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Military Teens Face Unique Mental Health Challenges
"My Story: Blogs by Four Military Teens" is a book that gives voice to military teens by highlighting their feelings and experiences before, during, and after parental deployment. The four youths in "My Story" are fictional, but the stories are real in that the posts are a compilation of real life experiences of military kids.
"Adam" blogs, "My dad is one of the coolest, smartest, bravest men I’ve ever met, but sometimes I just can’t stand being around him. He’s a doctor – a surgeon – and is in the Air Force Reserves. He just returned from a second tour in Iraq, and he sure acts different. After his first tour, it took us some time to get caught up, but just when things got normal again, he got his orders to go back to Iraq. Now he’s finally home (for good?), but he just isn’t the same. He gets mad over the stupidest things and spends most of his time in his bedroom or in front of the computer.
"He’s still in ‘military mode,’ and orders us around way too much. He doesn’t joke around like before, and sometimes just hangs out in the garage by himself. We don’t talk much. I almost liked it better when he was gone. It was a lot quieter and less stressful around the house. Ashley, Lisa, and I just stay out of his way. Derrick is lucky – he’s leaving for college soon."
This book also provides support and education for military teens and preteens by honoring their unique joys and sacrifices, addressing their fears and hopes, and exploring how parental deployment affects their lives.
The book was written by Michelle D. Sherman, Ph.D., and her mother, DeAnne M. Sherman. Together, Dr. Sherman and her mother – a teacher – have written other books for teens, including "Finding My Way: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who has Experienced Trauma" (Waco, Tex.: Seeds of Hope Publishers, 2005).
Dr. Sherman is a clinical psychologist at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, where she directs its Family Mental Health Program. She has dedicated her career to supporting families affected by mental illness and posttraumatic stress disorder, and has a special interest in the impact of parental mental illness and PTSD on youth.
"Think about the ... challenges facing our military teens," she writes in a guest post on the blog of an organization called Veterans Children. "Their parent(s) may be deployed once, twice, or even multiple times to a war zone. The parent may miss out on important events, such as prom, the school play, the state basketball tournament, and birthdays."
These young people are resilient, Dr. Sherman writes, but some are struggling with increased rates of anxiety, sleeping and behavioral problems, and the use of psychotropics.
"What does this tell us? ...They are affected by their parent’s deployment. We need to listen to them, provide resources, and make services available," writes Dr. Sherman, also is a clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and a research affiliate with the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC).
In her work with veterans and families, Dr. Sherman has developed educational and support programs. Operation Enduring Families is a 5-session family education curriculum for Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans/families, developed with Ursula B. Bowling, Psy.D., and Alan L. Doerman, Psy.D. This program is based on her S.A.F.E (Support and Family Education) program, an 18-session curriculum for those who care about someone with a mental illness/PTSD.
Dr. Sherman has developed an extensive resource list for OEF/OIF service members, and veterans and their families. (See box.) For a complete list, you can e-mail her at michelle-sherman@ouhsc.edu.
This column, "Families in Psychiatry," regularly appears in Clinical Psychiatry News, an Elsevier publication. Dr. Heru is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. She has been a member of the Association of Family Psychiatrists since 2002 and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer. In addition, she is the coauthor of two books on working with families and is the author of numerous articles on this topic.
The following list of books and websites can be used to help military children of all ages cope with parental deployment:
Books
• "After the War Zone: A Practical Guide for Returning Troops and Their Families" (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2008).
• "Back from the Front: Combat Trauma, Love, and the Family" (Brooklandville, Md.: Sidran Institute Press, 2007).
• "Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Returning Soldiers and Their Families" (Berkeley, Calif.: Ulysses Press, 2005).
• "I Miss You!: A Military Kid’s Book About Deployment" (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007).
• "Night Catch" (Jamestown, N.D.: Bubble Gum Press, 2005).
• "100 days and 99 nights" (New York: Little, Brown and Co. Books for Young Readers, 2008).
• "Sometimes We Were Brave" (Honesdale, Pa.: Boyds Mills Press, 2010).
• "The Fathers Are Coming Home" (New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010).
Websites
• "Courage to Care, Courage to Talk About War Injuries," developed by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress.
• "Military Child Bill of Rights."
• National Military Family Association.
