June to September 2016

Last June (2016) The initial symptoms presented like a really bad toothache on the left side of my face. I took the usual over the counter painkillers with no effect. After a few days of excruciating pain, I went to my dentist. He had a look and told me he couldn't find anything that would cause the pain I was experiencing. He told me it could be glandular fever and prescribed me some antibiotics and sent me on my way. I took the tablets and when I completed them, the pain was as bad as ever. I decided to go to my GP. As soon as I described the pain, he told me that he believed it was Trigeminal Neuralgia. I had never heard of it, so he told me a little bit about it and printed me out some information. He also sent a letter to a Neurologist in Dublin. I was given some pain killers, and other medication, to try and relive some of the pain.

The medication had no effect, and the pain was just indescribable. I looked completely fine, so unless I complained, nobody knew how I felt. I am lucky that my family have been so supportive. They say that they can see it when the pain is bad, but I guess it's because they know me so well.

Weeks turned into months, and after a few different medications, dosages etc, my pain was much worse. I couldn't sleep, I was in terrible form and I felt like I was going crazy. I learned about a Trigeminal Support Group that meets in Dublin from a friend. Incidentally her mother suffers from this condition too! I attended the group meeting, and I realised that I wasn't alone. There are people who are living with this condition for over twenty years, something that scared me. I was given some useful information. This meeting was last September. 

A week or so later, the pain got so bad that I had to be taken to hospital. Despite the obvious overcrowding, I was admitted for a week, and many tests were done. A member of the Neurology team explained that there is no clinical test for TN, and the purpose of multiple CT scans, MRI's and blood tests, were to ensure there was nothing more sinister going on. Finally, after a few failed attempts at different medications, I was given one that seemed to have a little effect and I was sent home. The hospital staff were fantastic. The doctors were well informed on TN and they agreed with my GP about my diagnosis. 

More to follow....

Horror Stories in the Public Domain Often More to the Story

The Nocebo Effect

Since I started this blog, I have corresponded or interacted with several respectful, thoughtful, and caring (as well as some hateful, ignorant, and not so well-meaning) individuals who run websites that are critical of psychiatrists or psychiatric medication, or who run support groups for the parents of individuals with various psychiatric diagnoses. These folks collect and publish horror stories. Some of their readers report having had bad reactions to psychiatric drugs and/or awful interactions with mental health professionals, while others discuss interactions with relatives with specific psychiatric or psychological disorders.  

As to the psychiatry critics' drug websites: Of course, anyone who reads this blog knows that I believe that there are a lot of really bad psychiatrists out there who end up doing real harm to their patients. Mostly, they drug patients unnecessarily or over-medicate them, and do not recommend  - and therefore deprive patients of - psychotherapy or family therapy that might do their patients some real good. Others do not monitor patients for adverse reactions, with sometimes catastrophic results. These websites can often contain information that can be very helpful to such individuals.

It is also quite true that a small proportion of those taking any drug on the market, psychiatric or otherwise, can have bad reactions or bad withdrawal symptoms, and that certain drugs are of such high risk for potential toxicity that they should not be prescribed for anything but the most serious of reasons. Toxicity from drugs that for many people are truely helpful and indicated can be monitored for, of course, but often doctors do not do this, as mentioned above.

While a majority of the horror stories about drugs are therefore probably true, although unrepresentative for reasons about to be discussed, this does not necessarily mean that any story website readers submit about a bad reaction that they seem to have had to a drug is, in fact, due to the drug. That should go without saying.

First, there is what is called a nocebo reaction, which is sort of like a placebo reaction in reverse. People will develop symptoms that are not actually due to the drug itself because of their expectations about the drug - just like people can have a bad or good reaction to a sugar pill that is basically inactive, pharmacologically speaking. The popularity of the obviously bogus science of homeopathy, in which individuals are given what is basically water, attests to the power of placebos and nocebos.

