Life and Executive Coaching with Dr. K

I don't often write about health issues per se.  But a blog post I saw on this service today reminded me of an article that I read in the  Seattle Times online edition a few months back.  It got me thinking about the confusion created for consumers of natural medicine and the damage done to the integration of CAM into mainstream healthcare by people who use a title but who haven't demonstrated the character and commitment or done the academic and clinical work necessary to earn a degree. 

You can read the article here.   http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004024299_miracle20m0.html

Let me preface an excerpt from that article and my comments about the subject of titles and diplomas with this.  I have no problem with people believing whatever they like, including all kinds of dogma and holistic fictions.  It's when they foist dogma and fictions on unsuspecting others who believe they are getting credible treatments that I get a bit incensed.  And when credible alternatives are relegated to the fringe of medicine because of confusion in the marketplace about what a title actually represents then I feel compelled to say something. 

Now, people with diploma mill degrees may try to justify their use of the diploma mill certificate by telling you that lay practitioners have a long history in healthcare.  But the inconvenient truth is that this was back in the days when formal education was unavailable to the masses, and those lay practitioners spent years apprenticing to people with experience before setting out on their own.  In our modern world, education is available to those who commit to it, and gaining clinical experience is necessary because healthcare decisions can be life/death decisions.

The story in the TImes is titled “Teen’s death hastened by practitioner who had bogus diplomas” and was written by
Christine Willmsen and Michael J. Berens, both Seattle Times staff reporters.

Of particular interest, this bit:

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“The Times found:

At least 104 unaccredited schools dole out alternative-medicine degrees or certifications that are not recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Most operate only through the Internet or by mail order. The largest alternative health-care school in the United States, Clayton College of Natural Health, is an unaccredited home-study program that claims it has issued more than 25,000 degrees.

Some of the largest and seemingly independent health-care credentialing organizations are in fact controlled by one of two businessmen — one in Las Vegas, the other in Texas. Their organizations are mail-order factories that issue professional titles and hand out accreditations to more than 100 schools.

Many buyers of energy devices receive credentials and certificates from manufacturers who operate or sponsor training programs. Device operators use these titles to market themselves as health-care practitioners.

Meanwhile, the alternative-medicine schools that are accredited by the federal government are dismayed by the explosion of untrained and uncertified operators.

“They are using smoke and mirrors to confuse people by not disclosing the truth behind their accrediting agencies and their institutions,” said Dr. Jane Guiltinan, a naturopathic clinical professor at Seattle’s Bastyr University, one of the five schools of naturopathy that are accredited by a federally recognized institution.

Guiltinan is president of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP), an organization that requires that its members graduate from a four-year accredited college.

“To argue that you don’t have to have any training for diagnosing or treating patients is absurd,” she said."

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What’s most interesting to me about this story is that there is nothing new here, except the quality of the article. I was writing about this back in the late 1990s as then-webmaster for the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. Following the death of another person in Colorado at the hands of one of these diploma mill ‘doctors, I contacted a Denver television station, only to be rebuffed by a newsman who failed to be able to make a meaningful distinction about this.

People who have purchased these degrees after sending in a check and doing a minimal amount of "homework" are apparently not at all abashed about claiming to be what the degree they purchased says they are.  I'm sure some of them made this choice innocently.  They saw a quick way to get something they coveted, without considering what it really was and why they coveted it.  But many more do it as an intentional shortcut, and their choosing to buy a degree is evidence of a lack of mental and emotional discipline.  They do it knowing full well that they are taking an easy way, and simply hope never to be found out.  They take advantage of the authority vested in titles without bothering to earn their own.

So another person dies. Maybe after a few more of these preventable deaths, the response in unlicensed states won’t be “So what?” but instead, “So what do we do?” And the answer, if you think about it, is obvious. States need to make it illegal for diploma mills to sell doctor degrees. Anyone calling themself a doctor and offering healthcare services ought to have gone to school, learned to accurately differentiate one condition from the next and how to diagnose illness, had their knowledge and treatment skills tested along the way, and be held accountable for their services by a licensing board. State legislatures that continue to neglect their responsibility in the face of an upswing in interest regarding complementary and alternative therapies are negligent and responsible for any further deaths of unsuspecting people who are left to fend for themselves as a result.

