Which Sex Is Suffering More In This Financial Crisis?

This horrible financial crisis is affecting all of us in some way or another.  It seems every day there is a new after shock that has us quaking in our boots.  This week it's Bernard Madoff's $50 billion dollar ponzi scheme.  After months and months of being bombarded by bad news it's natural for it to have an effect on your psyche.  But, which sex is experiencing the worst case of psychological damage?

If you guessed the men, then you are right.  Of course, we all have the right to feel anxious - it's normal.  But something more than anxiety if emerging with the male population.  It's an overwhelming erosion of self confidence.  This is not the same as clinicial depression.  It's believing success and accomplishment is intimately tied to your financial status.  More and more men aren't able to feel confident or good about themselves without the almighty dollar dictating their value.

Richard A. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, reports his male patients are telling him they used to see themselves as masters of the universe.  Now the present circumstances have cut them down to size.  Dr. Friedman has plenty of female patients who work in finance at high levels, but none of them has had this kind of psychological reaction.  He is now asking himself - do men rely disproportionately more on their work for their self-esteem than women do? Or are they just more vulnerable to the inevitable narcissistic injury that comes with performing poorly or losing one’s job? 

Personally, I think this erosion in self confidence has more to do with how much of your identity is attached to what you do, not your sex.  If money and business are the dominant forces in a women's life, she is more likely to fall apart when it is taken away.  I have experienced the loss of a business identity and it took years to recover.  I have talked to hundreds of other women and I can assure you I don't stand alone in that feeling.  All of us agree it takes hard work to regain faith in yourself and move ahead after a crisis of confidence.

Dr. Friedman's story appeared in Tuesday's New York Times to read it click here. 

Breast Cancer and The Happiness Factor

New evidence is showing that feeling happy and optimistic plays a positive role in protecting women against breast cancer. Research published in BMC Cancer suggests that while staying positive has a protective role, adverse life events such as the loss of a parent, divorce or death of a spouse can increase a woman's risk of developing the disease.

Ronit Peled from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, led a team of researchers who questioned 255 women with breast cancer about their life experiences and evaluated their levels of happiness, optimism, anxiety and depression prior to diagnosis. Peled said, "Young women who have been exposed to a number of negative life events should be considered an 'at-risk' group for breast cancer and should be treated accordingly".

The researchers do point out that women were interviewed after their diagnosis, which may color their recall of past emotional states somewhat negatively. However, according to Peled, "We can carefully say that experiencing more than one severe or moderate life event is a risk factor for breast cancer among young women. On the other hand, a general feeling of happiness and optimism can play a protective role".

In my humble opinion, being happy and positive does increase our resistance to all things not wanted, including disease. And, even if all this research is wrong, what's the downside of waking up each morning feeling the joy of being alive?

Whitney Houston Meet Eckhart Tolle

Life can be summed up by Whitney Houston's song One Moment In Time.  Master of living in the NOW, Eckhart Tolle, with the help of Oprah, is taking that thinking mainstream.  Here's how it applies.

Imagining mistakes or what could go wrong has a serious detrimental effect on performance for sports figures, dancers and actors. Dwelling on the negative can disrupt their ability to perform and sabotages actions that would normally be automatic. This research is coming out of the University of Limerick.

The findings suggest that our negative images are much more vivid, detailed and less controllable than our positive images. Positive imagery is known to have a beneficial effect on performance but these results suggest negative images have an even more pronounced impact on how we perform.

Okay having said that, doesn't it make perfect sense that negative thoughts and images take what we want and blow it to smithereens?  Living in the moment is our goal. When we do that our ego let's go of its grip on us.  Why is it we insist on focusing on the yeah buts and the what ifs?  Why not trade those dream killers in for I can achieve anything I want and stay in the moment. 

Here's three things you can do to start being in the moment:

• Pay attention to what you're thinking - put a red band on your wrist to remind you 
• Make sure that every day you do something that you enjoy. Notice the difference in your body when you're feeling good compared to when you are stressed out and worried
• Help somebody else.  That pay it forward model really works

Don't waste another day focusing on what you don't want.  You are in control of your success!!!  

In Treatment - What If Your Therapist Doesn't Get You?

I must confess, I got hooked into watching every single episode of HBO's "In Treatment".  For me it was Gabriel Byrne's sensitivity for his patients that kept me glued to the screen.  But alas this is make believe and unfortunately in real life not every therapist is as sensitive to the needs of their patients.

The decision to work with a therapist is a tough one, but there are times in life when we just need that extra emotional support.

Many people who go into therapy have good experiences. The patient feels understood and well supported by the therapist, but what if your therapy leaves you feeling frustrated? What if you believe your therapist isn't "getting you"? What if you aren't receiving the outcome you expected?

Spitzer Syndrome - Why Smart Men Continue to Do Stupid Things

For the last week all we've heard are theories why Eliot Spitzer did such a stupid thing.  He's not the first and he certainly won't be the last smart man who betrayed his family or put his career on the line to indulge his sexual fantasies.

I read this article  in AlterNet by Michael Bader who is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in San Francisco.  He is the author of "Arousal:  The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies".  Bader's believes going to a hooker theory gives a man temporary psychic relief.  It's an interesting piece so enjoy reading it.