It is ironic how some of the more strident anti-psychiatry folks go on and on about high placebo response rates in drug studies, yet systematically deny that anyone ever has a nocebo response. This lack of consistency is always an excellent clue that anything such a person says may be highly prejudiced, and that their reading of evidence is highly selective.

Of course, people who have good responses to drugs are not going to write into the sites designed for people who have a complaint. In a similar vein, parents who were severely abusive to their offspring are not going to write to parent support groups for the families of patients with alleged psychiatric “diseases.”  Therefore, both the leaders of parent support groups and drug site webmasters are hearing from a highly select sample of individuals who are probably not at all representative of the majority of people who are involved.  

Parents who contact the two support groups for the parents of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD),  NEA-BPD and TARA, are an excellent example of an unrepresentative sample. Yet the leaders of these groups often deny or minimize the role child abuse and general family dysfunction play in the genesis of BPD because of their tendency to overgeneralize from their readers, despite the FACT that every study ever done shows that these factors are highly prevalent in families that produce children who grow up to have BPD.

As to the people who do seek help from support groups for relatives of people with various disorders: At least some if not most of these individuals have a strong need to blame their interpersonal problems solely on a mental illness that their relatives supposedly have. If that were the case, they would not have to feel guilty about their role in the family member’s problems. I discussed this phenomenon a long time ago in a post about a website supporting the parents of children who supposedly had bipolar disorder but were in actuality just plain ol' acting out. The post showed how Pharma, with the cooperation of corrupt psychiatrists, took advantage of these parents to sell inappropriate drugs for their kids.

Similarly, complainers about drugs may actually be miserable because of family problems, but would rather blame their misery on the drug rather than face the facts of their family dysfunction. This is the defense mechanism called displacement. 

Again, of course there are real psychiatric diseases like schizophrenia and real manic depressive illness, but as readers of my blog know, I believe that what are just behavior and interpersonal problems are frequently mislabeled as "diseases" by both mental health providers and the general public alike, such as ADHD, bipolar (my ass) disorder, and even borderline personality disorder. 

The webmasters for the sites under discussion here, and the leaders of these support groups, tend to just accept the pronouncements of their “customers” as true and complete and do not question them. Blindly taking the word of people who may have several skeletons in their family closets is probably not wise. These are people the webmasters usually do not know at all, although in some cases they may have corresponded more extensively, and there is rarely any way to verify what they say. Therefore, it seems to me that one can easily be misled about both the prevalence and/or the basic nature of these problems from reading these websites.

The same question of whether one is getting the whole story might also be said about letters to newspaper advice columnists. Admittedly, I have been guilty of using such letters to illustrate various points I make on this blog. Some letters to Dear Abby and her colleagues may be completely fraudulent, and they can easily be fooled into publishing a fake one.  

An even bigger problem is that, even when a letter writer is completely sincere, many times he or she is only telling part of a much bigger story. Patients, letter writers, and website visitors can be completely truthful in what they say, but leave out highly relevant facts that would change the opinion of anyone listening to them.

As a therapist, and as I have mentioned in previous posts, sometimes the truth about what is really transpiring with a patient, particularly during their interactions with family members, are not revealed until literally months or even years into ongoing psychotherapy. Family skeletons tend to remain family skeletons for a reason.

A great example of someone leaving out a lot of relevant details, if true, was seen in a couple of letters to the advice column Annie’s Mailbox. A daughter-in-law was accused by a letter writer of what sounded like some pretty rude and unpleasant behavior, and the Annies were sympathetic in their answer to the writer. Then the daughter-in-law herself wrote in with her side of the story. Although I cannot be certain that the letter writers were not making this stuff up, I reproduce the letters because I have seen real examples of patients “spinning” facts to make themselves look better than they are, or in many cases, to make themselves look worse than they are.

These letters do illustrate some of the ways that facts can indeed be “spun” in such a way that a reader or listener is completely misled.

