I don’t know about you, but as I hear Obama and McCain questioning, putting down, ridiculing each other I am reminded of what most children experience when their parents are going through a divorce.

Because children are dependent on both their parents, not believing what they are saying cuts at the very core of their developing personalities on the ground floor of Basic Trust that Erik Erikson said forms the foundation of our personality.

If each parent is lying to you about the other, what other things is each capable of lying to you about just to make their case and be right. Just as you can’t be a little pregnant, you can’t really be a little dishonest. As a result, children shut down knowing they are dependent on the “adults” in their life but not knowing who or what to believe. They stay transfixed like deers in the headlight of a polygraph that’s about to explode.

And then after the divorce is settled each parent who was lambasting the other tells you to cooperate with them when you’re staying with them. That’s crazy making.

Isn’t that exactly what’s happening as we listen to Obama and McCain? When they each make such convincing cases about the other’s poor judgment, lack of experience, or just being plain dangerousness; when on November 5 one offers a concession speech and then tells us to give our full support to the next President, who twenty four hours was incompetent; and when without flinching they expect us to do so. Isn’t that just as crazy making?

In essence, prior to November 4, if you believe one candidate the other one thinks you are wrong and misguided, but if a day later you don’t give full support to the one who is elected you’re being uncooperative and anti-American.

That’s crazy. And being a psychiatrist I don’t use that term lightly. What do you think?

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

-Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Whether or not the Bailout Bill passes, the President and Congress would do well to heed Covey’s advice.

Here is why.

When people are consumed with “fear and loathing” the upper, human part of their brain shuts down. The middle emotional brain boils over from all the tumult and does what Daniel Goleman calls an amygdala hijack. This is akin to fear acting in whatever way it can to either avoid or at the very least mitigate panic. This throws people into reacting usually in a reptilian, fight or flight lower brain way. At that point they will react as they did in other panicky situations in the past.

Imagine the process like water about to boil and then boil over. Once it boils over, it scalds whatever it touches. The solution is to raise the boiling point at which the middle brain boils over and throws us into our lower reptilian, fight or flight brain. This translates into being able to feel afraid, feel disappointed, feel angry without panicking or becoming hostile in our behavior. In essence, it means learning to “take the hit.”

Two common analogies to the President, his advisors and Congress trying to get the American people to listen to reason, are first, parents trying to get a recalcitrant teenager to do their homework or stop partying (Yeah, good luck with that one). Another analogy is a high integrity divorce attorney (yes, some do exist) attempting to get a “rich, angry and wrong” spouse from escalating an already out of control situation.

How do you get that teenager or that belligerent spouse to calm down and listen to reason? Here is a seven step approach:

1. Do a rope-a-dope. Muhammad Ali did that to beat George Foreman. That means let them vent, let them punch themselves out, don’t take issue with each and everything they say. Don’t interrupt them. If you speak too early and they keep going say: “Oh excuse me, I thought your were finished. Please continue.”
2. After they finish, pause for ten seconds. That pause will cause them to imagine you coming back at them, defending yourself, blaming someone else, making excuses, etc. If you do any of these, it will just stir them up again. They may even become anxious as they assume you will now come back at them, because that is what they would do if they were you.
3. After the pause, look them squarely in the eye and in a caring, earnest, “seek first to understand” voice say: “You’re really angry, aren’t you?”
4. If you are on target they will not fight you and instead say either: “Huh?” or “Yeah, I’m furious” or just plain “Yeah.”
5. At that point respond with: “How angry are you?” They will probably respond with: “Huh?” or “Furious” or something like that.
6. Next say: “How bad does that get for you?” They may again say, “Huh?” or “What?” If so repeat the question, “Yes, I’d like to know how bad it gets for you.”
7. At that point they will often say some something like: “Real bad” or “Awful” or “Freaked out” and will often go from venting to e-x-h-a-l-i-n-g, and possibly even begin to cry with the relief that exhaling offers. They will begin to relax and at that point open their mind to you and listen to what you have to say.

If they now do give you their mind imagine you are now speaking not to a resistant teenager or foolish spouse/client, but to a scared child who has been separated from a parent in a big department store and is standing and shaking by the escalator. If you are the department store security person, you will listen to the child’s fears and tears and begin to start to talk withthem. At that point they may start to listen to reason. If you don’t and keep talking at orover them or even logically to them, they will re-escalate and their amygdala will hijack them again and you’re back to the races and further away from having them listen to reassurance…and if you’re the American people, further away with agreeing with anything. 

