Pat Myers

A simple headline in the Sunday newspaper caught my eye this morning. The headline states: “Girls may learn math anxiety from teachers”. Having struggled with math anxiety for most of my life and having seen many other women with similar struggles, I decided to dig a bit deeper into this study. Out of my frustration in high school math class I can remember foolishly thinking “I’ll never use this in my real life!” This is a contemporary problem as many girls see math as irrelevant to everyday problem solving. This current research was funded by the National Science foundation and completed by researchers from the University of Chicago. The researchers assessed the level of math anxiety in first and second grade teachers and looked at the relationship of math achievement and gender stereotypes. Ah gender stereotypes!

Being in my mid-fifties now, I can remember my junior high Home Economics teacher telling my all-girl class that most of us wouldn’t need much math beyond calculating the size of a roast needed for our husband’s work dinner parties. We wouldn’t be scientists or NASA mathematicians. We might need to know how to budget our husband’s salary but that wouldn’t demand the higher level math courses. It was fine if we didn’t do well or didn’t like our math classes. We also knew that girls who were smart in math were not liked by boys. We were told by mothers, teachers, books and movies that it was more important for us to know other feminine topics such as cooking and how to apply make-up and to leave the math to the boys. Of course this was just as the rise of feminism was beginning to rattle these limiting ideas and roles.

On the one hand we received liberal doses of the old stereotypes and on the other we were told we could have anything that men did. Women have put many cracks in the glass ceiling through the past several decades but this struggle with math doesn’t seem to be one of those yet. This current research does much to explain that math anxiety is the gift that keeps on giving generation after generation. This is not because girls and women are incapable but because we are passing on our own anxiety even as we teach the basic skills.

This study looked at 17 female teachers (90% of elementary school teachers are female). At the beginning of the school year the student’s math anxiety was unrelated to how the teacher felt about math. It was found that the more anxious the teacher was about math the lower the scores for the girls while boy’s scores were unaffected. In further testing, girls who accepted the idea that boys were naturally better at math continued to see declining math scores. This causes me to look at the reality that just as I passed on other characteristics to my daughter, I may have passed on my math anxiety to her as well.

As a teacher I have been open about my math anxiety hoping to inform my female students that they are not alone with that anxiety and that they can still be successful in spite of it. This study gives me pause that my sharing may have contributed more to increasing the problem not diminishing it. Role modeling appears to be a mixed blessing in this instance. One of the important conclusions from this study is the math anxiety can be decreased through increasing math requirements for elementary school teachers. I prefer to rephrase this conclusion to: the better the math training, the higher the female teacher’s math self-efficacy. Higher math self-efficacy in female math teachers leads to higher math scores and higher math self-efficacy for the girls. Self-efficacy in math (as in most areas of life!) has lasting benefits.

Perhaps a broader application for all of us who are in positions to influence the next generation of girls and young women is to take these conclusions very seriously and polish up our math skills and our attitudes about our math abilities. Instead of confessing to our math anxiety and accepting it, we need to work to overcome it. We want both girls and boys to achieve their full academic potential and we can achieve this by demonstrating how useful and empowering math knowledge can be.

Patricia Myers is a counselor, an associate professor of counselor education, and doctoral student.

Pat Myers

I was watching Rachel Maddow’s show the other night as she interviewed Tracy Kidder. Kidder has written several books including a moving one about Haiti called “Mountains beyond Mountains” that details the work of Paul Farmer and the organization Partners in Health (www.pih.org). Kidder also wrote a New York Times Op-Ed piece this week called “Country without a Net”. Please check out this information if you’re interested in learning more about Haiti. As Kidder talked with Rachel Maddow about a country that he clearly loves, he became more and more passionate about the ongoing needs of this cruelly destitute and misunderstood country.

I thought I’d use my blog entry as an opportunity to discuss the concept of social justice in light of the efforts of this one organization and its guiding principles as it works to serve the people of Haiti. This entry is, in part, a reaction to the hateful and unbelievably cruel comments of a radio talk show host who this week encouraged people to withhold giving. I do not even want to dignify this person by mentioning his name. The bigger reason for writing this entry is tied to my beliefs that most people do care, and will respond with gracious generosity when the need arises and the information is available. I believe there are very few people who could see the images of this disaster and not be moved to compassion.

