want? Afghanistan? Saudi Arabia?No, it's the United States--not for Jenn, but for Ken.

Ken Johnson, a 10 year veteran of the Seattle Fire Department, wanted to be a father, but with the right woman, and at the right time. Three years ago he and his wife separated after six years of marriage, and each began to date. During this time, according to court documents filed in Snohomish County, Washington, Ken had a brief affair with "Cathy," which resulted in a pregnancy. Ken's legal complaint alleges that he begged Cathy to put the child up for adoption or to terminate the pregnancy, but Cathy refused. Now Ken and his wife, who reconciled two and a half years ago, can't start a family of their own because almost half of Ken's net income from the Seattle Fire Department goes to support the child he didn't want to have. He says:"People tell me that Cathy should have the choice whether to keep the child or not because it's her body so it's her choice. I agree. But what about my body? I make my living rushing into burning buildings. I put my life and my safety on the line every time I go to work, and now I'm on the hook for 18 years. With the child support demands on me, there's no way I'll ever be able to quit. What about my choice?"

Johnson is part of a growing movement of men who bristle at being "coerced fathers," and who have enlisted in a "Choice for Men" movement whose goals are every bit as legitimate as the goals of the women's reproductive rights movement. They note that one million American women legally walk away from motherhood every year by either adoption, abortion, or abandonment, and demand that men, like women, be given reproductive options. They point out that, unlike women, men have no reliable contraception available to them, since the failure rate of condoms is substantial, and vasectomies are generally only worthwhile for older men who have already married and had children. And they emphasize that, with long backlogs of stable, two-parent families looking for babies to adopt, there is no reason for any child born out of wedlock to a "coerced father" to be without a good home.The Choice for Men movement seeks to give "coerced fathers" the right to relinquish their parental rights and responsibilities within a month of learning of a pregnancy, just as mothers do when they choose to give their children up for adoption. These men would be obligated to provide legitimate financial compensation to cover natal medical expenses, the mother's loss of income during pregnancy, etc. The right would only apply to pregnancies which occurred outside of marriage.

Some of those who fought for women's reproductive choices agree with choice for men. Karen DeCrow, former president of the National Organization for Women, writes:"If a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring a pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support ... autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice."

To date, courts have refused to consider fathers' reproductive rights even in the most extreme cases, including: when child support is demanded from men who were as young as 12 when they were statutorily raped by older women; when women have taken the semen from a used condom and inserted it in themselves, including from condoms used only in oral sex; and when women concealed the pregnancy from the man (denying him the right to be a father) and then sued for back and current child support eight or ten years later."It doesn't make sense to me," Ken's wife Patti says. "The courts force my husband and I to support a child he never agreed to, but make it financially impossible for him to have a child with the woman he loves and married."

'All I wanted was children'

Following the premature birth of her IVF octuplets, Nadya Suleman faces a backlash over her increasingly peculiar approach to motherhood

Nadya Suleman inhabits a world where the entitlement society and victim mentality merge. The mother of 14, a brood that more than doubled when she stunned the world and gave birth to octuplets 13 days ago, was so resentful at being raised an only child that she embarked on a single-minded mission to produce as many offspring as possible.And she has made it clear she believes it was her right to deploy science and a large stash of embryos to pursue that obsession – despite her status as a single mother with no regular source of income, the reported opposition of the sperm donor, and the disapproval of her own parents, who are sharing the burden of bringing up the family.With her eight tiny newborns still in hospital in Los Angeles, Miss Suleman offered a telling insight into her own psyche – part pitying "poor me", part defiant "why shouldn't I?" – in an unpaid interview with NBC.Publicists are also seeking to sell her story, but initial predictions that a deal might raise $2 million towards her child-care bills now appear greatly exaggerated after the public mood turned against her. Early suggestions that she could also find work as a television child-rearing guru appear even more remote.

The saga of the "octo-mom" has gripped the country and her first comments were eagerly awaited. They came on Friday when the 33-year-old former psychiatric assistant was asked by NBC interviewer Ann Curry whether, with six children already, she might have opted to have only one or two embryos implanted."Of course not," replied Miss Suleman, with a mixture of disbelief and scorn for the suggestion. "I wanted them all transferred. Those are my children, and that's what was available and I used them."So Miss Suleman took what was "available" and "used" them all, even if she was only hoping for just one more girl, as she insists. She had six embryos implanted by an unnamed doctor, but they apparently split into eight in the womb after the in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and she declined selective abortion.

The birth of healthy octuplets, nine weeks' premature, was initially welcomed as a heartening medical miracle in a country ground down by the daily barrage of bad economic news.But as it emerged that Miss Suleman was a single divorcée and already had six children aged between two and seven, all the product of IVF by the same doctor, even the tolerance of her famously liberal home state was tested to its limits.In tandem with the deepening public backlash, a heated ethical debate is also swirling about the actions of the unidentified specialist, who was reported on Friday to be under investigation by the California Medical Board. There are no laws restricting the number of embryos that can be implanted, but guidelines say the maximum for a healthy woman under 35 should be two. As the IVF will not have been covered by health insurance, the doctor may have been paid from the $170,000 in disability payments for back injuries Miss Suleman sustained in a 1999 riot at the psychiatric facility where she worked.

On NBC, Miss Suleman portrayed herself as a victim – of prejudice for choosing an "unconventional kind of life" as a single mother; and of the "isolation" of growing up in a "dysfunctional family".Yet the picture that emerged last week, from her own words, her mother's comments and her medical records, points to a young woman raised in a typical middle-class immigrant American family, the daughter of an Iraqi linguist and a mother from Lithuanian stock who worked as a teacher.What is in no doubt is the former cheerleader's single-minded determination to have as many children as she could. She began trying in her late teens and had the first of three miscarriages in 1995.A year later, she married Marcos Gutierrez, a produce manager who has made no comment on the controversy, but the couple separated in 2000.After suffering the serious back injury during the 1999 riot, she confided to a psychiatrist who was treating her that her inability to become pregnant was making her deeply depressed and had prompted suicidal thoughts.In 2001, she finally gave birth to a child conceived using IVF with sperm donated by a friend. Over the next five years, she had another five children, including twins, via the same IVF donor.With her mother Angela helping to look after the six grandchildren in the modest three-bedroom house they all shared in the LA suburb of Whittier, Miss Suleman returned to college, obtaining a degree in child development and then pursuing a master's in counselling.

But Miss Suleman's aspiration for a huge family was not over. Despite the sperm donor and her parents urging her to stop, she returned to her tame fertility specialist, as she wanted "just one more girl". By the time she turned up three months pregnant at the city's Kaiser Permanente medical centre (which is not the clinic where she was implanted), doctors thought she was pregnant with seven babies. But on Jan 26, there was another surprise – she gave birth to eight.

Such large multiple births have always attracted publicity. What is so unusual about this case is the level of opprobrium. Los Angeles' top-rated radio host, Bill Handel, decried the births as "freakish" and said his audience was "ready to boycott" firms that sent gifts to Miss Suleman and her babies.Hollywood publicist David Brokaw, an expert in "crisis management" for high-profile clients, said Miss Suleman's newly hired PR firm was dealing with a "calamity". He added: "I don't see, the way this is shaped, how you can say much about it in terms of something favourable."Sadly for Miss Suleman, her hastily hired publicist's prediction – that the public would change their opinion of her "for the good" once she broke her silence – has not come to pass. Indeed, her words seem to have fanned the flames.

A quick scan of responses to stories posted on an LA website shows its readers to be an unsympathetic bunch. Among the more polite, "Mowry" simply branded her a "total wacko". Another outraged California resident has even started an online "Freedom from Welfare" petition, aimed at "informing our government of our displeasure at the spending of our hard-earned tax dollars" on an "unmarried, unemployed female" whose family will be a "huge burden on the state of California".Miss Suleman's parents, who married in Las Vegas in 1974 and divorced in 1999, have put aside their differences to help their only child raise her burgeoning brood. Her mother, Angela, is now retired and spends much of her time looking after the six older children. Her Iraqi-born father, Edward, plans to return to his homeland to work as a translator to provide financial assistance to his daughter.

Miss Suleman is well-spoken and coherent, certainly not the sort of "trailer trash" who occupy the more lurid daytime chat shows. Yet this weekend her words were being dissected for evidence of her mental state, rather than celebrated for the happy news they convey.And she even managed a dig at some other parents, suggesting that she would be a better mother than many."I'm providing myself to my children," she said. "I'm loving them unconditionally… Everything I do, I'll stop my life for them and be present with them and hold them and be with them. And how many parents do that? I'm sure there are many that do, but many don't, and that's unfortunate and that is selfish."Her long-suffering mother has made clear her frustration with her daughter's family-rearing decisions in a series of exasperated comments since the birth. She observed despairingly that she wished Nadya had become a kindergarten teacher if she wanted to be surrounded by children and even felt the need to insist that her daughter was not "evil", just "obsessed".Miss Suleman, who cradles each baby for 45 minutes a day before they have to be placed back in units helping them breathe, makes no apologies for that obsession. "Sometimes we have that dream and that passion and we take risks," she told NBC. "All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life. I love my children."

