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Jana Wesson-Martin

The Beginning of Life

April 15, 2020 by Jana Wesson-Martin

I was so fortunate to be present in the delivery room when my two grandchildren were born. Watching them grow these last few years has reminded me that everyday, a child learns something new. Everyday a child changes. Everyday a child grows.

What is the biggest influence on child development?

The debate regarding nature and nurture is ancient. Research now firmly suggests that development is based on both. Genetics and environment are interdependent. Stauffer and Capuzzi in Human Growth and Development state, “Our heredity comes with capacities for wonderful skills, but [those skills] must be nurtured by the environment.”

A Neflix documentary, The Beginning of Life, presents breakthroughs in technology and neuroscience. The research presented in this film shows that we should be paying ever more attention to the first three years of life. Those first years are referred to as a framework of sorts, like building the frame of a house. Learning takes place much more rapidly ages 0-3.

Experts in the field remind us that a 3-year-old brain is twice as active as our adult brain. We need only look into a child’s face to see that there is so much happening, all at once.

Andrew N. Meltzoff, PhD, is an American psychologist who is an internationally recognized expert on infant and child development. He states that 30 years ago, philosophers thought baby brains were undeveloped. Their babbling before language wasn’t taken so seriously. The truth is just the opposite, the good doctor emphasizes, for at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, research shows that babies learn more and know more than we ever thought possible.

Particia K. Kohl, PhD / Co-Director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, speaks to the idea that the baby’s brain is just waiting for the environment to show him/her how this culture does things. She calls it a “sense of self” (how does it feel to be me?) and a “sense of the world” (how does it feel to be human?). Her study reminds us of the term neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change with experience. It is a baby’s brain that is most adaptable.

Alison Gopnik, PhD, is a psychologist and neuroscientist who reminds us of something very important: We often say toddlers have trouble paying attention. What is actually true is that they have trouble NOT paying attention. Toddlers are, she urges, very sensitive to all info around them, taking it in and putting it into use. The irony is that children are so observant, while adults walk around with their eyes practically closed, not noticing, not observing all that is happening around them, in nature, in people.

Children don’t just babble. Rather, children are actually little scientists and the best learners, and they recognize novelty in what we might consider to be the most mundane things. We can’t underestimate what’s going on in a child’s brain. Could it be that babies learn more in the first three years of life than they will ever learn in that time span again?

Warning: it is also the baby’s brain that can be so vulnerable, suffering from threat or abuse. We must all tread softly. And the thing is that things, money and fancy toys, don’t matter so much. The film depicts mothers in great poverty who interact actively with their babies and whose babies are thriving.

As exhausting as it is to be a parent, the parent has great power to put a child on the right trajectory. This scientific documentary ultimately says that it is all about the love: “Love is the necessary background for exploration.” It is important to be paying attention to this new little life, offering interaction and affirmation. And parenting, (well and grand-parenting of course) is one the highest of callings.

Written by: Jana Wesson-Martin, LPC-Intern – Therapist – New Braunfels location

Film Therapy for Quarantine

April 3, 2020 by Jana Wesson-Martin

What are you doing with your time in quarantine? Since I’ve been sheltered in, I’m integrating a little more self-care into my life. After all, self-care isn’t selfish, as many have said, but self-care is indeed a necessary thing for all of us as we strive for good health and well-being.

I love movies, but all too often, in typical circumstances, I don’t take the time to settle down for a few hours (with some popcorn, of course) and actually indulge myself in viewing a good movie. And I was recently reminded of the deep impact a good movie can have upon its viewers. Who of us hasn’t been incredibly moved by watching a good film?

Cinematherapy focuses on the idea that art imitates life, and one film I recently watched did not disappoint. To the Bone is about a young lady with an eating disorder. The film is based on the life experiences of the film’s director, Marti Noxon, who states, “I didn’t want to try to show the particularities of this one ism, but to talk about the underlying issues. “Eating disorders for me, like substance abuse [for others], was me wanting to escape a certain pain or level of feeling that I didn’t want to have, and until I faced those feelings, I wasn’t going to get better.”

I especially like the film because it doesn’t just apply to eating disorders. Most anything can become an addiction. For centuries, we’ve observed so much about chemical addictions, but now we are also hearing more and more about process addictions. The American Society of Addiction Medicine now holds a wider definition of addiction to include not only drugs and alcohol, but also process addictions to such things as shopping, exercise, and gambling, for example.

We are all susceptible to addictions. True confessions – I have addiction to my phone. Seriously, nomophobia is the fear of being without one’s smartphone. This addiction has become so prevalent in our society that there is a proposal to include it in the next edition of the Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Sure, I joke at my addiction because I don’t really want to think about it that much. And I don’t want to change. That’s my denial. Yet, oh so quickly, those process addictions, too, can seep into one’s life in such a way that interferes with relationships and obligations.

The film To the Bone didn’t win any stellar awards. But the film reminds me of the complicatedness of relationships and of life’s twists and turns. There is also the reminder that hitting “rock bottom,” is not always a requirement in order for a patient to get help. Most importantly, the film portrays the idea that the commonality for any addiction is that recovery requires a choice, a willingness to change. One of the best lines from the film is this: “Your courage was a small coal that you kept swallowing.”

The ending. Oh, never mind. Of course, I can’t tell you the ending. But I will say that the ending reminds me of Viktor Frankl’s words:

Say yes to life, despite everything.

These words I want to remember. Especially now. Today.

Check out a few of my fave films that portray the incredible trait of human resiliency:

Harriet

He Named Me Malala

The Kite Runner

Life of Pi

The King’s Speech

Fences

Jackie

The Pursuit of Happyness

Unbroken

Invictus

Cast Away

Rocky

Wild

 

Written by: Jana Wesson-Martin, NCC, LPC-Intern – Therapist – New Braunfels location

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