PIH’s fight to provide quality health care should ring familiar to those of us who are paying attention to the current struggle in Congress regarding health reform. Partners in Health believe that health is a fundamental human right. In this endeavor the organization has developed a model of community based care. Their work is based on five principles: 1) Access to primary health care is the critical foundational piece to treat specific diseases, 2) Free health care and education for the poor so that all have access to quality health care, 3) Community Partnerships that involve community members at all levels from assessment to evaluation, 4) Addressing basic social and economic needs because fighting disease means fighting poverty, and 5) Serving the poor through the public sector is the most effective method to insure sustained access. PIH’s website states: “Service is the defining feature of PIH’s work, our trademark. Since our inception, it has served as a philosophy, an emblem, and a guide. We serve our patients, their communities, and the cause of equitable access to health care and other basic human rights”.

The values and principles of this organization fit the counseling profession’s definition of social justice. Samuel Gladding writes that major elements of a social justice approach includes helping clients identify and challenge the environmental limits to their success. The country of Haiti has and is facing monumental environmental limits. It’s now up to us whether they have any opportunity to challenge and overcome these limits.

Patricia Myers is a counselor, an associate professor of counselor education, and doctoral student.

Pat Myers

I’ve had a wonderful break with my family. We’ve eaten too much, watched lots of movies, and kept up our tradition of holiday jigsaw puzzles. On television and in the local newspaper a different kind of puzzle has been emerging: the year end reviews. These include lists of the most popular men and women, the year’s top news stories, the best and worst celebrities, and of course, the best ways to lose that weight gained over the holidays. By completing these reviews we somehow can try to make sense of where we’ve been this past year and perhaps figure out where the new year will take us. It is difficult not to give in and to get a bit nostalgic in trying to put the personal pieces of the year end puzzle together.

My experiences in 2009 were like those of many people: life was somewhat difficult. I say somewhat because I know there are those whose life circumstances make my life look like a fairy tale. Self pity cannot last long when reading about Darfur, or about the almost 300,000 homeless children in California, or about the soldiers killed today in Afghanistan. It is hard to maintain a singular selfish focus when my dear friend tells me her sister’s cancer has spread, or the work associate who thought she was cancer free, finds a new cancer has taken root and that she will again need the wig stashed in the back of the closet.

This comparison doesn’t deny my pain but instead puts it into a perspective. In January of 2009 my father died. This Christmas has been my first without him. PZ Myers (no relation) posts a touching column this week about his father’s death that rings true with me. He writes: “One of the lies we always tell ourselves is that the pain will go away with time, that we’ll get over it, that time heals all wounds, and it’s not true. Every loss is forever raw, and we can feel it all again with just a thought or a reminder, like a Christmas phone call to the family. The older you get, the more of these moments of grief you accumulate, and they never leave you”. Myers also states that while it is true that grief persists and even accumulates, joy and happiness also persist and accumulate. This leads me to Viktor Frankl’s words “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves”. This is a needed reminder that I can, and will experience pain and loss, and I can, and will also experience happiness and joy and, most importantly, I have the power to choose my response to both circumstances.

Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Holocaust survivor and amazing woman, puts it this way: “When you go to your home, look not at what is missing, but what is there.” So I continue my year end pondering realizing the pieces of the puzzle that I have forgotten to include are two of the most powerful. The first is how I will choose to respond as I face whatever 2010 has in store and the second is to take joy and be thankful now for everything with which I have been so richly blessed. I think I’m ready for the new year now.

Patricia Myers is a counselor, an associate professor of counselor education, and doctoral student.

