Feeling some anxiety...

So I'm feeling a little bit of anxiety about my internship at the moment. Everything is still going really well, and my supervisor is still awesome. The thing is, there have been several people in the MSW program who have lost their field placements because of budget cuts, etc. at their agencies. So all of the field instructors were asked to consider taking on another intern. Julianne and I discussed it and decided that we would be open to the possibility of taking someone on if we really felt as though they would be a good fit. This was a few weeks ago, and we never heard anything back, so we figured nothing was going to happen.

Well, after work today I saw that Julianne had forwarded me an e-mail from a girl in the program who was wanting more information about Wellstone and possibly wanting to set up an interview. So it looks like we might be interviewing someone after all. The truth is, I have extremely mixed feelings about Julianne taking on another intern. I really like having a supervisor all to myself, and I worry that with another intern there we will be compared to one another. This is especially hard when you have people coming in with such different levels of experience. Looking at her resume, I saw that she was a psych major in undergrad and seems to have a lot of experience already in clinical type work, which is where I don't have a lot of experience. That's also the area that I feel most insecure about, and I worry that if we take on another intern who is very strong in that area, I am going to feel even less confident. I've spoken with other people in the program who are at agencies with more than one intern, and it seems like that is a common problem for them. My other fear is, what if we take someone on and I end up not liking her? I know that this is obviously something that happens in the real world, and I need to be prepared for it. However, this is my internship, and I feel like I deserve to have it be the kind of experience that I want. I'm certainly paying enough for it!

Anyway, feel free to tell me if I'm being ridiculous. I know that I should just relax and have faith that it will all work out. But you all know me, I have a tendency to worry! I'll keep you updated.

FFOTD: Mirror Neurons

Okay, this fact is really cool! So mirror neurons are cells that fire in our brains when we see actions and when we repeat that action. In a NY Times article ("Cells That Read Minds" -- January 10,2006), UCLA neuroscientist Dr. Marco Iacoboni tell us, "When you see me perform an action -- such a picking up a baseball -- you automatically simulate the action in your brain ... You understand my action because you have in your brain a template for that action based on your own movements." Basically, when we watch things happen, our brain is imitating those same things.

These mirror neurons are also directly related to empathy, or understanding the feelings and expressions of others. Dr. Iacoboni continues to explain, "And if you see me choke up, in emotional distress from striking out at home plate, mirror neurons in your brain simulate my distress. You automatically have empathy for me. You know how I feel because you literally feel what I am feeling." When you see someone being physically hurt and feel as though you can sense their pain, it is because you really do feel their pain -- at least in your brain. Those who rank high on scales measuring empathy have "particularly active mirror neuron systems", the NY Times article explains.

This research on mirror neurons could have implications for little understood conditions such as Autism. As the article states, "While many people with autism can identify an emotional expression, like sadness, on another person's face, or imitate sad looks with their own faces, they do not feel the same emotional significance of the imitated emotion. From observing other people, they do not know what it feels like to be sad, angry, disgusted or surprised." Some researchers have been led to believe that broken mirror neurons could play a part in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Mirror neurons are also important when it comes to our understanding of violence and aggression. While it has been found that mirror neurons work best in real life, a study in the January 2006 issue of Media Psychology "found that when children watched violent television programs, mirror neurons, as well as several brain regions involved in aggression were activated, increasing the probability that the children would behave violently." This could help to explain why those who witness a lot of violence are more likely to become violent. Many people worry that watching violence will desensitive us to violence and make us think that it's okay. It turns out that it could be more complex than just psychology. It could be that those violent behaviors are actually becoming imprinted in our brains and becoming part of our neurobiology.

It just goes to show how fascinating and truly complex the human brain is. And now when I get teased for being "overly sensitive" when it comes to movies, etc. I can just respond, "I can't help it! I have highly active mirror neurons!"

Here is a YouTube video that I found discussing the connection between empathy and mirror neurons:

E-mail Notifications

I was just talking to Grandma and commenting that I wished there were a way to have automatic e-mail notifications sent out every time I updated my blog. I know it's easy to go to the site and do a quick check to see if it's updated, but it still might be a nice option. When I first made the blog, there wasn't this e-mail notification option. However, Blogger has recently adopted that feature! So, if you want me to put you on the e-mail notification list, let me know. Either comment on this entry or send me an e-mail.

FFOTD: A Hormone For Caring

Today's fun fact is a mixed bag. On one hand it's extremely interesting, on the other hand it's implications are a bit depressing. It has to do with the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin helps mammals to bond. Women produce a heightened level of oxytocin during childbirth and then pass it on to their infants during breast-feeding, which helps them to bond and attach.