What’s Wrong With Cinderella?
By PEGGY ORENSTEIN
Published: December 24, 2006

I finally came unhinged in the dentist’s office — one of those ritzy pediatric practices tricked out with comic books, DVDs and arcade games — where I’d taken my 3-year-old daughter for her first exam. Until then, I’d held my tongue. I’d smiled politely every time the supermarket-checkout clerk greeted her with “Hi, Princess”; ignored the waitress at our local breakfast joint who called the funny-face pancakes she ordered her “princess meal”; made no comment when the lady at Longs Drugs said, “I bet I know your favorite color” and handed her a pink balloon rather than letting her choose for herself. Maybe it was the dentist’s Betty Boop inflection that got to me, but when she pointed to the exam chair and said, “Would you like to sit in my special princess throne so I can sparkle your teeth?” I lost it.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I snapped. “Do you have a princess drill, too?”She stared at me as if I were an evil stepmother.“Come on!” I continued, my voice rising. “It’s 2006, not 1950. This is Berkeley, Calif. Does every little girl really have to be a princess?”My daughter, who was reaching for a Cinderella sticker, looked back and forth between us. “Why are you so mad, Mama?” she asked. “What’s wrong with princesses?”

Diana may be dead and Masako disgraced, but here in America, we are in the midst of a royal moment. To call princesses a “trend” among girls is like calling Harry Potter a book. Sales at Disney Consumer Products, which started the craze six years ago by packaging nine of its female characters under one royal rubric, have shot up to $3 billion, globally, this year, from $300 million in 2001. There are now more than 25,000 Disney Princess items. “Princess,” as some Disney execs call it, is not only the fastest-growing brand the company has ever created; they say it is on its way to becoming the largest girls’ franchise on the planet.

Meanwhile in 2001, Mattel brought out its own “world of girl” line of princess Barbie dolls, DVDs, toys, clothing, home décor and myriad other products. At a time when Barbie sales were declining domestically, they became instant best sellers. Pink, it seems, is the new gold.When my own girl makes her daily beeline for the dress-up corner of her preschool classroom — something I’m convinced she does largely to torture me — I worry about what playing Little Mermaid is teaching her. I’ve spent much of my career writing about experiences that undermine girls’ well-being, warning parents that a preoccupation with body and beauty (encouraged by films, TV, magazines and, yes, toys) is perilous to their daughters’ mental and physical health. Am I now supposed to shrug and forget all that? If trafficking in stereotypes doesn’t matter at 3, when does it matter? At 6? Eight? Thirteen?

On the other hand, maybe I’m still surfing a washed-out second wave of feminism in a third-wave world. Maybe princesses are in fact a sign of progress, an indication that girls can embrace their predilection for pink without compromising strength or ambition; that, at long last, they can “have it all.” Or maybe it is even less complex than that: to mangle Freud, maybe a princess is sometimes just a princess. And, as my daughter wants to know, what’s wrong with that?

The rise of the Disney princesses reads like a fairy tale itself, with Andy Mooney, a former Nike executive, playing the part of prince, riding into the company on a metaphoric white horse in January 2000 to save a consumer-products division whose sales were dropping by as much as 30 percent a year. Both overstretched and underfocused, the division had triggered price wars by granting multiple licenses for core products (say, Winnie-the-Pooh undies) while ignoring the potential of new media. What’s more, Disney films like “A Bug’s Life” in 1998 had yielded few merchandising opportunities — what child wants to snuggle up with an ant?It was about a month after Mooney’s arrival that the magic struck. That’s when he flew to Phoenix to check out his first “Disney on Ice” show. “Standing in line in the arena, I was surrounded by little girls dressed head to toe as princesses,” he told me last summer in his palatial office, then located in Burbank, and speaking in a rolling Scottish burr. “They weren’t even Disney products. They were generic princess products they’d appended to a Halloween costume. And the light bulb went off. Clearly there was latent demand here. So the next morning I said to my team, ‘O.K., let’s establish standards and a color palette and talk to licensees and get as much product out there as we possibly can that allows these girls to do what they’re doing anyway: projecting themselves into the characters from the classic movies.’ ”

Mooney picked a mix of old and new heroines to wear the Pantone pink No. 241 corona: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan and Pocahontas. It was the first time Disney marketed characters separately from a film’s release, let alone lumped together those from different stories. To ensure the sanctity of what Mooney called their individual “mythologies,” the princesses never make eye contact when they’re grouped: each stares off in a slightly different direction as if unaware of the others’ presence.

It is also worth noting that not all of the ladies are of royal extraction. Part of the genius of “Princess” is that its meaning is so broadly constructed that it actually has no meaning. Even Tinker Bell was originally a Princess, though her reign didn’t last. “We’d always debate over whether she was really a part of the Princess mythology,” Mooney recalled. “She really wasn’t.” Likewise, Mulan and Pocahontas, arguably the most resourceful of the bunch, are rarely depicted on Princess merchandise, though for a different reason. Their rustic garb has less bling potential than that of old-school heroines like Sleeping Beauty. (When Mulan does appear, she is typically in the kimonolike hanfu, which makes her miserable in the movie, rather than her liberated warrior’s gear.)

The first Princess items, released with no marketing plan, no focus groups, no advertising, sold as if blessed by a fairy godmother. To this day, Disney conducts little market research on the Princess line, relying instead on the power of its legacy among mothers as well as the instant-read sales barometer of the theme parks and Disney Stores. “We simply gave girls what they wanted,” Mooney said of the line’s success, “although I don’t think any of us grasped how much they wanted this. I wish I could sit here and take credit for having some grand scheme to develop this, but all we did was envision a little girl’s room and think about how she could live out the princess fantasy. The counsel we gave to licensees was: What type of bedding would a princess want to sleep in? What kind of alarm clock would a princess want to wake up to? What type of television would a princess like to see? It’s a rare case where you find a girl who has every aspect of her room bedecked in Princess, but if she ends up with three or four of these items, well, then you have a very healthy business.”

Every reporter Mooney talks to asks some version of my next question: Aren’t the Princesses, who are interested only in clothes, jewelry and cadging the handsome prince, somewhat retrograde role models?

“Look,” he said, “I have friends whose son went through the Power Rangers phase who castigated themselves over what they must’ve done wrong. Then they talked to other parents whose kids had gone through it. The boy passes through. The girl passes through. I see girls expanding their imagination through visualizing themselves as princesses, and then they pass through that phase and end up becoming lawyers, doctors, mothers or princesses, whatever the case may be.”

At the grocery store one day, my daughter noticed a little girl sporting a Cinderella backpack. “There’s that princess you don’t like, Mama!” she shouted.“Um, yeah,” I said, trying not to meet the other mother’s hostile gaze.“Don’t you like her blue dress, Mama?”I had to admit, I did.She thought about this. “Then don’t you like her face?”“Her face is all right,” I said, noncommittally, though I’m not thrilled to have my Japanese-Jewish child in thrall to those Aryan features. (And what the heck are those blue things covering her ears?) “It’s just, honey, Cinderella doesn’t really do anything.”Over the next 45 minutes, we ran through that conversation, verbatim, approximately 37 million times, as my daughter pointed out Disney Princess Band-Aids, Disney Princess paper cups, Disney Princess lip balm, Disney Princess pens, Disney Princess crayons and Disney Princess notebooks — all cleverly displayed at the eye level of a 3-year-old trapped in a shopping cart — as well as a bouquet of Disney Princess balloons bobbing over the checkout line. The repetition was excessive, even for a preschooler. What was it about my answers that confounded her? What if, instead of realizing: Aha! Cinderella is a symbol of the patriarchal oppression of all women, another example of corporate mind control and power-to-the-people! my 3-year-old was thinking, Mommy doesn’t want me to be a girl?

According to theories of gender constancy, until they’re about 6 or 7, children don’t realize that the sex they were born with is immutable. They believe that they have a choice: they can grow up to be either a mommy or a daddy. Some psychologists say that until permanency sets in kids embrace whatever stereotypes our culture presents, whether it’s piling on the most spangles or attacking one another with light sabers. What better way to assure that they’ll always remain themselves? If that’s the case, score one for Mooney. By not buying the Princess Pull-Ups, I may be inadvertently communicating that being female (to the extent that my daughter is able to understand it) is a bad thing.

“Playing princess is not the issue,” argues Lyn Mikel Brown, an author, with Sharon Lamb, of “Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers’ Schemes.” “The issue is 25,000 Princess products,” says Brown, a professor of education and human development at Colby College. “When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.”

It’s hard to imagine that girls’ options could truly be shrinking when they dominate the honor roll and outnumber boys in college. Then again, have you taken a stroll through a children’s store lately? At Toys “R” Us, aisles of pink baby dolls, kitchens, shopping carts and princesses unfurl a safe distance from the “Star Wars” figures, GeoTrax and tool chests. The relentless resegregation of childhood appears to have sneaked up without any further discussion about sex roles, about what it now means to be a boy or to be a girl. Or maybe it has happened in lieu of such discussion because it’s easier this way.

Easier, that is, unless you want to buy your daughter something that isn’t pink. Girls’ obsession with that color may seem like something they’re born with, like the ability to breathe or talk on the phone for hours on end. But according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, it ain’t so. When colors were first introduced to the nursery in the early part of the 20th century, pink was considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty. Why or when that switched is not clear, but as late as the 1930s a significant percentage of adults in one national survey held to that split. Perhaps that’s why so many early Disney heroines — Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Wendy, Alice-in-Wonderland — are swathed in varying shades of azure. (Purple, incidentally, may be the next color to swap teams: once the realm of kings and N.F.L. players, it is fast becoming the bolder girl’s version of pink.)The infatuation with the girlie girl certainly could, at least in part, be a reaction against the so-called second wave of the women’s movement of the 1960s and ’70s (the first wave was the fight for suffrage), which fought for reproductive rights and economic, social and legal equality. If nothing else, pink and Princess have resuscitated the fantasy of romance that that era of feminism threatened, the privileges that traditional femininity conferred on women despite its costs — doors magically opened, dinner checks picked up, Manolo Blahniks. Frippery. Fun. Why should we give up the perks of our sex until we’re sure of what we’ll get in exchange? Why should we give them up at all? Or maybe it’s deeper than that: the freedoms feminism bestowed came with an undercurrent of fear among women themselves — flowing through “Ally McBeal,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Sex and the City” — of losing male love, of never marrying, of not having children, of being deprived of something that felt essentially and exclusively female.

