Kathy Radina Counseling

Kathy Radina Counseling Permanently Closed. I am happily retired.

10/10/2022

What is Your Families Stress Level?
By Kathy Radina, M.Ed. | March 25, 2009

Lots of us are worried. The economy is scary, the employment outlook is scary, losing health insurance is scary, our bank and retirement accounts look scary, and even the banks guarding our money look scary. I haven’t even mentioned war, anger, poor communication, teens or… well, you get the idea. In spite of all of this, many of us are doing just fine, and we actually find time to laugh and enjoy each other despite the frightening world we share.
How about you? How are you and your family doing in these uncertain times? To assess the stress in your house, grab your family and take the Family Stress Test, a tool provided by The Link Community Resource Center in Negaunee, Michigan.

Answer 0 if the statement is never true for your family, 1 if it is rarely true, 2 if it is sometimes true and 3 if it is always true.

1)___We often talk about our feelings.
2)___It seems we argue a lot.
3)___I know what is important to my kids.
4)___(For couples) Sometimes marriage is disappointing.
5)___(For single parents) I’m comfortable being single.
6)___The kids get upset that we argue.
7)___We have enough money for the important things.
8)___We have conflicts about how much to spend and on what.
9)___Work is important, but family is our top priority.
10)___We don’t listen enough.
11)___(For couples) Our relationship is strong.
12)___(For single parents) My kids are upset when I date.
13)___(For couples) We both feel good about our roles as parents.
14)___It seems as if someone is always mad at someone else.
15)___(For single parents) The kids like my choice of dates.
16)___Too much work is getting to me.
17)___Tension in our house is rare.
18)___(For single parents) Being single has been very hard for me.
19)___The kids are doing well in school.
20)___There is never enough time.
21)___Everyone in the family has a job and does it without being nagged.
22)___(For couples) We argue about who should do what with the kids.
23)___We eat together daily.
24)___It is impossible to get the kids to do anything around here.
25)___Vacations together turn out well.
26)___I’ve been called in to school to discuss my child’s behavior.

Total the odd and even numbered questions separately.

What Your Score Means

Odd numbered questions with a total of 33 and above, or even numbered questions with a total of 17 or less: Congratulations. Your family has good skills and attitudes, which help you handle life’s stresses. This makes your home life rich and satisfying.

For odd numbered questions with a total of 25-32 or even numbered questions with a total of 18-24: 
You have a strong start. Try practicing your good skills and positive attitudes more to create even more harmony at home.

For odd numbered questions with a total of 18-24 or even numbered questions with a total of 26-32: 
You are probably under a lot of stress. Look carefully at these questions and think about ways to improve your score. Remember: It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help.

For odd numbered questions with a total of 17 or less, and even numbered questions with a total of 33 and above: Taking action now is very important for your family’s health and happiness. Reach out to friends, family or professionals in these tough times to help your family deal with its stress. Like Anthony Brandt said,

“Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.”

Kathy Radina, M.Ed. is a counselor in Carefree.

10/10/2022

How Defense Mechanisms help us survive
By Kathy Radina, M. Ed. | June 24, 2009

He was a large man, tall and muscular from the physical labor he did every day as a framing contractor. At first he tried to suppress the tears, but they got the better of him, and ended up streaming down his face.

Just minutes earlier he was so filled with rage he was punching his fist on his thigh with such force I was worried he would hurt himself.

The reason for all this emotion? He was convinced his wife of eight years, the dark haired, petite mother of three who sat across from him in my office, was having an affair.

She was pleading with him, and me. When would she have time for an affair? She worked full time and was raising three children. He knew where she was every minute. Frankly, she was getting a little tired of having to report to him, and being accused of infidelity each time she went to buy groceries.

Here's the interesting thing. I knew that she was faithful, and that HE was the one who was attracted to another woman, a waitress he met in a cafe he frequently visited. He was using a classic Defense Mechanism as described by Sigmund Freud called Projection. He was taking his uncomfortable thoughts and feelings and attributing them to his wife.

Freud? That old timer? Yep.

Today, Freud’s basic constructs have been expanded, improved upon and updated to more accurately reflect current thinking. He was the father of it all, a genius, whose theories have become a part of our common vocabulary.

According to Freud, a Defense Mechanism is a distortion of reality. Something we do unconsciously to protect ourselves. He described 10, but not all of them make sense today.

I’m going to share my favorites with you, and you can see which ones you use to keep yourself safe. Don't even start to think that you don't use Defense Mechanisms, because we all do at one time or another.

My personal favorite is Rationalization. It means explaining away actions in a seemingly logical way to avoid uncomfortable feelings, especially shame and guilt. Examples might be, "Everyone cheats on their taxes" and "Just one more cigarette won't hurt."

