3. Science Has Changed Our World
• A quick trip from Eugene to Denver
• In 1850 it took two months to get a letter from
Utah to California
• Cholera in London in 1854
3
5. Human Conflict: The Fundamental
Process Driving Most Problem
Development
• Involved in the development of
aggressive social behavior
• Involved in marital discord
• Involved in the interactions of
depressed people with those
around them.
5
6. Effect of Maltreatment
and Poverty on Health
• Meta-analysis of 24 studies
– Adults with a history of maltreatment were 2.77 times
more likely to have stroke or myocardial infarction.
• Poverty in childhood leads to adults having
– A 20%–40% Increased risk of all-cause mortality:
– Excess risk of 30-60% for CVD across studies
– Effects even among those who have increased their
SES as adults; 20-40% range for CVD
– Maternal nurturance prevents these effects!
6
11. Threat Rewires the Brain
for Evolutionary Reasons
• Genetic, epigenetic, neuroscience, and behavior analysis are
converging to show that stressful and threatening
environments result in
– Impaired self-regulation,
– Hyper vigilance
– Mistrust of others,
– Poor social relationships,
– Deviant peer group formation
– Early childrearing32
– Depression33
– Obesity
– Cardiovascular disease
• This pattern of behavior further increases the
chances of stress and further physiological
harm. (Miller, Chen, Fok, et al., 2009).
11
12. “The scientific foundation
has been created for the
nation to begin to create a
society in which young
people arrive at adulthood
with the skills, interests,
assets, and health habits
needed to live healthy,
happy, and productive lives
in caring relationships with
others.”
12
14. Nurturing Environments
The Generic Features
• Minimize toxic social and biological conditions
• Teach, promote and richly reinforce diverse forms of
prosocial behavior
• Limit influences and opportunities for problem
behavior
• Promote psychological flexibility—a mindful approach
to pursuing one’s values
– More than 100 randomized trials showing the value of
psychological flexibility for a wide variety of psychological,
behavioral, and health problems.
14
15. Teach, Promote, and Richly Reinforce
Prosocial Values and Behavior
• Every day in virtually every interaction
with a young person (or an older
person), we have an opportunity to
recognize, appreciate, and make more
likely social behavior that helps others,
contributes their self-development, or
helps their community.
15
16. Limit Influences and Opportunities
for Problem Behavior
• Influences: Tobacco, Alcohol, and
Unhealthful Food Marketing
• Opportunities: Deviant Peer Influences
16
18. Suppose That the Wide Variety of
Consequences of Trauma Are All for
the Purpose of Avoiding Distressing
Experience?
• Drinking
• Taking Drugs
• Getting Angry
• Avoiding “difficult” situations
• Staying in bed
• Worrying
• Self-denigrating
• Complaining
18
19. Experiential Avoidance
Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ)
1. I am able to take action on a problem even if I am
uncertain what is the right thing to do.
3. When I feel depressed or anxious, I am unable to
take care of my responsibilities.
6. When I evaluate something negatively, I usually
recognize that this is just a reaction, not an objective
fact.
8. Anxiety is bad.
19
20. Experiential Avoidance
is associated with
– Higher anxiety
– More depression
– More overall pathology
– Poorer work
performance
– Inability to learn
– Substance abuse
– Lower quality of life
– Trichotillomania
– History of sexual abuse
– High risk sexual behavior
– BPD symptomatology
and depression
– Thought suppression
– Alexithymia
– Anxiety sensitivity
– Long term disability
– Worry
20
21. The Traditional Moves
• Think positive thoughts
• Control those negative thoughts and feelings
• Get your psychological ducks in a row
• When you are confident you can move
mountains
• Shake it off
21
22. But
• Learning never subtracts.
• Efforts to control unwanted thoughts and
feelings just magnify them.
22
27. What do you want your
life to be about?
• Values are chosen life directions. They’re the compass
headings you choose to guide the direction you want to travel
in life
• Values are not what others want for you. They’re what you
want for yourself.
• Values are not something to be right or wrong about. You
don’t need to explain or defend them.
• Values are continuous.
• They are the answers to the question “In an ideal world how
would you choose to act on an ongoing basis. What do you
want to keep on doing (verbs) and how do you want to keep
on doing it (adverbs)?
27
28. What do we want to keep doing?
• Playing
• Acting
• Behaving
• Interacting
• Working
• Being
• Performing
• Getting along
• Helping
• Living
• Learning
• Giving
• Applying
• Serving
• Relating
• Connecting
• Caring
• Nurturing
• Loving
• Speaking up
• Sharing
• Communicating
• Embracing
• Engaging
• Contributing28
30. A Celebration
• If five years from now, there was an event
where a group of the people you have worked
with had a gathering to celebrate your work,
what would you like them to be saying about
the qualities of your work with them?