Letter #1: Aug 5, 2013. Dear Annie: My husband and I drove a long distance from our home to help our son and his wife with their move from another state. They have two infant daughters, and we wanted to help in whatever way we could. The first morning, Dad went with our son to the bank, leaving me at the house with the movers. My daughter-in-law stayed in her bedroom with the babies. The movers' questions were directed to me, and my daughter-in-law didn't come out of the bedroom until my son came home. It was hard to believe she wouldn't want to be involved in the decision-making process about where her furniture should go. 

On the fourth day, our son went back to work, and we were left to fend for ourselves in the morning while his wife slept in. There wasn't even a TV to keep us occupied while we waited for her to get up. At 11 a.m., we decided it was time to leave, and we cut our stay short. We called our son on the way back home and explained the situation. In seven months of our son saying everything was "fine," they never initiated any contact. There were no acknowledgements of Christmas and birthday gifts, much less a thank you. There were no phone calls. Now his wife is demanding an apology from us, saying we were rude to leave so abruptly. We believe this was inappropriate behavior on her part. What is your opinion? -- Disappointed Parents

Dear Parents: We think you will have ongoing problems with your daughter-in-law. She was rude and ungracious. But she is your son's wife, and he is disinclined to stand up to her. You will have to work through her if you wish to maintain a relationship with your son and grandchildren. Apologize, even if it sticks in your throat. If she avoids you by staying in the bedroom, don't make it a problem. Learn to keep your negative opinions to yourself. Remain upbeat and positive. Always be nice to her. Remember, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Letter #2:10/18/13.  Dear Annie: I am the daughter-in-law mentioned in the letter from "Disappointed Parents," who said I retreated to the bedroom while my mother-in-law handled the movers. From their letter, I can understand why you think I might be a problem. Yes, they did travel a long distance to help us with our move, and it was greatly appreciated. I kept thanking them and continuously asked whether they were OK and whether they needed anything. I was told over and over that they were just fine. The day the movers arrived, my husband and I agreed that he would deal with them and I would keep our small children out of the way in our bedroom. He didn't tell me that he and his father left to go to the bank, leaving his stepmother to handle the movers. 

My husband and I both slept until noon that day, but they only castigated me for being "lazy." They didn't mention that I was up until 4 a.m. unpacking. They were bothered that I didn't have breakfast ready for them, even though the kitchen wasn't unpacked. They expected to be entertained. When they decided to leave in a huff, I was bathing our kids. They didn't even lock the front door behind them. After they left, I received nasty emails saying how rude I was and that I need to apologize. Each one included a laundry list of the ways I am a terrible daughter-in-law and don't know my place. I didn't send birthday and Christmas greetings because my husband said he wasn't interested in doing so. His father has a history of anger issues and has alienated every other family member. My last email stated that I was cutting off contact. I am too busy raising my children to raise my in-laws. They smile to your face while making lists of slights behind your back. I don't want my kids around such behavior. Thank you for reading my side of the events. — Shell-Shocked Daughter-in-Law

Dear Shell-Shocked: Thanks for providing it. Many readers came to your defense, saying that a new mother who had just moved had her hands full and deserved more consideration. We agree.

Often the possibility that details are being left out of a description of an interpersonal problem can be suspected from a very careful reading or listening to what is said. For example, I see a lot of letters to advice columnists by elderly parents complaining that their adult children are ignoring them or are angry at them, seemingly for no apparent reason. In point of fact, there is always a reason. For example:

Dear Annie: I could have written the letter from "Hurt in Florida," whose children and grandchildren don't include her in their get-togethers. My daughter told me they are "just too busy" for me. But they somehow have time for her dad and stepmother, as well as her in-laws and several friends. I haven't seen them in more than a year. We don't talk because I don't call. I don't understand any of it. I just wanted to let "Florida" know that she's not alone. I'm hurting with her. — Midwest Grandma

The key question raised by what is said in this letter is why said daughter seems to love to get together with every family member exceptthe letter writer. Could it be that the writer has distanced her child in some way? You can almost bet on it.

Heres to You Anita Howard

A few months ago, I was feeling rather low. I was consorting with worms, and sticking my head into the compost bin to drown out the harsh and awful daylight.