Ryan raised the question of gender inequity for cheaters during recent interviews to promote her new movie, “The Women,” which chronicles how Ryan’s character deals with the discovery of her husband’s affair. During interviews, Ryan admitted that she’d cheated on Quaid, but that he’d done so long before her – for much of their 10-year marriage. 

The couple, who have a son, Jack, 16, have been divorced since 2001. Quaid has since remarried to actress Kimberly Buffington, with whom he has twins. 

During a recent magazine intervew, Ryan admitted that Quaid “was not faithful to me for a long time, and that was very painful.” She told InStyle magazine that she blamed herself for their divorce for a long time: “When the woman cheats, it’s the woman’s fault. When the man cheats, it’s the woman’s fault,” she said. 

Divorce360 expert Tina Tessina, Ph.D, said Ryan’s commentary about the gender inequity for cheaters rang true, at least in American society. ”Everyone gossips about both men and women straying, but men get extra credit — it’s seen (especially by other men) as a coup on the man’s part,” said Tessina, author of “Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting about the Three Things that Can Ruin your Marriage.” ”Women hide infidelity better, usually, but they’re seen as sluts and bad moms.” 

“Men have a sense of entitlement about sex — many of them feel that they have a right to sex, wherever it’s available. The more powerful the man, the greater the sense of entitlement. Women seem to be blind to this idea and incredibly shocked when they find out it’s happening in their marriage. I do believe that many men are less apt to stray if they are sexually happy at home, and their marriage is going well. Women seem to think that ‘being friends’ is enough to make a marriage work, men don’t. Sex is a much simpler transaction to a man than it is to a woman; emotional intimacy is usually much easier for women than for men,” Tessina said.

The problem is simple, according to relationship expert Brenda Della Casa, author of the book, “Cinderella was a Liar.” “We live in a society where both genders villify women and women villify themselves. Women tell one another and themselves they need to be poreless, wrinkle-free, thin, successful, beautiful, nurturing, sexy every day in order to be loveable. They tell themselves and one another they need to have a man and a ring by 35 and that if their man cheats, it’s because they didn’t satisfy him sexually, keep up appearances or give him soemthing he needed. If a woman makes the painful and heartwrenching choice to stay in the marriage and try and forgive a cheating husband, she’s villified for being weak or pathetic when a man who stayed with a wife who had been unfaithful would likely be looked upon as a good man or strong.”

Who’s at fault really? Despite her agreement with Ryan on the issue of gender inequity, Della Casa thinks anyone who cheats — regardless of sex — is at fault. “While it might be more comfortable to blame our partners for our own bad behavior, the fact is that cheating is a choice to betray your own word, your partner’s trust, health and heart and there are many better ways to deal with unhappiness than becoming a deceitful liar,” she said. “If you are unhappy with your marriage, communicate with your partner and take steps to heal the tears by going to counseling or changing your own behaviors. If you decide to sleep with another person and/or start a new relationship, the only  thing you are doing is adding to the destruction of your union.” 

Responding to a spouse’s cheating by cheating – what Ryan may have done – isn’t the answer, Della Casa said. “The fact that your partner cheated on you does not serve as a free pass to engage in the same behavior that hurt you so deeply. If you want to work through infidelity, there are ways to do it and many couples have been successful. If you don’t want to or try and cannot move past it, no one is ever forced to stay in a marriage. You don’t have to choose to be a liar and humiliate and disrespect your partner in that way,” she said. 

Infidelity expert Ruth Houston agreed. “If what Meg Ryan says is true about Dennis Quaid being unfaithful to her throughout their marriage, it sounds like her affair with Russell Crowe was a retaliatory affair that backfired. Revenge cheating never has the desired effect….Being divorced by her cheating husband after he found out about her retaliatory affair, and subsequently being dumper by her lover when the affair became public knowledge, must have left her with serious self-esteem issues.”

Who cheated and why isn’t important to Quaid, who — eight years since the split — has created a new life and family for himself. He responded to Ryan’s recent confessions by expressing concern over how they might the couple’s teen-age son. “I find it unbelievable that Meg continues publicly to rehash and rewrite the story of our relationship,” he said, adding that he was upset that his son had “to be reminded in a public way of the turmoil and pain that every child feels in a divorce.”

Dr. Gilda Carle agreed. “It’s been eight years, and enough is enough! The fact that Ryan continues to discuss this shows that it is still part of her life,” said Carle, author of “How to Win When your Mate Cheats.” “The more she hangs onto the past, the more it keeps her connected to it — and to Quaid.”