• Song and video: "The Price of Peace."
• Video (58 minutes): "Returning From the War Zone: A Guide for Families of Military Members," created by the National Center for PTSD.
• SOAR (Student Online Achievement Resources).
• Students at the Center: An Education Resource for Families, the Military, and Schools.
• "Talk, Listen, Connect: Deployments, Homecomings, Changes."
• Veteran Parenting Toolkit, created by the Oklahoma City VA Family Mental Health Program.
• "Welcome Back Parenting: A Guide for Reconnecting Families After Military Deployment."
• DVD: "Young Children on the Homefront: Family Stories, Family, Strengths," developed by the nonprofit organization Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families.
• "Young Heroes: Military Deployment Through the Eyes of Youth."
"My Story: Blogs by Four Military Teens" is a book that gives voice to military teens by highlighting their feelings and experiences before, during, and after parental deployment. The four youths in "My Story" are fictional, but the stories are real in that the posts are a compilation of real life experiences of military kids.
"Adam" blogs, "My dad is one of the coolest, smartest, bravest men I’ve ever met, but sometimes I just can’t stand being around him. He’s a doctor – a surgeon – and is in the Air Force Reserves. He just returned from a second tour in Iraq, and he sure acts different. After his first tour, it took us some time to get caught up, but just when things got normal again, he got his orders to go back to Iraq. Now he’s finally home (for good?), but he just isn’t the same. He gets mad over the stupidest things and spends most of his time in his bedroom or in front of the computer.
"He’s still in ‘military mode,’ and orders us around way too much. He doesn’t joke around like before, and sometimes just hangs out in the garage by himself. We don’t talk much. I almost liked it better when he was gone. It was a lot quieter and less stressful around the house. Ashley, Lisa, and I just stay out of his way. Derrick is lucky – he’s leaving for college soon."
This book also provides support and education for military teens and preteens by honoring their unique joys and sacrifices, addressing their fears and hopes, and exploring how parental deployment affects their lives.
The book was written by Michelle D. Sherman, Ph.D., and her mother, DeAnne M. Sherman. Together, Dr. Sherman and her mother – a teacher – have written other books for teens, including "Finding My Way: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who has Experienced Trauma" (Waco, Tex.: Seeds of Hope Publishers, 2005).
Dr. Sherman is a clinical psychologist at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, where she directs its Family Mental Health Program. She has dedicated her career to supporting families affected by mental illness and posttraumatic stress disorder, and has a special interest in the impact of parental mental illness and PTSD on youth.
"Think about the ... challenges facing our military teens," she writes in a guest post on the blog of an organization called Veterans Children. "Their parent(s) may be deployed once, twice, or even multiple times to a war zone. The parent may miss out on important events, such as prom, the school play, the state basketball tournament, and birthdays."
These young people are resilient, Dr. Sherman writes, but some are struggling with increased rates of anxiety, sleeping and behavioral problems, and the use of psychotropics.
"What does this tell us? ...They are affected by their parent’s deployment. We need to listen to them, provide resources, and make services available," writes Dr. Sherman, also is a clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and a research affiliate with the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC).
In her work with veterans and families, Dr. Sherman has developed educational and support programs. Operation Enduring Families is a 5-session family education curriculum for Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans/families, developed with Ursula B. Bowling, Psy.D., and Alan L. Doerman, Psy.D. This program is based on her S.A.F.E (Support and Family Education) program, an 18-session curriculum for those who care about someone with a mental illness/PTSD.
Dr. Sherman has developed an extensive resource list for OEF/OIF service members, and veterans and their families. (See box.) For a complete list, you can e-mail her at michelle-sherman@ouhsc.edu.
This column, "Families in Psychiatry," regularly appears in Clinical Psychiatry News, an Elsevier publication. Dr. Heru is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. She has been a member of the Association of Family Psychiatrists since 2002 and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer. In addition, she is the coauthor of two books on working with families and is the author of numerous articles on this topic.
The following list of books and websites can be used to help military children of all ages cope with parental deployment:
Books
• "After the War Zone: A Practical Guide for Returning Troops and Their Families" (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2008).
• "Back from the Front: Combat Trauma, Love, and the Family" (Brooklandville, Md.: Sidran Institute Press, 2007).
