To me, it’s almost painfully appropriate that this ran on Groundhog Day. In my striving to become who I want to be, it feels like I live the same challenges over and over…and over…and over.

Allison your first paragraph may be the best I’ve read anywhere on this topic, and your post as a whole is as good or better than any I’ve received on this assignment.

KICK. ASS. Remind me why I was so afraid to get started on this? What I’m finding is once again, when I hit a level of flow with a project, the words just pour out. Of course, it took me several hours of research and outlining to get to flow (sheesh, for a flipping three-paragraph paper), but still…I’m feeling pretty good.

The piece in question was for this assignment: Discuss in a posting whether or not and in what ways you think scholarly psychologists (scholar-practitioners) who understand scientific methods in psychology are indispensable in the process of resolving contemporary social problems or issues and achieving constructive social change. In what ways might the future well-being of humankind hinge on greater input from psychologists and social scientists from related fields? What obstacles might there be to addressing these problems and issues more scientifically?

My response:

Chocolate, meet peanut butter.

“Scholar.” For me, this word conjures images of serious-minded academics, rising above the fray of daily minutiae, engaged in highly important (if, perhaps, irrelevant to daily life) research about their chosen subject. This (admittedly stereotypical) scholar relies on the scientific method for accurate findings, and uses proven techniques in the testing of promising hypotheses. The scholar might also be a bit removed from reality, and the discovery process may move along at a red-tape-induced trudge. “Practitioner.” A practitioner is what I have always imagined myself becoming, in some way, shape, or form. The practitioner gets things done, helps people in a real-world sense, and has a firm grasp of the issues facing society. Yet, this word, too, is not without worrisome connotations. As a practitioner, I fear I could find myself so buried in the day-to-day workings of my field that I fail to notice when the world (or proven technique) changes around me. Or, if I neglect to apply critical thinking in my practice, I may fall prey to lazy thinking and the next “big trend” in helping my clientele. By bringing together these concepts, I will have the best of both worlds as a scholar-practitioner: the scientific method matched with insight about which subjects to investigate, innovative ideas with a foot firmly planted in reality, and the ability to view from both a 10,000-foot and 10-milimeter perspective. I believe the scholar-practitioner mode of professional practice is indispensible for solving the problems that face our society.

To see the potential impact of a scholar-practitioner approach, one need look no farther than the American Psychological Association’s annual award winners in applied research. Recent winners have changed how the insanity plea applies in the courtroom (‘Award,’ 2008), quantified actual effectiveness of various forms of psychotherapy (‘Award,’ 2007), and opened avenues of government funding for further behavioral health research — funding that was previously only available to “hard” medicine (‘2006 Award,’ 2006). A scholar-practitioner doesn’t have to wait until becoming a lifetime achievement award-winning psychologist to have an impact. Even at the level of a single middle school, a counselor can employ the scientific method to determine which factors help students achieve, develop intervention programs, and assess the value of those programs (Ware & Galassi, 2006). Sometimes, change happens in great leaps; more often, the well-being of mankind is supported one student at a time.

The interplay of research and application certainly has impact; but, the road to application is not without bumps. Anti-scientific attitudes — postmodern thought, the belief in pseudoscience, and a lack of understanding of what is (and isn’t) good science — allow many unproven ideas to propagate at a much quicker rate than is possible for well-grounded research (Ruscio, 2006). In some cases, researchers encounters resistance from people who assume they already have the answers, as in educational psychology, where “just about everybody, having gone to school, thinks he or she is an expert on education—‘funding is abysmally low,’ ‘practical problems are intractable,’ the Feds don’t understand us,’ and so on” (Burkhardt & Schoenfeld, 2003, p.13). In still other instances, both the research and its application are unknowingly tainted by unconscious bias. In one English school teachers began to see special needs students where they didn’t exist. They had been given statistics of special needs students (statistics that were, in the first place, based on questionable research design) and started to unconsciously categorize their students to fit the expected ratios (Thomas & Loxley, 2005). Throughout the profession of psychology, purists to the assorted schools of thought may hinder progress with all-or-nothing approaches to the application of beliefs they hold close.

