Monthly Archives: August 2014
The Walk is Tomorrow!
Remembering Renata “Walking Across Canada” is tomorrow! Will we see you on the trail?
Why it is important to evaluate the messages we’re given in the media?
It is important in this day and age to be “media-literate”; that is, to understand that advertisements may have hidden agendas or be misleading in some ways. This is in the nature of advertising, as it wants to highlight the pros of something and disregard/hide the cons. Being able to critically view something and judge for yourself the reliability of the information you’re being told is an important skill in so many aspects of life, but especially in modern times when we are faced with so many messages each day, often conflicting ones. The sheer amount makes it hard to keep up!
Another question that is worth asking is: “what is meant by media?” Media is a very broad category that encompasses everything from advertisements on television, in magazines, to the television shows themselves and movies. Even news stations/newspapers are considered part of the media, and are especially important to view with a critical eye; often, some aspects of a story may be sensationalized or downplayed depending on what will create the most alluring headline. While this may not always be the case, critically viewing these news stories can further enhance your understanding of the event!
MediaLiteracyWeek.ca posts 4 important concepts to keep in mind when looking critically at the media. They include:
- Remember that media are constructions – they were made with a purpose in mind!
- Audiences negotiate meaning – each person may interpret media in a different way
- Media have commercial implications – most media is ultimately geared towards profit
- Ideological messages underpin all media – there is almost always a hidden ideology within mainstream media
For more information on media literacy and the above listed concepts, visit:
By Hilary Lougheed
ADMH Graduate Certificate Placement Student
ADMH Graduate Certificate Placement Student
Walk to Raise Awareness for Eating Disorders This Sunday!
Read the wonderful article in the Auroran about our walk!
http://www.newspapers-online.com/auroran/?p=7729
Are You Ready to Create the World’s Largest Zentangle®?
Help create the world’s largest Zentangle®! Rain or shine! Art in the Park
Slideshow for last year’s walk: Free, fun for the whole family!
Children As Young As Ten Battling Eating Disorders
Magaly Olivero from The Courant wrote an article shedding light on new statistics coming in that are showing younger and younger children battling eating disorders. To read the full story visit http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-connecticut-teens-eating-disorders-20140811,0,5306023.story
Thousands of Connecticut adults and children – some as young as 10 – struggle with eating disorders with many suffering secretly because the life-threatening psychiatric condition has gone undiagnosed and untreated, experts in the field report.
“We used to see eating disorders start at 13 or 14. Now we frequently see 10- and 11-year olds,” said Dr. Diane Mickley, founder and director of the Wilkins Center for Eating Disorders in Greenwich, which has treated females and males for three decades. Mickley is a founder and past president of the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA).
“It’s tougher to be a kid these days. It’s really stressful,” said Jennifer Henretty, director of outcomes and research for Center for Discovery. “But it’s not easy being a parent, either. Society gives us messages that we should push our children to be well-rounded and top achievers. But many of these factors may be setting up children to be at an increased risk for eating disorders.”
The focus on body mass index (BMI) – an indicator of fat based on height and weight – doesn’t help matters. “Medical providers focus on keeping people’s weight under control without thinking about quality of life issues and someone’s natural body type,” said Margo Maine, of West Hartford‘s Maine & Weinstein Specialty Group and a founder and past-president of NEDA.
Siblings Struggle Too
An interesting insight from a NEDIC blog post from last week: Welcome to the Family ED.
Eating disorders are complex, and often the whole family finds support helpful in the healing process. Emotion Focused Family Therapy is one of the tools available for families.
“Part of the Emotion-Focused Therapy “family” and rooted in a deep and unwavering belief in the healing power of families, the essence of EFFT is to afford caregivers a significant role in their loved one’s mental health and well-being.” – EFFT website
For more about EFFT, visit https://emotionfocusedfamilytherapy.org/Home_Page.html
For upcoming EFFT opportunities at Riverwalk, visit http://www.edoyr.com/emotion-coaching
No Time to Think
Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/sunday-review/no-time-to-think.html
Studies further suggest that not giving yourself time to reflect impairs your ability to empathize with others. “The more in touch with my own feelings and experiences, the richer and more accurate are my guesses of what passes through another person’s mind,” said Giancarlo Dimaggio, a psychiatrist with the Center for Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy in Rome, who studies the interplay of self-reflection and empathy. “Feeling what you feel is an ability that atrophies if you don’t use it.”
“Idle mental processing encourages creativity and solutions because imagining your problem when you aren’t in it is not the same as reality,” said Jonathan Smallwood, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of York, in England. “Using your imagination means you are in fact rethinking the problem in a novel way.”
Hard as they sometimes are, negative feelings are a part of everyone’s life, arguably more so if you are crazy busy. But it’s those same deep and troubling feelings, and how you deal with them, that make you the person you are. While busyness may stanch welling sadness, it may also limit your ability to be overcome with joy.
A picture is worth a thousand words
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
I feel that this quote here best sums up my experience participating in Telestory, a group that ran weekly here at the EDOYR art gallery. Each week we met to learn a new photography technique, and use cameras to explore these techniques while also using the photos we took to express ideas.
I found the experience to be very liberating! Photography allowed me to see closer the beauty and art that can be seen in every day objects. A shoe was just a shoe, until I zoomed in to see the patterns of the stitching and the scuffs and dirt from all of the places I had been. Or my cat, previously a small napping ball of fur, became a sleeping giant when photographed from a low angle.
The great part about photography is the way that it can change your perspective of these little things. New perspectives can open up a new appreciation for the everyday objects that we tend to skim past in favour of “the big picture” (pun intended).
Another positive aspect of photography is that anyone can do it! Even those who have previously said things like “I cant even draw stick figures, I’m no artist” will be amazed at how their creative side wakes up when looking through a lens. After looking through this lens, you might also find that you no longer need the lens as a “magnifying glass” through which to see the art that exists in everything.
For more information on joining Telestory, e-mail info@edoyr.com or call 905-886-6632.
By Hilary Lougheed
ADMH Graduate Certificate Placement Student
Life in Balance 