The ability to keep dangerous or threatening thoughts from even entering our conscious mind is called Repression. How can an eight year old manage to go to third grade after watching her drunken father beat her mother ... again? Simple, she represses the memory, goes to school and learns long division.

Another great lifesaver is Denial. With Denial, we protect ourselves from unpleasant realities by simply not being aware of them. What we don’t know can’t hurt us. For example, the parent whose teenager suddenly looks red-eyed and is sleeping more than usual, and might find the idea of substance use hard to face, so he simply fails to notice the signs.

Bringing Defense Mechanisms into consciousness is the first step toward resolution. The awareness that he was Projecting allowed the framing contractor to examine HIS issues regarding the waitress. You may be happy to know he also realized he wasn’t about to give up an eight-year marriage, for a restaurant attraction.

In summary, it is only fitting to end with a quote by Freud himself,
“Man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get in accord with them.”

10/10/2022

The success behind failure
By Bob Boze Bell | May 27, 2009
(I was sharing my research for an article on failure with my husband Bob, and wouldn’t you know, he wrote about it brilliantly on his blog. I consider having married him a success, and I’d be a fool not to just use his fine work. Here it is. -Kathy Radina)

I have

long been an advocate for failure, probably because I seem to be so very good at it. When I woke up this morning, Kathy brought me half a banana and a cup of coffee and asked me if I wanted her to read from an article in Psychology Today while I woke up.

Normally, I don't, but to humor her, I said, "Sure, what do you have?"

"All a writer really needs is the self-knowledge to decipher his feelings, the judgment to recognize the original ones, and the courage to make them public."

That woke me right up. I'm always looking for clues regarding my never-ending failure to complete the assignment. The quote is from a guy who couldn't read until he was 11 and when he told his teachers he wanted to be a writer, they laughed at him, because, as he put it, "it was funny to hear from someone who hated to read and couldn't write a simple English sentence."

Philip Shultz is the name of the former kid, and he claims his punishment of being in the "dummy class" and the "loneliness of having so little expected of me, and the pain of being overlooked and forgotten," was exactly what he needed to become, in his case, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet.

"Learning is error driven," Kathy read to me, as I sat up straight and put my hands under my chin like a puppy begging for more. Go on. "A broken marriage, disapproval from her parents, poverty that bordered on homelessness. . .'Failure stripped away everything essential,' [J.K. Rowling] said, …it taught me things about myself I could have learned no other way."

J.K. Rowling. J.K. Rowling. Yes, didn't she write some semi-successful children's book about some Potter kid?

"'I have failed over and over and over again, and that is why I succeed,' said Michael Jordan—as did Oprah, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison, in slightly different words."

"Bubble wrapping kids to shield them from failing does them no favors."

"We should hope, then, for exposure to failure, early and often."

"How can we learn, as Samuel Beckett put, to 'fail better'?"

"'Failing better' boils down to three things:
• It's a matter of controlling our emotions, 
• adjusting our thinking, 
• and recalibrating our beliefs about ourselves and what we can do in the world."

As a result of this bedside reading, I sprang out of bed and made a vow to fail today like I've never failed before.

"Everyone thinks they're a failure. The only people who don't are the ones who really are."
—Philip Schultz

10/10/2022

Want a good marriage? Then build a great friendship!

On Thursday morning she asked if he’d like to go to marriage counseling. 

On Friday he cleaned the kitchen.

Anything … he was willing to do anything, if it meant that he didn’t have to go to counseling. 

He wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted, but he was pretty sure that picking up after himself was part of it. And he was right, the simple act of cleaning the kitchen, something he had been meaning to do for months, seemed to decrease the pressure. But just when he thought he was out of the woods, it started again. From the moment he walked in the door, until he fell asleep on the couch, his life was a series of complaints. How had their marriage come to this? They didn’t even seem like friends any more.

Marriage therapist John Gottman identifies “friendship” as one of the four essential components of a healthy marriage. And here is the good news, in his book, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” he shares some creative tools to foster friendship, and I’m going to share some with you. 

First is something he calls a “Love Map.” It means consciously delegating a part of our minds to gathering and maintaining information about our partners. For instance, do you know the important people in your partners’ life, his/her favorite food, holiday, way to spend an evening or vacation spot? How about his/her greatest fear, disappointment or regret?

If you do, congratulations, but don’t forget to update the information often. If you don’t, how about taking the time to create this space in your brain?

Another element of “Friendship” is something he calls “Turning Toward.” In relationships we all make bids for contact during our time together. One person may say something like, “Did you hear about … ?” Or, “Listen to this.” Or, “Can I show you … ?” and, as you might imagine, how these “bids’ are received makes a huge difference in the quality of the friendship. 

If the other partner takes the time (seconds really) to look, respond, or just generally acknowledge the bid, this is considered a “Turn Toward.” If on the other hand, the bid gets ignored, this is considered; you guessed it, “Turning Away.” 