Now research has found that people with higher levels of oxytocin tend to be more trusting! Alongside this finding is the research done at UW by Seth Pollak on Russian and Romanian infants adopted by Wisconsin families. These infants, adopted from orphanages where they lacked sufficient emotional care, were found to produce oxytocin differently -- even a number of years after their adoption. According to an article in the New York Times ("Exploring a Hormone for Caring", November 22, 2005), a typical child will have a rise in their oxytocin level after 30 minutes of interaction with their mothers. This rise in oxytocin did not occur in the previously neglected children. As the article states, "Dr. Pollak believes that oxytocin acts through the brain's reward system and gives infants a positive feeling about social interactions. The finding that the adopted children in the study apparently get less of an oxytocin reward could explain why some children from Eastern Europe, as they grow older, have difficulty forming social relationships."

One thing that we do know from child development and neurobiology is that children are very resilient and new neural connections can form and adjust depending on their environment. The article notes that it could be that these children's biological systems will eventually adjust. Regardless, the best intervention continues to be "adoption into loving families." In the future, these findings on oxytocin may help us discover more effective interventions for previously neglected children.

What this news on oxytocin also tells us is how important attachment and bonding are. I will hopefully talk more about attachment in another entry, because it's pretty much at the foundation of child development. However, for now I just want to point out that besides making people more trusting, higher oxytocin levels also make humans more resistant to stress and social phobias. This means that children with secure attachment figures are going to be better equipped to engage in trusting, healthy relationships. They are also going to be better able to deal with the world and manage stress and anxiety. Here is scientific proof that children need to be loved and cared for.

Overcoming Assumptions

One of the things that I love about the Twin Cities is how culturally diverse it is. And not only are the Cities culturally diverse, they also lack the extreme racial segregation of some of their neighbor cities in the Midwest. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau published a report on racial segregation a few years back and six out of the top ten most segregated cities in the U.S. were right here in the Midwest. Minneapolis-St. Paul didn't make that list, but Milwaukee landed itself in the number one spot (for those interested, the others were Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Newark, Cincinnati, Buffalo, NYC, Chicago and Philadelphia). So for me, living in a neighborhood where I can see a young black man walking down the street without automatically wondering, "What is he doing here?", is a breath of fresh air.

Yet, living and working in a multicultural environment also means that sometimes I'm confronted with things that I don't understand, or things that make me feel uncomfortable. I'm grateful for that, because those experiences help me to become more self-aware. Through confronting our feelings about certain issues, we are able to examine them, understand them and hopefully move on. One of the things that I've had to come to terms with over the past year is my feelings in regards to the veiling of women. Minneapolis-St. Paul, as many of you know, has an extremely large Muslim population, mostly due to the large number of Somali immigrants. In fact, Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the United States. Many of the Somali women living in the Twin Cities follow the practice of wearing the "hijab" -- the traditional head covering. For a long time, I held the sentiment that women who wore head coverings were oppressed and must not be very intelligent. Because from my ethnocentric point of view, a liberated and intelligent woman would never choose to cover herself like that. Then I moved here. There were four or five Muslim women that I served with in AmeriCorps, all of them wearing some form of a headscarf. As I got to know these women, I had to set aside my assumptions because I realized that they were extremely smart, funny and strong individuals. Almost all of them were college educated, most spoke at least three different languages ...

Now at Wellstone, I am having a similar experience. When I attended the very first staff meeting I was shocked to meet two staff members (AmeriCorps volunteers in fact) who were wearing the full veil. One of them has a space for her eyes, but the other has a veil covering her entire face. I had never seen this in person before. I had thought that you had to go to Afghanistan to see something like that. My next assumption was, "Oh, well they must be recent immigrants." Then I spoke with one of them and discovered that she had no accent, implying that she obviously has lived here for most of her, if not her entire, life. So suddenly I find myself going through the same thing over again. I had made my peace with the hijab, but now suddenly here's this burqa. Is there really a difference? Theoretically I don't think so. In terms of interaction, I am having to work on my feelings of discomfort that arise when I am speaking with someone with a veil completely covering her face. In our culture we are so used to looking people in the eyes when we speak with them. You don't realize how important this is until you are speaking with someone and you can't actually see their face. It feels very strange. But I'm working on it.

The best thing, I think, is to be aware of our feelings. In our efforts to be "politically correct" and "culturally competent", so often we want to pretend and tell ourselves that we aren't uncomfortable. But there is no shame in admitting discomfort or confusion. I'm not saying that it's necessary to go up to someone and tell them that they make you uncomfortable. I'm simply saying that it's good to process our feelings about things, or talk to a friend about it. Mira and I were just talking tonight about the veil issue, which is what prompted me to write this blog entry. Once we process our feelings we can begin to make an actual effort to overcome those feelings. If we're never really honest though, we'll never be able to get past it.

