Archive for May, 2009

Television has lots of potentially very positive features for children. It can be a valuable teaching aid, a source of stimulation and entertainment, and can promote the child’s curiosity in the world around him. Parents can do much to ensure that the effects of television are positive and not negative.

1. Limit television viewing to 1-2 hours a day. Encourage other activities such as reading, sport, instructive hobbies.

2. Never have the television on continually in the background. Try to avoid the habit of automatically turning on the television in the morning or in the evening, or when the children are at home.

3. Try to limit the time that television is used as a passive ‘baby sitter’ — it is just too easy to get into the habit of putting the kids in front of the television set as a way of occupying them or keeping them quiet.

4. Select the programs that the children will watch — of course let them be involved in choosing — but avoid endless hours of one program following on from the other. Once a program is selected, get your children to agree to turn off the set themselves when the program is finished.

5. Watch television with the children and help them interpret what they see. Do ‘reality testing’ for them, expressing distaste for the violence, discussing other ways of handling disagreement and conflict, questioning stereotypes.

6. Use the VCR more. There are many videotapes that are specially made for children, and literally thousands of programs and movies that are entertaining, educational and appropriate for children.

*122\90\8*



I don’t think he will ever want to touch me again. I feel like ruined property, damaged merchandise. I don’t think I would want to touch me, to touch that thick, ugly scar where my soft breast used to be.

WIFE BEFORE COUNSELING

I love her. In some ways, I love her more now than ever. But I just can’t bring myself to look at that part where her breast was.

HUSBAND BEFORE COUNSELING

It has come to be a symbol of sorts, I guess. He kisses me there and touches me there. It just doesn’t seem as much a thing as it would seem. In fact, it means something special. We hate it in some ways, but it symbolizes us and our survival. It stands for our victory.

WIFE AFTER COUNSELING

When we make love, I don’t try not to look at it or touch it and I don’t try to touch it or look at. I don’t try anything about it. But it’s not hers, it’s not like an “it,” really, but the whole thing is us, a part of us. That was the biggest change, I think, when I stopped trying to adjust to “it” and she stopped waiting for me to or help me to adjust. It’s that “holistic” thing, I guess.

HUSBAND AFTER COUNSELING

If we can have lung disease, heart disease, and other organ diseases, then we should refer to “cell” disease instead of the general and frightening term “cancer.” I have never heard anyone refer to the “heart disease of crime,” yet one recent commentator reported that “crime is the cancer of our country.” Cells overgrow every day. They overgrow because so many cells multiply and divide in our body that some are bound to “go bad.” They overgrow because of the toxicity of our world, our food, our style of living. Since cells are the building blocks of our body, cell disease can occur anywhere, and therefore there are many “types” of cell disease (actually locations). I discuss here some of the problems that came up in the couples group.

*273\97\8*



The Kinsey’s sexual-response model was based on three phases: buildup, orgasm, and aftereffects of orgasm. Rhythmic muscular contractions accompanied orgasms in the Kinsey view, and this was the same for both sexes. Kinsey focused less on the male penis than did Ellis, describing more general stimulation to both the male and female as characteristic of human sexual interaction.

The female was described as less sexually responsive than the male, but by this Kinsey meant that her frequency of orgasms was less. Men reported more than 1,500 orgasms before marriage, women reported approximately 250. There was no category for “almosts” and “super.” Kinsey described the female as more physically responsive, requiring touch and direct contact for arousal and orgasm. Males were more psychologically responsive, reacting to images, pictures, and objects.

It was implied that marriage was a “convenient state,” providing a ready opportunity for sexual outlet. The more than 11,200 two-hour interviews yielded statistics that came to be prescriptive. Ninety-five percent of men had some sexual experience before age fifteen; men reported having 4 orgasms per week; 70 percent of men reported contact with a prostitute; 50 percent of men reported having sex outside their marriage before age forty; 30 percent of unmarried women reported not being virgins at age twenty-three; women reported 233 orgasms before marriage, with a significant decline in orgasmic frequency after marriage; 25 percent of girls reported having some sexual experience before age twelve, and 52 percent of these experiences were with a stranger. A lot of people were doing a lot of things sexually, and an unintended invitation to join a category was issued.

