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Unresolved disputes can lead to long term health issues

Unresolved disputes can lead to long term health issues

Posted on by Dhyana Kearly
Relationship Therapy

New study reveals the long term impact of an unresolved argument on overall health and well-being.

A recent Oregon State University study found that when people feel they have resolved an argument, the emotional response associated with that disagreement is significantly reduced and, in some situations, almost entirely erased.That reduction in stress may have a major impact on overall health, researchers say.

"Everyone experiences stress in their daily lives. You aren't going to stop stressful things from happening. But the extent to which you can tie them off, bring them to an end and resolve them is definitely going to pay dividends in terms of your well-being," said Robert Stawski, senior author on the study and an associate professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences. "Resolving your arguments is quite important for maintaining well-being in daily life."

Researchers have long been aware of how chronic stress can affect health, from mental health problems such as depression and anxiety to physical problems including heart disease, a weakened immune system, reproductive difficulties and gastrointestinal issues. But it's not just major chronic stressors like poverty or violence that can inflict damage.

"Daily stressors -- specifically the minor, small inconveniences that we have throughout the day -- even those have lasting impacts on mortality and things like inflammation and cognitive function," said Dakota Witzel, lead author and a doctoral student in human development and family studies at OSU.

For the study, Stawski and Witzel used data from the National Study of Daily Experiences, an in-depth survey of more than 2,000 people who were interviewed about their feelings and experiences for eight days in a row. The researchers looked at reports of both arguments and avoided arguments, defined as instances where the person could have argued about something but chose to let it slide so as not to have a disagreement. They then measured how the incident affected the person's reported change in negative and positive emotions, both for the day of the encounter and the day after it occurred.

The measure of how an experience affects someone emotionally, an increase in negative emotions or a decrease in positive emotions, on the day it occurs is known as "reactivity," while "residue" is the prolonged emotional toll the day after the experience occurs. Negative and positive affect refer to the degree of negative and positive emotions a person feels on a given day. Results showed that on the day of an argument or avoided argument, people who felt their encounter was resolved reported roughly half the reactivity of those whose encounters were not resolved. On the day following an argument or avoided argument, the results were even starker: People who felt the matter was resolved showed no prolonged elevation of their negative affect the next day.

The study also looked at age-related differences in response to arguments and avoided arguments and found that adults ages 68 and older were more than 40% more likely than people 45 and younger to report their conflicts as resolved. But the impact of resolution status on people's negative and positive affect remained the same regardless of age. The researchers had several explanations for older adults' higher rate of resolution: Older adults may be more motivated to minimize negative and maximize positive emotions as they have fewer years remaining, which is consistent with existing theories of aging and emotion. They may also have more experience navigating arguments and thus be more effective at defusing or avoiding conflict.

"If older adults are really motivated to maximize their emotional well-being, they're going do a better job, or at least a faster job, at resolving stressors in a more timely fashion," Stawski said. While people cannot always control what stressors come into their lives -- and lack of control is itself a stressor in many cases -- they can work on their own emotional response to those stressors, he said. "Some people are more reactive than other people," he said. "But the extent to which you can tie off the stress so it's not having this gnawing impact at you over the course of the day or a few days will help minimize the potential long-term impact."

Read this article on Science Daily: Oregon State University. "Want a longer, healthier life? Resolve your arguments by day's end." www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210325084833.htm.

Dr. Jenny Holland, PsyD

Dr. Holland is a psychotherapist practicing in Santa Rosa California, providing cutting edge, integrative and evidence-based mental health care, proven effective with depression and anxiety, life transitions; pregnancy, parenting, ageing, loss, and caring for a parent or loved one during a health crisis or decline.

In-person and Online Video Counseling Services are now available. Short-term sessions, single sessions or ongoing support to meet your needs. Contact Dr. Holland to schedule an appointment at 707-479-2946.

Friends who are interconnected make the best friends

Posted on by Dhyana Kearly

Having a network of people who know one another helps to make social support more beneficial

It's good to have friends and family to back you up when you need it -- but it's even better if your supporters are close with each other too, a new set of studies suggests.Researchers found that people perceived they had more support from a group of friends or family who all knew and liked each other than from an identical number of close relationships who were not linked.The results suggest that having a network of people to lean on is only part of what makes social support so beneficial to us, said David Lee, who led the study as a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at The Ohio State University.