• "Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Returning Soldiers and Their Families" (Berkeley, Calif.: Ulysses Press, 2005).
• "I Miss You!: A Military Kid’s Book About Deployment" (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007).
• "Night Catch" (Jamestown, N.D.: Bubble Gum Press, 2005).
• "100 days and 99 nights" (New York: Little, Brown and Co. Books for Young Readers, 2008).
• "Sometimes We Were Brave" (Honesdale, Pa.: Boyds Mills Press, 2010).
• "The Fathers Are Coming Home" (New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010).
Websites
• "Courage to Care, Courage to Talk About War Injuries," developed by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress.
• "Military Child Bill of Rights."
• National Military Family Association.
• Song and video: "The Price of Peace."
• Video (58 minutes): "Returning From the War Zone: A Guide for Families of Military Members," created by the National Center for PTSD.
• SOAR (Student Online Achievement Resources).
• Students at the Center: An Education Resource for Families, the Military, and Schools.
• "Talk, Listen, Connect: Deployments, Homecomings, Changes."
• Veteran Parenting Toolkit, created by the Oklahoma City VA Family Mental Health Program.
• "Welcome Back Parenting: A Guide for Reconnecting Families After Military Deployment."
• DVD: "Young Children on the Homefront: Family Stories, Family, Strengths," developed by the nonprofit organization Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families.
• "Young Heroes: Military Deployment Through the Eyes of Youth."
"My Story: Blogs by Four Military Teens" is a book that gives voice to military teens by highlighting their feelings and experiences before, during, and after parental deployment. The four youths in "My Story" are fictional, but the stories are real in that the posts are a compilation of real life experiences of military kids.
"Adam" blogs, "My dad is one of the coolest, smartest, bravest men I’ve ever met, but sometimes I just can’t stand being around him. He’s a doctor – a surgeon – and is in the Air Force Reserves. He just returned from a second tour in Iraq, and he sure acts different. After his first tour, it took us some time to get caught up, but just when things got normal again, he got his orders to go back to Iraq. Now he’s finally home (for good?), but he just isn’t the same. He gets mad over the stupidest things and spends most of his time in his bedroom or in front of the computer.
"He’s still in ‘military mode,’ and orders us around way too much. He doesn’t joke around like before, and sometimes just hangs out in the garage by himself. We don’t talk much. I almost liked it better when he was gone. It was a lot quieter and less stressful around the house. Ashley, Lisa, and I just stay out of his way. Derrick is lucky – he’s leaving for college soon."
This book also provides support and education for military teens and preteens by honoring their unique joys and sacrifices, addressing their fears and hopes, and exploring how parental deployment affects their lives.
The book was written by Michelle D. Sherman, Ph.D., and her mother, DeAnne M. Sherman. Together, Dr. Sherman and her mother – a teacher – have written other books for teens, including "Finding My Way: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who has Experienced Trauma" (Waco, Tex.: Seeds of Hope Publishers, 2005).
Dr. Sherman is a clinical psychologist at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, where she directs its Family Mental Health Program. She has dedicated her career to supporting families affected by mental illness and posttraumatic stress disorder, and has a special interest in the impact of parental mental illness and PTSD on youth.
"Think about the ... challenges facing our military teens," she writes in a guest post on the blog of an organization called Veterans Children. "Their parent(s) may be deployed once, twice, or even multiple times to a war zone. The parent may miss out on important events, such as prom, the school play, the state basketball tournament, and birthdays."
These young people are resilient, Dr. Sherman writes, but some are struggling with increased rates of anxiety, sleeping and behavioral problems, and the use of psychotropics.
"What does this tell us? ...They are affected by their parent’s deployment. We need to listen to them, provide resources, and make services available," writes Dr. Sherman, also is a clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and a research affiliate with the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC).
In her work with veterans and families, Dr. Sherman has developed educational and support programs. Operation Enduring Families is a 5-session family education curriculum for Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans/families, developed with Ursula B. Bowling, Psy.D., and Alan L. Doerman, Psy.D. This program is based on her S.A.F.E (Support and Family Education) program, an 18-session curriculum for those who care about someone with a mental illness/PTSD.
Dr. Sherman has developed an extensive resource list for OEF/OIF service members, and veterans and their families. (See box.) For a complete list, you can e-mail her at michelle-sherman@ouhsc.edu.