If Ellis focused on what was “normal,” Kinsey examined what he considered “natural.” If mammals could to it, it was natural, and Kinsey attempted to avoid the confrontation of what was right or wrong in favor of describing what “was.” The only unnatural sex act was one that could not be done. Several response came from the individual, not from within a relationship.

Kinsey saw nothing particularly special about our humanness. He wrote, “The elements that are involved in sexual contacts between the human and animals of other species are at no point basically different from those that are involved in erotic responses to human situations.” In fact, Kinsey felt that it was our arrogance about being human, our attempt to distance ourselves from our mammalian ancestors, that caused us to take sex out if its’ ‘natural” context.

The Kinsey perspective, then, saw orgasm as essentially pelvic muscle contraction in both genders, but women tended to be less responsive and slower to respond than men. There were several categories of sex from which to choose. Marriage saved time in searching for outlets, but women tended to diminish in sexual responsiveness once married and men tended to seek out variety, were by nature sexually promiscuous. Love was not a category or a factor, it was not something that could, even should, be studied if it existed at all. “Tell me what you did, not how you felt” was the second-perspective question.

The emphasis on energy buildup and discharge, on doing it instead of experiencing it, and an implied drive for variety of the first two perspectives interfere with the super marital sex mat stresses flow instead of discharge, an intimate comfort, not variety.

*99\97\8*



It is important to remember that if a person is sexually active then he or she can get venereal disease. It doesn’t matter how clean or how well brought up you may be, it is not confined to any one socio-economic group.

If you think you might have acquired one of these infections, then immediately seek professional help. You may see your local doctor, the Out-patient clinic of a public hospital, or one of the Government clinics set up to deal with VD.

The Government clinics are listed in the telephone books under the Health Department section of The State Government.

There is no need to be frightened that someone will come to call on you or hound your sexual contacts if you seek treatment. Naturally you will be urged to let your partners know if it is shown you have VD, but that is only acting responsibly.

Remember that most venereal diseases can now be quickly and completely cured.

*602/71/1*



While most eye inflammations lead to an increased production of tears with watering of the eyes, sometimes the reverse, with dry eyes resulting, can be an annoyance.

There are a few rare conditions where the production of tears by the lacrimal glands is reduced but the problem can occur in the elderly as tear glands age and so produce less tears.

Failure to blink frequently may also be a cause of drying of the eyes.

Artificial tears are available in drop form and may be prescribed although some are available from the chemist without prescription.

These drops are a lubricant, contain no active drugs and may be used frequently without risk to the eyes.

*345/71/1*



Modern cancer specialists believe in scientifically-tested treatments which work in a way that makes sense to their scientifically-trained minds. The ‘best’ treatments are those which have been scientifically shown to produce the greatest proportion of remissions and the greatest average length of life, almost regardless of any other consideration. The ‘best’ treatments are those that are best at shrinking cancers and delaying death. They are not the treatments that make people feel best, nor are they the treatments that are most convenient and pleasant. A treatment which has any chance at all, however small, of temporarily making cancer growths smaller is ‘better’ than treatment aimed at simply relieving symptoms and making people feel better. A treatment which, on average, extends patients lives by three months is ‘better’ than no anti-cancer treatment. These treatments are considered better even though they may mean frequent injections, blood tests, hospital visits, weakness, nausea and vomiting and other unpleasant side effects. Doctors have set recommendations for each type of cancer. All that your doctor needs to know about you is the type of cancer you have, its extent and possibly your age. The same sorts of statements could be made about practitioners other than doctors.