"The more cohesive, the more dense this network you have, the more you feel you can rely on them for support," said Lee, who is now an assistant professor of communication at the University at Buffalo. "It matters if your friends can depend on each other, just like you depend on them." Lee conducted the study with Joseph Bayer, assistant professor of communication, and Jonathan Stahl, graduate student in psychology, both at Ohio State. Their research was published online recently in the journal Social Psychology Quarterly.

The researchers conducted two online studies. In one study, 339 people were asked to list eight people in their lives that they could go to for support in the last six months. Participants rated on a scale of 1 to 7 how much support they received from each person. (Most were listed as friends or family members, but some people also named co-workers, romantic partners, classmates or roommates). Crucially for this study, participants were also asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 7 how close each possible pair of their eight supporters were to each other (from "they don't know each other" to "extremely close.") Based on those answers, the researchers calculated the density of each participant's network -- the closer and more interconnected their friends and family were to each other, the denser the network.

Results showed that the denser the networks, the more support that participants said they would be able to receive from them. "We found that our support networks are more than the sum of their parts," said Bayer, who is a core faculty of Ohio State's Translational Data Analytics Institute. "People who feel they have more social support in their lives may be focusing more on the collective support they feel from being part of a strong, cohesive group. It's having a real crew, as opposed to just having a set of friends."

A second study, involving 240 people, examined whether the density of a social network mattered in a specific situation where people needed help. In this case, participants were asked to list two different groups of four people they could go to if they needed support. One group comprised four people who were not close to one another and the other group consisted of four people who were close with each other. Participants were then asked to imagine a scenario in which their house had been broken into and they went to their network for support. Half the people were told to think about going to the four people who were not close to one another, while the other half imagined reaching out to their four connected supporters. Results showed that those who imagined going to their tight-knit group of friends or family perceived that they would receive more support than did participants who thought about going to their unconnected friends. The results also offered preliminary evidence of two psychological mechanisms that could help explain why people feel better supported by a tight-knit group of friends.

In answers to survey questions, participants suggested that they thought of their group of close friends or family as one entity. They also were more likely to see a closer-knit group as part of their own identities. Both of these factors were related to perceiving more support, results showed. The researchers said the results of both studies show it isn't just the number of friends and family you have in your network that is important.

"You can have two friends who are both very supportive of you, but if they are both friends with each other, that makes you feel even more supported," Stahl said. On a practical level, that means it is important which friends we think about when we most need help or when we are feeling lonely in the midst of daily life. "Focus on those friends who are connected to each other," Bayer said. "That's where we really perceive the most support."

Read this article on Science Daily: Ohio State University. "Why some friends make you feel more supported than others: People feel most backed when their network is connected." ScienceDaily, 7 October 2020. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201007085609.htm.

Therapy for Relationship Issues

Relationships require work and over time will inevitably face challenges large and small. Everyday stressors can put strain on any relationship, particularly intimate relationships. When major sources of stress arise, the stability of the relationship can become vulnerable. When each participant in a relationship is willing to address the issue at hand and participate in developing a solution, most relationship problems are manageable. But, when challenges are left unaddressed, tension can increase, poor responses develop and the health and longevity of the relationship are in jeopardy.

Whether you are having difficulty with a partner, business associate, family member, neighbor or acquaintance, Dr. Holland’s comprehensive therapy program will provide you with the tools you need to reshape and redefine your relationship. Over the course of your sessions with Dr. Holland you will learn alternatives to destructive communication patterns that will help you to build a harmonious, thriving rapport of love and respect. 

Individualized Teletherapy Sessions are Available - Short-term sessions, single sessions or ongoing support. Contact Dr. Holland for more information and for help, or call 707-479-2946 to schedule a telehealth video therapy session.

Empathy and closeness enhanced in siblings of children with disabilities

Posted on by Dhyana Kearly
Siblings of children with intellectual disabilities score high on empathy and closeness

New study reveals that relationships between children and their siblings with intellectual disabilities can be incredibly positive

The sibling relationship is the longest most people will enjoy in their lifetimes and is central to the everyday lives of children. A new Tel Aviv University and University of Haifa study finds that relationships between children and their siblings with intellectual disabilities are more positive than those between typically developing siblings. The research examines the relationships of typically developing children with siblings with and without intellectual disabilities through artwork and questionnaires. It was conducted by Prof. Anat Zaidman-Zait of the Department of School Counseling and Special Education at TAU's Constantiner School of Education and Dr. Dafna Regev and Miri Yechezkiely of the University of Haifa's Graduate School of Creative Art Therapies. The study was recently published in Research in Developmental Disabilities.