Meanwhile, whenever you see an article or blog or practice listing by someone calling themself a 'naturopath' or 'naturopathic doctor,' if you see that they are in an unlicensed state (you'll find a list of licensed states at the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians website), you may want to investigate the source of their credentials before granting them the credibility of a licensed professional.  Caveat emptor, buyer beware.  

As for anyone interested in buying their degrees without any academic discipline, I say this.  Why bother?  The diploma mill wins (They're trading their piece of paper for your actual money) but what's in it for you?  Since you don't care enough to earn the degree, why not just print one of your own?  Just make up a fancy name for your school and print up a degree. At least you can save yourself a few thousand bucks and get to the same result. 

I blog three days a week on persuasive communication and life skills, at Dr. K's Blog.

"Memories, like the corners of my mind, misty water-colored memories, of the way we were." 

I remember hearing Barbara Streisand sing that song with such passion almost 30 years ago.   Since then, I've learned a few things about the way we remember.  In fact, we remember in at least a couple of ways, each of which has a different effect on us. 

We can associate with our memories, reliving them as if we are there right now, feeling what we felt,  thinking what we thought, and seeing what we saw.  We can also dissociate from our memories, watching ourselves from the outside of the memory, having feelings and thoughts about what we see of ourselves and others.  I've observed in my work with clients that happy and successful people tend to associate with the good ones, and dissociate from the unpleasant ones.  Unhappy people with no momentum for change do just the reverse.

How is this useful information for you?  If you but remember my advice, then I recommend that you dissociate yourself from unpleasant memories and start learning from them, while you associate with the good memories, giving yourself the pleasure of them by reliving them from the inside whenever you need or desire a psychological boost.

There are a number of dissociation techniques that you can use to step away from an unpleasant event, and adjust your point of view:

Comparison:  You can compare the event to more difficult times in your life, or imaginary worst-case scenarios. How would that experience compare with losing a loved one, a limb, or your mind completely?

Perspective:    You can mentally go beyond the problem and project yourself to a future time, where the problem could not possibly matter anymore. I call this the Alan Kirschner technique, which I named after my dad. In times of crisis, he says, "100 years from now, what difference will it make?"  Many was the time when I was growing up when he would go an entire century into the future to get the perspective he needed to deal with me!

Edit:  You can mentally edit the memory as if you were editing a film. Try this with a memory. Watch it on a movie screen in your mind, from the last row in the theater. Make the memory smaller or further away. Remove the color from the image to make it black and white, and see if that reduces its intensity!  Play it backward. Cut and reedit the memory into a new sequence. Trade it with your friends.   Through determination and practice, you can develop a part of you that serves as an impartial and dispassionate observer, regardless of circumstance.

Reframing:  Change the frame around the memory.  Frames of reference are the context for the meaning we make out of events.  With a new frame, the picture takes on new meaning. From now on, try reinterpreting difficult memories, by asking yourself "What else could it have meant?" or "Where might having that experience prove useful to me?"  

You are not defined by your past unless you choose to be.  Your past, no matter how difficult, is a treasure trove of experiences from which you learned everything you needed to know to make it this far, and from which you can learn everything you need to know for the journey still ahead.

Three days a week you'll find fresh content on persuasive communication and life skills at my blog, DrKBlog.com.

Your tone of voice sends people either a positive or a negative message about your opinion of them as a human being. At the tone, many people think it's time to take something personally, even if it has nothing to do with them at all.

Have you ever had a really rotten day at the office, and then you got a call from home? Have you ever had a rotten evening at home, and gotten a call from the office? Even when your words are well-chosen, if your tone of voice is hurried, defensive, or hostile, people may imagine something very different than what you had intended.

Mixed messages, caused by voice tones that don't match spoken words, can cause big problems in relationships of all kinds. When receiving a mixed message, people will respond to the tone and ignore the words. The irony is that people often try to suppress their emotions to avoid conflict. Their words give voice to the direction they would like things to move, but their emotions seep out through their tone of voice.

