psychology – Page 9 – Licensed Mental Health Counselor

Childhood Abuse Linked To Asthma And Obesity In African American Women

25 Mar 201326 Mar 2013by Torey C. Richards, LMHC1 Comment

According to research done at the University School of Medicine and Boston University’s Slone Epidemiology Center, Black women who have been physically and/or sexually abused during childhood and adolescence are more likely to become obese in adulthood as well as are more likely to later go on to develop asthma.

The study appeared in the journal Pediatrics and was based on a longitudinal Black Women’s Health Study which followed a large number of African American women since 1995.

What the study suggests is what many of us already know and that is that experiences during childhood may have long-term affects on our emotional and physical health.

“Abuse during childhood may adversely shape health behaviors and coping strategies, which could lead to greater weight gain in later life,” says Renee Boynton-Jarrett, MD, who is the lead investigator in the study as well as a pediatric primary care physician at Boston Medical Center.

She goes on to say that metabolic and hormonal disruptions can result from abuse and that childhood abuse could cause other health problems like asthma. “Ultimately, greater understanding of pathways between early life abuse and adult weight status may inform obesity prevention and treatment approaches.” Boynton-Jarrett continued.

The same study found that physical and/or sexual abuse could more than double the chances of African American women developing asthma later in life. According to the study, African American women who suffered abuse in childhood had an increase of about 20 percent of developing asthma.

What’s also interesting is that the link between physical abuse and asthma seems to be stronger than the link between sexual abuse and asthma.

According to Patricia Coogan, the lead author in the study stated, “The results suggests that chronic stress contributed to asthma onset , even years later.”
I had a professor in graduate school who always said, “Whatever you don’t deal with mentally, you will deal with physically” and this seems to be a prime example.

Stress in childhood experienced from abuse causes physiological consequences. Imagine the amount of stress one experiences living in an abusive situation. That type of stress can have an impact on the body, especially the immune and respiratory system and development.

There are unfortunately high incidents of childhood abuse as well as an increase in the prevalence of asthma with an increase from 7.3 to 8.2 percent, or approximately from 20.3 million to 25.6 million people from 2001 to 2009. The populations that saw the greatest increase in asthma were children from low-income families and African-American children.

I find this study to be very interesting because as a counselor, before I ever read this study, I recognized a link between obesity and sexual abuse in African American teenage girls.

I noticed that a large portion of the obese African American teenage girls I worked with, reported being sexually abused in childhood and early adolescence. I found this to be astounding and the more obese African American teens I worked with, the more it continued to be true.

It got to a point where I could look at an obese African American teen, the way they carry themselves and predict with about a ninety percent certainty that they had been sexually abused before they ever felt comfortable enough to divulge that information.

I started thinking that maybe obesity and overeating became a unconscious defense mechanism they used to become less attractive to not only the person who had sexually abused them, but possibly potential abusers in the future. And of course, overeating in itself could have been a coping mechanism used to help self-sooth themselves from the pain of sexual abuse.

I found it fascinating and yet sad, but this new research appears to back up some of what I had been suspecting although they seem to take it from more of a physiological than psychological approach.

What’s also interesting is that in her book Young, Poor and Pregnant, Judith Musick saw a link between sexual abuse and teenage pregnancy, meaning that some young girls who were being sexually abused, consciously or unconsciously sought out to get pregnant in hopes that their pregnancy and having a baby would make them less appealing to their abuser.

It’s obvious that physical and sexual abuse in childhood can have devastating affects on a child’s mental and emotional health well into adulthood, but new research is pointing to physical and sexual abuse also having long lasting physiological affects, making it that much more important that we not only fight to put a end of child abuse, but that we also provide help to those who have been abused.

Many adults I’ve spoken to who have been abused as children think of themselves as being resilient, and to a certain degree they are, but they don’t see the potential ongoing damage the abuse they experienced ten, twenty, or thirty years ago still has on their lives today. They don’t see that their relationship problems stem from lack of trusting or being able to relate well to men, that their depression comes from years of childhood neglect or that their overeating could be a result of past sexual abuse.

So much so that many of them don’t even initially mention being abused early on, although it is one of the first questions I ask. They go on for session after session, week after week, talking about issues that have roots in their childhood abuse, but they don’t recognize that and it’s only when they bring up the abuse and we address it, that they can truly start to heal.

Therapist are Humans Too

STDs and Pregnancy Scares: My Week In Review

3 Feb 2013by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

Last week was a super busy and crazy week. It seemed like I couldn’t get a handle on anything. On top of the many clients I already see, the referrals were pouring in and I only got a chance to meet with a couple of those, the most serious ones, two girls who had attempted suicide recently and had been hospitalized.

I met with both of them once and just kind of introduced myself, explained what counseling was and wasn’t since neither one of them had ever been in counseling before, and then started trying to build rapport with them. Both are very damaged young ladies, but I think we all are to some extent. They both, just from their presence, scream some type of past history of abuse to me, and one is living with a parent with a severe mental illness and drug addiction, so you can imagine the affects that will have on a teenager.

Besides that I had two clients that thought they might be pregnant. One is 17 and one is 16 and the sad thing is, as much as they say they don’t want to be pregnant, I think they really do want to be pregnant because neither one of them are doing anything to prevent becoming pregnant. If they aren’t pregnant, then it’s probably only a short matter of time before they will be.

