Speaker 1: This podcast is for general information only and should not
Speaker 1: be taken as psychological advice. Listeners should consult with their
Speaker 1: healthcare professionals for specific medical advice.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: Hello, I'm Amanda Kella and I'm Anita mcgreenor, and welcome
Speaker 3: to Double a Chattery. Anita, you said today you wanted
Speaker 3: to talk about I wasn't really paying attention obviously about creeps.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm happy to talk about crepes. I want to
Speaker 2: talk about creeps. Who are who are the creeps? The
Speaker 2: creep is the idea in many ways about the neurological,
Speaker 2: the psychological conversations that we seem to be having that
Speaker 2: I used to only have with colleagues. So it used
Speaker 2: to be like a lot of the terminology, you know,
Speaker 2: this is an anxious person, this is a you know,
Speaker 2: all those kinds of the terminal. I've got PTSD, I've
Speaker 2: got this are things that I would have thirty years
Speaker 2: ago when I first started. Most laymen would never have
Speaker 2: used the words, nor would have they understood really from
Speaker 2: a psychological point, what they meant. And there's this idea
Speaker 2: that's called concept creep. And this is where the creep
Speaker 2: comes in, Amanda, And it is no crepes. We're going
Speaker 2: We're just going creeps, okay, sugar free creeps, sugar free creeps.
Speaker 2: And basically it's that how there are some phrases, some ideas,
Speaker 2: some concepts in our that we're using in society today
Speaker 2: that has made some things almost meaningless. And give me
Speaker 2: let me give you the example that if you know,
Speaker 2: if somebody comes to you and they say, oh, Amanda,
Speaker 2: I've just I've been traumatized. My bus was late and
Speaker 2: I you know, it was late for an appointment. Now,
Speaker 2: that's not as we would understand it as psychologists what
Speaker 2: trauma means. It may have been upsetting, it may have
Speaker 2: been frustrating, it may have been a whole bunch of things.
Speaker 2: But we seem to be almost so easily kind of
Speaker 2: sliding these terms that have quite specific meaning into our conversations.
Speaker 3: And what's the harm? Are we diluting the language so
Speaker 3: that when we really mean it, it's gone.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that yes. And and you know, I
Speaker 1: I often have people come in and you know, clients
Speaker 1: who will say something like you know, I've I've got
Speaker 1: I've got adhd or I've you know, I've got trauma,
Speaker 1: And I'll say, well, how do you know, were you
Speaker 1: diagnosed with with you know, ADHD or whatever, And they'll say, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I saw a show on it, or my mom told
Speaker 1: me I did you know she saw a show on it?
Speaker 1: Or she read something about it, and and I you know,
Speaker 1: from a psychological point of view, it it makes me
Speaker 1: wonder about when people say I am I have like
Speaker 1: does it make them more or less like? Does it
Speaker 1: make them more fragile in having that, you know, in
Speaker 1: self diagnosing or in saying I have this?
Speaker 3: Do you think that more of us have this stuff?
Speaker 3: Anxiety depression ADHD? Or is the diagnostic tools better? I
Speaker 3: think that.
Speaker 1: It can be one or the other. It could be
Speaker 1: that we're just getting better at diagnosing people and recognizing
Speaker 1: the kind of hidden sectors of populations that have particular symptoms,
Speaker 1: and or it could be that there is this idea
Speaker 1: of concept creep and the researchers you're talking about how
Speaker 1: this pathologizing of behavior has come in two ways. So
Speaker 1: the first way is this vertical expansion. So trauma is
Speaker 1: a good example where the criteria for inclusion for PTSD
Speaker 1: for the post traumatic stress disorder, which is kind of
Speaker 1: the label, the diagnostic label we put on people who've
Speaker 1: experienced like a really serious significant trauma where the person
Speaker 1: must have been exposed to death or threatened death or
Speaker 1: serious injury or sexual violence through direct experiencing or witnessing
Speaker 1: or learning about how it happened with a close friend
Speaker 1: or relative, or repeated exposure to distressing details. So when
Speaker 1: PTSD was first identified that it was it had very
Speaker 1: very strict criteria, and then the it expanded vertically so
Speaker 1: that there are vertically vertically is up. So there was
Speaker 1: just more and more things. Yeah. So and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, what do we call PTSD now? And every
Speaker 1: time that there's a new book called the DSM Diagnostic
Speaker 1: and Statistical Manual, it's made by is published by the
Speaker 1: American Psychological Association, that there is conversations about what should
Speaker 1: be included. And some of the ideas about what should
Speaker 1: be included now are things like childbirth, sexual harassment, infidelity,
Speaker 1: or even things like having to move suddenly.
