January 18, 2019 in 3,169 words

Psychology Has a New Approach to Building Healthier Men

_{^{A controversial set of guidelines aims to help men grapple with “traditional masculinity”}}

This week, the American Psychological Association, the country’s largest professional organization of psychologists, did something for men that it’s done for many other demographic groups in the past: It introduced a set of detailed guidelines for clinicians who treat men and boys. The 10 guidelines make suggestions on how to encourage fathers to engage with their kids, how to address problems that disproportionately affect men, like suicide and substance abuse, and how to steer men toward healthy behaviors. The guidelines’ development began in 2005, and has included input from more than 200 physicians and researchers.

This emphasis on understanding the issues men face comes at a crucial time, according to Ryon McDermott, a psychologist who helped the APA craft its new standards. Although people of all genders face no shortage of obstacles in America, “men are struggling,” he says. “The recession has hit men harder than women, men are less likely to graduate from college, men are more likely to complete suicide than women.” To help patients, the guidelines assert, psychologists need to understand what’s making their lives untenable. For a lot of men, it might be the harsh cultural expectations that can come along with manhood itself.

In providing standards for men in the same way that it previously has for women, LGBTQ people, and other demographic groups, the APA attempts to right an enduring wrong in a field that has long glossed over how being a man might impact a person’s experiences and well-being. But by making treatment more accepting of men while also critiquing the way many of them see themselves, the group is trying to thread a difficult needle in taking on the nature of masculinity. …

Death on demand: has euthanasia gone too far?

_{Countries around the world are making it easier to choose the time and manner of your death. But doctors in the world’s euthanasia capital are starting to worry about the consequences.}

Last year a Dutch doctor called Bert Keizer was summoned to the house of a man dying of lung cancer, in order to end his life. When Keizer and the nurse who was to assist him arrived, they found around 35 people gathered around the dying man’s bed. “They were drinking and guffawing and crying,” Keizer told me when I met him in Amsterdam recently. “It was boisterous. And I thought: ‘How am I going to cleave the waters?’ But the man knew exactly what to do. Suddenly he said, ‘OK, guys!’ and everyone understood. Everyone fell silent. The very small children were taken out of the room and I gave him his injection. I could have kissed him, because I wouldn’t have known how to break up the party.”

Keizer is one of around 60 physicians on the books of the Levenseindekliniek, or End of Life Clinic, which matches doctors willing to perform euthanasia with patients seeking an end to their lives, and which was responsible for the euthanasia of some 750 people in 2017. For Keizer, who was a philosopher before studying medicine, the advent of widespread access to euthanasia represents a new era. “For the first time in history,” he told me, “we have developed a space where people move towards death while we are touching them and they are in our midst. That’s completely different from killing yourself when your wife’s out shopping and the kids are at school and you hang yourself in the library – which is the most horrible way of doing it, because the wound never heals. The fact that you are a person means that you are linked to other people. And we have found a bearable way of severing that link, not by a natural death, but by a self-willed ending. It’s a very special thing.”

This “special thing” has in fact become normal. Everyone in the Netherlands seems to have known someone who has been euthanised, and the kind of choreographed farewell that Keizer describes is far from unusual. Certainly, the idea that we humans have a variety of deaths to choose from is more familiar in the Netherlands than anywhere else. But the long-term consequences of this idea are only just becoming discernible. Euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands for long enough to show what can happen after the practice beds in. And as an end-of-life specialist in a nation that has for decades been the standard bearer of libertarian reform, Keizer may be a witness to the future that awaits us all. …

PREPARE TO SPEND A WHILE; It’s The Long Read.

Experience: I talked a man down from a bridge

_{I was babbling, saying anything to alter his mood, to convince him I cared and his life still mattered.}

_{Gillian Assor: ‘I heard a train and knew this was the moment he could throw himself on to the tracks.’}

It was the May bank holiday last year, and my husband, David, and I were taking our dog, a cavapoochon called Joey, for his evening walk. We were on our way home, heading towards Red Road bridge in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, when I heard a commotion ahead.

As we approached the bridge, dusk was starting to fall and I could see a figure hunched over on the ground, uncomfortably close to the wall. It was a young man, clearly in distress, crying and shouting, his whole body shaking. I froze, suddenly aware of the gravity of the situation. The bridge ran over a high-speed train track and was a well-known suicide spot. A local family had lost their teenager in that exact place a few weeks earlier.

David and I exchanged glances. There was no one around. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if his death was reported the next day and I’d done nothing.

I inched towards the slumped figure, Joey instinctively glued to my side. I asked the young man if I could sit down, then lowered myself on to the ground opposite him, while Joey sandwiched himself between us.

I tried a few gentle questions: “What’s your name? How old are you? What do you do?” His answers were monosyllabic. “Tommy. 23. Computers.”