Neither of them are mentally mature enough to be mothers, despite their biological maturation. One is really naive and I am sure she thinks that being pregnant will make the boy she’s sleeping with (who is not her boyfriend) commit to her. The other has severe low-self esteem and is very emotionally unstable, she says she is ready to be a mother, but mentally she acts about two years below her chronological age.

Talking to these young ladies, it’s clear that neither one of them have any idea of the dedication and sacrifice that goes into being a parent, but they don’t see a baby as a responsibility, but as a solution to one problem or another.

Still on the topic of teenage sex, another female client came to me crying because she thinks she may have a sexually transmitted disease. I referred her to the school nurse and then to a community clinic since she doesn’t want her mother to know.

This girl is very sexually active and at 16, claims she has had about 20 sexual partners. She doesn’t open up much, but I am working on helping her build her self-esteem and I am almost 100% sure that there is a history of sexual abuse, but she hasn’t disclosed that as of yet. She talks a lot about her mother, whom I haven’t met yet, but from what the she says, her mother seems to be just as promiscuous and I am sure that affects this client’s behavior and relationships with males.

We did talk about her father whom she felt abandoned her when she was young and I think that explains at least in part why she is always trying to be with one guy or several. That on top of her mother’s influences on her and her low self-esteem (she once told me that the only thing she likes about herself was her hair), all contribute to her risky sexual behavior.

She’s supposed to go to the clinic this week so hopefully she’ll find out that everything is okay or at least is treatable.

And then on Friday, while I was facilitating a group, I looked up and saw two female sheriff detectives standing at my door. I was immediately dismayed because I had no idea what they wanted to talk to me about. Ends up, one of my clients reported being sexually abused and the detectives were there to ask me what I knew about it.

It initially felt a little intimidating, like an interrogation because none of the answers I gave them seemed to be concise enough, and they kept pushing, but I was treading on giving them information I knew I legally and ethically should give them while also respecting my clients confidentiality by not giving them information unrelated/unnecessary to their investigation.

In the end I think I did both well, but it was definitely an experience. It was my first time ever having to deal with detectives in that manner although I make suspected abuse and neglect calls to child services all the time.

That was a rather stressful way to end the week on top of everything else, but I left work on Friday and ran four miles with one a friend which was a great way to distress while venting. Taking care of yourself physically, mentally and spiritually is a must in the helping professions or you’ll succumb to burnout and compassion fatigue, places I know all too well and try to prevent with every fiber of my being through self-care, which is sometimes easier said then done.

Therapist are Humans Too

Am I An Effective Counselor? A Case Example On Counselor Effectiveness And Struggles When Working With A Client

21 Jan 201321 Jan 2013by Torey C. Richards, LMHC4 Comments

Often as a counselor, it’s not always easy to know when I am truly being effective in helping clients live better lives. This can be difficult because clients often lie, not only about their feelings, but also about their behavior, about following through with treatment recommendations and even about getting better.

Clients often put up lots of psychological defenses and resistance that make it difficult to know how effective treatment is being. Many of them learn how to better mask their symptoms, while all the while their depression, anxiety, compulsions, etc. are still raging inside of them, causing marked distress.

Of course there are many ways a counselor can try to verify the effectiveness of treatment such as assessment tools and reaching goals set forth in treatment plans, but most clients know how to fake those as well.

One of the most powerful ways to verify if treatment is being effective is through my own observations of the client during sessions. Clients who are depressed or anxious for example, tend to display those affects during therapy and as they progress, those symptoms tend to decrease and the clients whole persona will seem to improve.

Of course there are the times when a client will tell me how much they have changed, how much I have helped them or how much better they feel from counseling. And times when teachers or parents will tell me about the improvements they have seen in a student I’ve been working with, but sadly, in the school based program I do most of my counseling at, that type of feedback isn’t as common as I would like it to be. Still, when it happens, it feels great.

Case Example

For a little over a year now I’ve been working with a client we’ll call Suriyan. Suriyan came to me after she lost one of her parents suddenly. She was obviously grieving so I started working with her through her grief and put her in my grief counseling group. It was obvious almost immediately that Suriyan was grieving harder than anyone else in the group which consisted of other students her age, all whom had lost a parent within the last year.

Through individual counseling I realized that one of the reasons Suriyan was grieving so hard was because she had a pre-existing issue dealing with depression and self-injury, and on top of that, unlike the rest of the grief counseling group, her grieving is what we call complicated grief. Her parent had not only died suddenly, but she blamed her parent for dying and blamed herself for allowing her parent to die, although her parent died of a disease neither one of them had any control over. They had lots of unfinished business she was internalizing.

She felt that her parent was her best friend and had chosen to abandon her.

Suriyan initially was very resistant to counseling. She rarely participated in group and in individual sessions she would cycle between talking about her feelings, to being extremely angry, to totally shutting down. On top of that, she was cutting herself to deal with the pain and anger, and had become suicidal. She wanted to be with her parent. Her thought was, if my parent didn’t want to be here with me, why should I be here.

