There is no way to eliminate stress from our lives entirely, and small amounts are actually good for providing motivation and stimulating creativity. To make sure stress doesn’t take control of your life and health, try to follow these tips:
• Make the time to do simple things you enjoy. This could be listening to your favourite music, reading a good book, phoning a friend or meeting them for lunch.
• Spend time with people who make you laugh, and watch comedies.
• Make sure you get enough sleep. If you are chronically tired, every difficulty will be harder to cope with.
• Exercise. It is impossible to be thinking about your problems if you are flat out exercising.
• If something is bothering you, talk about it to a friend or family member you trust.
• Take a holiday each year. You don’t have to go far; just a change in scenery and routine can do wonders for restoring motivation.
• Find something in life you are passionate about and be involved in it regularly. Life has so many things to offer, there is never a reason to feel bored.
• Remember to be grateful for all the wonderful people and things in your life.
• Having a regular massage is a great way to release tension from your body.
• Learn meditation, yoga or Tai Chi. Stress management techniques like this can reduce your risk of heart disease by 50 percent.
• Breath slowly and deeply. Often when we are stressed we take shallow breaths or hold our breath for short periods of time.
*23/53/5*
Another objection by this same patient was, “What if my wife isn’t playing a game? What if she really gets headaches? Isn’t it cruel to imitate her?” Generally when a symptom (headache) happens repeatedly and directly in response to the same situation (sex), it is psychosomatic. This is not to say that the headaches are not real. They are real—but they also are somatic representations of unconscious feelings. So to cure the headache entails resolving the feelings underneath. It is no crueler to mirror her headaches than it would be to apply an ice bag to her temple.
The other reason why my patient was skeptical was that he didn’t want to give up the game he had been unconsciously playing until then—the passive game of “Oh, what I have to endure because of you.” He would rather have continued that game and derive its secondary benefits of feeling morally superior to his “rejecting” wife than take an action designed to end their ritualistic conundrum. All too often we would rather cling to an old way, even if it is not working, than venture to a new one.
*101/196/1*
They go on, repeating variations of these phrases until they are ready to have sex. Then she climbs on top of him and begins to have sex with him. During the sexual experience, they are to look glumly into each other’s eyes and say the negative litany again, exaggeratedly.
“Everything’s hopeless.”
“Yes, everything.”
“Sex is hopeless.”
“Absolutely hopeless.”
“Nothing matters.”
“Why bother?”
As they continue, they may become more personal.
“Life is hopeless, but I’m having sex with you anyway.”
“It’s all hopeless, but I’m kissing you.”
“You’re hopeless, but you have a nice tongue.”
“You’re hopeless, but I might as well use you.” As they become excited, they continue the negativity.
“I’m getting excited, but it’s useless.”
“I’m getting a little excited too, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
“It’s hopeless.”
“Everything’s hopeless.”
“Perhaps I’ll have a hopeless orgasm.”
“Yes, a very hopeless orgasm.”
*76/196/1*
This is the way the conversation might go, but it will of course vary according to the couple. (In some cases it may be the husband who gets headaches, and the wife will wear some white article of clothing, such as a nurse’s or nun’s hat—white symbolizing purity.)
If the active spouse can manage to pull off this abrupt change in attitude with sincerity, it can have amazing results. The wife may throw herself into his arms right away, disarmed by this new attitude and the mysterious, provocative bow tie. The fact of the tie, plus his statement that she could remove it only when they have sex, will immediately put their sexual relationship on a different plane: Instead of the whining corn-plainer for whom she must do her duty, he becomes a charming, teasing challenge. And he will in fact be mirroring her own mode, offering care while withholding sex.
In more difficult cases, it may take a while to break down the wife’s resistance. The husband must be prepared to wait as long as necessary, pouring on the kindness and bearing her skepticism and anger with grace. It is a game of wills, and he must funnel his own anger into this constructive battle, killing (defeating) her with kindness. Eventually, if he persists, she will surrender.
Once she does, a new balance will have been accomplished. She will have given herself to him not out of guilt or duty, but because at last she really wanted to. And he will have taken perhaps his first step in learning the value of constructive charm.