The words "pull yourself together" could not be more apt for a person like me who struggles with panic and anxiety on a frequent basis. At its worst, fierce panic makes one feel like one is literally "falling apart." These clichés were born of truth.

I had days that were not good. Sometimes I had maniacal thoughts: that my kneecaps would just plain fall off my legs, or that my teeth would fall out into my soup. It's called "personality disintegration" or "depersonalization."

I tried many things, including fancy lights, tinctures, pills, breathing through only one nostril.

I also had what's called "derealization"--that funny sensation that the world is not real. I swam out into the world wearing fogged and hopeless goggles. I forgot how to get home, sometimes.

(The story of all this is being told in a book I'm writing called PURSUED BY BEARS.  I hope it will one day have a spine, rather than a blinking cursor on a screen.)

Then one day a fellow writer named Anita Howard visited my blog from Query Tracker, and left me one of the nicest comments I have ever received. I had been keeping this blog for a long while, but hadn't even bothered to tell my neighbors about it. (It is a pity that I've told them now, because now I can't write about them as freely. Oh neighbors, I wouldn't say a thing about you, and you know that!)

Some friends had read my blog, sure, and they said awfully nice things as well. But Anita was a stranger. And she talked to me like she was an old friend. I knew right off that she was a good egg.

You probably know her. As another blogger recently said, "she knows all the cool kids." If you don't, go and visit her. I'll bet she'll say something nice to you, too. And she'll mean it. No fakies.

I wanted to say thanks, Anita. Because one never knows when that kind gesture, that thoughtful word of hope, that effort to take time out to reach out to someone will matter. It's true online and in our everyday lives. Smile at a dour person you pass on the street and say hello, and see how his or her face changes. It's magic, ain't it? (Unless they are touched in the head, in which case they may bite you with razor-sharp fangs. Best to be warned. It's not my fault if this happens.)

Here's another fat cliché: Ray of sunshine. And another: Ray of hope.

So yesterday Anita gave me this blog award--one of many that she has given to some other wonderful writers on this Bloggy Wonderland post. It sort of says that I am mad as a hatter. In fact, that's exactly what it says.

If I'm mad enough to startle when a butterfly flaps its wings in Tibet, or despair at my own lurching heart, or count and multiply the ceiling tiles in an effort to avoid staggering into a ditch of my own making, then I am also mad enough to dream, to write, to run for the far borders of my imagination.

Thanks for the reminder, Anita. Oh, and you get the Bacon Award AND the Hot Buttered! I don't suppose you want the sebaceous cyst award? Didn't think so. Damn it.

Borderline Personality Disorder Why They Dont “Get Used to It ”

At the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New York this year, I learned about a new finding from one study with patients who exhibit borderline personality disorder (BPD). The same finding also applied, although to a lesser degree, to those with avoidant personality disorder (AVD), which is pretty much identical to the diagnosis of Social Phobia.  I suspect that the reasons for the similar findings may be different for the two disorders.

The finding involved a part of the brain called the Amygdala. This little doohickey is central to a lot of brain functions, but in particular, it is the center for the body’s “fight or flight” response. I always though it fascinating  that the amygdala also has specific cells which respond only to one’s own mother (or other primary female attachment figure) and nothing and nobody else, and other specific cells which respond onlyto one’s father (or other primary male attachment figure). 

Although one cannot prove such things, this fact suggests to me that primary attachment figures may be the most potent of all of the environmental triggers to fear-based flight or fight reactions. They are certainly more powerful that a therapist can ever be for doing so, for instance.

The finding may relate to one of the primary symptoms of BPD, which goes by a variety of names. In the actual DSM criteria, it is described as “affective instability, or marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days.)” It is also called high reactivity, and lay people often label it hypersensistivity. In psychological tests, it is called neuroticism. Clearly, amygdala activation is intrinsic to this phenomenon.