This column, "Families in Psychiatry," regularly appears in Clinical Psychiatry News, an Elsevier publication. Dr. Heru is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. She has been a member of the Association of Family Psychiatrists since 2002 and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer. In addition, she is the coauthor of two books on working with families and is the author of numerous articles on this topic.
The following list of books and websites can be used to help military children of all ages cope with parental deployment:
Books
• "After the War Zone: A Practical Guide for Returning Troops and Their Families" (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2008).
• "Back from the Front: Combat Trauma, Love, and the Family" (Brooklandville, Md.: Sidran Institute Press, 2007).
• "Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Returning Soldiers and Their Families" (Berkeley, Calif.: Ulysses Press, 2005).
• "I Miss You!: A Military Kid’s Book About Deployment" (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007).
• "Night Catch" (Jamestown, N.D.: Bubble Gum Press, 2005).
• "100 days and 99 nights" (New York: Little, Brown and Co. Books for Young Readers, 2008).
• "Sometimes We Were Brave" (Honesdale, Pa.: Boyds Mills Press, 2010).
• "The Fathers Are Coming Home" (New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010).
Websites
• "Courage to Care, Courage to Talk About War Injuries," developed by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress.
• "Military Child Bill of Rights."
• National Military Family Association.
• Song and video: "The Price of Peace."
• Video (58 minutes): "Returning From the War Zone: A Guide for Families of Military Members," created by the National Center for PTSD.
• SOAR (Student Online Achievement Resources).
• Students at the Center: An Education Resource for Families, the Military, and Schools.
• "Talk, Listen, Connect: Deployments, Homecomings, Changes."
• Veteran Parenting Toolkit, created by the Oklahoma City VA Family Mental Health Program.
• "Welcome Back Parenting: A Guide for Reconnecting Families After Military Deployment."
• DVD: "Young Children on the Homefront: Family Stories, Family, Strengths," developed by the nonprofit organization Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families.
• "Young Heroes: Military Deployment Through the Eyes of Youth."
Relationship Building From the Lab to an Island
"In the comfort of the Gottmans’ own island home, learn research-based tools for building and maintaining relationship intimacy. Have you ever planned a wonderful romantic vacation, complete with a lovely room, candle-lit dinners, and white sand beaches, only to have your dream become a nightmare when tense quarrels and silence spoil the sunset? We have been listening to painful stories like these for nearly 35 years.
"Now you can restore your relationship while having a world-class romantic holiday. In an exclusive, small group two-day couples retreat (there will be no more than six couples in each retreat), we offer you research-based skills for deepening intimacy, managing conflicts, and enhancing your sense of shared meaning in a private, comfortable, and beautiful setting."
That is a description from the brochure and website of the Gottman Relationship Institute, a marital therapy retreat conducted on Orcas Island off the coast of Washington, and run by an academic who has crossed over to the public sector: John M. Gottman, Ph.D.
Dr. Gottman is a psychologist who has received National Institute of Mental Health grants and numerous awards, and has authored or coauthored 119 academic articles and 37 books. In addition, Dr. Gottman is cofounder with his wife, Julie Gottman, also a Ph.D psychologist, of the Gottman Relationship Institute in Seattle. (Another personalized marriage counseling retreat is called Marriage Quest.* This one is held in Cabot, Vt., and is run by Israel Helfand, Ph.D., and his wife, Cathie Helfand, M.S. The Helfands are marriage counselors and sex therapists who have been working together with couples since 1983.)
We are all familiar with Dr. Gottman’s relationship interaction ratios. In happy couples, there are 20 positive interactions to 1 negative interaction, in conflicted couples the ratio is 5 to 1, and in soon-to-divorce couples the ratio is 0.8 to 1. Unhappy couples have a filter that screens out positive events and makes even neutral events negative. Happy couples have a filter that screens out negative events and makes neutral events positive.
Dr. Gottman’s research involves a quantitative mathematical approach to understanding the changes in the marital dyad and the relative influence that each has on the other. This model predicts changes in the relationship of a couple in his research laboratory.