*51/196/1*
No matter what he says or how long or in how many ways he resists, the wife is to persist with her seduction: “I know it’s silly, but come join me anyway,” she says; or, “I know you’re starving, but come join me for a while anyway”; or, “Yes, it cost a few dollars, but come join me for a while and you’ll see it was worth it”; or, “You think I look idiotic? Come join me and you’ll see how truly idiotic I can look!” Repeat these phrases as many times as needed, until the husband surrenders.
For extremely difficult cases, the wife may need to do something more physical. She may, for instance, have some champagne (or his favorite other drink) ready and can try to loosen him up with that. She may offer a massage for his tired shoulders. She may perform a belly dance or striptease. Or, she may crawl up to him on her knees, unzip his pants, and take a hands-on approach to seduction. Each case will be different, and in each case the wife must rely on her own understanding of what her husband’s particular weakness is. If he’s obsessed with the stock market, she may suddenly show miraculous knowledge of that day’s activity. If he loves baseball, she may suddenly reverse her usual aversion to it, don a baseball cap, and begin a conversation about that day’s game, the statistics of the opposing pitchers, the need for a new manager, and so on.
*26/196/1*
The fear of dysfunction does indeed appear to be the most common phobic reaction in sexual dysfunction. Although it is easily identified, there often are many subtleties involved.
As sex usually involves two people, these fears occur within a social context. Sometimes a critical variable is not the patient’s fear of dysfunction but the partner’s fear of the patient’s dysfunction. One man, with sexual impotence, stated that the fear of dysfunction did not begin to appear until well after the impotence was established. Even at the time of consultation, that fear was not particularly strong. Further exploration revealed that his mate had had a series of experiences with sexually impotent men, that she was phobic to the thought that her current lover would become impotent, that because of this fear she was extremely anxious during sex. It was her anxiety, or rather his reaction to her anxiety, that brought about the dysfunction. Reduction of her fears relieved his impotence without any direct treatment of the man.
Sometimes the fear of dysfunction is combined with an assertive problem. The patient is usually an obsessive male who has great difficulty in saying “no” to a woman in a close relationship. This is especially true in the sexual area. Resentment builds up, and he begins to wish that he were impotent, as a means of gaining freedom. This wish is rapidly converted into a fear and then into an obsessive thought. Dysfunction follows. We have had only fair success in treating patients with this condition, several of whom also failed in couple sex therapy.
Finally, although not inclusive, is the fear of dysfunction as a mask for other fears. The core fear may be the partner’s reaction rather than the dysfunction itself, that the partner may become angry, frustrated, contemptuous, rejecting or even more common with women, pitying. In these conditions, even when reduction of the fear of the dysfunction is successful, there is a tendency for the dysfunction to return. Treatment cannot be considered complete until the fear of the partner’s reaction is removed.
Although the fear of dysfunction is the most common phobic reaction, many others do exist. Any part of the sex act or situation may become a phobic stimulus. Among phobic stimuli we have seen are parts of the partner’s body (especially the genitals), physiological sensations as
the person approaches climax such as change in breathing (in several patients with a history of childhood asthma) or rapid heartbeat, fear of performing specific sexual acts (which often include both the fear of being “perverted” and the so-called masturbation guilt), and the fear of not enjoying specific sexual acts (especially among young adults who are afraid of being “inhibited” or “uptight”).
Many of these fears are very subtle, and part of the art of behavior therapy is to identify them. One young woman could not have a climax in the presence of another person. The core fear turned out to be the fear of being ugly. She believed that during climax her face became contorted and that even in total darkness her partner might see it. One man had a history of losing all sexual interest in any long-term relationship. After a long investigation the problem turned out to be the fear of boredom. Reduction of this fear appeared to have changed the problem pattern.
Communication between the couple is especially important to attain a good sexual relationship. Hence, special note must be taken of those fears which inhibit such communication. However, regardless of what the specific fears are, usually the most effective method for reducing them is through the assertive training approaches rather than through phobic reduction methods.
Nonsexual phobic stimuli may also disrupt sexual functioning. Fear of darkness is but one example of the many that can be cited. As stated before, part of the art of behavior therapy is the identification of such specific phobias.
*236/187/5*
Homosexualism is the same as homosexuality. Professional opinion is currently divided as to whether homosexuality should be considered a syndrome or simply a socially sanctioned erotic alternative analogous to left-handedness. In the American Psychiatric Association the majority opinion, as expressed in the referendum of early 1974, supported a change in official nomenclature, so that homosexuality per se is no longer classified as a mental disease or illness. In the religious law of former times, homosexuality was a crime synonymous with treason and heresy. In the civil law today, in many states, homosexuality is classified as a crime against nature, with penalties that are brutally severe. In other states, homosexuality is considered a matter of private morality, provided it takes place between consenting adults.