Therapists have a tendency to think that patients with BPD over-react because they misperceive the behavior of others as being emotional slights, when the behavior is not at all meant as such. In fact, these therapists do not even know to what exactly the patient may be reacting to, or alternatively, that sometimes patients with BPD feign such reactions in order to provoke a specific response in others in order to recruit them to be enablers of the patients’ spoilerrole.

For example, one patient would go ballistic if anyone ever even implied that her mother might have been a loving parent. Of course, if one knew all the horrible things her mother had done to her, one could easily see why she would find such a comment annoying - to say the least!

The study I am discussing here is by Harold Koenigsberg and others (Journal of the American Psychiatric Association 171:82-90, January 2014). Study participants were asked to look at a series of pictures with either highly negative or neutral content, and the activation of the amygdala and another region of the brain called the dorsal anterior cingulate was measured using a specific type of brain scan. The subjects also subjectively rated their emotional responses to the pictures. 

Exposure to these pictures and these measurements were then repeated. Repeated only once, I’m afraid. The study would have been a lot more powerful if they had repeated the exposure several times.

The changes in emotional arousal and brain activation after a repeat viewing of the negative images was small but signficantly different between patients with BPD or AVD and the "normal" control subjects.  

The brains of the controls seemed to habituate, while those of the patients with BPD did not.  Habituation means that the controls got used to or became accustomed to the awful pictures, and their arousal levels decreased from what it had been after the initial viewing.

If anything, the emotional arousal of patients with BPD actually increased with the repeat viewing.

This finding, if it can be replicated, might seem to indicate that the brains of those with BPD are abnormal in this regard. However, as I have ranted in the past, a difference is not automatically indicative of an abnormality. In fact, it may be a conditioned response that is highly adaptive in particular environments.

In the case of patients with BPD in particular, they invariable grow up in chaotic family environments in which “getting used” to the chaos and not reacting to it when one needs to could be hazaradous to their and their family’s health, as described in my post on Error Management Theory.  If the chaos continues, such individuals need to pay even more attention to it, not less. 

This new research finding fits my ideas about that to a tee.

If youre feeling generous and want to save some lives

The auction is OVER! Thanks to you and your bids, we raised several hundred dollars for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

We have one more giveaway still open until MIDNIGHT tonight (10/6, 11:59pm EST, to be precise)

You get one entry for every one dollar you donate.

The prizes are kind of neat.

I know my first book hasn't come out yet, but I do have 7 under contract, so if you win, that's what you'll get from me. My Guards of the Shadowlands series from Amazon Children's Publishing, Scan and Burn from Putnam/Penguin, and Factory Ghost (plus another book) from McElderry/Simon & Schuster.

Also, I won't be able to offer full manuscript critiques once my book is published, so if you're interested in getting a thorough crit from a soon-to-be-multi-published author who has a doctorate in psychology, this is your chance. :)

I can also tell you that Justine is a pretty good critiquer herself--she's read all of my manuscripts and always makes them better.

OH, AND EVERY DOLLAR YOU DONATE WILL FUND SUICIDE PREVENTION.

If you want to donate, enter here ... and send your email receipt to dell(dot)justine(at)gmail(dot)com:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Practice of Doping up Children to Treat Parental Anxiety Continues to Grow

I have already written several posts about the inappropriate "diagnosing" of bipolar disorder in children and the even more inappropriate use of antipsychotic medications in children.  My main point has been that, rather than having a psychiatric disorder, the vast majority of these children are just acting out.  (For those readers who have difficulty making distinctions - especially those who automatically assume that things that look vaguely alike must be identical - this opinion does NOT apply to those uncommon children who are actually psychotic or to older adolescents who are clearly and obviously manic).



So what proof can I offer?  Well, at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, John Goethe, MD (director of the Burlingame Center for Psychiatric Research and Education at Hartford Hospital’s Institute of Living), presented the results of a decade-long study of antipsychotic prescribing for children and adolescents in psychiatric hospitals.

The results? Forty-five percent of patients with such behavioral disorders as ADHD or conduct disorder were given antipsychotics and 44% of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) received them. The percentage for other anxiety disorders was 31%!

