By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. I read an article this week about Karoshi, ‘death by overwork,’ a phenomenon that has been common in Japan since the early 90’s. At that time, many Japanese, who have the longest average work week in the world, starting dropping dead of heart attacks and strokes attributed to their ridiculously long hours – an average of 60 hours a week, every week per year. In the last few years, the nature of Karoshi has changed, as has Japan’s economic picture. Increasingly, younger people feel fortunate to get jobs as ‘salarymen,’ i.e., permanent salaried jobs. Japanese economy is driven more and more by temporary workers who get no job benefits and no guarantees of job permanency. Those who are ‘salarymen’ feel unable to turn down requests to work crazy hours for fear of losing their positions and plunging into poverty. Depression and suicide have become epidemic, with the police estimating that one third of suicides in Japan are triggered by work stress. Clearly, it is possible to work yourself to death. On the heels of reading about Karoshi, I read research showing that unemployment leads to upsurges in depression rates. So which is true? Is it ‘overwork’… Read more »
Author: Margie Nichols, Ph.D.
‘How To Survive A Plague’ – The Horror And Glory Of Aids
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. Last night I watched ‘How to Survive a Plague’ home alone on my TV. A little context: HTSAP is a history of ACT-UP – The AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power- an activist organization that transformed the way the government responded to AIDS and forever changed drug treatment, drug trials, the FDA, the CDC, and NIH. As Larry Kramer says in the film, what gay people did from 1987 to 1996, in particular, may go down in history as our greatest humanitarian legacy. And I am a queer psychologist, sex therapist, and activist who was the first Director of New Jersey’s AIDS service organization, Hyacinth Foundation, back in the mid 80’s. More personally, many of my closest friends died of AIDS, for three years I co-led a group of men with AIDS, and saw dozens of them die, and by the early 90’s I was burned out. So when I watched ‘How To Survive A Plague’ I was stunned – instant PTSD – and still can’t get some of the images of dying men out of my brain tonight. It’s impossible to describe the way a grown man who weighs 80 pounds looks, the way a 30… Read more »
How To Raise A Child Who Is Different
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. This is another post about parenting, but from a different perspective. A while ago I wrote about how parenting styles don’t matter. This is about something that does. We know through research that kids who are ‘different’ can be shielded from the effects of a judgmental world through the efforts of their parents. This piece started out as a blog about this terrific article, “My 7-Year Old Son Wants a ‘Likes Boys’ T-Shirt, and Here is Why He’s Going to Get It.” These parents are raising a boy who already identifies as gay and has crushes on other boys, and they are doing it in a way that both affirms and protects him. They are buying him the t-shirt he wants, a copy of one worn by Blaine on ‘Glee,’ that says ‘Likes Boys.’ They are monitoring under what circumstances he can wear it, so that he will not risk being an object of hate. And it struck me that my partner Nancy and I used the same strategy raising our son, born in 1983. Cory was one of the first wave of ‘turkey baster babies,’ Kids born through donor insemination (often self-insemination, hence the name)… Read more »
Advice for Living
by Margie Nichols, Ph.D. Nope, not advice from me. Advice from Sheldon Kopp, a psychotherapist who lived from 1929 to 1999. Kopp believed that people find their way in life by living fully and by facing reality squarely, without illusion. The title of his book – “If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him”- reflects his belief that there is no higher authority than you when it comes to figuring out your own truth. These 43 statements are pretty deep, Imo. Kopp wasn’t a romantic – check out #10, one of my faves, which basically says life is unfair, bad things happen to good people and nobody ‘makes up’ for your losses. Or #4 – we’re dying already and we’ll be dead a long time. Or #12, the world is random. And yet Kopp is anything but a pessimist. He’s an old school Existentialist. He’s big on taking personal responsibility for your own life, on facing the irrationality of the world and on finding a way of accepting it. And he believes that we bring our own meaning to life. This is a scary idea – we can’t rely on religion, leaders, or gurus to tell us how… Read more »
My Real Life “Sessions.” How a Sex Therapist Learned About the Limits of Talk Therapy
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. Recently I was interviewed by Newsweek for an article anticipating the release of the film “The Sessions.” I didn’t make the final cut, but I’m pleased that Lizzie Crocker wrote a pretty balanced article about the controversy over the use of sex surrogates, or surrogate partners as they are now called. Vena Blanchard, the head of IPSA, the International Professional Surrogates Association, was sympathetically portrayed and cogently quoted. But I was disappointed that the only comments from a sex therapist in the article were from David Schnarch. Schnarch is well known and highly regarded, an acknowledged expert in sex therapy with couples. But he represents the conservative wing of sex therapy, at least on this issue. He made surrogacy sound a little smarmy, and implied incompetency on the part of any therapist who would have to ‘resort’ (his word) to using one. But there are sex therapists who find surrogates helpful, even though they are often reluctant to speak publicly about this, because Schnarch’s perspective dominates the field. In fact, earlier this year the discussion of surrogacy on the listserv of a prominent sexology organization was disrupted by a participant who threatened to sue any therapist… Read more »
50 Shades of Grey: The Facts about BDSM and Kinky Sex (Video)
We thought last week’s post was important enough to make a video. Here’s Margie Nichols, Executive Director, and Courtney Zehnder, Media Coordinator, giving you the basics of what’s true and what’s stereotype about that stuff that Christian and Anastasia do.