His relational ratios and equations are now being applied to the dynamics of psychotherapy (Cogn. Neurodyn. 2011;5:265-75). The influence that the client has on the therapist and the influence that the therapist has on the client are mathematically mapped. Without going into the mathematical computations, I can say that the findings are that the therapist or client who is most responsive to the other ends up being the most positive, often through a series of emotional ups and downs. In other words, being positive, either on the part of the therapist or the client, yields positive outcomes. However, being too responsive to clients produces mediocre outcomes, and being negative to patients produces negative outcomes.
The authors do not claim any major theoretical advances. But they do believe that understanding the dynamic emotional states that exist between the therapist and the patient holds clues to the good therapeutic relationship.
For their part, Dr. Gottman and his wife certainly have balanced out the positives with the negatives when it comes to work and lifestyle balance. They’ve got an island home, the gratification of a successful practice, the avoidance of the health care system, and a continued ability to influence the field of relational psychology. In fact, he has developed a Relationship Vision Quest based on extensive research laboratory findings. One critical question has always been: Does this research translate into clinical practice?
Dr. Gottman now has his utopian island where he can put his research to the test – and he is looking for volunteers.
This column, Families in Psychiatry, appears in Clinical Psychiatry News. Dr. Heru is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. She has been a member of the Association of Family Psychiatrists since 2002 and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer. In addition, she is the coauthor of two books on working with families and author of numerous articles on this topic.
*Correction, 1/9/2012: An earlier version of this column inadvertently referred to the Gottmans' retreat as Marriage Quest.
"In the comfort of the Gottmans’ own island home, learn research-based tools for building and maintaining relationship intimacy. Have you ever planned a wonderful romantic vacation, complete with a lovely room, candle-lit dinners, and white sand beaches, only to have your dream become a nightmare when tense quarrels and silence spoil the sunset? We have been listening to painful stories like these for nearly 35 years.
"Now you can restore your relationship while having a world-class romantic holiday. In an exclusive, small group two-day couples retreat (there will be no more than six couples in each retreat), we offer you research-based skills for deepening intimacy, managing conflicts, and enhancing your sense of shared meaning in a private, comfortable, and beautiful setting."
That is a description from the brochure and website of the Gottman Relationship Institute, a marital therapy retreat conducted on Orcas Island off the coast of Washington, and run by an academic who has crossed over to the public sector: John M. Gottman, Ph.D.
Dr. Gottman is a psychologist who has received National Institute of Mental Health grants and numerous awards, and has authored or coauthored 119 academic articles and 37 books. In addition, Dr. Gottman is cofounder with his wife, Julie Gottman, also a Ph.D psychologist, of the Gottman Relationship Institute in Seattle. (Another personalized marriage counseling retreat is called Marriage Quest.* This one is held in Cabot, Vt., and is run by Israel Helfand, Ph.D., and his wife, Cathie Helfand, M.S. The Helfands are marriage counselors and sex therapists who have been working together with couples since 1983.)
We are all familiar with Dr. Gottman’s relationship interaction ratios. In happy couples, there are 20 positive interactions to 1 negative interaction, in conflicted couples the ratio is 5 to 1, and in soon-to-divorce couples the ratio is 0.8 to 1. Unhappy couples have a filter that screens out positive events and makes even neutral events negative. Happy couples have a filter that screens out negative events and makes neutral events positive.
Dr. Gottman’s research involves a quantitative mathematical approach to understanding the changes in the marital dyad and the relative influence that each has on the other. This model predicts changes in the relationship of a couple in his research laboratory.
His relational ratios and equations are now being applied to the dynamics of psychotherapy (Cogn. Neurodyn. 2011;5:265-75). The influence that the client has on the therapist and the influence that the therapist has on the client are mathematically mapped. Without going into the mathematical computations, I can say that the findings are that the therapist or client who is most responsive to the other ends up being the most positive, often through a series of emotional ups and downs. In other words, being positive, either on the part of the therapist or the client, yields positive outcomes. However, being too responsive to clients produces mediocre outcomes, and being negative to patients produces negative outcomes.
The authors do not claim any major theoretical advances. But they do believe that understanding the dynamic emotional states that exist between the therapist and the patient holds clues to the good therapeutic relationship.