A few days later, I picked my daughter up from preschool. She came tearing over in a full-skirted frock with a gold bodice, a beaded crown perched sideways on her head. “Look, Mommy, I’m Ariel!” she crowed, referring to Disney’s Little Mermaid. Then she stopped and furrowed her brow. “Mommy, do you like Ariel?”I considered her for a moment. Maybe Princess is the first salvo in what will become a lifelong struggle over her body image, a Hundred Years’ War of dieting, plucking, painting and perpetual dissatisfaction with the results. Or maybe it isn’t. I’ll never really know. In the end, it’s not the Princesses that really bother me anyway. They’re just a trigger for the bigger question of how, over the years, I can help my daughter with the contradictions she will inevitably face as a girl, the dissonance that is as endemic as ever to growing up female. Maybe the best I can hope for is that her generation will get a little further with the solutions than we did.For now, I kneeled down on the floor and gave my daughter a hug.She smiled happily. “But, Mommy?” she added. “When I grow up, I’m still going to be a fireman.”

5 Popular TV Advertising Tricks – And Why They Work

The next time you're perusing your local supermarket's aisles, think about the items that you've just placed into your cart. Did you make a list and select only those items? Or did you toss a few extra products into the buggy? If you said 'yes' to the latter question, then it might be a fair assessment to say that some sort of advertisement was involved in your decision. Television commercials are not only crucial to the success of products and services, they are also incredibly entertaining. Understanding how television commercials work isn't terribly complicated. But the subtleties involved are quite fascinating. There are all sorts of tricks that advertising execs use to capture the attention of consumers. And if you pay careful attention, you can figure out how they're used to get people to buy all kinds of things...

Advertising Trick #1:Sex

Using sex and sexuality is one of the oldest tricks in the book. But you may be surprised at just frequently it is used in television commercials. Some TV ads which seem completely benign actually have very suggestive undertones. For example, advertisers for NutraGrain breakfast bars have used the slogan "You are what you eat" in order to arouse the attention of consumers who eat unhealthy breakfast foods. But in this particular ad, a woman is shown from behind. The area where her buttocks would normally be seen has been replaced by a pair of large cinnamon rolls. As she walks away, the cinnamon rolls dip and sway with each step, as a man nearby looks on. No one really associates a breakfast food (or NutraGrain) with sex, per se. But the attention drawn to the lady's buttocks reinforces the notion that if you eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast, they'll end up padding one's backside with fat. In 2005 Hardee's ran an ad featuring socialite Paris Hilton. In the advertisement, she is clad in a revealing swimsuit, soaping up a car while eating one of Hardee's juicy new burgers. This particular commercial blatantly used sexuality to grab the viewer's attention. In fact, there was much controversy over the ad, as some people felt that execs went overboard in making their burgers look attractive to consumers. In any event, since sexual urges come naturally to humans, it is still the most widely used ploy in advertisement today; reel them in with sex, then turn attention to the product.

Advertising Trick #2:The Annoying Jingle

It is common knowledge that people are better able to memorize things by using music. This is why pre-schoolers are encouraged to learn their ABCs by singing them. The same concept applies in television advertising. But in this case, ad execs employ all sorts of audible cues to obtain the attention of consumers. But, consumers do not always associate the enjoyable songs they hear in commercials with a particular brand name. In many cases, a viewer may remember the song, and even the imagery in the commercial, but not the actual product being sold. Ironically it is the annoying jingles that are quite effective in getting people to remember a certain product or service. Take for instance, Empire Today, a carpet installation company. In this commercial, the company's toll free number is sung in a reasonably obnoxious jingle. The creative minds behind the commercial are not hoping that you'll actually enjoy the song; they are hoping that you'll remember two key items: the phone number, and the company name-both of which make up almost the entire jingle. Other commercials have followed suit. TitleMax, a car title pawn and loan company has employed an actress to repeatedly sing about "the money, the money, the real, moneyyyy" (much to viewers' chagrin.) And there are plenty of blogs in which consumers rant about how irritating the Head On headache medicine commercials are. The truth is that it is often easier to capture someone's attention with negative stimuli, as it is with positive. If you recall how annoying a commercial's jingle is, chances are that you'll probably remember the product.

Advertising Trick #3:The Absurd

The executives behind the latest commercial for Amica Auto Insurance Company have mastered the art of utilizing completely absurd situations in order to get a point across to consumers. In a television spot, various people are seen climbing into vehicles that are entirely impractical for their personal need: a husband man has bought a tiny car that won't hold all the members of the his family for a family vacation; a short woman on her way to work is seen climbing with a ladder into a pick-up truck with monster tires; and another man is shown deliverying newspapers from an RV. The platform in this ad is that the same care that people take in choosing their automobiles should be extended to their choice in auto insurance plans. Companies will often use extreme comparisons and analogies when attempting to convince potential customers to buy their goods. The concept is very similar to the usage of metaphors and similes in poetry. Both are used to provide a mental picture for the reader. In the case of television commercials, the analogies are visual instead of literary. It is these absurd visualizations that help consumers to remember what the product is for, and thus will make the decision to buy.

Advertising Trick #4: "Fantasy" Imagery

Have you ever noticed how lush, shiny, and healthy the models' hair looks in those Pantene Pro-V commercials? Perhaps you've taken note of how luxurious the scenery is in commercials for products like Downy fabric softener, or even Glade air freshening products. Since consumers cannot smell through the television, very often, advertisement execs will provide a sort of "fantasy" landscape and/or imagery in order to appeal to viewers' other senses. Seeing an open field with rows and rows of flowers automatically conveys that the product being offered smells fresh and wonderful. Bottled water companies use ads which focus on cooling and refreshing their customers. Thus, in those ads, lots of crisp water-filled images usually fill up the TV screen. If one can associate a certain product or service with one of his/her senses, more than likely that person will remember the ad. And subliminally, the message is sent that the product being sold can provide results similar to what's being shown in the commercial.

Advertising Trick #5:The Testimonial

Word of mouth is still the most effective method of advertising. This is because people are more likely to rely on the opinions of their peers where it regards products and services. Advertisers use this concept in the form of the "Testimonial." In all likelihood, anyone who is privy to watching daytime television has noticed that ads for lawyers and vocational schools are rampant at this particular hour. Training facilities like Everest Institute and Georgia Medical Institute use real students to explain to viewers how much their lives have been enhanced by attending these schools. Other organizations, like the Atlanta law firm of Ken Nugent, P.C., use actors who portray actual clients. By using the "testimonial", advertisers are hoping that consumers will see the actors and clients as peers whose opinions they can trust.

Five clues that you are addicted to Facebook
By Elizabeth Cohen(CNN) --

One day recently, Cynthia Newton's 12-year-old daughter asked her for help with homework, but Newton didn't want to help her, because she was too busy on Facebook. So her daughter went upstairs to her room and sent an e-mail asking her for help, but Newton didn't see the e-mail, because, well, she was too busy on Facebook.

"I'm an addict. I just get lost in Facebook," Newton said. "My daughter gets so PO'd at me, and really it is kind of pathetic. It's not something I'm particularly proud of. I just get so sucked in."

Newton (that's not her real name; she's embarrassed by her Facebook use and requested anonymity) says she spends about 20 hours a week on the social networking site, half the time for work -- she runs an online business -- and half just for fun. She's tried to cut down on her Facebook use but failed."I can go a whole day without Facebook," she said. "But I've never made it through an entire weekend."

Although there are no statistics on "Facebook addiction" -- it isn't an actual medical diagnosis -- therapists say they're seeing more and more people like Newton who've crossed the line from social networking to social dysfunction."Last Friday, I had three clients in my office with Facebook problems," said Paula Pile, a marriage and family therapist in Greensboro, North Carolina. "It's turned into a compulsion -- a compulsion to dissociate from your real world and go live in the Facebook world."Pile and the other therapists interviewed for this article were quick to say that Facebook itself isn't the problem and that the vast majority of its 200 million users probably function just fine."I'm on it myself," Pile said. "My daughter just got married, and I got great happiness posting her wedding pictures for all my friends to see."She says problems arise when users ignore family and work obligations because they find the Facebook world a more enjoyable place to spend time than the real world.Newton says she checks Facebook first thing when she wakes up, and then she checks her Facebook page as many as seven times while at work, and then she'll check Facebook again when she gets home and one more time before she goes to sleep. If you've been keeping count, that's about 10 times a day.A single parent, Newton includes "Facebook flirting" with men and meeting up with old schoolmates among her favorite activities."One old friend told me he had a huge crush on me in kindergarten, and it tore him apart when we weren't put in the same class in first grade," she said. "When I read that, it was like, wow. I blushed at my computer. I had no idea I was so important to him. It felt very real and warm and dear."The problem is that it's not real, says Joanna Lipari, a clinical psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. She compares Facebook to "The Truman Show," the 1998 Jim Carrey movie about a fabricated world where nothing ever goes wrong."Facebook is a fun, pleasant, happy, beautiful world. People only present the crème de la crème of their lives on Facebook. And these people want to be your friends! It's very seductive."It's especially seductive when real life isn't going so well, Pile adds."In real life, people have morning breath, and you have to pay bills with them, and you argue about who's going to change the baby's diaper," she said. "But Facebook is happyland. You don't have to deal with any of that."Newton says she knows all this and is frustrated at how much time she spends on Facebook, given that she has a job and a child."I've thought about going cold turkey, but that would make me so uncomfortable. I know I couldn't do it."