“Are you OK?” I asked. “No, I’m not!” he shouted back. He muttered something about a betrayal, and not knowing what to do. His emotions were swinging wildly – tears one moment; brittle anger the next. I was desperate to make a connection, asking him where he went to college and feigning delight as I told him my son had studied there, too. I even found myself recounting the story of Neil Laybourn, who had talked a man down from Waterloo bridge in London 10 years ago. …

4 Strange Ways Everyday Foods Can Affect Your Brain

Science is inventing new food all the time, which is great for those of you who’ve tried all of the existing foods already. The problem is that we humans will start wolfing this stuff down long before science fully understands its effect on our bodies. Some problems take decades to appear, or only show up in a few ultra-specific circumstances.

For example, the common foods below all seem to have some kind of weird effect on the human brain (or at least, are correlated with some weird effect, for reasons no one understands). I’m not warning you off of consuming any of these, but it’s still worth knowing what the experts are saying …

Note: I am the opposite of a doctor. If you think your diet is messing with your body or brain, please call a professional! A medical professional, obviously. Not, like, a professional wrestler or something.

4. Jerky Has Been Linked To Manic Episodes

If it was feasible, I would eat beef jerky for two meals a day, every day. I am a man of simple tastes (too simple, some would argue, as this diet would surely kill a person within a month). However, recent studies suggest there may (MAY) be a weird, completely unexpected side effect. Salty, cured meats may be leading you down the road to manic episodes — that is, the kind that require hospitalization.

In a study that covered 1,100 people, researchers discovered that subjects who had eaten cured meats were 3.5 times more likely to have been hospitalized for some kind of mania than those who hadn’t. Mania, to be clear, is defined by a super positive mood, ultra-high energy, feelings of confusion, and a disconnection from reality so severe that you need medical help. So not a super good thing. The study didn’t prove that mental health suffers from ingesting those foods; it just noticed a very odd correlation between the two things. It possibly has to do with the nitrates most of those products contain.

A follow-up study confirmed the results, and then another test fed cured meat ingredients to rats to induce hyperactivity. Hyperactivity is of course not the same as mania, but we’re talking about rats here, and sometimes close is as good as you can get. So salami makes hyper rats, if you’re curious. Please use this information responsibly.

Again, there’s no proven cause and effect here yet. All they have is the data showing a connection. So if this is something you’ve experienced in your life, hey, maybe ask a doctor about it. All I can say is that if it turns out there is indeed a link between beef jerky and mania, then all of those old Slim Jim ads are going to take on a dark undertone.

…

What It’s Like to Visit an Existential Therapist

_{It’s not meant to be comforting, but somehow it is.}

If you ever find yourself sinking into the plush blue couch of Dr. Jane Prelinger, you should know that she doesn’t want you to call her Dr. Prelinger. In her office, even when you’re on the couch and she’s facing you from her chair, looking at you through heavy eyeliner and the frame of her white-blond bangs, she insists: You’re just two humans. “It’s Faith and Jane,” she told me when I was in that position. “Here, it’s human to human.”

Jane is an existential therapist. She sees a lot of different clients with a lot of different problems, but she thinks all of those problems can be reduced to the same four essential issues: death, meaninglessness, isolation, and freedom.

Existential therapy isn’t new. Its roots go back to the existential philosophers of the 20th century, and specifically to Jean-Paul Sartre, who summed up his philosophy in 1943 when he wrote that humans are “condemned to be free.” Unlike other animals, humans are conscious and aware of their own mortality—but that means they have the possibility, and responsibility, of deciding in each moment what to do and how to be.

Existential philosophy evolved into a methodology in the postwar years, as therapists in different corners of the globe began using its principles to inform their practice: After being freed from a concentration camp, Viktor Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning in 1946, and coined logotherapy as a method of creating meaning. Rollo May brought this European perspective to America in the 1950s, giving it a more optimistic flair focused on the vastness of human potential, and called it the “existential-humanistic” approach. And in 1980, Irvin Yalom defined the four “givens” of the human condition—death, meaning, isolation, and freedom—that have become the basis for the field. Today there remain several different branches of existential therapy, but they all help clients face existential givens head-on so that they can move toward a more “authentic” and free existence. …

Amazon Ruined Online Shopping

_{America’s largest internet store is so big, and so bewildering, that buyers often have no idea what they’re going to get.}

There’s a Gatorade button attached to my basement fridge. If I push it, two days later a crate of the sports drink shows up at my door, thanks to Amazon. When these “Dash buttons” were first rumored in 2015, they seemed like a joke. Press a button to one-click detergent or energy bars? What even?, my colleague Adrienne LaFrance reasonably inquired.

They weren’t a joke. Soon enough, Amazon was selling the buttons for a modest fee, the value of which would be applied to your first purchase. There were Dash buttons for Tide and Gatorade, Fiji Water and Lärabars, Trojan condoms and Kraft Mac & Cheese.