Regardless of the difficulties I may encounter, I am motivated to become what Dr. (Hard-Ass) referred to as “an eclectic applied psychologist,” someone who can recognize the value of the various perspectives and apply them as I see fit. It is my goal as a student — and future practitioner — to recognize reality for what it is and move forward accordingly, with the best information the scientific method can supply.

References

2006 award winners: award for distinguished professional contributions to applied research (2006). American Psychologist, Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0003-066X.61.8.875b

Award for distinguished professional contributions to applied research (2008). American Psychologist, Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0003-066X.63.8.773b

Award for distinguished professional contributions to applied research (2007). American Psychologist, Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.8.854b

Burkhardt, H. & Schoenfeld, A. (2003). Improving educational research: toward a more useful, more influential, and better-funded enterprise. Educational Researcher 2003; 32; 3. Retrieved December 11, 2008, from Sage Online Journals.

Ruscio, J. (2006). Critical thinking in psychology: separating sense from nonsense (Second Ed.). Belmont, California: Wadsworth , Cengage Learning.

Thomas, G. & Loxley, A. (2005). Discourses on bad children and bad schools. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38(2), 175-182. Retrieved December 11, 2008, from Education Research Complete database.

Ware, W. & Galassi, J. (2006). Using correlational and prediction data to enhance student achievement in K-12 schools: A practical application for school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 9(5), 344-356. Retrieved December 11, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database.

I should mention here that I simply love researching, to the point where I have to MAKE. MYSELF. STOP. AND. FREAKING. WRITE. ALREADY. The flow of ideas for “Oh! I could write about this! Or this! What about this!” is a total thrill for me. Yes, I am *that* nerdy.

Allison: This is an excellent first post. It is well written and has substance.

Granted, this feedback was from a throwaway 1-credit “foundations” class…but still, booyah. Remember all those non-traditional type college students who were annoying with how they threw the curve and made the rest of us work harder? Yeah, that’s me now.

Character Education.

It’s so simple in retrospect, but that is the phrase I was seeking that describes — at least in part — what it is that I will do. While most of the resources I find on a first glance are related to children’s education, I want to work on something broader, and include education of the self (knowing yourself, accepting yourself, etc.) as part of my ideal.

Babbling…just needed to get this down while I’m frantically trying to get my first assignment(s) done.

Amazing how the right people happen to fall into my lap. My first professor has a specialty in character education, and as I looked through his notes, I saw my path. Just needed a signpost, darn it.

Why do Asperger men and Neuro-typical women get married?
AS men are attracted to strong, intelligent, compassionate women who can handle the social world for them. These same women are attracted to the unconventional nature and boyish charm of AS men. They feel he will allow them their independence. It is only later that they learn their AS partner is quite conservative. Instead of supporting her independence the NT wife realizes that her AS husband is merely disinterested in her interests. His attention is narrowly focused on his interests.

(Source)

To say that I have a lot on my mind doesn’t even begin to describe it. When I sort my thoughts out a bit more, I may write about them. Then again, considering the subject (my marriage), I may not. On the plus side, Mike is incredibly motivated to meet my needs — as long as he can actually figure them out. That’s the hard part.

Congratulations! On behalf of Walden University, I am pleased to offer you contingent acceptance to the Master of Science in Psychology with a specialization in Social Psychology program. You begin your program with an online orientation on December 1, 2008. This email will serve as your official letter.

Hoo boy. Here we go. Guess since I’ve been talking about doing this for nearly 5 years, it’s about darned time.

The New, True, Eudaimonic You

Eudaimonia refers to a state of well-being and full functioning that derives from a sense of living in accordance with one’s deeply held values—in other words, from a sense of authenticity. Some characteristics of the eudaimonic life include:

• Being open to experience without censorship or distortion
• Living fully in the moment, so the self feels fluid rather than static
• Trusting inner experience to guide behavior
• Feeling free to respond rather than automatically react to life events
• Taking a creative approach to living, rather than relying on routine and habit.