Speaker 3: Wow, so they are now diagnostically included PTSD.
Speaker 1: Man But there are calls to say, let's consider this
Speaker 1: as part of the inclusionary criteria for saying that you've
Speaker 1: got PTSD. And so there's more and more people who
Speaker 1: are kind of saying I've had like I, you know,
Speaker 1: my partner cheated on me, and I'm traumatized now and
Speaker 1: and I don't you know, and I think that no
Speaker 1: one would want to go and say, well, that's not
Speaker 1: a difficult situation and that you may have you know
Speaker 1: that there may be really significant consequences to that emotional
Speaker 1: and you know, resource wise about you know, if somebody
Speaker 1: is cheated on you and you have to think about it,
Speaker 1: Am I going to divorce this person? And you know
Speaker 1: what's going to what's going to happen? But it doesn't
Speaker 1: meet the criteria for what we currently say is PTSD.
Speaker 3: What's the harm in including it?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, again, it dilutes it. You know, there
Speaker 1: could be like there's also something that's called an adjustment disorder,
Speaker 1: which is like that brief you know, we've all had
Speaker 1: this where something terrible happens and there's a period of
Speaker 1: a few months where we really struggle to get our
Speaker 1: feedback under ourselves, but then we move on. The difference
Speaker 1: between that kind of normal reaction to an abnormal situation
Speaker 1: and PTSD is that PTSD is long term. It lasts
Speaker 1: for over six months, It involves many areas of your life.
Speaker 1: And it is really a term that is historically reserved
Speaker 1: for kind of those abnormal situations that carry like significant
Speaker 1: psychological burden with it. And it's and I also get
Speaker 1: why people would say, it feels really terrible that this
Speaker 1: happened to me, and it feels like it's it's going
Speaker 1: to go on forever. And so it's it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: that there is this push towards this vertical expansion of
Speaker 1: these concepts. The other piece is that there are ideas
Speaker 1: that are horizontally expanding. So bullying used to happen in
Speaker 1: a schoolyard, right, That's that was you know, as I
Speaker 1: was growing up, That's the only place that I would
Speaker 1: hear about bullying. Now bullying happens in the in the workforce,
Speaker 1: you know, like you can have you know, work site bullying.
Speaker 3: But it's also.
Speaker 1: Happening in on social media as well, and so the
Speaker 1: concept of bullying has expanded horizontally as well that it
Speaker 1: it includes quantity, like qualitatively different things, because online bullying
Speaker 1: looks in some ways the same, but in some ways
Speaker 1: quite different. It's often it's the anonymous nature of social
Speaker 1: media that is different than the school yard bullying you
Speaker 1: often know who your bully is, right, and there's often
Speaker 1: the other piece is that on school yards there's the bully,
Speaker 1: the bullier, and then there's the bystander, right. And in social.
Speaker 3: Media there's no bystanding.
Speaker 1: There's no bystander who's who can look at the bully
Speaker 1: and say stop that. You know, that's terrible. I mean
Speaker 1: you can do that get I guess in reactions and
Speaker 1: comments and that kind of stuff, but it's not exactly
Speaker 1: that that immediate reaction that is available.
Speaker 3: And so what are the implications of bullying expanding, because
Speaker 3: it's hard to know too when your kids a little
Speaker 3: as to whether you're being razzed at school, not bullied. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, someone's poking fun at you. It's going to happen.
Speaker 3: That's not bullying.
Speaker 1: And this is what this is what you were talking
Speaker 1: about before saying, are we just getting better at including,
Speaker 1: you know, diagnosing and including and doing that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Is that if we continue to expand the definitions of
Speaker 1: how we're looking at things like bullying or you know,
Speaker 1: some of the other concepts that seem to have really
Speaker 1: expanded in the last even twenty or thirty years, ADHD anxiety,
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. Are we getting better at dinognosing
Speaker 1: or are we just is there this concept creed?
Speaker 3: Are the implications in all of this for the person
Speaker 3: who is told you do have ADHD or you have
Speaker 3: been bullied, you do have post traumatic stress? Does that
Speaker 3: make you feel better or worse to be recognized as such?