You know you're a Facebook addict when ...

1. You lose sleep over Facebook

"If you're staying up late at night because you're on Facebook, and you're tired the next day, Facebook may be a compulsion for you," Lipari said. "You shouldn't be neglecting yourself because of Facebook."

2. You spend more than an hour a day on Facebook

Pile says it's hard to pinpoint exactly how much is too much time to be spending on social networking."I can't imagine that anyone would need more than an hour a day on Facebook, and probably no one needs more than 30 minutes," she said.

3. You become obsessed with old loves

Reconnecting with old friends is one of the great attractions of Facebook, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with "friending" an old boyfriend or girlfriend. But Pile warns that it can get out of hand very quickly."One of my clients met up with an old boyfriend on Facebook. They started spending hours and hours into the night talking to each other on Facebook. She made some really inappropriate comments about how unhappy she was in her marriage," Pile said. "Her cousin saw the comments and told her parents, and the parents told the husband, and now they're in the process of getting divorced."

4. You ignore work in favor of Facebook

"If you're not doing your job in order to sneak time on Facebook, you could have a real problem," Lipari said.

5. The thought of getting off Facebook leaves you in a cold sweat

Pile has her own quick test: "Try going a day without Facebook. If you find it causes you a lot of stress and anxiety, you really need to get some help."She has also devised a longer test that can help you decide if your Facebook use has become a compulsion:

The Facebook Compulsion Inventory

Directions: Please circle your answer to each of the questions using the following scale:1. Very Untrue. 2. Somewhat Untrue. 3. Neither True nor Untrue. 4. Somewhat True. 5. Very True.1.

I spend more time on Facebook than I intend to. 1 2 3 4 52. I feel anxious and upset when I cannot access my Facebook page. 1 2 3 4 53. I have more in common with the people I chat with on Facebook than I have with my spouse or partner. 1 2 3 4 54. I find myself neglecting some of my work responsibilities because of time I spend on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 55. Sometimes I lose sleep because of the time I spend on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 56. I have developed romantic feelings for someone I have reconnected with on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 57. Spending time on Facebook with my Facebook friends is more pleasant than the time I spend with my spouse or partner. 1 2 3 4 58. I lie to others about what I talk to friends about on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 59. I feel excited and energized when I access my Facebook page. 1 2 3 4 510. I would feel sad and depressed if Facebook ceased to exist. 1 2 3 4 511. I have concealed conversations that I have on Facebook from my partner. 1 2 3 4 512. I would not want my spouse or partner to be my Facebook friend. 1 2 3 4 513. I need to make sure that I have access to my Facebook page on vacations. 1 2 3 4 514. I feel that others would think less of me if they could see my private messages on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 515. Others have complained about the amount of time I spend on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 5

SCORING

15-30 You probably enjoy using Facebook, however it is unlikely that it is causing major issues in your relationship.31- 45 You obviously enjoy using Facebook and it is most likely an important part of your life, but it is probably not controlling you.46-60 Your Facebook use is quite possibly excessive. You may be experiencing some difficulties in your life and relationships as a result of your Facebook use. You may want to consider ways to reconnect and connect with your family and friends that do not involve Facebook. If you continue to find yourself using Facebook as a major way to meet your emotional and social needs, it is important that you put more time back into your primary relationships outside of Facebook, or seek professional help.60-75 Your Facebook use appears to be compulsive. It would most likely be helpful to seek a professional therapist to help you sort out the role Facebook plays in your life.Copyright 2009Paula Pile MA, LMFT, LPA

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Attachment Theory

What is Attachment?

Attachment is an emotional bond to another person. Psychologist John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist, describing attachment as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings" (Bowlby, 1969, p. 194). Bowlby believed that the earliest bonds formed by children with their caregivers have a tremendous impact that continues throughout life. According to Bowlby, attachment also serves to keep the infant close to the mother, thus improving the child's chances of survival. The central theme of attachment theory is that mothers who are available and responsive to their infant's needs establish a sense of security. The infant knows that the caregiver is dependable, which creates a secure base for the child to then explore the world.

Characteristics of Attachment

Safe Haven:

When the child feel threatened or afraid, he or she can return to the caregiver for comfort and soothing.

Secure Base:

The caregiver provides a secure and dependable base for the child to explore the world.

Proximity Maintenance:

The child strives to stay near the caregiver, thus keeping the child safe.

Separation Distress:

When separated from the caregiver, the child will become upset and distressed.

Ainsworth's "Strange Situation"

In her 1970's research, psychologist Mary Ainsworth expanded greatly upon Bowlby's original work. Her groundbreaking "Strange Situation" study revealed the profound effects of attachment on behavior. In the study, researchers observed children between the ages of 12 and 18 months as they responded to a situation in which they were briefly left alone and then reunited with their mothers (Ainsworth, 1978). Based upon the responses the researchers observed, Ainsworth described three major styles of attachment: secure attachment, ambivalent-insecure attachment, and avoidant-insecure attachment. Later, researchers Main and Solomon (1986) added a fourth attachment style called disorganized-insecure attachment based upon their own research. A number of studies since that time have supported Ainsworth’s attachment styles and have indicated that attachment styles also have an impact on behaviors later in life.

Characteristics of Attachment

Characteristics of Secure Attachment

Securely attached children exhibit minimal distress when separated from caregivers. Remember, these children feel secure and able to depend on their adult caregivers. When the adult leaves, the child feels assured that the parent or caregiver will return.When frightened, securely attached children will seek comfort from caregivers. These children know their parent or caregiver will provide comfort and reassurance, so they are comfortable seeking them out in times of need.

Characteristics of Ambivalent Attachment

Ambivalently attached children usually become very distressed when a parent leaves. This attachment style is considered relatively uncommon, affecting an estimated 7-15% of U.S. children. Research suggests that ambivalent attachment is a result of poor maternal availability. These children cannot depend on their mother (or caregiver) to be there when the child is in need.

Characteristics of Avoidant Attachment

Children with an avoidant attachment tend to avoid parents or caregivers. When offered a choice, these children will show no preference between a caregiver and a complete stranger. Research has suggested that this attachment style might be a result of abusive or neglectful caregivers. Children who are punished for relying on a caregiver will learn to avoid seeking help in the future.

Problems with Attachment

What happens to children who do not form secure attachments? Research suggests that failure to form secure attachments early in life can have a negative impact on behavior in later childhood and throughout the life. Children diagnosed with oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD), conduct disorder (CD), or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) frequently display attachment problems, possibly due to early abuse, neglect, or trauma. Clinicians suggest that children adopted after the age of six months have a higher risk of problems with attachment. While attachment styles displayed in adulthood are not necessarily the same as those seen in infancy, research suggests that early attachments can have a serious impact on later relationships. For example, those who are securely attached in childhood tend to have good self-esteem, strong romantic relationships, and the ability to self-disclose to others.

The Asch Conformity Experiments

Do you think of yourself as a conformist or a non-conformist? If you are like most people, you probably believe that you are non-conformist enough to stand up to a group when you know you are right, but conformist enough to blend in with the rest of your peers.

Imagine yourself in this situation: You've signed up to participate in a psychology experiment in which you are asked to complete a vision test. Seated in a room with the other participants, you are shown a line segment and then asked to choose the matching line from a group three segments of different lengths. The experimenter asks each participant individually to select the matching line segment. On some occasions everyone in the group chooses the correct line, but occasionally, the other participants unanimously declare that a different line is actually the correct match.

So what do you do when the experimenter asks you which line is the right match? Do you go with your initial response, or do you choose to conform to the rest of the group?

What Were the Asch Conformity Experiments?:

In psychological terms, conformity refers to an individual's tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviors of the social group to which he or she belongs. Researchers have long been interested in the degree to which people follow or rebel against social norms. During the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments designed to demonstrate the powers of conformity in groups.

In Asch's experiments, students were told that they were participating in a 'vision test.' Unbeknownst to the subject, the other participants in the experiment were all confederates, or assistants of the experimenter. At first, the confederates answered the questions correctly, but eventually began providing incorrect answers.

Results of the Asch Conformity Experiments:

Nearly 75 percent of the participants in the conformity experiments went along with the rest of the group at least one time. After combining the trials, the results indicated that participants conformed to the incorrect group answer approximately one-third of the time. In order to ensure that participants were able to accurately gauge the length of the lines, participants were asked to individually write down the correct match. According to these results, participants were very accurate in their line judgments, choosing the correct answer 98 percent of the time.The experiments also looked at how the number of group members impacts conformity. When just one other confederate was present, there was virtually no impact on participants' answers. The presence of two confederates had only a tiny effect. The level of conformity seen with three or more confederates was far more significant.

Asch also found that having one of the confederates give the correct answer while the rest of the confederates gave the incorrect answer dramatically lowered conformity. In this situation, just five to ten percent of the participants conformed to the rest of the group. Later studies have also supported this finding (Morris & Miller, 1975), suggesting that having social support is an important tool in combating conformity.