Today’s focus at Psychology Today online is authenticity. The timing couldn’t be better, considering that much of my recent focus (in my head, even when not written up here) has been on trying to parse out reality from distortion, especially when it comes to my picture of myself.

You see, lately, I haven’t been enjoying being me much of the time. This isn’t an all-the-time phenomena, but it’s frequent enough that I’m puzzling over whether my life might need some big changes. Over the past 10+ years, authenticity has become the trait that I most desire in myself. Sometimes, that just means shedding away self-censorship and dancing without worry about who might see. Other times, it means recognizing and admitting — even embracing — parts of myself that aren’t so desirable. It’s this second item that has troubled me lately — troubled me enough that blogging has been sporadic at best. Yes, I’ve thrown up periodic parenting and political thoughts or humor, but that involves no risk. It doesn’t expose any of myself — at least not any tender spots.

Saying that I’m a cranky, mean, caustic bitch more often lately than I care to admit? That’s a little harder for me to swallow. But I’m a NICE person, damn it!

Last night, I was chatting with an online friend (hi, Linda!) about my lack of writing and how it’s affected my own mental state. As would seem obvious, she said, “Well, write, then.” “But, but…some people I know for REAL read this blog, even if it’s only every once in a while.” “Does that really matter?” (This is paraphrased. The actual exchange was much longer.) When I thought about it, I realized that no, it shouldn’t matter. Some of the issues I need to consider — ones that might hurt people’s pride and/or feelings — are important enough that I need to just dive in.

What this means is that things might be a little uncomfortable around here in the coming days/weeks/months while I try to get my head on straight. While I don’t like “uncomfortable,” I spent most of my childhood avoiding it, just to end up with severe depression in my mid-twenties. My sense is that in order to get the ugly to go away, I have to plow through it; there is no over or around.

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

Sorry for the vagueness. I’m still steeling myself to strip off all the veneer and get emotionally naked. (Hey, will that word raise my hit count?) Here’s hoping I can swim through without drowning in my own head!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve started to wonder (fear, actually) that I might need my meds adjusted upward. Anxiety has crept in. A general cantankerousness has joined my normally happy demeanor. I’m not excited about my life. And most of all, I find myself engaging in a thought script that involves a lot of doubt about myself, my life, and my choices. All of these are big red flag type indicators that something is amiss. But I’m only now spending the time delving in. Why?

For one thing, I’d be lying if I said pride wasn’t a factor. Yes, I might be on an antidepressant, but I’m on a low dose, and have never needed anything more than that. Pretty stupid, huh?

Beyond that, I have a case of fear-based “what if”s. What if I raise the dose, and that only helps for a brief time before I start tumbling again? What if I am *gasp* irreparably broken? If so, why fight? Why not just accept? Well, there is that teensy issue that life quickly becomes not worth much if I do give in.

Finally, I realized that if I’m needing a dose-boost, perhaps that means that there are non-medication fixes that I need in my life. Okay, not “perhaps” there are, but undoubtedly, there are changes that I need to make. And the biggest change I need to make is that I must — just must — get thoughts out of my head for processing more often. I rarely write any more, and when I do, it’s not of much substance, just a quote and a quip.

So, here I am, with a brain full-to-bursting of ideas, thoughts, emotions, and writing material. Why am I not writing?

Self-censorship.

This is a big deal, one that I’ve touched upon before. Wow, how much things have changed since those days, huh? What remains true is that for me to write well, I need to allow myself the freedom to write whatever strikes me, without worry about who’s reading. Does that mean I should just journal privately? Well, no — I don’t think so. Part of the fulfilling nature of writing for me is in having feedback (even the absence of feedback is feedback)!

Crap. I realize now, I’m censoring myself even in writing about censorship. Crap, crap, crap.