"Having a child with a disability in a family places unique demands on all family members, including typically developing siblings," Prof. Zaidman-Zait explains. "Although challenges exist, they are often accompanied by both short- and long-term positive contributions. Through our research, we found that relationships among children with siblings with intellectual disabilities were even more supportive than those among typically developed siblings. Specifically, we found that children with siblings with intellectual disabilities scored higher on empathy, teaching and closeness and scored lower on conflict and rivalry than those with typically developing siblings."

Until now, research on how having a sibling with a developmental disability affects children's social-emotional and behavioral outcomes generated mixed findings. At times, the findings suggested that having a sibling with developmental disabilities led to greater variability in typically developing children's behavior and adjustment.

"But these studies did little to tap into the inner worlds of children, which really can only be accessed through self-expression in the form of art or self-reporting, independent of parental intervention, which is the route we took in our study," Prof. Zaidman-Zait says. The scientists assessed some 60 children aged 8-11, half with typically developing siblings, half with intellectually disabled siblings, through drawings and a questionnaire about their relationships with their siblings. Mothers of both sets of siblings were also asked to answer a questionnaire about their children's sibling relationship quality.

"We drew on the basic assumption that artistic creation allows internal content to be expressed visually and that children's self-reports have special added value in studies measuring sibling relationship qualities, especially in areas where parents might have less insight," Prof. Zaidman-Zait says.

Both sets of typically developing children, with and without siblings with intellectual disabilities, were asked to draw themselves and their siblings. Licensed art therapists then used several set criteria to "score" the illustrations: the physical distance between the figures; the presence or absence of a parent in the illustration; the amount of detail invested in either the self-portrait or the sibling representation; and the amount of support given to a sibling in the picture. The children were then asked to complete the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire, which assessed the feelings of closeness, dominance, conflict and rivalry they felt for their siblings.

Reviewing the children's illustrations and questionnaires, as well as the questionnaires completed by the children's mothers, the researchers found that the children with siblings with intellectual disabilities scored significantly higher on empathy, teaching and closeness in their sibling relationship and scored lower on conflict and rivalry in the relationships than those with typically developing siblings.

"Our study makes a valuable contribution to the literature by using an art-based data gathering task to shed new light on the unique aspects of the relationships of children with siblings with intellectual disabilities that are not revealed in verbal reports," Prof. Zaidman-Zait concludes. "We can argue that having a family member with a disability makes the rest of the family, including typically developing children, more attentive to the needs of others." The researchers hope their study, supported by The Shalem Foundation in Israel, will serve as a basis for further research into art-based tools that elicit and document the subjective experience of children.

Story Source: ScienceDaily, 14 January 2020. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200114123525.htm.

Dr. Jenny Holland"As a physically disabled person and a parent of a disabled child, I have a unique perspective on parenting children with disabilities. I am offering two new support groups beginning in January that are geared toward helping both parents of children with disabilities and teens & young adults with disabilities to gain a sense of empowerment and control. We will offer coping and practical skills as well. The goal of the groups is to give participants a chance to talk openly and honestly about feelings, share stories and gain support through the process."

More about upcoming support groups:

Parent Support Group

Support group for teens with disabilities

Dr. Holland also offers counseling services for people with disabilities on a on-going basis. To learn more visit Living with Disabilities or call 707-479-2946.

Caregiver study focuses on the challenges of caring for a partner

Posted on by Dhyana Kearly
Caregivers need to consider their own health as important as their spouse

Study participants had levels of depression symptoms serious enough to suggest a need for treatment

When they said their wedding vows, many of them promised to stand by one another in sickness and in health. But a new study suggests that as married couples age and develop chronic conditions, the daily demands of coping with their own health demands and those of their spouse may take a mental toll.

Depression symptoms increased over time among married men and women who themselves had two or more chronic conditions that need different types of self-care -- such as a special diet and medications for heart disease or diabetes along with pain-reducing therapy for arthritis. When husbands and wives both had chronic health conditions, and needed different kinds of self-care from their partners, husbands fared worse. Their depression symptoms were significantly higher, but this effect was not found for wives.