Forgetting for the moment that an ADHD diagnosis may just be yet another case of acting out, antipsychotic medication is not indicated for ADHD.  In adults, antipsychotic medications are not indicated nor FDA-approved for any anxiety disorder or PTSD.  Not only that, but there is not the slightest evidence from any neurobiological study that the purported mechanism of action of antipsychotic medication has anything to do with anxiety disorders or ADHD. 

And conduct disorder?  This "disorder" was formerly called juvenille delinquincy.  Acting out by any other name. Don't even get me started.

One of the predominant side effects of these medications, is however, sedation.  So one might conclude that the reason the meds seem to both the parents and incompetent doctors to "work" is that the kids quiet down because they are being doped up. (This prescribing practice does not just apply to some psychiatrists but also to many other primary care doctors as well -as to pediatricians, read Claudia Gold's blogpost, Pediatricians Prescribing Psychiatric Medication: A Dose of Reality),

But who's anxiety is really being treated here? 

I submit that it is the anxiety of the parents. Parents who have out-of-control, acting-out children are the real objects of these "treatments."  These parents covertly feel guilty when they are unable to control their children due to inconsistent, neglectful, or abusive parenting practices.  Yet they have great difficulty changing these practices for a variety of reasons - sometimes very understandable reasons.  (One of which is that their doctors make no effort to understand what is really going on in their homes, and take advantage of their insecurities). 

Nonetheless, when the kids are doped up and are therefore less trouble, the parents feel better. And they have the doctors stamp of approval that the problem resides entirely within the child, not with them.

An unsolicited plug


The use of these drugs in kids diagnosed with PTSD is particularly instructive.  Unless you are treating victims of such disasters as the recent outbreak of tornadoes in the South and Midwest, or working with victims of crime like Jaycee Dugard, the most common trauma leading to PTSD in children is child abuse.

Of course, this whole process of sedating acting-out children usually does not end with the first prescription.  For most drugs that have sedation as a side effect, the sedation gradually subsides after  a few weeks on the medication.  Then, of course, the kid starts doing what kids always do - start reverting back to their previous behavior.

The parents then drag him or her back to the incompetent doctor, who starts to take one of the following steps and then another, in no particular order:

1. Increase the dose of the medication.
2. Change to a different medication which also is not indicated for anxiety and conduct disorders.
3. Add a prescription for a second one of those medications, and then perhaps a third or a fourth.
4. Change the diagnosis to something else other than acting out, and begin the whole process all over again.

Since the kid still is not controlled after the sedative side effect subsides, another step the parents can take is to apply for social security disability for the child.  This gives the child the message that the parents think he or she is both sick and incompetent.

Readers of the blog know what I believe happens next.  The child develops a false self that only seems to be sick and incompetent.  Such children hide their abilities as they grow into adults, continue to act in ways that preclude employment, and continue on social security disability. 

When you take the time to actually get to know them, however, it seems that the only thing they can not seem to do that most people can is maintain employment.

And then Robert Whitaker thinks that the medications were the cause of the disability, just like the less-than-thorough doctors thought that the medications caused the initial improvement of the child's "mental illness" when it was just a side effect that temporarily muted acting out behavior. 

It always amazes me how much people who seem to be on opposite sides of a debate think alike.  Basing their conclusions on totally incomplete information seems to be a favorite blind spot of theirs.

How Best to Handle Criticism

Criticism is defined as the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes. 

Every man in his lifetime must be a receiver of criticism at one point or another. Naturally, no man loves being criticized because criticism stings like a grain of sand in the eye. Any wise person however, can learn how to be patient enough to listen to criticism and draw the most out of it, especially if it is valid. It is like mining gold: amidst the dirt do you find the precious jewel, and when refined, it becomes the most valuable of all jewels.

In this article, we will learn various techniques of handling criticism such that you gain the most out of it.

TYPES OF CRITICISM

 Criticism can be either valid or unjustified.