For their part, Dr. Gottman and his wife certainly have balanced out the positives with the negatives when it comes to work and lifestyle balance. They’ve got an island home, the gratification of a successful practice, the avoidance of the health care system, and a continued ability to influence the field of relational psychology. In fact, he has developed a Relationship Vision Quest based on extensive research laboratory findings. One critical question has always been: Does this research translate into clinical practice?
Dr. Gottman now has his utopian island where he can put his research to the test – and he is looking for volunteers.
This column, Families in Psychiatry, appears in Clinical Psychiatry News. Dr. Heru is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. She has been a member of the Association of Family Psychiatrists since 2002 and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer. In addition, she is the coauthor of two books on working with families and author of numerous articles on this topic.
*Correction, 1/9/2012: An earlier version of this column inadvertently referred to the Gottmans' retreat as Marriage Quest.
"In the comfort of the Gottmans’ own island home, learn research-based tools for building and maintaining relationship intimacy. Have you ever planned a wonderful romantic vacation, complete with a lovely room, candle-lit dinners, and white sand beaches, only to have your dream become a nightmare when tense quarrels and silence spoil the sunset? We have been listening to painful stories like these for nearly 35 years.
"Now you can restore your relationship while having a world-class romantic holiday. In an exclusive, small group two-day couples retreat (there will be no more than six couples in each retreat), we offer you research-based skills for deepening intimacy, managing conflicts, and enhancing your sense of shared meaning in a private, comfortable, and beautiful setting."
That is a description from the brochure and website of the Gottman Relationship Institute, a marital therapy retreat conducted on Orcas Island off the coast of Washington, and run by an academic who has crossed over to the public sector: John M. Gottman, Ph.D.
Dr. Gottman is a psychologist who has received National Institute of Mental Health grants and numerous awards, and has authored or coauthored 119 academic articles and 37 books. In addition, Dr. Gottman is cofounder with his wife, Julie Gottman, also a Ph.D psychologist, of the Gottman Relationship Institute in Seattle. (Another personalized marriage counseling retreat is called Marriage Quest.* This one is held in Cabot, Vt., and is run by Israel Helfand, Ph.D., and his wife, Cathie Helfand, M.S. The Helfands are marriage counselors and sex therapists who have been working together with couples since 1983.)
We are all familiar with Dr. Gottman’s relationship interaction ratios. In happy couples, there are 20 positive interactions to 1 negative interaction, in conflicted couples the ratio is 5 to 1, and in soon-to-divorce couples the ratio is 0.8 to 1. Unhappy couples have a filter that screens out positive events and makes even neutral events negative. Happy couples have a filter that screens out negative events and makes neutral events positive.
Dr. Gottman’s research involves a quantitative mathematical approach to understanding the changes in the marital dyad and the relative influence that each has on the other. This model predicts changes in the relationship of a couple in his research laboratory.
His relational ratios and equations are now being applied to the dynamics of psychotherapy (Cogn. Neurodyn. 2011;5:265-75). The influence that the client has on the therapist and the influence that the therapist has on the client are mathematically mapped. Without going into the mathematical computations, I can say that the findings are that the therapist or client who is most responsive to the other ends up being the most positive, often through a series of emotional ups and downs. In other words, being positive, either on the part of the therapist or the client, yields positive outcomes. However, being too responsive to clients produces mediocre outcomes, and being negative to patients produces negative outcomes.
The authors do not claim any major theoretical advances. But they do believe that understanding the dynamic emotional states that exist between the therapist and the patient holds clues to the good therapeutic relationship.
For their part, Dr. Gottman and his wife certainly have balanced out the positives with the negatives when it comes to work and lifestyle balance. They’ve got an island home, the gratification of a successful practice, the avoidance of the health care system, and a continued ability to influence the field of relational psychology. In fact, he has developed a Relationship Vision Quest based on extensive research laboratory findings. One critical question has always been: Does this research translate into clinical practice?
Dr. Gottman now has his utopian island where he can put his research to the test – and he is looking for volunteers.
This column, Families in Psychiatry, appears in Clinical Psychiatry News. Dr. Heru is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. She has been a member of the Association of Family Psychiatrists since 2002 and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer. In addition, she is the coauthor of two books on working with families and author of numerous articles on this topic.
*Correction, 1/9/2012: An earlier version of this column inadvertently referred to the Gottmans' retreat as Marriage Quest.