Speaker 1: Well? So, the potential advantage when I think about this,
Speaker 1: is that it means that more, you know, if you
Speaker 1: can get diagnosed with you know something that then often
Speaker 1: it it triggers a you know, resources that can be used,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. It means that destigmatization can actually happen that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you kind of say, you know, I've
Speaker 1: i've I've lived all my life, uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: I was just called weird and now I've I've you know,
Speaker 1: been diagnosed with you know, whether it's you know, anxiety
Speaker 1: or autism spectrum disorder or something, and it destigmatizes, you know,
Speaker 1: if you can have that label and you can say
Speaker 1: I love that I am this person now and then
Speaker 1: I don't feel that the label identifies me. I think
Speaker 1: that that can be fantastic. It also means that that
Speaker 1: we can be potentially more aware and sensitive to the
Speaker 1: suffering of that if we have more awareness about some
Speaker 1: of those different diagnoses you know, trauma related and otherwhen
Speaker 1: you know, neurodevelopmental and all that, that we can actually
Speaker 1: be more sensitive. On the other hand, though, what is
Speaker 1: the other hand? This is the other hand, if we
Speaker 1: are over pathologizing, if we are if this concept creep
Speaker 1: is actually happening, it can encourage victimhood. You know, I
Speaker 1: can't do anything because I've had a trauma. I can't
Speaker 1: do anything like I can't you.
Speaker 3: Know, I'm not good at this part of my job
Speaker 3: because I've got ADHD.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it also creates a culture of fragility and
Speaker 1: excuse making, and you know, potentially creates a situation where
Speaker 1: people aren't or won't take responsibility for their predicament for
Speaker 1: their situation. And while it can be empowering to have
Speaker 1: the diagnosis, it can also be seen as a reason
Speaker 1: for pessimism and less autonomy around self change how to
Speaker 1: useful as a psychologist. I you know, I really struggle
Speaker 1: in you know, in looking at you know, the mental
Speaker 1: health diagnosis has just burgeoned since I've become a psychologist.
Speaker 1: And as I say, I mean, there's this part of
Speaker 1: me that says, maybe education is working. Maybe that's fantastic,
Speaker 1: and it is great to go and see that ability
Speaker 1: to go in front confront stigma and all those kinds
Speaker 1: of things, and I really I just struggled with it.
Speaker 1: And I watch sometimes the the movement by well meaning
Speaker 1: people into situations where situations just get more and more ambiguous,
Speaker 1: and I think that the example that I would use
Speaker 1: is where you know, you know, HR departments of many
Speaker 1: companies are writing in you know, kind of ambiguous language,
Speaker 1: like you know that somehow you could consider it bullying
Speaker 1: or harassment if it you know, you were felt, if
Speaker 1: you felt that you were limited in your ability to
Speaker 1: express an opinion, or or that somehow that your boss
Speaker 1: made unreasonable work demands. And it's and you know, it's
Speaker 1: maybe if there's evidence to say, yes, you know, my
Speaker 1: boss asked me to work you know, through seventeen weekends.
Speaker 3: You know, that's.
Speaker 1: That would be that would be unreasonable amount it. But
Speaker 1: but at what point do we you know there's there's
Speaker 1: there's sometimes you need quantification of things. And as much
Speaker 1: as I really struggle with our diagnostic and statistical manual
Speaker 1: that we use for diagnosis, I really struggle in general
Speaker 1: with the whole idea of diagnosis. I mean, I my
Speaker 1: sense is that I tend to go and shy away
Speaker 1: from making diagnosis although I can as a psychologist, I
Speaker 1: tend to go and and step away from it when
Speaker 1: I can, because I just find that that labeling can
Speaker 1: really have an impact.
Speaker 3: Was it you telling me the story about in Japan
Speaker 3: they didn't have a word for depression. Yeah, until they
Speaker 3: wanted to market a drug at it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, the pharmaceutical companies went into Japan and trained psychiatrists
Speaker 1: to diagnose and label people with depression so that they
Speaker 1: could give them antidepressants. Now there was in Japan a
Speaker 1: word for like what we would have considered like like
Speaker 1: ultra depression, but there wasn't kind of that you know,
Speaker 1: what we see as maybe melancholia or or like mild
Speaker 1: depression or you know that, you know, the adjustment disorder
Speaker 1: that I mentioned, And so it wouldn't have been there
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been the market in Japan for.
Speaker 3: They had to tell people what they had so they
Speaker 3: could create a market. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's like the pharmaceutical companies, you know,
Speaker 1: have a lot to answer for. But you know, they
Speaker 1: also kind of said you know, the whole idea, they've
Speaker 1: got social anxiety, which historically was shyness, and just kind
Speaker 1: of a you.
Speaker 3: Know, is that a concept creep shyness has become social anxiety.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be a good example of concept creep.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's a drug for it now, Amanda, Is
Speaker 1: there a drug.