In successful relationships, there will be dozens of bids for contact over the course of a day. In failing ones, only a few. Even though not all bids are answered, it seems as if in the troubled relationships the partners have given up trying to get the attention they need.
When I explained this to the man in the above marriage he said, “I can do that.” And he seemed relieved. Maybe he thinks this will get him out of further counseling, or cleaning the kitchen, and maybe it will, but if they both take these suggestions seriously, it may get them into a happier marriage.

Like Martin Luther said, “There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.”

10/10/2022

Misery; Having everything is no defense
Kathy Radina | August 27, 2008


"I should be happy, I have everything I need, but I’m not. For example, I love playing golf, but even that is getting old. Sometimes I can’t find a reason to get out of bed in the morning.”

Humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow would have understood this completely. He believed that as human beings, our ultimate goal is for something he labeled self-actualization. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Let me explain.

His theory, creatively called Maslow’s Hierarchy, ranks our needs in the shape of a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid are the most basic things the human animal would need to survive such as food, water, warmth, rest and health. He calls these the Physiological Needs. When the American Red Cross responds to an emergency, someone’s house burns down, for example, the first thing they do is to find the inhabitants a hotel, and give them money for a meal and a second set of clothes. The Red Cross knows that until the most basic needs are met, nothing else can be accomplished.


So let’s say that I have a place to live, and I know where to get my next meal, the next thing to enter my consciousness and next on Maslow’s hierarchy, will be Safety Needs. These include things such as personal safety, job security and confidence in the ability to manage medical or other types of emergencies. I have friends who have taken jobs they don’t like for the health insurance, and part of the reason we moved to Cave Creek is because the men sleeping under the shrubs in our front yard in central Phoenix made us feel slightly unsafe.

Above Safety on the hierarchy, is the need for intimacy and friendship. He labels this group the Belongingness and Love Needs. I really don’t think that we are designed to be hermits. I think all human beings have the desire to love and be loved, and to feel some sense of belonging to a group, whether it is a small family group of only one other member, a large religious organization, or a group that gathers around the office water cooler to gossip. Once we feel safe and warm we just naturally start looking for the rest of our “tribe.”

After we find our “tribe,” we can start working on the next set of Maslow’s needs, the Esteem Needs. These needs have to be met in some sort of group. They include things like respect from others, prestige and feelings of accomplishment.

And finally, at the top of the list, is Self-Actualization. Maslow believed it meant several things, such as having an accurate perception of the self, others and eternal reality, and therefore possessing the ability to accept everything exactly as it is. It is also manifested by spontaneity, creativity, morality and a general appreciation of life. He identified self-actualized people as dedicated to “a larger purpose in life based on ethics or a sense of personal responsibility.” These people have the ability to balance the need for friendships with the need for solitude and recharge time. In addition, they evaluate their accomplishments according to internal standards rather than what others think. (Like the mom who lets her children scatter toys all over the house in spite of the fact that her mother-in-law thinks the house should be presentable at all times.)

Self-actualized people continue to have the ability to appreciate the simple things in life, and according to Maslow, often have “peak experiences, or moments of intense ecstasy, wonder and awe during which their sense of self is lost and transcended.” It’s easy to see how an experience like that might be difficult if I were concerned about losing my job.

But I’m not concerned about losing my job, and neither was the man who could only play so much golf. We have no worries about finding our next meal, or if we will have to live under a shrub in someone’s yard in central Phoenix. Which only means that we have the freedom, and maybe the developmental obligation, to be concerned about other things, such as finding work (paid or volunteer) that is challenging and enjoyable, initiating and maintaining meaningful relationships, or in short, reaching our full potential. If your life seems good on the surface, and yet you feel uneasy, you may be stuck on one of Abraham Maslow’s levels. He believed that we are all destined to follow that path toward self-actualization, so it seems appropriate to end with a quote from him; “What a man can be, he must be.”

Kathy Radina, M.Ed. is a counselor

10/10/2022

"You are a lying sack of something stinky," and other conflict starters guaranteed to get you nowhere

By Kathy Radina, M. Ed. | August 26, 2009

I’ve never heard anyone say, “I love to fight. Just give me a good argument and I’ll be happy!” In fact, most of us avoid confrontations. But in my experience, avoiding conflict can lead to more problems than actually facing it. When it comes to disagreement I think we are afraid, and inexperienced, and I plan to end that right now. 

Here is one simple rule for talking about difficult topics.

I can say anything I want as long as I do not use the pronoun YOU.

This means I am going to use the pronoun I, not some fancy substitute for you like my mate, my boss or my daughter.

Now most people who want to discuss a problem at least have the good sense to pick the right time to express their concern, and they know to use a non-threatening tone of voice, but that’s not enough. My husband Bob and I may be having a delightful afternoon, and in a sweet calm voice, if I say to him, “Honey, dearest, love of my life, I find it irritating when you leave dirty dishes in the sink.” 