What Do the Results of the Asch Conformity Experiments Indicate?:

At the conclusion of the experiments, participants were asked why they had gone along with the rest of the group. In most cases, the students stated that while they knew the rest of the group was wrong, they did not want to risk facing ridicule. A few of the participants suggested that they actually believed the other members of the group were correct in their answers.These results suggest that conformity can be influence both by a need to fit in and a belief that other people are smarter or better informed. Given the level of conformity seen in Asch's experiments, conformity can be even stronger in real-life situations where stimuli are more ambiguous or more difficult to judge.

Criticisms of the Asch Conformity Experiments

One of the major criticism centers on the reasons why participants choose to conform. According to some critics, individuals may have actually been motivated to avoid conflict, rather than an actual desire to conform to the rest of the group.

Another criticism is that the results of the experiment in the lab may not generalize to real world situations. However, many social psychology experts believe that while real-world situations may not be as clear cut as they are in the lab, the actual social pressure to conform is probably much greater, which can dramatically increase conforming behaviors.

Contribution to Psychology

The Asch conformity experiments are among the most famous in psychology's history and have inspired a wealth of additional research on conformity and group behavior.

Harry Harlow and the Nature of Love

During the first half of the 20th century, many psychologists believed that showing affection towards children was merely a sentimental gesture that served no real purpose. Behaviorist John B. Watson once even went so far as to warn parents, "When you are tempted to pet your child, remember that mother love is a dangerous instrument." According to many thinkers of the day, affection would only spread diseases and lead to adult psychological problems.During this time, psychologists were motivated to prove their field as a rigorous science. The behaviorist movement dominated psychology and urged researchers to study only observable and measurable behaviors. An American psychologist named Harry Harlow, however, became interested in studying a topic that was not so easy to quantify and measure: love.

In a series of controversial experiments conducted in 1960s, Harlow demonstrated the powerful effects of love. By showing the devastating effects of deprivation on young rhesus monkeys, Harlow revealed the importance of a mother's love for healthy childhood development. His experiments were often unethical and shockingly cruel, yet they uncovered fundamental truths that have heavily influenced our understanding of child development.

The Wire Mother Experiment:

Harlow noted that very little attention had been devoted to the experimental research of love. "Because of the dearth of experimentation, theories about the fundamental nature of affection have evolved at the level of observation, intuition, and discerning guesswork, whether these have been proposed by psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, physicians, or psychoanalyst," he noted (Harlow, 1958).

Many of the existing theories of love centered on the idea that the earliest attachment between a mother and child was merely a means for the child to obtain food, relieve thirst, and avoid pain. Harlow, however, believed that this behavioral view of mother-child attachment was an inadequate explanation.

Harlow’s most famous experiment involved giving young rhesus monkeys a choice between two different “mothers.” One was made of soft terrycloth, but provided no food. The other was made of wire, but provided food from an attached baby bottle.

Harlow removed young monkeys from their natural mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be "raised" by these mother surrogates. The experiment demonstrated that the baby monkeys spent significantly more time with their cloth mother than with their wire mother. “These data make it obvious that contact comfort is a variable of overwhelming importance in the development of affectional response, whereas lactation is a variable of negligible importance,” Harlow explained (1958).

Fear, Security, and Attachment:

In a later experiment, Harlow demonstrated that young monkeys would also turn to their cloth surrogate mother for comfort and security. Using a strange situation similar to the one created by attachment researcher Mary Ainsworth, Harlow allowed the young monkeys to explore a room either in the presence of their surrogate mother or in her absence. Monkeys in the presence of their mother would use her as a secure base to explore the room.

When the surrogate mothers were removed from the room, the effects were dramatic. The young monkeys no longer had their secure base to explore the room and would often freeze up, crouch, rock, scream, and cry.

The Impact of Harlow’s Research:

While many experts derided the importance of parental love and affection, Harlow’s experiments offered irrefutable proof that love is vital for normal childhood development. Additional experiments by Harlow revealed the long-term devastation caused by deprivation, leading to profound psychological and emotional distress and even death. Harlow’s work, as well as important research by psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, helped influence key changes in how orphanages, adoption agencies, social services groups and child care providers approached the care of children.While Harry Harlow's work led to acclaim and generated a wealth of research on love, affection, and interpersonal relationships, his own personal life soon began to crumble. After the terminal illness of his wife, he became engulfed by alcoholism and depression, eventually becoming estranged from his own children. Colleagues frequently described him as sarcastic, mean-spirited, misanthropic, chauvinistic, and cruel. Yet Harlow's enduring legacy reinforced the importance of emotional support, affection, and love in the development of children.

The Milgram Obedience Experiment

"The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act." –Stanley Milgram, 1974

If a person in a position of authority ordered you to deliver a 400-volt electrical shock to another person, would you follow orders? Most people would answer this question with an adamant no, but Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of obedience experiments during the 1960s that demonstrated surprising results. These experiments offer a powerful and disturbing look into the power of authority and obedience.

Introduction

Milgram started his experiments in 1961, shortly after the trial of the World War II criminal Adolph Eichmann had begun. Eichmann’s defense that he was simply following orders when he ordered the deaths of millions of Jews roused Milgram’s interest. In his 1974 book Obedience to Authority, Milgram posed the question, "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"

Method

The participants in the study were 40 men recruited using newspaper ads. In exchange for their participation, each person was paid $4.50. Milgram developed an intimidating shock generator, with shock levels starting at 30 volts and increasing in 15-volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. The many switches were labeled with terms including "slight shock," "moderate shock" and "danger: severe shock." The final two switches were labeled simply with an ominous "XXX." Each participant took the role of a "teacher" who would then deliver a shock to the "student" every time an incorrect answer was produced. While the participant believed that he was delivering real shocks to the student, the student was actually a confederate in the experiment who would pretend to be shocked. As the experiment progressed, the participant would hear the learner plead to be released or even complain about a heart condition. Once the 300-volt level had been reached, the learner banged on the wall and demanded to be released. Beyond this point, the learner became completely silent and refused to answer any more questions. The experimenter then instructed the participant to treat this silence as an incorrect response and deliver a further shock. Most participants asked the experimenter whether they should continue. The experimenter issued a series of commands to prod the participant along:Please continue.The experiment requires that you continue.It is absolutely essential that you continue.You have no other choice, you must go on.

Results

The level of shock that the participant was willing to deliver was used as the measure of obedience. How far do you think that most participants were willing to go? When Milgram posed this question to a group of Yale University students, it was predicted that no more than 3 out of 100 participants would deliver the maximum shock. In reality, 65% of the participants in Milgram’s study delivered the maximum shocks. Of the 40 participants in the study, 26 delivered the maximum shocks while 14 stopped before reaching the highest levels. It is important to note that many of the subjects became extremely agitated, distraught and angry at the experimenter. Yet they continued to follow orders all the way to the end. Because of concerns about the amount of anxiety experienced by many of the participants, all subjects were debriefed at the end of the experiment to explain the procedures and the use of deception. However, many critics of the study have argued that many of the participants were still confused about the exact nature of the experiment. Milgram later surveyed the participants and found that 84% were glad to have participated, while only 1% regretted their involvement.

Discussion

While Milgram’s research raised serious ethical questions about the use of human subjects in psychology experiments, his results have also been consistently replicated in further experiments. Thomas Blass (1999) reviewed further research on obedience and found that Milgram’s findings hold true in other experiments. Why did so many of the participants in this experiment perform a seemingly sadistic act on the instruction of an authority figure? According to Milgram, there are a number of factors about the situation that can explain such high levels of obedience:The physical presence of an authority figure dramatically increased compliance.The fact that the study was sponsored by Yale (a trusted and authoritative academic institution) led many participants to believe that the experiment must be safe.The selection of teacher and learner status seemed random.Participants assumed that the experimenter was a competent expert.The shocks were said to be painful, not dangerous.Later experiments conducted by Milgram indicated that the presence of rebellious peers dramatically reduced obedience levels. When other people refused to go along with the experimenters orders, 36 out of 40 participants refused to deliver the maximum shocks. "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority" (Milgram, 1974). Milgram’s study has become a classic in psychology, demonstrating the dangers of obedience. While this experiment suggests that situational variables have a stronger sway than personality factors in determining obedience, other psychologists argue that obedience is heavily influenced by both external and internal factors, such as personal beliefs and overall temperament.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Moral development is a topic of interest in both psychology and education. Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg modified and expanded upon Piaget's work to form a theory that explained the development of moral reasoning. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development outlined six stages within three different levels. Kohlberg extended Piaget’s theory, proposing that moral development is a continual process that occurs throughout the lifespan.

"The Heinz Dilemma"

Kohlberg based his theory upon research and interviews with groups of young children. A series of moral dilemmas were presented to children, who were then interviewed to determine the reasoning behind their judgments of each scenario. The following is one example of the dilemmas Kohlberg presented.In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that? (Kohlberg, 1963)."Kohlberg was not interested so much in the answer to the question of whether Heinz was wrong or right, but in the reasoning for the participants decision. The responses were then classified into various stages of reasoning in his theory of moral development.

Level 1. Preconventional Morality

The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is especially common in children, although adults can also exhibit this level of reasoning. Reasoners in the pre-conventional level judge the morality of an action by its direct consequences. The pre-conventional level consists of the first and second stages of moral development, and is purely concerned with the self in an egocentric manner.

Stage 1 - Obedience and Punishment

The earliest stage of moral development is especially common in young children, but adults are capable of expressing this type of reasoning. At this stage, children see rules as fixed and absolute. Obeying the rules is important because it is a means to avoid punishment. Individuals focus on the direct consequences that their actions will have for themselves. For example, an action is perceived as morally wrong if the person who commits it gets punished. "The last time I did that I was put in time-out so I will not do it again". The worse the punishment for the act is, the more 'bad' the act is perceived to be. This can give rise to an inference that even innocent victims are guilty in proportion to their suffering. It is "egocentric", lacking recognition that others' points of view are different from one's own view.