The new findings, made by a team from the University of Michigan using data from a long-term study of more than 1,110 older opposite-sex married couples from 2006 to 2014, are published in Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. While less than 10% of the women and less than 7% of the men in the study had levels of depression symptoms serious enough to suggest a need for treatment, lower-level depression is important for older people, clinicians, caregivers and adult children to understand, says Courtney Polenick, Ph.D., who led the study.

In both husbands and wives, the rise of depressive symptoms didn't begin until a few years after the first assessment of their health and well-being. "Our results suggest that there's a window where, if one or both of you are managing complex conditions that don't have similar self-management goals, it may be possible to intervene and prevent the development or worsening of depression," says Polenick, who is part of the U-M Department of Psychiatry and Institute for Social Research. "This might be the time for couples, and those who care for them, to emphasize broadly beneficial lifestyle behaviors that help to maintain both mental and physical health."

For instance, a woman coping with both high blood pressure and arthritis needs to make changes to her exercise routine, but her husband without such conditions could commit to making those changes along with her. Or a wife with diabetes who does most of the cooking and has a husband with prostate cancer could adopt a healthier menu for both of them. Polenick and her colleagues from U-M's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation looked at data from the Health and Retirement Study, which repeatedly interviews and surveys thousands of American adults in their 50s and beyond over time.
They focused on conditions that have similar treatment goals focused on reducing cardiovascular risk -- diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and stoke -- and those with treatment goals and needs that are different from each of the other conditions- cancer, arthritis and lung disease.

When one person in the couple had at least one condition with different treatment goals and needs, they're considered to have "discordant" conditions. When one member of a couple had at least one condition that has different treatment goals and needs from the other partner, the couple is considered to have discordant conditions. "Research has focused on how individuals with multiple conditions, also called multimorbidity, manage their chronic health needs," says Polenick. "But most people in later life are partnered, with similar health-related habits, and we need to understand how changing health affects the couple dynamic." The fact that both wives and husbands experienced significant increases in depressive symptoms as the years passed, when they were coping with discordant conditions in themselves, is by itself important to understand, Polenick notes. But the fact that wives whose husbands' health needs differed from their own didn't experience an even greater rise in depression is a bit surprising, she adds.

Meanwhile, husbands whose conditions had self-care needs that were different from their wives' conditions did experience an additional rise in depression symptoms. Among individuals who are baby boomers or older, wives may be more used to taking the lead in caring for the health and emotional well-being of both themselves and their husbands, she says. But when husbands have wives who are coping with different health demands than their own, the husbands may experience less of this support than usual, worsening their stress and mental health.

Polenick and her colleagues continue to explore these intra-couple dynamics, and their consequences for mental and physical health. They also hope to expand the range of chronic health conditions they examine, and to look at shorter time frames in conditions that can be managed with lifestyle changes. But in the meantime, she notes that middle-aged and older couples may want to do more now to understand the factors that they can control as they age, and those they cannot, and talk about how they feel as a result.

"This is a reminder to step back and look at what your partner is coping with, to learn about their health conditions, to be conscious of it on a daily basis, and for grown children and clinicians to do the same," she says. "Having that awareness, and helping one another manage health problems while watching for signs of depression, may help both members of a couple over time."

Story Source: Content provided by Science Daily and Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan. "In sickness and in health: Study looks at how married couples face chronic conditions." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 December 2019. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191203104756.htm.

Dr. Jenny Holland
Dr. Holland

Caregivers often report feelings of exhaustion and overwhelm. While caring for a loved one can be very rewarding, it also comes with distinct elements of stress. When dealing with a long-term challenge it's extremely important to also provide for your own emotional and physical well-being. When the challenges associated with care giving are not taken into consideration the caregiver's physical health, relationships and mental health can deteriorate over time — eventually leading to burnout and exhaustion. And when it reaches that point, both the caregiver and the person being cared for suffer. Caring for yourself is equally if not more important as making sure your family member gets to their doctor’s appointment or takes their medication on time.

Focused Therapy for Caregivers

If you are having trouble with accepting or adjusting to life's challenges, Dr. Holland can help you find healthy ways of coping. The simple act of expressing what you’re going through can be very cathartic. Dr. Holland will tailor treatment to meet your specific needs. Contact Dr. Holland to learn more and to schedule an appointment or call 707-479-2946.