To him, this can sound like an attack, and when people feel attacked they typically fight or flee. 

How can I deliver a message and not use YOU? Easy, sit for a minute and contemplate the situation. Now determine what you think about it and perhaps how it makes you feel. Those are the “I” messages that will get delivered. So my statement to Bob becomes, 
“Honey, I don’t like to see dirty dishes left in the sink too long. Sometimes they smell and I feel taken advantage of when I am the only one who washes them.”

Undoubtedly he will have a response, “Clearly, dishes in the sink don’t bother me. I don’t notice the smell, and I’d rather do one big dish cleaning than lots of small ones.”

Let’s look at some more examples.

To the cashier: “I don’t think this is the correct change.” 
Instead of; “You gave me the wrong change.”

To your mother-in-law; “This is a private conversation.”
Instead of; “This is none of your business.”

To the repairman; “This is rather expensive.”
Instead of; “You’re kidding me you thief, how could it possible cost this much?”

And finally, at work; “I understood I would get a raise after three months.”
Instead of giving your boss the silent treatment and thinking to yourself, “She should know why I am upset. I shouldn’t have to beg for what was promised me.”

In conclusion, I’d love to see you give this a try, and if you start to get afraid, remember this quote from Gerry Spence:

“Despite what we have learned to the contrary, we need to speak as if we were naked. For we all know that when the other stands naked before us, we recognize that he or she is real.”

04/10/2019

THE CHEMISTRY OF LOVE
We were having our normal, casual conversation when she entered the room. Then everything changed.

I was sitting at the table in the teachers’ workroom grading papers and talking to a nice looking Mathematics professor, probably in his mid thirties. I often see him reading, waiting for his next class to start, and we usually chat. She entered in a classy looking purple outfit, a petite woman with long brown hair. I knew them both, but had never seen them together before, so I was somewhat surprised by the exchange. They stood, lobbing erotic comments above my seated head, and I could feel the energy thicken with their passion. The air was lush with sexual innuendo and I had to get up and move out of the line of fire to protect myself. I had a class to teach in 20 minutes and I didn’t want to get contaminated!

Inadvertently witnessing this scenario reminded me of my first encounters with my husband Bob. That was 28 years ago. Our relationship doesn’t feel charged quite like that any more, but I can remember the general sensations.

When I first started dating Bob I felt electrically charged, hopelessly excited, optimistic, tirelessly energetic, insatiably sexual, inexplicably creative and just plain happy to be alive. I thought about him constantly and had a hard time concentrating on work. I wanted to be with him every minute, to talk to him, listen to him, buy him gifts, cook for him and rub his back. I felt like I wanted to wrap an invisible cocoon around us so we could snuggle together and keep the rest of the world out. I wanted to blend with him, merge, have my cells crawl in between each one of his cells and create one person. If you’ve ever had such an experience you know how hard it is to describe, and how wonderful it feels to get to live in this blissful state of mind. That’s the good news. If you’ve ever had this experience you also know the bad news. It doesn’t last forever.

As you might have guessed someone has actually studied this phenomenon. In fact Dr. Michael Liebowitz at Columbia University has determined that there is an increase in the neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin during what he calls “Romantic Love”. An increase in these chemicals will produce the above described effects of euphoria, energy and well-being, but eventually the brain becomes acclimated. So like an odor that has been smelled too long, we just don’t notice any longer. The honeymoon is over, and the thrill is gone.

At this point the brain does another very interesting thing. It increases the release of endorphins, our own natural morphine or painkiller. Thanks for the help! If I’m going to have to live without the thrill of “Romantic Love” I guess I can appreciate a little painkiller to help me over the hurdle.

The biological theory behind this condition is that nature fills us full of chemicals that help us feel the bliss of love ….. for about two years. Long enough to get pregnant perhaps and insure the preservation of the species. Then we get a little pain killer to help us make the transition out of “Romantic Love” and into whatever we will be doing next.

Some people can’t live without the feelings associated with “Romantic Love”, and they move from one chemical induced high to another. Others decide the loss is too painful and they decide to live without relationship, but most of us strive to transcend into something called “Mature Love”. Making the transition from “Romantic Love” to the “Mature Love” of a lasting relationship can be tricky business even if one did manage to get pregnant and bear children. It is hard work, so for now let me leave you with a quote by the Psychologist C. G. Jung. He summed it up nicely when he said:

“Seldom, or never does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly, without crisis. There is no birth of consciousness without pain.”

It crossed my mind that I should tell my friends in the Teachers’ Workroom that what they were experiencing would be a passing phase. That if they were really serious about having a lasting relationship it wouldn’t be this easy. They would have to struggle, and work at it. But I didn’t want to spoil their fun, and besides, I’m sure they couldn’t hear me anyway.

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