I was extremely worried about Suriyan, especially as the weeks went by and her depression wasn’t lifting. I was throwing everything at her, counseling wise, to try to get her to understand that she needed to let go of the anger and guilt she felt for and towards her parent. I felt like I was failing her and wanted to refer her to another counselor, but she didn’t want to see anyone else. As little as I seemed to be helping her, we had built a pretty good therapeutic relationship.

I started reading academic journals on grief, referring to other counselors for clinical advice and reading books as fast as I could to try to find new techniques, but ultimately patience on my part and time appeared to be the most effective technique.

In time her depression seemed to lift and she was able to talk about her parent’s death without placing blame on herself or her parent. She started participating in group, following my recommendations and keeping a journal to write in, which also seemed to help. By the end of last school year she had stopped cutting herself, was happier and was definitely in a better place.

Then summer came.

I tried to make sure over the summer she had access to counseling and even to me if needed, but when school started back this year she was almost even more depressed and upset about her parent’s death than when I first met her.

Now she was even more resistant to therapy, often missing appointments, yelling at me in session and walking out of sessions when I tried to get her to talk about things she was trying to avoid, like her suicidal thoughts, self-injury and how she was dealing with her parent’s death.

She would always come back, always wondering if I was mad at her or upset, which I never was. I knew her outbursts and “resistance” were also ways she was testing my claim of unconditional positive regard for her. She was suicidal again however. She had once been a highly motivated student, a senior with a dream to go to one of the top university’s in Florida, but now she claimed to not care about that or even graduating high school. She saw no point in anything.

She was also cutting herself again and one day in my office, after recently cutting herself in school and saying she wanted to kill herself, I had to have her involuntarily hospitalized. She was furious with me, but I knew at the time I had no choice and it broke my heart seeing her taken away, but I was positive I had did what was best for her.

She yelled that she would never come see me again or forgive me, but a week later she was released from the hospital and we settled back into a regular counseling routine. She was angry with me, but was actually thankful and told me that had I not had her hospitalized that day, she was positive she would have went home and killed herself.

Over the next few months we had our moments of resistance, but I wanted to continue to push her and to keep her goals in mind because I knew that once she got through this fog, she could be lost without guidance. I kept reminding her of her dreams and encouraging her to focus on the bigger picture. She is a brilliant young lady with huge aspirations that tended to get lost in the darkness of her depression.

There were some sessions when she didn’t want to talk so we worked on her college application or essay. Other times we just talked about random things, but through random conversation, we would end up talking about whatever was bothering her. In time she stopped cutting herself and her depression started lifting again. She started to focus on school although she had giving up somewhat on her dream of going to her first choice of college. I think she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to take getting rejected, but I kept encouraging her to have faith while also preparing her just in case she got rejected. Still, the Universe seemed to be smiling upon her. She was winning award after award and was even “Senior of the week” recently.

She still had her bad days like over the Christmas break, which was only her second Christmas without her parent, and she will have other bad days, but she is moving forward and smiling a lot more. On top of that, she told me this past Friday that she had just gotten an acceptance letter from her first choice university. Not only did she get accepted, her first semester and perhaps even more, are already paid for including room and board. She was so excited and I was one of the first people outside of her family that she called to tell.

I was so happy because I know how much she wanted this and what this would do for her self-esteem and the doors it will open for her future. She would not only be the first person in her family to go to college, but she is going to probably the top university in the state of Florida.

She was so thankful for, “All you have done for me. For not giving up on me and for to encouraging me to follow my dreams.” I was nearly in tears because I was so happy for her, but I was quick to remind her that everything she has done to get to this point is all her and not me. She did all of this and I was just there to help guide her, but she did all the hard work. It was important to me that she took credit for her achievement so that she would know she could achieve anything she set out to, by herself if she had to.

When I got through talking with Suriyan, I was able to sit back and see how far we had come together and say that counseling had been effective. Sure it’s not done, she still has some tough days ahead, but I’ll work with her through those days until she goes off to college and even then, I will make sure she is in contact with a good counselor and make sure she is aware of the great support groups they have on campus.

I don’t do this type of work for me, I do it to help people live their best lives so this is not about me being a good counselor. There are times when I am unsure of if I am a good or effective counselor, but there are days and clients like this, when I can look back and reflect and say, yes, I am a good counselor.

New Years Resolutions

31 Dec 201231 Dec 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHC3 Comments

If you are like me, every New Year you make a list of resolutions, a list of behaviors, attitudes and other changes you would like to see in your life, and each year you fail to keep any of them.

I don’t even remember what my New Year’s resolutions were last year, but the top three New Years resolutions are:

starting to exercise
eating better
reducing the use of alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, etc.

I’m pretty sure part of my New Years resolution last year included all of those three things including the reduction of caffeine/diet sodas and I can tell you I didn’t succeed in any of them.

Most people who make New Years resolutions, 75% fail on their first attempt to make changes and most people make more than one goal.

Why do people make New Years resolutions and how successful are they likely to be?

Researchers Mukhopadhyay and Johar (2005) did some research on the psychology of resolutions.

They found that people who believe that self-control is dynamic, unlimited and changing, are more likely to set more than one resolution (i.e., “I can lose weight, stop drinking and go back to school, it just takes willpower.”).