The whole affair always felt unsettling. When the buttons launched, I called the Dash experience Lovecraftian, the invisible miasma of commerce slipping its vapor all around your home. But last week, a German court went further, ruling the buttons illegal because they fail to give consumers sufficient information about the products they order when pressing them, or the price they will pay after having done so. (You set up a Dash button on Amazon’s app, selecting a product from a list; like other goods on the e-commerce giant’s website, the price can change over time.) Amazon, which is also under general antitrust investigation in Germany, disputes the ruling.

Given that Amazon controls about half of the U.S. online-retail market and takes in about 5 percent of the nation’s total retail spending, it’s encouraging to see pushback against the company’s hold on the market. But Dash buttons are hardly the problem. Amazon made online shopping feel safe and comfortable, at least mechanically, where once the risk of being scammed by bad actors felt huge. But now online shopping is muddy and suspicious in a different way—you never really know what you’re buying, or when it will arrive, or why it costs what it does, or even what options might be available to purchase. The problem isn’t the Dash button, but the way online shopping works in general, especially at the Everything Store. …

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: There’s a reason that we used to have shoe stores, hardware stores, grocery stores, bookstores, and all the rest: Those specialized retail spaces allow products, and the people with knowledge about them, to engage in specialized ways of finding, choosing, and purchasing them.

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

The American opioid epidemic has shown no signs of abating, with death rates skyrocketing in what medical officials call one of the worst public health crises of our time. But along with the tragic loss of life, the epidemic has another consequence: a record-high uptick in organs available for donation.

While scores of young and otherwise healthy people continue to die, they are in turn saving the lives of people on waiting lists who are often confined to dialysis machines and hospitals rooms.

“I didn’t know she wanted to be a donor. I’m so glad, I’m so proud of her,” Jane Tyler said of her daughter Kristen, who was 38 when she died of an overdose in Louisville. “Kristin loved making people happy. She loved making people laugh. She loved to party, she had rowdy friends, and she was a rowdy girl. But I loved her so much. I could put up with the rowdiness right now.”

When an overdose victim has elected to be an organ donor, medical personnel work quickly to assess and preserve the health of the organs. If suitable, the local organ procurement organization (OPO) will step in and call transplant centers in the region to try to find recipients. In some cases, organs may have been compromised but are still viable.

“Sometimes I can’t find a recipient, and it’s awful to have to know for that family, they’re not going to get the ‘silver lining,’ if you will… the only happy thing that can come out of a loved one overdosing,” said Ashley Rakityan, a clinical coordinator with Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates.

VICE News captures how one woman’s overdose illuminates a trend in organ donation. In never-before-seen coverage, we follow Kristen Tyler’s departing gift, to a woman in need, and we explore with that recipient and her doctor, the efficacy of accepting it.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

Ronny Chieng highlights some of the most ridiculous junk on display at this year’s CES, including a vending machine for bread and a needy AI robot called a Lovot.

Derek Waters talks about what all of Drunk History’s narrators have in common, how he gets such top-tier talent to do the show and why people seem to like it so much

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

In response to Speaker Pelosi’s disinvitation to the State of the Union, Trump seemed to take pleasure in cancelling Speaker Pelosi’s ‘excursion’ to a warzone.

It’s been a long journey from ‘No collusion!’ to ‘I never said there was no collusion between the campaign.’

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

Seth takes a closer look at the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, basically admitting that Trump’s campaign might have colluded with Russia.

_{THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.}

梱包用の紙なのですが、大きくて頑丈で、思い切り遊べます。 This is paper for packing.Because this paper is very firm, Maru can play with this intensely.

FINALLY . . .

Heads-Up For Sunday, A Super ‘Blood Moon’ Is On The Way

_{A so-called “blood moon” seen during a total lunar eclipse in western Germany, on Sept. 28, 2015.}

A special celestial event is on the calendar for this Sunday night and experts are already raving:

“A full 62 luxurious minutes of totality,” says Sky and Telescope Magazine.

“The Only Total Lunar Eclipse of 2019,” promises NASA.

“This full moon will appear to be one of the largest of 2019,” reports Space.com.

North and South America will get the best view of the super “blood moon”, as it’s known, but Europeans and Africans will also be able to watch (weather permitting). So, let’s break down the hype, starting with the eclipse.

Unlike a solar eclipse, when the moon gets between Earth and the sun, a total lunar eclipse occurs when Earth aligns to block the sun’s light from the moon. That can only happen when the moon is on the opposite side of Earth from the sun. About once a month, a full moon is visible when it nears that far point and shines brightly as Earth covers up most of the sun. But approximately once a year, as the moon travels along its tilted axis, it ends up directly behind Earth and is thrust into near darkness. …

It’s not often that we get a chance to see our planet’s shadow, but a lunar eclipse gives us a fleeting glimpse. During these rare events, the full Moon rapidly darkens and then glows red as it enters the Earth’s shadow. Though a lunar eclipse can be seen only at night, it’s worth staying up to catch the show. The next lunar eclipse visible from the western hemisphere will take place in the early morning hours of April 15, 2014, from about 2:00 am – 5:30 am Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11516

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Probably. Possibly. Maybe. Not?}