Houston said harping about how Quaid’s infidelity “serves no real purpose at this point other than to allowing her to finally vent about it after all these years. But one has to wonder why she would bring it up after all this time. It sounds like she still has unresolved issues regarding his affairs. That’s why it’s so important to discuss the cheating with the cheater regardless of whether the two people stay together  and work things out, or go their separate ways. Otherwise they’ll carry unwanted baggage into their next relationships.”

Carle said the bigger issue is what Ryan’s doing to her son by making the allegations public: “Quaid is right about raising this issue again in public in front of their son who is at the age of trying to make sense of his own relationships with the opposite sex. Why add to his burden? Meg Ryan told Diane Sawyer, ‘I just feel like every now and then you have to fill in the gaps for people.’ I say, ‘Why?’ And who are the ‘people’ she feels she must impress?”

In her book, Carle said, she points to the difference between people who handle their problems internally or people who are driven by external influences. ”Having an internal drive will get you to soar above the vicissitudes of those around you who criticize your behaviors. But being externally affected places you at the mercy of such ‘people’ who you will never be able to please. My advice to Meg Ryan is get a thicker skin, forgive your ex for the past, and get on with your own life. Letting go is a necessary trait for anyone who opts for greatness.”

TIPS TO WORK THROUGH INFIDELITY

Are you working through marital problems? Before they become overwhelming, Dr. Mark Goulston, author of “Get Out of Your Own Way,” offers this advice:

He said, she said. Here we go again with Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid. 

Who’s to blame? If Quaid is like most men he’ll say he fooled around for the sex, but still loved his wife. If Ryan is like most women, she’ll say she did it for the love she wasn’t receiving or feeling toward her husband.

Here is the real problem…In most relationships, the honeymoon fades and each partner experiences disappointment not just in that, but in the other person. And neither is skilled at addressing the disappointment effectively. Left unaddressed, disappointment becomes frustration, irritability until familiarity does really lead to contempt.

The key to solving this is to learn how to confront each other when disappointed and before it hardens into something much worse. Tips for doing that include:

1. Proactively set a time to speak at least once a month to see if the relationship is on track for each person.
2. Set ground rules of only focusing on observable behaviors, how it made you feel and think, and what you would like the other to differently going forward.
3. Do not go into character assassination, make presumptions about their feelings or intentions without really knowing for sure.
4. Do not use words like “Never” or “Always.”]
5. Balance your criticisms with things that you really appreciate about the other and thank them for those.
6. Realize that an unforgiving attitude is incompatible with any relationship lasting.

So, what are some of the toughest questions you might face, and what are the best answers?

Topics: Interviews

first seen at:

Why the Bailout Failed to Pass – Hoisted by Our Own Petard

 by Mark Goulston

Hoisted by one’s own petard 

1.    (idiomatic) to be hurt, or destroyed by one’s own plot or device, of one’s own doing which one intended for another; to be “blown up by one’s own bomb”

He has no one to blame but himself; he was hoisted by his own petard.

Most people have a short attention span during non-stressful times and when they are afraid that attention span drops to zero.  As a result people jump without thinking, onto what they hear, draw the wrong conclusion, and then remain fixated there resistant to new facts and evidence.  Such a mindset is much stronger than all the logic and convincing in the world.

Witness how a tantruming baby can bring an entire dinner if not vacation to its knees. 

This is what is happening in the current financial crisis and why once people are locked onto believing that the bailout is all about Wall Street and giving the pigs who caused it a second chance at the trough they will not change their minds.

Given how often I have seen people stay fixated on the wrong thing until the bitter end, I am not optimistic about their changing their mind soon in this crisis.  I hope I am wrong.

What usually changes their mind is such a real threat (vs. “dire”) to their survival –losing that job, not having money to buy food, having their car repossessed, or junior returned from college for failure to pay tuition—that they finally see the light and being right or self-righteous doesn’t seem so important.  People will keep choking on pride until something is literally choking them to death.

How did we develop such “jump to the wrong conclusionitis?”  Americans by nature find reading, listening, thinking painful and will avoid all of them if they can.  They have lost their curiosity and replaced it with what is exciting in the moment.  They have become adrenaline junkies where they keep chasing after what is interesting at the expense of what is important.  And that compulsion/addiction is reinforced everywhere.  Why wait for something to be satisfying when you can get immediate gratification now?  Why bother with college when you can become an American Idol?  Why bother learning when you can be a “know it all” today?

Wall Street, sensationalistic movies, video game manufacturers, ipoderations  and political candidates have done everything they can to take advantage of this increasing tendency to be both thoughtless and impulsive.

On the latter note, both candidates do everything they can in every ad they run to take whatever the other has said out of context, because they know they can hook you and me and bend you to their will.