Diapers, Dads, Testosterone, and the Mommy Culture
by Margie Nichols, Ph.D. Two articles about gender differences and childcare have been on my mind lately. The first is an article by Tara Parker-Pope published early in 2012 in the Times Sunday Magazine. She reports on research showing the predictable gender differences in child-care activities, even when both parents work, but also showing that mothers enjoy child care more. The lead author of the study speculates that biology may be at work in the form of testosterone, citing, for example, studies showing that women with high levels of testosterone often show less interest in babies. The second is a more recent article on a study showing that testosterone levels DROP in men when they are involved in doing a significant amount of childcare. The tone of this article was much more cautious, lots more ambivalence about the results. The lead sentence: “This is probably not the news fathers want to hear.” The worry, of course, is that men will interpret this result to mean that dads who take care of their kids become wimps. The study investigators, however, put a much more positive spin on the data, saying “… this should be viewed as, ‘Oh it’s great, women aren’t the only… Read more »
Why We Need SB21172 In New Jersey – And All Over
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. California just passed a law, SB 21172, making it illegal to practice ‘conversion therapy’ – the attempt to convert a homosexual to a heterosexual orientation – on minors. Few people understand the importance of this law, not only for gay teens, but also for all trans and gender nonconforming children, some of whom are as young as four when brought for treatment. And last week State Assemblyman Tim Eustace, openly gay representative from Bergen County, said he would introduce a similar bill in New Jersey. If he does and it is passed, New Jersey will be the second state, after California, to ban this dangerous therapy. He’s framing the bill as protecting children from abuse, and he’s right. Before I explain why, let me explain a little of the history of psychiatry’s relationship to sexual minorities. Since the late 1800’s, psychiatrists considered all forms of unusual sexual behavior and gender expression automatically ‘sick,’ in need of ‘treatment.’ The perception of gay people as mentally ill stood in the way of many other rights, so much so that after Stonewall in 1969 psychiatrists were one of the first groups targeted for political action. And in 1973 the… Read more »
50 Shades of Facts, Part 1
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. There’s good news and bad news, in my opinion, about the success of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’ The good news is that women’s erotic life is getting a boost…as in ‘validated’…as is women’s interest in kinky fantasy sex. The bad news: Christian Grey’s kinky predilections are attributed to childhood abuse, thereby reinforcing (incorrect) stereotypes about BDSM.. So this prompted me to start a series of blog posts about kink aka BDSM. I’m going to start with some definitions and a little truth about what it is – and isn’t. BDSM is an internet-generated acronym that stands for: BONDAGE AND DISCIPLINE DOMINATION AND SUBMISSION SADISM AND MASOCHISM Cute, right? It’s an attempt to put an umbrella over a diverse set of sexual behaviors that have some things in common, one being – fewer people practice them than, say, vaginal intercourse or oral sex. Usually when we talk about BDSM, or ‘kinky sex,’ we also include: FETISHES Fetishes are attractions to ‘unusual’ body parts or objects. What is considered a fetish is pretty arbitrary – if you like big breasts you aren’t a fetishist, if you like feet you are – but you get the general idea…. Read more »
The Power Of Negative Thinking
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. Recently someone sent me a blog post written by Christina Patterson in 2009. In it, she takes some shots at the ‘Positive Thinking’ movement and cites research showing the advantages of negative mood on thought. Critiques of the Positive Psychology movement – psychology’s antidote to focusing on mental illness – are not new. We’ve known for a long time, for example, that ‘optimists’ are less realistic about life than ‘pessimists,’ that upbeat people truly do see the world through rose-colored glasses compared to people who are chronically mildly depressed. And Barbara Ehrenreich delivered a scathing criticism of the movement and its founder, Martin Seligman, in her 2010 book ‘Bright Sided: How Positive Psychology is Undermining America. Ehrenreich makes the case that the ‘positive thinking’ movement is just another way to try to get people to be contented with a basically unfair political and economic system. Politics aside, there are good reasons to resist the idea of a world full of optimistic, eternally cheerful people. Reasons besides the fact that us more cynical types would never want to leave our houses. Patterson reports the conclusions of the researchers: “Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation… Read more »