They found out that people who believe that we all have a limited amount of self-control that can’t be changed (i.e., “I’m fat because my mother was fat, I can’t change that” or “I smoke because my father smoked, it’s in our blood”) and those who have little confidence in their ability to carry out their goals (low self-efficacy) do a lot worse on achieving their resolutions.

High self-efficacy correlated to a higher likely hood of a person achieving their New Years resolutions and goals in general.

People with high self-efficacy tend to attribute their failure to achieve something as a lack of effort on their part, while people with low self-efficacy tend to attribute failure to lack of ability.

People who are made to believe that self-control is a fixed or limited resource that they can’t change, made fewer resolutions and gave up on them faster, regardless of their level of self-efficacy.

What does this mean? That if you believe that self-control is an unlimited resource that we all have access to and it can help you with your goals/resolutions, you will do better at achieving them. The more you believe in your own abilities (self-efficacy), the better you will do also.

Setting MORE goals/resolutions also seems to help because you will be more likely to succeed at them, while people who set a small number of goals usually go into it expecting to fail either consciously or unconsciously, and thus create a self-fulfilling prophesy to fail.

Researchers also say having the actual skills to make the changes you want to see in your life is helpful.

If you want to lose weight, do you actually know how? Have you done the research? If you want to save money for example, do the research ahead of time, it will make it easier for you to actually achieve that goal.

Being ready to change also helps of course.

Some people say that they are ready to change, when they really aren’t and then are surprised when they fail at making the change they said they wanted to make.

There’s a whole psychology orientation called Motivational Interviewing that is about preparing people to make changes in their life.

Miller and Marlatt (1998) also suggest to:

Have a strong initial commitment to make a change.
Have coping strategies to deal with problems that will come up.
Keep track of your progress. The more monitoring you do and feedback you get, the better you will do.

Ingredients for setting yourself up for failure:

Not thinking about making resolutions until the last minute.
Reacting on New Year’s Eve and making your resolutions based on what’s bothering you or is on your mind at the time.
Framing your resolutions in absolutes (i.e., “I will never do ‘x’ or ‘y’ again.”).

Good luck with all your New Year’s resolutions. Mine include exercising more, eating better and losing weight. How original, I know, but I am going to use everything I talked about in this post to help me achieve those goals and hopefully you will too.

Inside The Mind Of A Potential Psychopath

26 Dec 201227 Dec 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHC10 Comments

As promised, here is a letter from someone I believe could be a potential budding psychopath.

A brief background:

This is a 16 year old male that came to see me for feelings of hatred and anger towards “everyone” as well as potential auditory hallucinations and symptoms of depersonalization.

He is currently in danger of failing school and follows none of the rules set for him at home and receives little to no consequences for that. I asked him to start keeping a record of his thoughts so I could help him analyze them.

This is a sample of his thought journal:

I feel irritated. I swear people are trying to make me gun them down. I’m trying very hard to keep my cool, but it’s thinning really fast. Everyone here disgusts me. The teacher is getting on my fucking nerves. I just want to pop a bottle in her face.

She makes me sick. Her voice is getting on my nerves. If I had telekinesis I would use it to spin everyones heads. I hate you all. It’s hard for me to focus on my work. I’m just not capble of doing it. I wanna go home. I am trying to do my work but I can’t focus.

I am not in the mood to do anything. God I hate everything. The guy [teacher] is asking for binders. I want to take the binder and smack him with it. If I had the power to burn things it wouldn’t be good for anybody because if I burned somebody I don’t think I would feel sorry.

I am writing this while I shoud be doing my work, but I don’t think I give a shit. Fuck the life. This is fucking stupid. I hate the people, the class, the school. I don’t dislike, I hate everything and I don’t know why. If these people were to die tomorrow I wouldn’t give a damn.

Class is almost done and this bitch is wasting my time. Fuck her. In class people talking and i just wanna slash their throats. They including the teacher are all useless to me. They’re all disgusting. Why am I in a classroom filled with imbeciles, morons, idiots, everyone I hate.

I was sad because my friend wasn’t here today. I usually see him in second period, but he’s absent. I was sad because out of everyone I talk to, he’s the one I’m most comfortable with. He’s kinda like the twin I wish I had.

Ever since the 7th grade, way before that, I had been having daydreams of a different life, one I had control over. In those daydreams I have a brother named ______. He’s my heart, the one I feel connected to and when I’m not having those daydreams I feel depressed and want to cause people harm and sometimes for no reason.

Sometimes I imagine myself being God and other times I start to believe it. If I were God I would cause a great flood and take out the people I hate in the world and replace them with people I don’t. I don’t see why people are laughing. If I were to slit their throats I bet they wouldn’t any more. I’m tired of these stupid people.

I want to make them know that I am better than them. I’m sitting in tech class and I want to take the keyboard and slap the two students in front of me in the head until I get tired. These people underestimate my powers because if they knew what I could do they would be afraid.

These people are nothing to me, but ants. I could just stomp them with my foot and they would be dead, but I’m too nice and theres no point to go to jail for these dirty people. They are not worth my time. I fucking hate people. Their shit is so stupid.

Why is everything this way. I’m talking and thinking, but it’s disorganized. I can’t remember much of most things that I am thinking. I just want to go somewhere that I can just do whatever I want with no consequence because if I were to kill someone I wouldn’t want to get in trouble for it.