Unfortunately, this devolution (reversing evolution) of Americans from thoughtful humans to thoughtless animals has now put us all on the hook.

I just watched NY Times columnist Tom Friedman, author of Hot, Flat and Crowded.

Call me paranoid, call me too conspiracy/Oliver Stone minded, but…

Do you believe that in order to compete successfully, oil companies, auto companies, etc. have suppressed or bought up competing intellectual property that might have threatened their market dominance and control? If you do believe it, then isn’t it possible that these companies already possess the rudimentary, if not further developed technologies to use alternative sources of energy?

For instance, at the risk of being naive and ill informed, I cannot imagine that there haven’t been already developed theories/technologies to utilize two forces necessary to life and to this planet’s existence, namely solar energy and gravitational pull (look how we depend on the latter to whip explorer missions past planets toward other planets).

In order to compete effectively in the future, if not survive through the present, we might want to have energy companies, auto companies and any other companies that may have suppressed competition (to increase barriers to entry) open their vaults or memories to what they have shredded.

If the above is true, the energy crisis has already been solved, but the solution is being withheld. All the remains is to implement the solution.

Louis Brandeis wrote: “Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.”

It may turn out to also be the road to our survival and salvation.

I think survival trumps profit. I think calming the fear of the many trumps feeding the greed of the few. Don’t you agree? What do you think?

There is a central flaw to the notion of “free market” economy.  How “free” is a market when the odds favor whoever has the leverage? 

The United States has been in denial of one of the main reasons a “free market” approach has worked for us for so many years, at the very least since WWII.  When you are insulated from invasion (prior to 9/11), are a creditor vs. debtor nation, have market dominance and have a mindset (innovation, cooperation and collaboration), skill set (ability to carry out innovation), and capacity (infrastructure, monetary resources) that is superior to the competition, it’s easy to promulgate a free market philosophy.

However when you become a debtor nation (dependent on the generosity and vulnerable to the stern actions of your creditors), are no longer insulated from terror or invasion, and possess a mindset, skill set and capacity that is inferior to the competition.  And when you are foolish enough to spend money you can’t afford to fight the enemies of a “free market” –namely terrorists and regimes that support it—when you have lost the competitive edge in a “free market” because of the above, that is a recipe for disaster and may contribute to the problems we face now.

First seen at:

Eye contact, my kingdom for some eye contact

The first Presidential debate is in the can. What did we see? What did THEY see?

Much has already been said about, Barack Obama referring to John McCain by his first name, repeatedly saying: “John is right,” and John McCain referring to his opponent as Senator Obama.  People have thought Obama may have been disrespectful while McCain was being belittling bordering on contemptuous.

As a communications and emotional intelligence expert, I’ll throw a couple more observations into the mix.  Just consider them as additional data points.

As I watched the interchange between Obama and McCain, I was having some deja vus about my experiences in head-to-head confrontations from my professional life.

John McCain rarely made eye contact with Barack Obama during the first presidential debate.  Being an interventionist and former trainer of FBI and police hostage negotiators, I have been in many confrontations.  I never break eye contact and have come to conclude that those who will not make eye contact with me have something to hide or at least more to hide than me.

What frees me to make eye contact is that my total focus is on improving the situation for the people I am with (that comes mainly from my training as a medical doctor).  Don’t get me wrong.  I am passionate about my hopefully informed opinions, but being right has never been more important than making the situation better.

Over time I have observed that those who don’t make eye contact with me are more concerned with being right and winning than making the situation better.  I think they look away, because when I look at them from my vantage point there are three things present that cause them to be nervous:

1. They know they care much more about winning and being right than solving or improving a situation.
2. I know they care much more about winning and being right than solving or improving a situation.
3. They know that I know they care more about winning and being right than solving or improving a situation.

Two more observations about the debate.  Obama on several occasions stopped needing to make his point and deferred to Jim Lehrer to move the debate ahead.  Also when Obama was directed to speak directly to McCain, he did. McCain never did that.

After noticing that a couple more things occurred to me:

1. It demonstrated Obama’s commitment to the process and moving if forward more than being right or having the last word in any conversation.  It wasn’t a sign of weakness, but a more circumspect view of keeping a process moving ahead vs. having it be derailed by ego.
2. It demonstrated that Obama is coachable and seems to have an internal monitor to keep him on track with what is important, which is not to be confused with being wishy-washy or not steadfast. 

Like you, I look forward to the Vice Presidential debates.  And like you, I look forward to our electing a President who is focused on improving your lot and mine and improving the way America is viewed by the world.