Stage 2 - Individualism and Exchange

At this stage of moral development, children account for individual points of view and judge actions based on how they serve individual needs. In the Heinz dilemma, children argued that the best course of action was whichever best served Heinz’s needs. Reciprocity is possible, but only if it serves one's own interests. In stage two concern for others is not based on loyalty or intrinsic respect. Lacking a perspective of society in the pre-conventional level, this should not be confused with social contract (stage five), as all actions are performed to serve one's own needs or interests. For the stage two theorist, the perspective of the world is often seen as morally relative.

Level 2. Conventional Morality

The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. Persons who reason in a conventional way judge the morality of actions by comparing these actions to societal views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development.

Stage 3 - Interpersonal RelationshipsThis stage of moral development is focused on living up to social expectations and roles. There is an emphasis on conformity, being "nice," and consideration of how choices influence relationships. The self enters society by filling social roles. Individuals are receptive of approval or disapproval from other people as it reflects society's accordance with the perceived role. They try to be a good boy or good girl to live up to these expectations, having learned that there is inherent value in doing so. Stage three reasoning may judge the morality of an action by evaluating its consequences in terms of a person's relationships, which now begin to include things like respect and gratitude. "I want to be liked and thought well of; apparently, not being naughty makes people like me." Desire to maintain rules and authority exists only to further support these social roles.

Stage 4 - Maintaining Social Order

At this stage of moral development, people begin to consider society as a whole when making judgments. The focus is on maintaining law and order by following the rules, doing one’s duty, and respecting authority. It is important to obey laws and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three; society must learn to transcend individual needs. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would - thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones. Most active members of society remain at Stage four, where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force.

Level 3. Postconventional Morality

The post-conventional level, also known as the principled level, consists of stages five and six of moral development. Realization that individuals are separate entities from society now becomes prominent. One's own perspective should be viewed before the society. It is due to this 'nature of self before others' that the post-conventional level, especially stage six, is sometimes mistaken for pre-conventional behaviors.

Stage 5 - Social Contract and Individual RightsAt this stage, individuals are viewed as holding different opinions and values. Along a similar vein, laws are regarded as social contracts rather than rigid dictums. Those that do not promote the general welfare should be changed when necessary to meet the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This is attained through majority decision, and inevitably compromise. In this way democratic government is ostensibly based on stage five reasoning.

Stage 6 - Universal PrinciplesKolhberg’s final level of moral reasoning is based upon universal ethical principles and abstract reasoning. At this stage, people follow these internalized principles of justice, even if they conflict with laws and rules. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Decisions are not met hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way. Action is never a means but always an end in itself; one acts because it is right, and not because it is instrumental, expected, legal or previously agreed upon. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who consistently used it. It appears that people rarely reach stage six of Kohlberg's model.

Below are some of many examples of possible arguments that belong to the six stages:

Stage one (obedience): Heinz should not steal the medicine because he will consequently be put in prison which will mean he is a bad person. Or: Heinz should steal the medicine because it is only worth $200 and not how much the druggist wanted for it; Heinz had even offered to pay for it and was not stealing anything else.

Stage two (self-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he will have to serve a prison sentence. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because prison is an awful place, and he would probably languish over a jail cell more than his wife's death.

Stage three (conformity): Heinz should steal the medicine because his wife expects it; he wants to be a good husband. Or: Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing is bad and he is not a criminal; he tried to do everything he could without breaking the law, you cannot blame him.

Stage four (law-and-order): Heinz should not steal the medicine because the law prohibits stealing, making it illegal. Or: Heinz should steal the drug for his wife but also take the prescribed punishment for the crime as well as paying the druggist what he is owed. Criminals cannot just run around without regard for the law; actions have consequences.

Stage five (human rights): Heinz should steal the medicine because everyone has a right to choose life, regardless of the law. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because the scientist has a right to fair compensation. Even if his wife is sick, it does not make his actions right.

Stage six (universal human ethics): Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a human life is a more fundamental value than the property rights of another person. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because others may need the medicine just as badly, and their lives are equally significant.

Further stages

In his empirical studies of persons across their life-span, Kohlberg came to notice that some people evidently had undergone moral stage regression. He was faced with the option of either conceding that moral regression could occur, or revising his theory. Kohlberg chose the latter, postulating the existence of sub-stages wherein the emerging stage has not yet been adequately integrated into the personality. In particular, Kohlberg noted of a stage 4½ or 4+, which is a transition from stage four to stage five, sharing characteristics of both. In this stage the individual has become disaffected with the arbitrary nature of law and order reasoning. Culpability is frequently turned from being defined by society to having society itself be culpable. This stage is often mistaken for the moral relativism of stage two as the individual views the interests of society which conflict with their own choices as relatively and morally wrong. Kohlberg noted that this was often seen in students entering college.

Kohlberg further speculated that a seventh stage may exist (Transcendental Morality or Morality of Cosmic Orientation) which would link religion with moral reasoning. However, because of Kohlberg's trouble providing empirical evidence for even a sixth stage, he emphasized that most of his conjecture towards a seventh stage was speculative.

Criticisms of Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development:Does moral reasoning necessarily lead to moral behavior? Kohlberg's theory is concerned with moral thinking, but there is a big difference between knowing what we ought to do versus our actual actions. Social intuitionists argue that people often make moral judgments without weighing concerns such as fairness, law, human rights and abstract ethical values. Given this, the arguments that Kohlberg and other rationalist psychologists have analyzed could be considered post hoc rationalizations of intuitive decisions. This would mean that moral reasoning is less relevant to moral action than Kohlberg's theory suggests.Is justice the only aspect of moral reasoning we should consider? Critics have pointed out that Kohlberg's theory of moral development overemphasizes the concept as justice when making moral choices. Other factors such as compassion, caring, and other interpersonal feelings may play an important part in moral reasoning. Kohlberg’s theory has been perceived as androcentric by psychologists seeing justice as a ‘male’ value.Does Kohlberg's theory overemphasize Western philosophy? Individualistic cultures emphasize personal rights while collectivistic cultures stress the importance of society and community. Eastern cultures may have different moral outlooks that Kohlberg's theory does not account for.

Types of Therapy

The popular conception of therapy is that of the classic talk therapy; a client, a couch and a psychologist with a notepad and pencil in hand. While some approaches do utilize this method, there are numerous types of therapy that can be used to help a client overcome problems. In all cases, the goal of therapy is to provide a nonjudgmental environment that allows the client and therapy provider to work together towards a mutually agreed upon set of goals.The following are just a few of the many different types of therapy available.

Psychoanalytic Therapy

What is Psychoanalytic Therapy?

Psychoanalytic therapy is one of the most well-known treatment modalities, but it is also one of the most misunderstood by mental health consumers.Founded by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalytic therapists generally spend time listening to patients talk about their lives, which is why this method is often referred to as "talk therapy." The therapy provider will look for patterns or significant events that may play a role in the client’s current difficulties. Psychoanalysts believe that childhood events and unconscious feelings, thoughts and motivations play a role in mental illness and maladaptive behaviors.

Benefits of Psychoanalytic Therapy

While this type of therapy has many critics who claim that psychoanalytic therapy is too time consuming, expensive and generally ineffective, this treatment has several benefits as well. The therapist offers an empathetic and nonjudgmental environment where the client can feel safe in revealing feelings or actions that have led to stress or tension in his or her life. Oftentimes, simply sharing these burdens with another person can have a beneficial influence.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

What is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive therapists tend to focus on specific problems. These therapists believe that irrational thinking or faulty perceptions cause dysfunctions. A cognitive therapist may work with a client to change thought patterns. This type of therapy is often effective for clients suffering from depression or anxiety. Behavioral therapists work to change problematic behaviors that have been trained through years of reinforcement. A good example of behavioral therapy would be a therapist working with a client to overcome a fear of heights. The therapist would encourage the client to gradually face their fear of heights through experience. The client might first imagine standing on the roof of a tall building or riding an escalator. Next, the client would slowly expose themselves to greater and greater levels of their fear until the phobia diminishes or disappears entirely.

Benefits of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive and behavioral approaches can be highly effective when treating specific problems. Oftentimes, cognitive and behavioral approaches are combined when treating a disorder. A therapist treating a client with social anxiety may help the client form more accurate thinking patterns as well as focusing on specific behaviors, such as social avoidance.

Group Therapy

What is Group Therapy?

Group therapy is a form of psychotherapy where two or more clients work with one or more therapists or counselors. This methods is a popular format for support groups, where group members can learn from the experiences of others and offer advice. This method is also more cost effective than individual psychotherapy and is oftentimes more effective.

Benefits of Group Therapy

It is common for those suffering from a mental illness or problem behavior to feel alone, isolated or different. Group therapy can help clients by providing a peer group of individuals that are currently experiencing the same symptoms or who have recovered from a similar problem. Group members can also provide emotional support and a safe forum to practice new behaviors.

Logotherapy

A world-renowned psychiatrist, Frankl is the originator of logotherapy, a system of psychological treatment he unexpectedly tested and found validation for while imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Often called the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy—Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis and Alfred Adler's individual psychology being the first two—logotherapy incorporates Frankl's belief that man possesses an innate "will to meaning" and that the search for significance in one's life is a psychologically beneficial process. Frankl introduced logotherapy in Ein Psychology erlebt das Konzentrationslager (1946), which was translated into English as both From Death-Camp to Existentialism and Man's Search for Meaning. His subsequent writings continue to elaborate on various aspects of this theory. Frankl has written: "As logotherapy teaches, even the tragic and negative aspects of life, such as unavoidable suffering, can be turned into a human achievement by the attitude which man adopts toward his predicament."