I’m not ready to clearly say that this guy is a psychopath as his symptoms are also typical of a couple of other personality disorders.

However, it’s obvious from his writing that he hates people, finds it almost unbearable to be around most people and feels as if he is better than everyone. He talks about hurting and killing people and saying he would probably feel nothing.

He also talks about people as if they were just insignificant insects. As if other peoples existence alone irritates him.

He has daydreams where he imagines himself as God and even starts to feel like God in real life with thoughts of destroying everyone.

Sure, he says he would never do these things, not because they are wrong or he would feel bad, but because he doesn’t want to suffer the consequences. Probably much like many of the mass murderers who committed suicide after their crimes felt.

I’m not going to say that this guy will hurt, none the less murder anyone, but I am saying that he is showing clear signs of psychopathic traits that need to be dealt with before he ever gets to that point.

I’ve been working with him on this for the past few weeks, helping him analyze his feelings and thoughts and challenging them, but I am getting his family involved because I think he may need more intensive treatment than I can provide in the current setting I am working with him in.

He really is a good kid with lots of potential, but if he falls through the cracks he can easily end up spending the rest of his life incarcerated and/or ruin other peoples lives. I’m determined to do my best to not allow that to happen.

Popular Psychology

Is Your Child A Psychopath? Signs You Should Be Aware Of.

21 Dec 201212 May 2017by Torey C. Richards, LMHC94 Comments

As we continue to look at, investigate, try to understand and prevent tragedies like the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I thought it would be a good ideal to look at the three categories of people the usually commit mass murder:

Those who are delusionally insane
Those who are deeply and suicidally depressed
Psychopaths

In rare occasions there are combinations of the three or substance users or in extremely rare cases, brain tumors that cause mental and behavioral changes such as in the case of Charles Whitman.

When it comes to psychopaths however, they are the easiest to explain, and yet often go the most unnoticed.

Psychopathy is a type of personality disorder.

Many people think that they can identify a psychopath by the way they look and act, but that is not usually the case. Most psychopaths are very charming and very good at hiding their psychopathic tendencies until pushed or cornered.

Psychopaths seem to be born with an inability to empathize or feel sorry for other people. They have a complete disregard for other peoples feelings and suffering and can commit horrible crimes, or tell painful lies without so much as batting an eye.

Most psychopaths don’t know that doing something is wrong because they seem to lack the gene that makes us feel bad, or guilty, when we do something wrong such as lying or hitting someone for no reason.

They often have to be taught and reminded over and over again that something is bad or wrong, and then they have to remind themselves that it is bad or wrong, because they can do it and not feel bad about it at all.

They just don’t seem to be able to feel or care about other people or living things and may go on to torture animals in childhood if they are the sadistic type of psychopath and enjoys seeing/thinking of torturing other living things.

Eric Harris, one of the Columbine shooters seemed to fall into the category of a psychopath (also called sociopath). He once wrote that humans were as disposable as fungus in a petri dish.

His journal was littered with remarks about how much he hated people and wanted to kill everyone (I have a letter from a teenager I suspect may be a psychopath or budding one I will share later).

However, most psychopaths hide their hate or careless disregard for others and are usually witty, endearing and charming.

Psychopaths with high IQs often become criminal master minds, politicians, successful business people, etc. while ones with poor intellect and education tend to end up in jail more.

Levi King is a psychopath who went on a killing spree in 2005 that ended with him killing five people in two different states including three people in one family and the family dog (he thought he had killed the whole family, but one little girl managed to survive by playing dead). He reported killing these people because it relieved tension he had been feeling and gave him a sense of peace for the first time in his life.

As a child, Levi King once set his sister’s bedroom on fire because he was mad at her. As a teenager he even shot his cat to the point that it was literally blown to pieces. He also had broken into a home and sat it on fire just because he could.

As a child, he had all the signs and symptoms of a budding psychopath.

At the age of 15 he dropped out of school, started having run ins with the law and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 20. He was 23 when he committed the murders and expresses no remorse whatsoever. He is currently serving a life sentence.

Like all psychopaths, Levi King is unable to relate or feel for other people, although he is intelligent and charming enough to hide that flaw just like Ted Bundy was so successful at doing.

General Characteristics of a Psychopath

self-center and self-important. Almost anything they do for anyone is only because they see a benefit for themselves it.
need stimulation and are easily bored.
deceptive behavior and lying
conning and manipulative
little remorse or guilt
shallow emotional response
callous with a lack of empathy
living off others/ predatory attitude
poor self-control
promiscuous sexual behavior
early behavioral problems
lack of realistic long term goals
blaming other for their actions
short term relationships
juvenile delinquency
short term relationships
breaking parole or probation rules
varied criminal activity

Signs Your Child May Be A Psychopath

Setting fires
Severe cruelty to animals such as killing and torturing them
Persistently hurts, bullies or violates the rights of others by stealing or vandalizing their property.
Continuously breaks major rules such as running away or breaking curfew despite knowing the consequences.
Shows no guilt when confronted for doing wrong (i.e., pushing another student down the stairs).
Shows a persistent callous disregard for other people’s feelings, not just siblings (i.e., pushing another student down and being unmoved by their crying or distress).
Persistently doesn’t care about how well they do in school, even when they know there are clear expectations and they are capable of doing better.
They appear cold and unmoved, only showing emotions to intimidate or manipulate others.
Blame others for their mistakes instead of taking responsibility.
Fearless, doing new and reckless/dangerous activities.
They are unmoved by threats of punishment.
They are highly motivated by reward and what they will get out of doing something, even if that act will hurt others (i.e., stealing, lying)

A combination of many of these signs alone are not enough to be worried about, but if there are enough signs and you are alarmed by your child’s behavior, I would recommend having them seen by a mental health professional as they could be signs of something else, such as childhood trauma and PTSD.