Speaker 3: For social anxiety? Yeah, it's it called alcohol.
Speaker 1: We have we have done a lot of research in that.
Speaker 3: Maybe fun as anxious. On my own, I thought that
Speaker 3: was very interesting. Thank you, Anita for being the brains
Speaker 3: in the room.
Speaker 1: Mm, you're welcome.
Speaker 3: Should we get to our glimmers.
Speaker 1: Let's I've got I've got one that I've we recently,
Speaker 1: we a bunch of women came together over a period
Speaker 1: about three days, Amanda, and you were part of this,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was thinking about this amazing recipe
Speaker 1: of really cool chicks who over a period of days,
Speaker 1: because it's part of the recipe is time. Is that
Speaker 1: we were able to have these like conversations where we
Speaker 1: are able to go and dive really deep into some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that was going on some of us,
Speaker 1: for some of us individually, but for you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the conversations we were having were things that
Speaker 1: all of us were experiencing, and I was just I
Speaker 1: was so grateful for the time that we were able
Speaker 1: to spend just feeling supported, validated, loved.
Speaker 3: And being allowed to be vulnerable. I felt many times
Speaker 3: an emotional storm come through and I just let it,
Speaker 3: and then someone else could have one and we'd talk
Speaker 3: about what was coming up for them. I've discovered I'm
Speaker 3: a person that doesn't very often let my guard down,
Speaker 3: and I felt that too on that weekend of safe
Speaker 3: space to do all of that and to let the
Speaker 3: storm roll through. When you come out the other side,
Speaker 3: and then five minutes later you're laughing about something. To
Speaker 3: the light, the shade, all the nuances, as you say,
Speaker 3: of everything all of us were going through, some of
Speaker 3: it universal, some of it highly specific friends who've known
Speaker 3: each other a long time. It was filling up the cup,
Speaker 3: wasn't it.
Speaker 1: It really was best kind of self care ever with
Speaker 1: chips included. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, and a couple of drinks
Speaker 1: and one or two drinks, perfect perfect combination. Then what's yours?
Speaker 3: I've just seen this. I saw this story. It's about
Speaker 3: an American father who he said he's been a single
Speaker 3: dad since his daughter was one shes popa with mouse
Speaker 3: seven or so. And I don't know what the single
Speaker 3: dad means, he shares custody or not, but he has
Speaker 3: set up classes to help other men in similar circumstances
Speaker 3: learn how to do their daughter's hair. This is so sweet.
Speaker 3: It was so sweet. And he said he's helped three
Speaker 3: hundred dads so far. And he said, just to keep
Speaker 3: the connection there, whether it's divorce or whatever, what circumstances
Speaker 3: you find yourself in. And he said, and beautiful footage
Speaker 3: of these men combing their daughter's hair, braiding it. He said,
Speaker 3: it's all about the effort. Even a messy bun is
Speaker 3: time spent together. He said, it's not about the braid,
Speaker 3: it's about the bond. Just beautiful. And he said it's
Speaker 3: also giving these young girls a role model, because sometimes
Speaker 3: in these split families or whatever the situation is, these
Speaker 3: girls don't get that. He said, these gender roles are revolving,
Speaker 3: are revolving. The gender ross, gender roles are evolving. And
Speaker 3: he said, to be a father, it's no longer just
Speaker 3: about bringing home the bacon. It's this connection that you
Speaker 3: want with your kids. And what a wonderful way to
Speaker 3: do it. So you're getting your daughter ready for school
Speaker 3: or whatever it is. She's happy because her hair looks great,
Speaker 3: her dad's done her hair. And there are these classes
Speaker 3: where like minded men are doing this with their daughters.
Speaker 1: It would be so like just giving permission for men
Speaker 1: to do that. And can you imagine the memories that
Speaker 1: are developing for these young girls when they grow up
Speaker 1: and they say, Dad used to the used to do
Speaker 1: the best French breed in my hair.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and the knock on effect of the confidence you
Speaker 3: get that you're going to school in a week where
Speaker 3: dad's looking after and you still look great. But the
Speaker 3: time you've spent with your dad doing it, and for
Speaker 3: the dad to feel absolutely contributing in a different kind
Speaker 3: of way to his daughter's life. It's a Greek It's
Speaker 3: a great one. Yeah. All right, well, love you, Love
Speaker 3: you too. Anything we've spoken about, Please feel free to
Speaker 3: comment on our socials. We love hearing what you think
Speaker 3: and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: See you,