Moving on (since I’m a bit stuck), I moved to my current town (and it IS a town — only 20k people give or take, and an hour+ drive to Santa Fe) in February. As a result, while I have a few “friends” those friendships are more of the acquaintance variety. And, I do have a few very close friendships I maintain remotely, but how much do I want to dump on those folks with what’s in my head? At least one of my good friends, I’ve come to almost develop a complex about how much I’ve used her ear as I’ve struggled (yes, struggled) through the last two years. Yet, just the way my mind works (truly, I am very much an extrovert in how I process information), I must get thoughts out of my head in order to make sense of them. If I just think things over, it’s as if my brain is scratched CD. I’ll move on to other thoughts, just to have my current issue grab me again. If I write thoughts down, I can swim around in them a bit, picking them up and examining them one at a time, rearranging them until they make a modicum of sense to me. I can find patterns rather than being stuck with details. Telling my thoughts as a story, the story starts to take shape. I have a somewhat cohesive (if confusing) whole rather than a million discreet bits of mental debris.

But, if I write about my husband, he has this address. If I write about my beliefs regarding religion, it feels like I alienate people whom I love dearly, but who I know are believers. And in some cases, I have people I know in real life who read, but might not have the maturity of tact when sharing my thoughts with others.

Is it time for a new blog? What does it mean to be authentically myself, complete with the ugly parts and inconsistencies, and how do I balance that with kindness and compassion?

Whatever the answer, I need to find an outlet for all of this clutter that’s in my head. It’s making me crazy.

I don’t feel like going into the reasons for now, but we’re staying put probably until the Summer, and figuring out some way to move to the Denver area instead. Am I crushed? Nah. At this point, I’m so exhausted from the drama that has dragged out for five months, that I’m simply relieved to have the decision-making power back in our hands.

Harrumph. Huh…my uncle asked what we’re doing for Christmas, and I realized that I have NO FREAKIN’ IDEA. I thought we’d be frantically packing to be ready to load a shipping container bound for Europe. Guess not.

Last pregnancy, my skin was smooth and glowing. This time, I’m breaking out and oily. Oh, and I have extra hairs on my chinny-chin-chin.

Last pregnancy, I craved all-sugar-all-the-time. This time? Chicken. Bring me the chicken, darn it.

Last pregnancy, I got wide, and my belly grew low. This time? Well, I’m still getting wide (sigh…darned hips and thighs), but my belly is way the heck up near my ribcage. Let’s not discuss how much I weigh now at 21 weeks. The idea of piling 19ish pounds on top of that scares the bejesus out of me. Oddly, though, I feel great. I mean really, really great. And I love the belly enough that the butt and thighs are just annoying tag-alongs.

As different as everything is, and from the hint I got from intelligender, I had an inkling that this just might not be another girlie-girl. Nah. It’s a boy-boy-boy.

Gee, ya think? There was no room for questioning at this ultrasound. Not only did baby boy show the goods, he showed ALL the goods (seriously, we could see scrotum), multiple times. “Hi! I’m here! I’m HAPPY!”

He’s developing at a pretty normal pace, too, which relieves me and my fears of “what if this kid has a noggin as big as his dad’s?”

Looks pretty cozy in there, to me. I wouldn’t mind a recliner like that.

Since learning (three weeks ago, sorry to be so late) that this is a he-baby, we sorted through Maya’s piles (and piles) of baby clothing and packed a 30+ pound box to ship to Iowa to Mike’s sister, who’s having a girl next month. No, we haven’t decided for sure whether this will be “the end” for us, but why let all those cute things just sit unused? The universe will surely reciprocate should we have another baby girl down the road. And for this one, friends have given me stacks of boy duds to start with. And, of course, we *had* to buy a few new-to-this-baby items, just because we could. Who knew that boy clothing could be so fun?

We still don’t have timing on the move to Austria. Our last update was mid-October, that the Director General of the IAEA had signed off the paperwork, THEN it was going back to personnel, and THEN it would be sent to us. Maybe by Thanksgiving we’ll have details? Whatever, Mike knows that if we hit mid-January (32 weeks) without a move, I will seriously look at moving to Colorado until after the baby’s born. He says he will NOT let that happen.

So, that’s what’s up here…we’re still preparing for a big move in the December/January timeframe, but getting yanked around about the details. We’re told this is quite normal, and to expect things to move VERY quickly once they finally get us the paperwork. Wait and hurry-up.