What's the point of cultural competence -- of understanding and accepting practices that are different than our own? Some people get confused and think that it means we have to agree with everything. I don't have to agree with the practice of wearing the hijab to be respectful and accepting of the women who wear it. I don't agree with the theology behind separating men and women, and I'm sure that I never will. However, I was raised in a progressive, fairly secular manner. It's not fair for me to judge other people based on my own cultural values. It's not right for me to view those women as oppressed. It's all about looking at the world and other people from a strengths perspective, rather than a deficits perspective. When we accept others' differences, we are able to see their strengths. When we focus on the differences, we get stuck there and we end up judging. And when we judge people we miss out on important opportunities to learn, to understand, to form friendships and to love.

Article worth reading:

Twin Cities: Vibrant with Diversity

Fun Fact of the Day

I'm learning so much these days, and I've decided that I'd like to share some of these learnings with all of you. So from time to time you can expect these "Fun Fact of the Day" (FFOTD) posts. Since social work involves a lot of trauma and psychopathology and other sadness, these "fun" facts might not really be that fun. For that I apologize. But hopefully they'll always be interesting!

My first FFOTD involves the effects that trauma has on the body's stress response system. Normally when we undergo a great deal of stress or anxiety, our body's stress response system releases hormones (such as adrenaline, cortisol, etc.) that create a number of physiological changes. This is typically known as the "fight or flight" response, in which the body prepares itself for action. One of these changes is an increase in heart rate. Now the interesting fact has to do with a study done on a group of Branch Davidian children -- survivors of the infamous incident that occurred in Waco, Texas. It was discovered that the group average for resting heart rate was 134. An adult's resting heart rate can be expected to be between 60-80 (even lower for those who are very physically active). In children it is higher, but a group average could be expected to fall between 80 and 90. Again, the group average for the traumatized children was 134. Think about how "at rest" you would feel if your heart rate was 50 beats per minute higher than normal.

Here's the "take away" message from this fun fact: Children under chronic stress have a good reason to act agitated or aggressive. Their bodies are in constant states of arousal, which makes it difficult for them to behave in manners that we would consider "appropriate." Many times children living in poverty or in violent communities or other stressful situations can be aggressive, poorly behaved, etc. Is it really any surprise? They are in a constant state of "fight or flight". But what is our natural reaction to their behavior? Punishment and words such as "You know better than that!" Really, they don't know better. They're doing the best that they can to survive. I'm not saying that the solution is to allow poor behavior to continue, but we can't just punish it and expect it to go away. What needs to happen is that traumatized children have to be taught different strategies. For example, a clinical social worker who is working with a traumatized kiddo who hits when another child gets into their personal space might say, "It seems like you were trying to tell Susie that she was getting too close to you. That was a good try, but that doesn't work. It doesn't work because it's not okay to hit other people. Let's think of some different ways that you could have communicated that to Susie." Now this isn't going to automatically fix things. It takes training and practice. The child literally needs to learn new responses, responses that don't come naturally to him.

I wanted to start out by sharing this particular subject because it relates really well to some of the work that I will be doing this year. A lot of the kids I will be working with at Wellstone have poor emotional regulation and get very easily aroused. One of our jobs is to work with those students to teach them strategies for regulating themselves and for being successful in the school environment. At different points in time I'll try to write some entries with case examples, so you can understand some of what I'm doing. But first I wanted to give you all some rationale for our intervention methods. So I hope you enjoyed the first ever FFOTD! I'll try to throw in some less depressing ones from time to time as well :)

Camp Fire USA

If you haven't read my past three posts ("I'm back!", "School days" and "Wellstone") then head on down and read those first!

So since most of you knew about my job interview and prospective position as a youth club leader with Camp Fire USA, I thought I better address that. The interview went really great, and I think that they really wanted me as a leader. However, the trouble was finding sites for me that would fit with my schedule (which was admittedly limited). So I am not going to be working with Camp Fire. However, after having started school and my internship, I think it's probably a good thing that I didn't get the position because I just don't know how I would have managed it. I am having a hard enough time now.

Once I realized how crazy my schedule is already, I went and looked over my budget and finances. My financial aid, alongside the extra money I bring in each month from tutoring and baby-sitting, is definitely going to be enough to cover me for the semester. I'm going to have to stick to my budget, but I should be just fine. So right now I'm going to focus on school and my field work. I still have my Saturday night baby-sitting job with Paxton. Last week I started up my tutoring job again, which is just an hour every Thursday. That's with a now 6th grade boy named D'Angelo, for those who aren't already familiar with that position.

Next semester I might look to pick up another few hours of work somewhere, but for now I think I have enough on my plate already.