When this happens, the person on the receiving end is likely to ignore the words and respond to the tone,, at which point  the sender feels misunderstood and conflict ensues.  

So If you ever hear yourself inadvertently giving someone a mixed message, call attention to it yourself.   Help them make sense out of your tone of voice, by explaining for them what it is trying to say.   "Sorry if I sound a bit rushed. That's because I am." Or: "I know I sound angry, but that is because this issue is so important to me."

When you own up to your own tone of voice, and clarify what it is saying, you decrease the likelihood that the other person will take it personally.

Fresh content three days a week about persuasive communication and life skills can be found on my blog, at DrKBlog.com.

When people talk, they want to be heard and understood.  But quite often, they don't even know what they're talking about.  That's because words are symbols for experience, and the first words that people share are just the tip of the iceberg.  They represent the surface of our thoughts, rather than the deep structure experience behind those thoughts. 

The reality of communication is that when people share their symbols, their words, it's incredibly easy to think you understand when you don't really have a clue!   That's one of the main reasons for communication troubles.  Asking questions is a wonderful way to find out what people really mean, while giving them the opportunity to find out with you!

You can almost always gather higher-quality information than what is initially offered. Questions allow both of you to clarify the details and understand the specifics of a problem, rather than coping with, and reacting to, vague generalizations.

You can help the other person become more rational in the process. Asking the right questions helps an upset person to fill in the blanks in their thinking until they become reasonable again.

You can patiently and supportively demonstrate that you care about what they are saying. In this way, problem people are more likely to become calm and cooperative people.

Asking questions can slow a situation down long enough to see where it's heading. This allows you to take corrective action sooner instead of later.

You can surface hidden agendas and reveal lies without being adversarial. Like the TV detective, Columbo, you can appear to be accepting what you hear, and then ask ‘Just one more question,’ and before you know it, they’ll be inadvertently spilling the beans. 

Questions are one of the most powerful methods for gaining real insight and understanding into the people in your life!

Three days a week, you'll find fresh information on persuasive communication and life skills on my blog, at DrKBlog.com

If you have trouble being honest with others, you're not alone.  Telling your truth can be risky business, particularly if the person you want to know about it is already on the defensive.  If you feel the need or desire to have an open and honest discussion, you'll want to do what you can to prevent defensive shields from going up, and if they're already up, to help the person let them down.

Here are a few important keys to an open and honest discussion:

Let the other person go first.  You can get things rolling by introducing the topic you want to talk about, but hold off on saying much about it until you've give the other person a chance to have their say. 

Listen really well to what they tell you.  People tell your their good intentions, their motivations, and their needs if you listen well.  And that, in turn, tells you what you need to speak to when it's your turn to talk. 

Use "I" language to take the fight out of your words.   "From my point of view," and "The way I see it" are softening phrases that tell someone that you’re not claiming to have THE truth, but rather, to tell YOUR truth, and that what you have to say belongs to you.   This creates a buffer zone rather than a line in the sand, and  makes listening to you a little more comfortable, a little less oppressive.

Be specific about the problem rather than the person. Generalizations like, "You always exaggerate every time we have a conversation” are unlikely to help.  Instead, give specific examples.  The more specific you are, the more compelling what you have to say will be.

Describe how their behavior is self-defeating. To create self-motivation for change, you have to show people how they stand to lose something they care about, or have already lost some of it, and that if they care about it, there are steps they can take to get it back.

Suggest or invite new behaviors and different options. If you can, make some specific suggestions as to what they can do differently in those situations, and what the likely result will be.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to being honest with someone is concern about hurting their feelings. But you do no one a favor by withholding information and allowing them to continue behaviors that don't work for them either. 

Years ago, someone told me that if I tell the truth faster, I'll have more fun.  And as far as I can tell, it's usually true!  Carrying around negative thoughts and bad reactions is exhausting and, with rare exception, not at all necessary.   Vent the exhaust in an open and honest dialog, and you make space in your relationships to let the good times roll again!

More information on persuasive communication and life skills can be found on my blog, at DrKBlog.com.