*125/40/1*



Thus, surgery has a good chance of curing some types of cancer, but only those which are usually still confined to the primary site at the time of diagnosis. Cancers which tend to release cells into the bloodstream or lymphatic system before they are diagnosed are unlikely to be cured by surgery. Other types of cancer are extremely sensitive to radiation treatment, so sensitive that they can be cured by it even when secondary growths have formed. There are also some types of cancer which are very sensitive to certain chemotherapy drugs, and these particular types can be cured even when they have spread extensively. There are some cancers which are verySensMve to the balance of various hormones in the body. These cancers can remain dormant for long periods of time if the hormone balance is changed (by taking pills or injections or by removing the glands which produce certain hormones). I will be discussing these treatments and the particular types of cancer against which they are effective in later chapters.

*119/40/1*



For some babies, the process of normal childbirth presents a great hazard, with the risk of death or severe brain damage. Our grandparents knew and accepted this. Today, you and I are just not prepared for our babies to run these risks.

Generations of medical students have been taught that, in labor and childbirth, they need to consider the three Ps — the passage, the passenger and the power (which pushes the baby through the passage).

Delayed delivery which might lead to foetal or maternal distress could usually be assisted by means of forceps and the skill of the obstetrician usually lay in his ability to manage difficult births and extract the baby with forceps.

Now the pressure is on the doctor not to risk the baby with a difficult forceps delivery but to go straight to a caesarean section.

This operation carries with it a small risk to the mother, but modern anaesthetics, improved surgical techniques and the availability of blood from the blood bank make this risk very small.

*95/71/1*



A common guiding principle of ethical decision-making is to ‘do no harm’, Fat-reduction methods have a number of risks that should be balanced against the potential benefits for each client.

For some people, for example those with diabetes or heart disease, the need to lose fat is paramount and the ethical balance is dearly in favour of attempting fat loss. Conversely, for some people the risks of losing fat, especially by dieting, are so great mat the ethical balance is usually in favour of discouraging fat loss (for example, people with anorexia nervosa, binge-eating disorder or a history of cyclical dieting).

The decision will not be so obvious in most cases and you will need a good knowledge of the potential risks and benefits of your approach to fat loss methods as well as carrying out a careful assessment of each individual client.

The treatment resources available.

Ethical decisions need to be realistic. That means they have to fit the actual circumstances rather than ideal circumstances. You need to take into account the actual treatment resources available, even if these differ from what would ideally be the case.

What treatment can you offer? This goes beyond consideration of your particular expertise and takes account of what you usually offer or any constraints imposed by the organisation for which you work.

What resources can you refer to? The ethics of offering help may differ according to the alternatives available. In circumstances where few other resources are available or your skills, however limited, exceed those of the available alternatives, it may be unethical not to offer help even though in the context of a richer range of alternatives, it would be ethical for you to refer on.

*233\186\4*



Carbohydrate foods that break down quickly during digestion have the highest G.I. factors. The blood sugar response is fast and high. In other words the glucose (or sugar) in the bloodstream increases rapidly: Conversely, carbohydrates which break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the bloodstream have low G.I. factors. An analogy might be the popular fable of the tortoise and the hare. The hare, just like high G.I. foods, speeds away full steam ahead but loses the race to the tortoise with his slow and steady pace. Similarly, the slow and steady low G.I. foods produce a smooth blood sugar curve without wild fluctuations.

For most people most of the time, the foods with low G.I. factors have advantages over those with high G.I. values. But there are some athletes who can benefit from the use of high G.I. foods during and after competition. The substance which produces the greatest rise in blood sugar levels is pure glucose itself. All other foods have less effect when fed in equal amounts of carbohydrate. The G.I. factor of pure glucose is set at 100 and every other food is ranked on a scale from 0 to 100 according to its actual effect on blood sugar levels.

The G.I. factor of a food cannot be predicted from its composition or the G.I. factor of related foods. To test the G.I. factor, you need real people and real foods. There is no easy, inexpensive substitute test Standardised methods are always followed so that results from one group of people can be directly compared with those of another group.

The G.I factor is a clinically proven tool in its applications to diabetes, appetite control and reducing the risk of heart disease.

*23\33\4*