Pat Myers

I like to scan news sites on my lunch hour to see how the world is doing. One headline that caught my eye this week dealt with loneliness being contagious. This article cited a new study recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. This ten year longitudinal study, which included 5000 people, found those of us who are lonely tend to pass this quality on to friends and family members as we move farther and farther to the edges of social life. The process is not quite like giving a cold to someone else but it is very similar. As the journey occurs from the center of social life to the lonely fringe, we shed relationships like too many warm clothes. By the time we arrive at our destination, we are alone or nearly so and those we’ve been in contact with experience their own journey into the solitary wasteland.

This appears to be one of those chicken and egg quandaries. Are we lonely because we’re negative or are we negative because we’re lonely? Both answers appear to have merit. Loneliness is correlated with social isolation, anxiety, shyness, low self-efficacy regarding social skills, and increased defensiveness and suspiciousness. As we move through life as a lonely person we become more and more convinced that this intimate connection is something that we cannot ever hope to obtain. As this conviction increases our social contact decreases. Loneliness is more than a social emptiness; it also has physical manifestations including stress reactions, high blood pressure, and compromised immunity. As our society moves into more virtual connections this appears to be an increasingly difficult assignment. Another longitudinal study, conducted by George Vaillant, also looked at the implications of social relationships over the lifespan. One of Vaillant’s conclusions was “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships with other people.” In McCartney and Lennon language “All You Need is Love”.

As we head into the holiday season, this loneliness can come into sharper focus for ourselves and our clients. As we watch happy families scurrying home with the Christmas tree tied to the roof of the car, and the endless commercials and shows on television showing perfect happy people, in beautiful homes, with loving friends and family, sharing wonderful meals with glittering ornaments and expensive gifts, it is easy to forget the person on the edge of the social circle. The person who may not have the family to share with, or the friends to exchange gifts with, because they feel they don’t know how to begin to make such friendships or have been so hurt by prior relationships that they’ve given up hope, or believe they are not worthy of this wonderful gift.

I have had numerous clients and students confess to me over the years that they were lonely and simply didn’t know where or how to begin to change this. One of my beliefs about the counseling process is that the therapeutic relationship has the capacity to revive a person’s hope that they are worthy and deserving of filling that need. As this hope revives, the therapeutic alliance can teach the basic positive skills needed to reach out to others. When clients can report that they’ve followed through on the homework of smiling at someone or saying hello and then are able to share the joy of a new friendship, I give thanks. I feel thankful to be part of a profession that values these necessities of life.

Patricia Myers is a counselor, an associate professor of counselor education, and doctoral student.

Pat Myers

Remember the childhood retort that ‘sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me’? If only this could be true! I can remember saying this on the playground to a now unknown tormentor only to turn away with tears streaming down my face. I’ve heard too many stories from too many people with similar stories. I’ve listened to many a client’s heartache over the harsh and painful words spoken by someone they loved. Words that they’ve taken deeply to heart. Words spoken twenty, thirty or more years ago that became the foundation of their identity. Words spoken with deliberation and cruelty or words spoken out of thoughtlessness or carelessness have the same painful impact.

Diane Setterfield writes “There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.” I’ve been unable to shake this quote since reading it a few days ago. While Setterfield is referring to the power that authors hold over those of us who are captive readers, I believe her quote applies to the counseling relationship. As I’ve been teaching beginning counseling students this year I’ve been reminded of both the magic as well as the power of words. I remember my hunger in graduate school to watch my professors demonstrate the art of counseling. I marveled at their choice of the right word at the right time that unlocked the client’s secret pain and allowed the process of healing to begin.

I still feel that thrill when I watch the masters of the counseling field (and am very thankful for video libraries and YouTube that allows me such easy access!). Recently in class we watched Carl Rogers and Gloria. It was thrilling to re-watch this master, learn from him yet again, and to see the novice counselors respond with the same wonder and enthusiasm. Beyond Rogers’ ability to be in the moment with Gloria, we marveled at his ability to choose the right word to bit by bit unlock her need. While words are just one avenue of expression of unconditional positive regard and need to be more than hollow, empty robotic responses if they are to mean anything, words can and do have lasting and healing power. The counseling relationship is truly an opportunity to allow words to work their magic.