As always, if you believe your child has behavioral problems, have them evaluated by a qualified professional instead of attempting to self-diagnose them which can have damaging effects on your child.

*EDIT: Just yesterday (9/25/13) I interviewed a 7th grader who has been making his own explosives, threatening to blow up himself and/or other people, blowing up random things, tortuing his mother’s cat, kicking and hitting other students and teachers at his school so much that he has gotten kicked out of school several times and his family is currently looking for a new place to stay because they got kicked out of their apartment complex for his behavior and the fact that he has killed several ducks around the lake at the apartment complex. His mother brought him in because she was scared of him and he had recently attacked his 4 year old sister for taking too long in the bathroom. When I asked him if he had any remorse for attacking his sister, hitting other people, having his family kicked out of their complex or killing the ducks, he flatly answered “no”. Nothing seemed to affect him, even the threat of hospitalization and jail. Without intense therapy at the least, I see this kid growing up to be not only a menace to society, but potentially a psychopath. He stated clearly that he doesn’t care about other people or their feelings and he has exhibited that on several occassions.

Below is a short documentary done in 1992 about Beth Thomas, a child who suffered from sexual abuse and reactive attachment disorder (I’ll write about that in another post soon) and seems to show early signs of psychopathology.

Psychopaths are all around us in one form of another. Read: The Psychopath Next Door by Martha Stout and Dr. Hare’s book, “Without Conscience” for more detailed information about psychopaths.

Popular Psychology

Before Adam Lanza, Seng-Hui Choi, Eric Harris And Dyland Klebold, There Was Charles Whitman

18 Dec 201218 Dec 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHC4 Comments

As the nation and the world continues to mourn for the victims of the Sandy Hook shootings and for Newtown, Connecticut altogether,

we are finally having some extensive and serious dialogue about gun control and mental illness.

It usually takes something like this to happen before people talk about these issues, but something I was thinking about was the continued argument I have been hearing about banning assault rifles as if that alone will stop mass murders from happening.

I don’t necessarily want to get into that argument, but it made me think about people like Timothy McVeigh who used racing fuel, fertilizer and a rental truck to blow up a building and kill 168 people including children attending daycare.

It also made me think about one of the earlier, popular mass murders on a school or college campus done by Charles Whitman at the University of Texas in Austin on August 1, 1966.

Leading up to the shooting, Charles Whitman had been suffering from tremendous headaches, health problems and abusing amphetamines.

The day before his rampage he begin writing his suicide letter which included:

I do not quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed. I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.

Around midnight the next day he drove to his mother’s house and killed her, stabbing her in the heart and leaving a letter saying that he loved her. Apparently he wanted to rid his mother of the troubles of the world.

He then drove home and stabbed his wife three times in the heart while she slept and finished writing his suicide note including saying:

“I imagine it appears that I brutally killed both of my loved ones. I was only trying to do a quick thorough job […] If my life insurance policy is valid please pay off my debts […] donate the rest anonymously to a mental health foundation. Maybe research can prevent further tragedies of this type.”

He requested an autopsy be done to see if there was an organic reason for his terrible headaches and increased irrational and disturbing thoughts. Thoughts he said he couldn’t take any more.

He then prepared for his rampage and went to the University of Texas at Austin with weapons that included two rifles, a shot gun, a hand gun, a machete and some knifes. He shot several people before reaching his destination, which was the observation deck on a tower on campus.

From there he would shoot and kill 14 people while injuring 32. An autopsy would reveal a highly aggressive and fatal brain tumor that would have likely killed him within the year.

This tumor no doubt was responsible for his irrational thoughts and violent impulses.

Before the murders, Whitman did seek help for his headaches and violent thoughts and impulses from no less than five doctors, including a psychiatrist he visited once and said of the psychiatrist:

“I talked with a Doctor once for about two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt come (sic) overwhelming violent impulses. After one visit, I never saw the Doctor again, and since then have been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail.

Medical records released from Dr. Heatly, the psychiatrist he saw only once say:

“This massive, muscular youth seemed to be oozing with hostility […] that something seemed to be happening to him and that he didn’t seem to be himself.”

And:

“He readily admits having overwhelming periods of hostility with a very minimum of provocation. Repeated inquiries attempting to analyze his exact experiences were not too successful with the exception of his vivid reference to ‘thinking about going up on the tower with a deer rifle and start shooting people’.”

The above statement is chilling because that’s exactly what he ended up doing. If he would have been involuntarily hospitalized then for homicidal thoughts, maybe all of those people would have been alive to see another day.

Sometimes trying to find the origin of mental issues is difficult, but it seems like Whitman at least tried and was failed by his doctors (or maybe just the victim of the period of time he was living in).