Valid criticism is the constructive kind of criticism which is based on accurate perceptions of events or behavior. The person doing the criticizing is motivated by a desire to help and provides solid suggestions for change.

You know it is valid criticism when you:

• have heard the criticism from more than one person
• the critic knows a great deal about the subject
• the critic is generally known as someone who has and applies reasonable standards of behavior

 Unjustified criticism on the other hand is the kind that is often delivered by someone when you don't live up to their expectations. The critic might nag, recite your failures as a person, try to appear smarter, better than you etc.

RESPONDING TO CRITICISM

To gain the most out of criticism you should use an assertive communication style when responding to it. This ensures that you show respect for yourself and your critic, without attacking or surrendering. Your main intention is to resolve misunderstandings, acknowledge what may be accurate in the criticism, and dilute any unjustified attack.

The following are the three most basic communication techniques that are effective in responding to criticism:

1.Acknowledgment

2.Disarming

3.Probing

I.                   ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

When someone criticizes you and the criticism is accurate, an appropriate response is simply to agree. This technique allows you to accept your mistake without apologizing or "beating yourself up" about it. 

1. In acknowledging the content of a criticism that you receive, you can do either of the following           Say "You're right"
2. Paraphrase criticism, so the critic is sure you heard him/her accurately
3. Thank the critic, if appropriate
4. Apologize or explain yourself, if appropriate.

For instance...

Criticism A:

“Can't you be more careful when you put your dirty clothes in the wash. You left a tissue in your pocket again so now I have to wash everything over!”

Response:                                                                                                     

“You're right. I should have checked my pockets first. Thanks for washing my clothes again.”

Criticism B:

“You said you would get Joe's gift! Now we don't have time to get a gift before his party! Thanks a lot!”

Response:

“You're right. I was going to write myself a reminder note and I didn't. I'm sorry.”

Criticism C:

“Where have you been?! You were going to meet me at the mall at 10:00 and you never showed up!”

Response:

“You're right. A crisis came up at work as I was leaving. I tried to call you, but you had already left.”

II.                DISARMING

This is one of the most difficult, yet powerful, techniques for responding to criticism. Disarming allows you to defuse the situation, without acknowledging that you actually agree with the criticism

       1. Find something in the criticism that is accurate and acknowledge it.

Criticism A: “

You're such a slob. You never clean up after yourself.”

Response:

“You're right. I did leave the dishes in the sink yesterday.” (This acknowledges that indeed you left the dishes in the sink, but you don't agree with the exaggeration that you never clean up after yourself or the global judgment that you are a "slob".)

       2. In your mind, there is no reasonable chance that the critic is right. But, you acknowledge the critic's feelings.

 Criticism :

“I can't believe you don't lock your car doors. It's an invitation to have it stolen. Some day you're going to walk out and your car will be gone”

Response:

“You may be right. I appreciate your concern.”

III.             PROBING

This technique is effective when you can't tell if the criticism is valid or unjustified because the critic is vague. Probing allows you to gain enough information from the critic to determine his/her intent. Using where, what, when, how, and why questions allows you to elicit the information you need to judge how to respond to the criticism.

Criticism A:

You don't seem like yourself anymore.”

Response:

“What do you mean? What am I doing?” Or: “Why do you think I don't seem like myself?” Or: “When are you observing that I don't seem like myself?

Criticism B:

“You're really treating Margaret lousy. You must not like her anymore. “

Response:

“What did I do that makes you think I don't like Margaret?”

Criticism C:

“You don't work well with the customers.”

Response:

“Was there a recent situation that concerns you?”

Or: “Would you give me an example of what I do that you believe is "not working well" with the customers?”

We hope that the next time you are faced by a critic, you will draw the most out of his/ her criticisms. In the same way, we hope that the next time you have to criticize someone/ something, it will be constructive. You may consider using the sandwich approach demonstrated in the diagram below in a bid to ensure you help the people you correct become better while pointing out their mistakes.

References

http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/dealing-with-criticism.html#ixzz3e9hA7IRZ

http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/dealing-with-criticism.html