Patricia Myers is a counselor, an associate professor of counselor education, and doctoral student.

Pat Myers

As I review textbooks on ethical, legal, and professional issues within the counseling profession I see almost identical lists of virtues and ethics that are the foundations of the profession. These lists all include the moral principles of justice, fidelity, and veracity. As counselors, we all know that a primary objective is nonmaleficence: to do no harm. The counterpoint to this principle of doing no harm is the principle of beneficence. Beneficence means to do good (a word with many meanings), and to promote well-being and health. Theodore Remley and Barbara Herlihy state “It could be argued that the obligation of ordinary citizens in our society ends with doing no harm to others, whereas professionals have a higher obligation to provide a service that benefits society. Thus, counselors actively do good or are helpful and work to promote the mental health and wellness of their clients”.

Last night when I got home from work I watched some news programs. One of the stories dealt with a free health care clinic held in New Orleans for which over 1000 people showed up for services. Many had not received any medical services since before Hurricane Katrina.  Rich Stockwell has written a sobering piece about this clinic that challenges me regarding the moral principles of justice and beneficence. Stockwell writes that “health reform is not about Democrats or Republicans or who can score political points for the next election, it’s about people. It’s about fairness and justice…” According to research published in the American Journal of Public Health (2009) the lack of health insurance is associated with the death of 44,789 Americans yearly.

Currently more than 46 million Americans lack health care coverage. It is easy to lose sight in the midst of these numbers that we are talking about real people and not just statistics. Chances are that each of us knows at least one person who is uninsured. Focus on that person’s face as you consider this issue. The challenge, as I see it, is how as counselors we are going to promote beneficence both within and outside of our counseling sessions. How do we promote well-being and health for those who can not afford us? Please share about the counselors and programs that you know of, or ideas you have about promoting beneficence and justice.

Patricia Myers is a counselor, an associate professor of counselor education, and doctoral student.

Pat Myers

It is the day after the horrific shootings at Fort Hood. Once again we find ourselves frightened by the violent events that seem to make no sense and for which we have no context to find meaning. The news stations and websites are filled with details, endless speculations, and ongoing analysis. As I scanned these headlines I saw an article on one of the heroes of this tragedy, a female police officer who is credited with stopping the assault while she herself was seriously wounded. Sgt. Kimberly Munley risks her life daily as a police officer. An article on MSNBC states that Sgt. Munley’s Twitter account shows the following quote: “I live a good life. … a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone’s life.” That single statement resonates with me although I cannot say that I have ever had the opportunity or the courage to save any lives.

When I listen to the reasons that prospective students give for wanting to pursue a degree in counseling, it seems to result in a similar sentiment: wanting to make a difference. There is a significant human yearning for life to have meaning beyond just mere existence. The life story approach to identity development places its focus on the self within the narrative. “The stories we live by reflect subjectively recalled, specific, and vivid experiences, drawn together in a life narrative” (McLean & Pratt, 2006). What are the stories that are part of your life narrative? My ‘hero’ when I was growing up was Robert F. Kennedy. His run for the presidency instilled in me a life long love of politics. I was in middle school when he was assassinated and I can still paraphrase the statement his brother Ted made in his eulogy: He saw wrong and tried to right it, he saw suffering and tried to heal it, and he saw war and tried to stop it. Robert F. Kennedy was the reason I became first a social worker and then a counselor. He modeled for me the philosophy that faith without action is an empty faith.

I was drawn to a helping field to help mediate the pain of others. Research on adolescent’s identity development finds that memories about relationships and mortality events have more meaning than other memories in the structuring of identity. Another factor that has import is the emotionality of events. Looking back on the 1960’s it is difficult to find another time in my life for which the word emotionality would more apply. One theory about the reason for this is that negative events have more impact on identity development because a negative event is more memorable. It stands out more easily than a positive event. Where were you 9/11/01? You can probably easily answer that. Where were you 10/11/01? If you are like me you probably have no idea. So what does all this mean? First of all the events of yesterday are simply horrible. Many lives were irrevocably changed. Hopes and dreams are now shattered or seriously damaged. People are hurting and desperate to find answers and to make some sense for themselves so they can move forward with some sense of hope. Erik Erikson’s theory about the implications of crisis to identity formation is in focus at times like this. And it is for times like this that those of us who want to make a positive difference, who see making a difference as a core aspect of our identity, and who have committed our lives to be trained to make a difference, need to step forward and do so.