If his brain tumor could have been found earlier, or if he could have been hospitalized in a psychiatric institution, maybe the murders could have been prevented.

There are no doubt evil people in the world who commit mass murder like the one at Sandy Hook, but I think for the most part, people who decide to commit mass murder, have underlying emotional/psychiatric problems, that if caught and treated early enough, could prevent such senseless tragedies.

The tragedy at Sandy Hook and the many more before it have no doubt brought us to a place where we will change the way we do everything from protecting our schools, to protecting our communities from guns and those with mental issues that need to be kept safe from others and themselves.

I just hope that as we grief and eventually heal as a nation, that the talks about reform don’t die down until the next tragedy rips us out of our false sense of security and throws us back into outrage and panic.

Therapist are Humans Too

Abuse Reports And Pregnancy Scares: My Week In Review

7 Dec 20127 Dec 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

This week went by really fast, although it was tiresome and very busy, picking up where last week left off.

Last Friday I had to have a suicidal student Baker Acted (Florida’s statute for involuntary examination/hospitalization), with five minutes of school left, which meant I had to deal with law enforcement and the Department of Children and Families (DCF) for two hours afterwards.

Not the best way to start my weekend.

This week wasn’t as dramatic, but I still had to call DCF on three cases for suspected physical abuse, suspected medical neglect and suspected sexual abuse.

I don’t know why, but I am still at times amazed at the amount of damage done to our kids at the hands of those who are supposed to love, support and watch over them.

Making DCF reports or Baker Acting a client is never the easiest thing to do. Often times clients are initially angry, or scared, but many times they are relieved to finally be getting help, and more often than not, after it’s all over with, they are grateful someone cared enough to get them help.

I even had a mother come in to try to assure me that her daughter is not being abused by her husband, but I tend to believe what her daughter is telling me and will support the daughter psychologically while DCF does their own investigation.

I also had three of my female clients this week tell me that they thought they were pregnant.

I always hate hearing this because I know the affect having a child can have on these inner-city young girls who have enough to overcome already.

Most of the times these young girls think that they can get pregnant and nothing in their lives will change. I remind them that every girl that was in my program last year that got pregnant have dropped out of school.

I was saddened also that these three young girls, all good and intelligent students, weren’t using protection and are potentially pregnant by guys that aren’t even their boyfriends.

It’s one thing to be pregnant by a boy who is supposed to be committed to them, but it’s another thing for a young girl to be pregnant by a boy who has no commitment to them at all.

“Hooking up” seems to be the thing with this generation, in which teens are more likely to have no-strings-attached, physical relationships that could include anything from kissing to intercourse.

Friends with benefits definitely seems to be more popular than actual dating, at least on the campus I work at.

These girls I am referring to, of course really like these boys and want to be with them in a monogamous relationship, but are willing to accept the friends with benefit role, which gives these boys no real reason to commit and give the girl what she truly wants, a relationship with a guy that cares for only her.

These young girls, as much as they would hate to admit it, aren’t emotionally prepared for no-strings attached sex as well as they think, which is one reason many of them are so angry, depressed, emotional and unhappy.

They are clueless about the connection between the body, the heart and the mind.

Luckily, so far one out of the three girls I mentioned has found out she is not pregnant, while the other two are too afraid to take pregnancy tests or go to their family doctor, so they are practicing the wait, see, and pray method.

Two of the girls asked me if I was mad at them (I’ve counseled them numerous times about self-esteem, self-respect, abstinence and using protection if they are going to be sexually active).

I told them that I wasn’t mad and that I never get mad at them, because it’s true. I did admit to them that I was a bit disappointed in them, because that too is true.

I still care for them and support them unconditionally, even when I don’t like the decisions they’ve made..

Hopefully in the next few days, the other two girls will find out if they are pregnant or not so I can either help them learn to prevent this from happening again anytime soon, or help them prepare to be the best teenage mothers they can be.

Popular Psychology

Is Helping Egotistic or Altruistic?

5 Dec 20125 Dec 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHC5 Comments

This past weekend on my way home at past 3 a.m., I saw a car on the side of the interstate with it’s hazard lights on. As I got closer to my exit, I noticed that it was four young ladies trying to change a flat tire.

I got off on my exit thinking that someone else would stop, but I decided to get back on the interstate to check on them. That required me getting back on the interstate going in the opposite direction, just to get off at the next exit, get back on and come back in their direction.

This took me close to ten minutes and I thought for sure, by then either someone else would have stopped (the interstate was quite busy for 3 a.m.) or that they would have figured it out by then.

As I approached their car on the interstate, it was obvious that neither had happened.

I stopped and asked if they needed help, and they all said in unison “please”. So at 3 a.m. I got down and dirty and changed their tire. It only took about ten minutes and they were very grateful.

They commented that they had seen at least four police cars pass by and they couldn’t believe no one stopped to help them. They thanked me for rescuing them from being stranded and we went our separate ways.

This isn’t the first time I have been in this type of situation.

Once at a nightclub I heard a lot of commotion and saw a guy beating up a girl while dozens of people others by watching in horror. I fought my way through a crowd of people, thinking that by the time I got to that side of the club, someone else would have stepped in, but no one did.