In current usage, there are those who define homosexuality mentalistically as a trait, state, or disposition emanating from the personality, and those who define it behaviorally as something that happens between two people with similar sex organs. The mentalist says that a person can be homosexual, even though his or her only sexual practices have been heterosexual, provided the erotic imagery is consistently homosexual. To the mentalist, a single homosexual act by itself does not make the person homosexual, because homosexuality is defined as a continuing state of mind or personality. The behaviorist says that a single homosexual act makes a person homosexual for the duration of that act, but from that one act alone it will not be possible to predict more of the same in the future, nor what the person will say or do to indicate a trait, status, or disposition toward homosexuality.
The only evidence that both a behaviorist and a mentalist have about homosexuality is behavioral, that is, what the ostensible homosexual says or does. Thus, it makes sense to define homosexuality in terms of two people each with a penis or two each with a vagina in an erotic partnership. Anything further about the fortuitousness of the event versus its replication, and anything about the imagery and thoughts of the partners, will need extra information. Only then can an inference be made about whether either partner is an obligative versus a facultative (situational) homosexual, the latter being in fact a bisexual. Homosexuality is extensively, though quite wrongly, used as a synonym for bisexuality in today’s literature.
Extra information, over and beyond that of erotic performance, also is needed before an inference can be made regarding the extent or pervasiveness of the gender transposition in homosexuality. There are some male homosexuals who manifest negligible femininity vocationally and recreationally. Even in erotic performance, they may be more masculine than feminine in what they do, except that it is usually considered a feminine trait to have a male copulatory partner. The same applies, vice versa, in the case of the female homosexual.
A male homosexual who manifests little gender transposition, except for entering into an erotic activity or partnership with a male, is often said to have a male gender identity, but to prefer a male partner. For the sake of precision, one should say more restrictively that his gender identity/role is predominantly male, though not completely so. Sexual practice and partnership are components of gender identity/role and must be included in its definition as masculine or feminine in any given case.
*199/187/5*
Key statistics reveal that women still are not fully integrated into the mainstream of the American work force. Although they now comprise nearly half of all wage earners, they continue to be grossly under-represented in occupations associated with power or status. As recently as 1970, for example, only 5% of all lawyers and judges, 6% of all industrial managers, and 9% of all physicians were women (Council of Economic Advisors). Thus, despite federal legislation, consciousness-raising activities, and women’s caucuses, disparities persist.
Obstacles to women’s advancement in non-traditional areas derive both from forces within women themselves and from forces outside them. Women’s fear of success (Horner), limited self-confidence (Lenney), low achievement motivation (Veroff, Wilcox, and Atkinson) and role conflict (Hall) are some of the internal factors detrimentally affecting their own achievement. Discussion of these phenomena, although they act to support and maintain sex discriminatory practices, is not within the scope of this essay. It is designed to explore only the externally imposed barriers that thwart women in their quest for equality.
Because they are so central to the issues of women’s advancement, the focus of our concerns will be the experiences women encounter in the work world. When considering work-related discrimination it is necessary to distinguish between its two different forms (Levitan, Quinn, and Staines; Terborg and Ilgen). One is the non job-related limitations put on members of a subgroup influencing their attempts to enter an organization. This is called access discrimination. Funneling of women to some jobs and not others, failing to hire women applicants for certain positions, and offering a lower salary to women as compared to men all are examples of access discrimination on the basis of sex. The other form of discrimination, treatment discrimination, is the differential treatment of members of a subgroup once they have gained access to a position and are at work on the job. Promoting women more slowly than men, giving them fewer opportunities to learn new skills, or giving them lower or less frequent salary raises all are examples of treatment discrimination involving sex.
Because beliefs about women and how they compare to men are widely shared within our culture and are assumed to apply to nearly all men and women as members of their respective groups, these beliefs are called stereotypes. According to Terborg, sex stereotypes have two components. First, they specify the characteristics of each sex. Second, they dictate which behaviors are appropriate to men and women. Either of these can form the basis of sex discrimination, one based on faulty beliefs about what women are like and the other based on normative expectations about what women should be like.
*162/187/5*