Biographical Information

Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, Frankl studied medicine at the University of Vienna, graduating as a medical doctor in 1930. Attracted to the psychoanalytic work of Freud and Adler, Frankl began the study of psychoanalysis under Adler and became director of the department of neurology at the University of Vienna. In 1942 Frankl and his family—who were Jewish—were arrested and sent to concentration camps, where his wife and parents were killed; Frankl himself spent three years at Auschwitz, Dachau, and other camps. Following the war, he wrote about his death-camp experiences and about his logotherapeutic system in Man's Search for Meaning. In 1947 he remarried and returned to the University of Vienna as a professor of neurology and psychiatry, where he continued to teach and write about logotherapy. Frankl also lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe between the 1950s and the 1980s. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Austrian State Prize for Public Education, the Austrian Cross of Honor, and several honorary degrees, including an L.L.D. degree from Loyola University in Chicago.

Major WorksT

he largely autobiographical Man's Search for Meaning, which introduces the psychotherapeutic theory of logotherapy, incorporates Frankl's observations about the way human beings coped with life in concentration camps during World War II. In Ärztliche Seelsorge (1947; The Doctor and the Soul), Die Existenzanalyse und die Probleme der Zeit (1947), and Theorie und Therapie der Neurosen (1956), Frankl continues to expound his logotherapeutic theory by focusing on the spiritual dimension of the human psyche, the use of exhortation to challenge people to face their problems, and the importance of "willing" a meaning to life. Das Menschenbild der Seelenheilkunde (1959), in particular, focuses on spiritual aspects of the human psyche as contributing factors in any effective system of psychotherapy. Der umbewusste Gott (1966; The Unconscious God), Psychotherapy and Existentialism (1967), and The Will to Meaning (1969) continue to explore the philosophically existential characteristics of logotherapy, especially the search for meaning and its compatibility with religion and theology.Critical ReceptionCritical reaction to Frankl's works has been very favorable among American psychologists, existential philosophers, and Christian theologians. Although most critics praise the existential characteristics and spiritual aspects of Frankl's logotherapeutic theory, others criticize as essentialist and reductive his insistence on the "will to meaning"—like Freud's "will to pleasure" and Adler's "will to power"—as the underlying motivational force governing all human behavior. Some critics reject logotherapy as inadequate and charge that Frankl is unable to deal with people who have found life to be meaningless. Nevertheless, as Dan P. McAdams observed upon the 1992 reprinting of Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl's writings continue to underscore the idea that "'man's search for meaning' can sustain human life even under the most harrowing and depraved conditions."

What is narrative therapy?
by Alice Morgan

Narrative therapy seeks to be a respectful, non-blaming approach to counselling and community work, which centres people as the experts in their own lives. It views problems as separate from people and assumes people have many skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities that will assist them to change their relationship with problems in their lives. Curiosity and a willingness to ask questions to which we genuinely don’t know the answers are important principles of this work. There are many possible directions that any conversation can take (there is no single correct direction). The person consulting the therapist plays a significant part in determining the directions that are taken.

It seems appropriate to begin any exploration of narrative therapy with a consideration of what is meant by the ‘narratives’ or ‘stories’ of our lives.Understanding and living our lives through stories

Narrative therapy is sometimes known as involving ‘re-authoring’ or ‘re-storying’ conversations. As these descriptions suggest, stories are central to an understanding of narrative ways of working.The word ‘story’ has different associations and understandings for different people. For narrative therapists, stories consist of:

events
linked in sequence
across time
according to a plot

As humans, we are interpreting beings. We all have daily experiences of events that we seek to make meaningful. The stories we have about our lives are created through linking certain events together in a particular sequence across a time period, and finding a way of explaining or making sense of them. This meaning forms the plot of the story. We give meanings to our experiences constantly as we live our lives. A narrative is like a thread that weaves the events together, forming a story.We all have many stories about our lives and relationships, occurring simultaneously. For example, we have stories about ourselves, our abilities, our struggles, our competencies, our actions, our desires, our relationships, our work, our interests, our conquests, our achievements, our failures. The way we have developed these stories is determined by how we have linked certain events together in a sequence and by the meaning we have attributed to them.

An example: the story of my driving

I could have a story about myself as a ‘good driver’. This means I could string together a number of events that have happened to me whilst driving my car. I could put these events together with others into a particular sequence and interpret them as a demonstration of me being a good driver. I might think about, and select out for the telling of the story, events such as stopping at the traffic lights, giving way to pedestrians, obeying the speed limits, incurring no fines and keeping a safe distance behind other vehicles. To form this story about my ability as a driver, I am selecting out certain events as important that fit with this particular plot. In doing so, these events are privileged over others. For instance, the times when I pulled out too quickly from the curb or misjudged the distances when parking my car are not being privileged. In the retelling of stories, there are always events that are not selected, based upon whether or not they fit with the dominant plots.In this example, perhaps why I can attend only to the good events, and have managed to construct a story of being a competent driver, is due to the reflections of others. If my family members and friends have always described me as a good driver, this would have made a significant difference. Stories are never produced in isolation from the broader world.The dominant story of my driving abilities will not only affect me in the present but will also have implications for my future actions. For example, if I am asked to drive to a new suburb or drive a long distance at night, my decision and plans will be influenced by the dominant story I have about my driving. All stories are constitutive of life and shape our lives.Our lives are multistoried. There are many stories occurring at the same time and different stories can be told about the same events. No single story can be free of ambiguity or contradiction and no single story can encapsulate or handle all the incidents of life.If I had a car accident, or if someone in my life began to focus on every little mistake that I ever made while driving, an alternative story about my driving might begin to develop – a story of incompetence or carelessness. This alternative story would have effects too. For a time I might live with differing stories about my driving depending upon the context or the audience. Over time, depending on a variety of factors, the negative story about my driving might gain in influence and even become the dominant story in my life in relation to my driving. Neither the story of my driving ability nor the story of my driving failure would be free of ambiguity or contradiction.

Different types of stories

There are many different sorts of stories by which we live our lives and relationships – including stories about the past, present and future. Stories can also belong to individuals and/or communities. There can be family stories and relationship stories.An individual may have a story about themselves as being successful and competent. Alternatively they may have a story about themselves as being ‘a failure at trying new things’ or ‘a coward’ or as ‘lacking determination’. Families may have stories about themselves as being ‘caring’ or ‘noisy’ or ‘risky’ or ‘dysfunctional’ or ‘close’. A community may have a story about itself as ‘isolated’ or ‘politically active’ or ‘financially strong’. All these stories could be occurring at the same time, and events, as they occur, will be interpreted according to the meaning (plot) that is dominant at that time. In this way, the act of living requires that we are engaged in the mediation between the dominant stories and the alternative stories of our lives. We are always negotiating and interpreting our experiences.

Stories in the therapeutic context

Let us think about some of the stories that are brought into the context of therapy. Most commonly, when people decide to consult a therapist it is because they are experiencing a difficulty or problem in their lives. When meeting with a therapist, they will often begin by telling the therapist about many events in the life of the problem for which they are seeking help. Commonly they will also explain the meanings they have given to these events.

The Craxton family sought my assistance when one of the members of the family, Sean, was caught stealing. As I heard about the problem of stealing, Sean’s parents explained:

We are really worried about Sean because he is stealing and we have tried to stop him but he just won’t. He’s always been a problem child from the time he was little. He didn’t get much attention when he was a small boy because Anne [his mother] was ill. Since then he always gets in trouble at school. He didn’t toilet train himself and is always starting fights with his brothers. Now he’s stealing to get people to notice him.

Within this story, Sean’s stealing was interpreted as meaning he was ‘attention seeking’. This particular meaning (or dominant plot) occurred through a gathering together of many other events in the past that fitted with this interpretation. As Sean more and more came to be seen according to this story, more and more events which supported the story of ‘attention seeking’ began to be selected out, and the story was told and re-told. As more events were added to this plot, the story of Sean as an ‘attention seeker’ became stronger. So too, the broader cultural understandings of Sean’s actions become obscured – including the fact that stealing is a common act by young men of Sean’s class background in his neighbourhood. All the complexities and contradictions of Sean’s life had been simplified into the understanding that Sean was an ‘attention seeker’.