• Notice the thoughts that come up for you.
30
32. Open—Making Room
• Acceptance
– Falling into a hole
– A tug of war?
• Defusion
– “I’m having the thought that…”
– Writing them on a piece of paper
– Wear a name tag…
• Willingness
32
36. So what is mindfulness, then?
• Choosing to pay purposeful, curious attention
to the present moment
• Noticing with your five senses
• Noticing thoughts as “mental weather”
• When you get “hooked” by a thought, gently
noticing and bringing yourself back to the
present moment
• Making room for all of your sensations,
thoughts, and emotions as they are
• Saying “yes” to the present moment
37. 37
The Benefits of Mindfulness
handling pain
connection
less worrying
less judgmental
less reactive
39. The Self and Perspectives
• Glimpses of your life
• Who is watching?
• The Other:
– Someone who troubles you in some way?
– What are they
• Seeing?
• Thinking?
• Feeling?
39
40. Self-Compassion
Take care of ourselves first
Put on our own oxygen
mask before we help others
The heart first pumps blood to
itself
40
43. Thinking about Our Relationships
with Others
• What do you want your relationships with
other people to be like?
• What thoughts and feelings come up that pull
you away from nurturing those relationships?
• What behaviors do those thoughts and
feelings engender?
• What actions can you take in the service of
your values?
43
44. Forbearance and Forgiveness
• When Charles C. Roberts stormed an Amish
school house and killed five young schoolgirls
before he killed himself, the Amish community
expressed its forgiveness by attending his funeral
and raising money for Roberts’s widow and three
small children. Those three small children must
live out their lives knowing that their father
committed a horrendous act. They will face
difficulties in any case. But which will be better for
them: knowing that the families of their father’s
victims hate them, or knowing that those families
have forgiven their father and care for them?
44
45. Ghandi
• When Mohandas Gandhi vowed to fast until
all violence between Hindus and Muslims
ended, a Hindu man came to him and
confessed that he had killed a Muslim boy as
revenge for the killing of his son. He implored
Gandhi to end his fast because he didn’t want
to have Gandhi’s death on his soul. Gandhi
told him that he could atone for his sin by
finding a Muslim child whose parents had
been killed in the religious riots and raising
that child as a Muslim (Gandhi 1998).
45
46. The Civil Rights Revolution
• During Martin Luther King’s nonviolent
movement to end segregation, civil rights
activists subjected themselves to violent
attacks. In so doing, they inspired the
sympathy and support of enough
Americans that segregation ended.
46
47. In South Africa
• Under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, a Truth
and Reconciliation Commission was created
to address the many wrongs that had been
done during apartheid. The commission
invited victims of apartheid to give statements
about their experiences. Perpetrators of
violence were also invited to give testimony
and could request amnesty from both civil
and criminal prosecution. The process is
generally credited with having prevented a
great deal of retaliatory violence.
47
48. And at home:
• A mother patiently changes the dirty diaper
of a crying child.
48
49. Compassion and Acceptance
• Compassion is a basic human kindness,
accompanied by an awareness of the suffering of
oneself and other living beings, coupled with a
wish and an effort to relieve it. Paul Gilbert
• “Acceptance is not merely tolerance – it is the
active non-judgmental embracing of experience
in the here and now. Acceptance involves
undefended “exposure” to thoughts, feelings and
bodily sensations as they are directly experienced
to be.” Steven C. Hayes
49
52. Responding to Criticism
• Get More Information
– Active Listening
• Nonverbal attention—A posture of curiosity
• Paraphrasing—Listening to the message; Reflecting it back;
Discovering the speaker’s intent
– Ask for Details—Requesting clarifying information
– Guess—When the other person can’t think of a
specific example, you come up with one.
• Agreement—Seek it out wherever it exists
– Agree with facts—Be explicit in your agreement
– Agree with critic’s perception—acknowledge the
critics perception is reasonable.
53. Raising Delicate Issues
• Ask for the opportunity to discuss your concern.
– Indicate that you have a concern, while making clear that your
intention is not to hurt the other person.
– Edit out accusative language and red flag terms
• Pinpoint Details
– Describe exactly what the other person said or did, when they
said or did it
• Acknowledge your part
– Search for and communicate what you may have done that
contributed to the problem
• Agree on a solution
– Develop a solution that you both create and both implement