I ended up being the one pulling the guy off the girl. I was shocked at how many others just stood by and watched.

A similar incident happened years later in a Walmart parking lot when someone was being attacked in their car by a guy. I heard the screaming, saw a crowd of people standing around and watching, and then noticed someone helpless was being assaulted.

I ran across the parking lot, thinking once again, by the time I got there someone else would have intervened, but no one did, and once again I ended up being the one pulling the attacker off of his victim while others stood around and watched (someone did call 911 but they didn’t get there for at least another ten minutes).

I am not recommending anybody should do either of the three things I mentioned above because it could have ended up badly, but it got me to thinking about why I felt the need to help in those situations and why do we in general, help others.

While most of us like to think that when we are helping others we are being purely altruistic, often times we are helping for egotistic reasons.

Egotistic helping is motivated by a desire of the person helping, to advance their interest, rather than the interest of the person being helped. The person being helped may benefit, but that wasn’t the sole purpose of the helping.

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This occurs during times such as:

we are just doing our jobs
are interested in a challenge
seeking power, fame, or recognition
want to feel like a savior, rescuer, etc.

Some theorists believe that all helping is egotistic and that even when we are helping others, we are working for our own self-interest. This is called egoistic reduction, in which all helping is in the service of self-interest.

According to this theory, I intervened in the three examples above to be Superman, to rescue stranded, helpless individuals, and not purely for altruistic reasons.

Another psychological theory called negative state relive hypothesis says that we help to reduce the feelings of guilt we may feel if we didn’t help.

In the above scenarios, I agree that this may have been the case. Maybe I helped because if I didn’t, I would have felt guilty, if only briefly for not intervening when I could have.

Both of these are forms of egotistic helping, although other people benefited from my self-serving motives.

Other factors influence rather we are likely to help others or not such as:

the weather
our mood
ambiant noise
if we are in a hurry
if we think other people are looking
the attractiveness of the person
the gender.of the person

We are also more likely to help those that we feel are similar to us. This is called similarity bias, a form of reflexive favoritism we usually don’t even know we are influenced by.

Lastly, according to evolutionary psychology, we help others because it’s in our DNA.

We help because we are all products of other humans who benefited from helping to ensure the continuation of our species. To understand this instinct we may call it altruism or morality, but it is ultimately instinctual.

If you look at helping this way, then all helping is egotistic as it serves to help pass on our genes as human beings to the next generation.

So why do we really help? Is it purely egotistic or biological? Chances are it is a combination of altruism, egotistic motives, situations and biological factors.

In the situation on the interstate, I know for a fact that I stopped because it was four attractive young ladies. I wanted to help because I knew it would feel good to be the savior, I was worried about their safety and would feel guilty if I kept going.

The next time you help someone, ask yourself why are you really helping? You may be surprised at the answer.

Popular Psychology

Observing Body Language: A Quick Glimpse Into One Patient

16 Nov 201216 Nov 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

I have a patient who is emotionally unstable, at times unpredictable and erratic. She suffers from depression, mostly due to tragic events that have happened in her past including a family history of drug abuse, sexual abuse and incest.

She holds tightly onto her tragic past, often choosing to become a victim, rather than a survivor or a thriver.

Because she carries around all this emotional baggage that she refuses to deal with and start letting go, mostly because she is comfortable in the role of playing the victim where everyone is to blame for all of her problems except her, she often feels miserable, cuts her self and can not enjoy the present, because she is stuck in the past.

She also always carries around an over sized book bag stuffed with books so heavy that when she walks, she has to walk hunched over, although she has a locker. She also carries around even more books, usually books she checked out from the library in her hand, yet doesn’t read any of them.

I think subconsciously she just likes carrying things around.

The other day when talking to her, I told her that I was worried about her posture and asked if there was a way she could minimize the amount of stuff she carried in her book bag and in her hands.

I gave her a task to try to de-clutter herself so that she didn’t have to carry so much stuff around.

And then it hit me, the way she was carrying so much stuff physically, reflected how she was carrying around so much baggage emotionally, and the way she walked, hunched over, head down, slow as if she was carrying the world on her shoulders, was exactly how she was feeling inside.

Her outside appearance and body language were representative of her emotional and mental states. This isn’t uncommon, we all due this to some extent, but hers was a prime example.

Amy Cuddy did a great Ted Talks lecture on body language where she discussed how when we carry ourselves (or sit) in certain postures, it no only affects our mood, but also our hormones, raising or decreasing testosterone and cortisol.

I can only imagine how this girl, walking around all the time, hunched over, looking small, is making her feel inadequate and disconsolate. I am wondering if I can get her to improve her posture, will that also improve her mood.

Now I am sure there is a fancy psychological term for this that is eluding me right now, but I found that insight fascinating and wondered if I could get her to stop carrying so much junk on her persons, would she start letting go of some of that emotional baggage that is holding her down as well.

So far, she has been resistant to letting go of some of her physical baggage just like she has been very resistant in letting go of some of her emotional baggage, but I will keep working with her.

It’s important that we pay attention to our body language. It’s something as a psychotherapist I do all the time, pay attention to other people’s body language, and if you have 20 mins, it’s worth listening to Amy Cuddy drive home the importance of body language and how changing it can affect your mood.