Thin description

Early in their meetings with people, therapists often hear stories, like the one above, about the problem and the meanings that have been reached about them. These meanings, reached in the face of adversity, often consist of what narrative therapists call ‘thin description’.Thin description allows little space for the complexities and contradictions of life. It allows little space for people to articulate their own particular meanings of their actions and the context within which they occurred. For example, in the story above, the description of Sean’s behaviour as ‘attention seeking’ was a thin description. It was generated by others (as is often the case with thin descriptions) and left little room for movement.This thin description of Sean’s actions (attention seeking) obscures many other possible meanings. For all we know, the last thing Sean wanted may have been for his stealing to be given attention! Perhaps these actions had more to do with making a stand for belonging with peers, with acquiring something for his sister, with standing up to the bullying of others, or with establishing himself as a leader in a neighbourhood where leadership for a young man means leading break and enters (robberies). A thin description of ‘attention seeking’ has the potential to leave Sean isolated and disconnected from his parents and his peers, whereas alternative descriptions may open other possibilities.Often, thin descriptions of people’s actions/identities are created by others – those with the power of definition in particular circumstances (e.g. parents and teachers in the lives of children, health professionals in the lives of those who consult them). But sometimes people come to understand their own actions through thin descriptions. In whatever context thin descriptions are created, they often have significant consequences.Thin conclusions are often expressed as a truth about the person who is struggling with the problem and their identity. The person with the problem may be understood to be ‘bad’, ‘hopeless’, or ‘a troublemaker’. These thin conclusions, drawn from problem-saturated stories, disempower people as they are regularly based in terms of weaknesses, disabilities, dysfunctions or inadequacies. I can recall many of these thin conclusions that people who have consulted me have been invited into: ‘It’s because I’m a bad person’ or ‘We are a dysfunctional family’.Once thin conclusions take hold, it becomes very easy for people to engage in gathering evidence to support these dominant problem-saturated stories. The influence of these problematic stories can then become bigger and bigger. In the process, any times when the person has escaped the effects of the problem, any times when they have not been ‘bad’, ‘hopeless’ or ‘a trouble maker’ become less visible. As the problem story gets bigger and bigger it becomes more powerful and will affect future events

Alternative stories

Narrative therapists, when initially faced with seemingly overwhelming thin conclusions and problem stories, are interested in conversations that seek out alternative stories – not just any alternative stories, but stories that are identified by the person seeking counselling as stories by which they would like to live their lives. The therapist is interested to seek out, and create in conversations, stories of identity that will assist people to break from the influence of the problems they are facing.

Just as various thin descriptions and conclusions can support and sustain problems, alternative stories can reduce the influence of problems and create new possibilities for living.For Sean, for example, an exploration of the alternative stories of his life might create space for change. These would not be stories of being an attention seeker or a problem child. Instead, they might consist of stories of determination throughout his history, or stories of how he overcame troubles in earlier times in his life, or ways in which he gives attention as well as seeks it.With these ideas about stories informing their work, the key question for narrative therapists becomes: how can we assist people to break from thin conclusions and to re-author new and preferred stories for their lives and relationships?As Jill Freedman and Gene Combs describe:Narrative therapists are interested in working with people to bring forth and thicken stories that do not support or sustain problems. As people begin to inhabit and live out the alternative stories, the results are beyond solving problems. Within the new stories, people live out new self images, new possibilities for relationships and new futures. (1996, p.16)

Towards rich and thick description

To be freed from the influence of problematic stories, it is not enough to simply re-author an alternative story. Narrative therapists are interested in finding ways in which these alternative stories can be ‘richly described’. The opposite of a ‘thin conclusion’ is understood by narrative therapists to be a ‘rich description’ of lives and relationships.Many different things can contribute to alternative stories being ‘richly described’ – not least of which being that they are generated by the person whose life is being talked about. Rich description involves the articulation in fine detail of the story-lines of a person’s life. If you imagine reading a novel, sometimes a story is richly described – the motives of the characters, their histories, and own understandings are finely articulated. The stories of the characters’ lives are interwoven with the stories of other people and events. Similarly, narrative therapists are interested in finding ways for the alternative stories of people’s lives to be richly described and interwoven with the stories of others.

Five clues that you are addicted to Facebook

By Elizabeth Cohen(CNN) --

One day recently, Cynthia Newton's 12-year-old daughter asked her for help with homework, but Newton didn't want to help her, because she was too busy on Facebook. So her daughter went upstairs to her room and sent an e-mail asking her for help, but Newton didn't see the e-mail, because, well, she was too busy on Facebook."I'm an addict. I just get lost in Facebook," Newton said. "My daughter gets so PO'd at me, and really it is kind of pathetic. It's not something I'm particularly proud of. I just get so sucked in."Newton (that's not her real name; she's embarrassed by her Facebook use and requested anonymity) says she spends about 20 hours a week on the social networking site, half the time for work -- she runs an online business -- and half just for fun. She's tried to cut down on her Facebook use but failed."I can go a whole day without Facebook," she said. "But I've never made it through an entire weekend."Although there are no statistics on "Facebook addiction" -- it isn't an actual medical diagnosis -- therapists say they're seeing more and more people like Newton who've crossed the line from social networking to social dysfunction."Last Friday, I had three clients in my office with Facebook problems," said Paula Pile, a marriage and family therapist in Greensboro, North Carolina. "It's turned into a compulsion -- a compulsion to dissociate from your real world and go live in the Facebook world."Pile and the other therapists interviewed for this article were quick to say that Facebook itself isn't the problem and that the vast majority of its 200 million users probably function just fine."I'm on it myself," Pile said. "My daughter just got married, and I got great happiness posting her wedding pictures for all my friends to see."She says problems arise when users ignore family and work obligations because they find the Facebook world a more enjoyable place to spend time than the real world.Newton says she checks Facebook first thing when she wakes up, and then she checks her Facebook page as many as seven times while at work, and then she'll check Facebook again when she gets home and one more time before she goes to sleep. If you've been keeping count, that's about 10 times a day.A single parent, Newton includes "Facebook flirting" with men and meeting up with old schoolmates among her favorite activities."One old friend told me he had a huge crush on me in kindergarten, and it tore him apart when we weren't put in the same class in first grade," she said. "When I read that, it was like, wow. I blushed at my computer. I had no idea I was so important to him. It felt very real and warm and dear."The problem is that it's not real, says Joanna Lipari, a clinical psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. She compares Facebook to "The Truman Show," the 1998 Jim Carrey movie about a fabricated world where nothing ever goes wrong."Facebook is a fun, pleasant, happy, beautiful world. People only present the crème de la crème of their lives on Facebook. And these people want to be your friends! It's very seductive."It's especially seductive when real life isn't going so well, Pile adds."In real life, people have morning breath, and you have to pay bills with them, and you argue about who's going to change the baby's diaper," she said. "But Facebook is happyland. You don't have to deal with any of that."Newton says she knows all this and is frustrated at how much time she spends on Facebook, given that she has a job and a child."I've thought about going cold turkey, but that would make me so uncomfortable. I know I couldn't do it."

You know you're a Facebook addict when ...

1. You lose sleep over Facebook"If you're staying up late at night because you're on Facebook, and you're tired the next day, Facebook may be a compulsion for you," Lipari said. "You shouldn't be neglecting yourself because of Facebook."

2. You spend more than an hour a day on Facebook

Pile says it's hard to pinpoint exactly how much is too much time to be spending on social networking."I can't imagine that anyone would need more than an hour a day on Facebook, and probably no one needs more than 30 minutes," she said.

3. You become obsessed with old loves

Reconnecting with old friends is one of the great attractions of Facebook, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with "friending" an old boyfriend or girlfriend. But Pile warns that it can get out of hand very quickly."One of my clients met up with an old boyfriend on Facebook. They started spending hours and hours into the night talking to each other on Facebook. She made some really inappropriate comments about how unhappy she was in her marriage," Pile said. "Her cousin saw the comments and told her parents, and the parents told the husband, and now they're in the process of getting divorced."

4. You ignore work in favor of Facebook

"If you're not doing your job in order to sneak time on Facebook, you could have a real problem," Lipari said.

5. The thought of getting off Facebook leaves you in a cold sweat

Pile has her own quick test: "Try going a day without Facebook. If you find it causes you a lot of stress and anxiety, you really need to get some help."She has also devised a longer test that can help you decide if your Facebook use has become a compulsion:

The Facebook Compulsion InventoryDirections:

Please circle your answer to each of the questions using the following scale:1. Very Untrue. 2. Somewhat Untrue. 3. Neither True nor Untrue. 4. Somewhat True. 5. Very True.1.

I spend more time on Facebook than I intend to. 1 2 3 4 52. I feel anxious and upset when I cannot access my Facebook page. 1 2 3 4 53. I have more in common with the people I chat with on Facebook than I have with my spouse or partner. 1 2 3 4 54. I find myself neglecting some of my work responsibilities because of time I spend on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 55. Sometimes I lose sleep because of the time I spend on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 56. I have developed romantic feelings for someone I have reconnected with on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 57. Spending time on Facebook with my Facebook friends is more pleasant than the time I spend with my spouse or partner. 1 2 3 4 58. I lie to others about what I talk to friends about on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 59. I feel excited and energized when I access my Facebook page. 1 2 3 4 510. I would feel sad and depressed if Facebook ceased to exist. 1 2 3 4 511. I have concealed conversations that I have on Facebook from my partner. 1 2 3 4 512. I would not want my spouse or partner to be my Facebook friend. 1 2 3 4 513. I need to make sure that I have access to my Facebook page on vacations. 1 2 3 4 514. I feel that others would think less of me if they could see my private messages on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 515. Others have complained about the amount of time I spend on Facebook. 1 2 3 4 5SCORING15-30 You probably enjoy using Facebook, however it is unlikely that it is causing major issues in your relationship.31- 45 You obviously enjoy using Facebook and it is most likely an important part of your life, but it is probably not controlling you.46-60 Your Facebook use is quite possibly excessive. You may be experiencing some difficulties in your life and relationships as a result of your Facebook use. You may want to consider ways to reconnect and connect with your family and friends that do not involve Facebook. If you continue to find yourself using Facebook as a major way to meet your emotional and social needs, it is important that you put more time back into your primary relationships outside of Facebook, or seek professional help.60-75 Your Facebook use appears to be compulsive. It would most likely be helpful to seek a professional therapist to help you sort out the role Facebook plays in your life.Copyright 2009Paula Pile MA, LMFT, LPA