This event will shape identity one way or another. It will either turn more people to choose the shooter’s narrative of violence and hopelessness or turn more to choose Sgt. Munley’s narrative of positive difference making. As Robert F. Kennedy said: “Each time a man stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” I choose hope.

Patricia Myers is a counselor, an associate professor of counselor education, and doctoral student.

Pat Myers

My husband and I recently made the heartbreaking decision to euthanize our eleven year old beloved dog Lucy. As we have grieved her loss the counselor part of me has been trying to make some sense of both the process of grief as well as psychological importance of the loss of a pet. I know all the research about how pets enhance our well-being. At this moment of loss the scales seem horribly tipped in favor of never experiencing this pain again.

One morning when I was feeling particularly sad about Lucy I remembered a client from years ago. This woman sought counseling following the death of both a parent and a sibling. She spoke powerfully of the months she had cared for her mother as she died. She stoically described caring for her brother as he too faced death just a few short months later. Then her eyes filled with tears and she began to sob as she spoke of the loss of her dog. She alternately expressed grief and foolishness. “Why should I be crying like this? He was just a dog! Right?” This sentiment is the crux of why more people do not disclose to their therapists or anyone else, the heartbreak of losing a pet.

The research I found contradicts the notion of pets as non-important and instead supports the idea that in America we consider our pets as significant attachment figures because they are part of our families. Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby may have been researching human to human attachment but their findings apply also to pets. Anyone who has ever loved an animal knows the extent and the power of this attachment. Why should therapists care about this issue? According to the Humane Society of the United States over 75 million Americans own dogs and over 88 million own cats (cats would beg to differ with who the owner really is but that’s another issue). The chances are any given counselor has several clients who are pet owners. Bruce Sharkin and Donna Knox wrote about the implications of pet loss for therapists in Professional Psychology; Research and Practice in 2003. They point out some significant facts that are worth review. To start with the grief response is similar whether we are grieving a significant person or an animal. We feel numbness, guilt, sadness and depression as we process the loss. We may feel exceptionally guilty if we’ve made the decision to euthanize our pet.

Those of us who live alone may have the most difficulty coping with this loss. One significant factor in aiding recovery is the degree of understanding received from others. Over the past few weeks I have found it extremely helpful to receive kind comments from others about our loss. At first I cried openly at these comments and now I take comfort. Women may experience the loss more intensely than men. Although one man, in expressing his condolences, stated that it took him over five years to get over the death of his first dog. He looked very sad as he told about this loss. The implications for professionals include: asking about pet ownership and pet attachment at intake. This made such common sense to me that I can’t believe it never occurred to me to ask for this information. When people consider a pet as part of the family this is important information. Another implication is understanding the attachment to the pet.

Lucy was more than ‘just a dog’. Lucy is intricately interwoven in my memories of my daughter’s childhood. Lucy’s loss also represents the loss of this linkage to the past. The third implication is for therapists to help clients acknowledge their loss. This is very difficult to do if I am afraid your response will be negative. As we were making our decision I began to cry and the kind assistants in the office allowed and encouraged me to do so. I am thankful that I have not had the experience from anyone telling me she was just a dog and so I shouldn’t feel this way. We feel the way we feel and being able to explore our pain honestly and openly is what therapy is all about. Good therapy supports and invites healthy coping whether it is coping with the loss of a person, a job, or a pet. Each day that passes makes Lucy’s loss more bearable and the pain less acute. I hope that reading this blog will enable someone to support a grieving pet owner with more sensitivity. There are millions of us out there counting on it!

Patricia Myers is a counselor, an associate professor of counselor education, and a doctoral student.