mood bergencounty nj

Emotional Support Animals and Controversy

GalleryJudy Gurfein Leave a comment

Emotional Support Animals and Controversy

By: Valeria Dubon

Emotional support animals (ESA’s) provide a comforting and consoling figure for individuals who suffer from some sort of mental illness. Although they can be in the form of many different pets, dogs are the most common form of ESA’s and they can be of any age and any breed. ESA’s can be defined as any animal that is prescribed by a licensed mental health professional to offer emotional support to a person that is suffering from a disabling mental illness. One example could be a psychologist prescribing an emotional support dog to ease a patient’s anxieties. Emotional support animals, however, are not service dogs; there is a key difference between the two types of support. ESA’s deal more with offering a soothing and relaxing friend to the owner; they can help ease anxiety, depression and phobias. Even so, they are not allowed in many public places and cannot go everywhere where the public is allowed. A service dog helps individuals perform tasks that they cannot do on their own. For example, they are trained to assist and alert someone who is hearing impaired and/or visually impaired, they are not their for simply companionship. Their training must alleviate a certain disability.

There is even another type of service dog called psychiatric service dogs that detect the beginning of a psychiatric episode and ease their effects; again this is different from an ESA. Unfortunately, although ESA and service dogs are both essential in their own ways, ESAs are not treated with the same level of respect and importance; as many people believe that they are simply not needed at all. Many people fabricate the need for emotional support animals and take advantage of the system, with people having the ability to buy certifications for only $50. This only adds to the ESA controversy. This has caused many places, including airlines, to restrict the use of ESAs, leaving people who actually need them in an unfortunate situation. This controversy is currently ongoing, with many people being against the excessive use of an emotional support animal. In order to reduce the number of fraudulent ESA certifications, it has been suggested that a standardized ESA assessment could be made and conducted by forensic practitioners with stricter guidelines. This in turn not only helps the owners of ESAs, but also the general public as well. An actual assessment and training will keep aggressive animals and lax owners from not only irritating the public but also from endangering it.

If you or someone you know is in need of an emotional support animal, please contact our psychotherapy offices in New York or New Jersey to talk to one of our licensed professional psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, or psychotherapists at Arista Counseling & Psychotherapy. Contact our Paramus, NJ or Manhattan, NY offices respectively, at (201) 368-3700 or (212) 722-1920 to set up an appointment. For more information, please visit http://www.counselingpsychotherapynjny.com/

Sources :

https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/news/everything-about-emotional-support-animals/

http://jaapl.org/content/early/2020/09/16/JAAPL.200047-20

Low Self-Esteem: Dating Apps Can Decrease One’s Self-Confidence

GalleryJudy Gurfein Leave a comment

By: Lauren Zoneraich

With the advent and prolonged continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic, many young adults have turned to dating apps as a way to connect with potential romantic partners, speak to new people, and entertain themselves. The most popular dating apps among young adults are Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and Grindr, which are visually-based dating apps. Instead of text-heavy profiles, like those seen on Match.com, users swiftly accept or reject others based on their profile photographs, which dominate the page display. How does the visually-based nature of dating apps affect the self-esteem of dating app users?

One’s physical appearance and self-esteem are strongly linked. Self-esteem is defined as the self-evaluation a person holds regarding their worth, success, and capabilities. In a survey-based study of young adults, researchers determined that the visual nature of Tinder could raise or lower the self-esteem of users. Users who matched with a lot of attractive users and received many messages experienced an ego boost. Contrarily, many participants reported that the visual nature of the Tinder made them feel more self-conscious about their appearance. Users felt a decrease in self-esteem when they did not match with a lot of people or when they only received messages from unattractive matches. Many participants reported “swiping left on” (rejecting) users who they anticipated would not “swipe right on” (accept) them, or swiping left on users they liked to avoid the possibility of being rejected and experiencing a decrease in self-confidence. These reports highlight how Tinder can trigger negative assessments of the self even before a user is rejected, and of course, decrease a user’s self-confidence after rejection.

Online dating apps are not meant for everyone. If you find that apps such as Tinder are lowering your self-esteem, it may be best to delete these apps and meet partners through other avenues.

If you or someone you know is struggling with low self-esteem, please contact our psychotherapy offices in New York or New Jersey to talk to one of our licensed professional psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, or psychotherapists at Arista Counseling & Psychotherapy. Contact our Paramus, NJ or Manhattan, NY offices respectively, at (201) 368-3700 or (212) 722-1920 to set up an appointment. For more information, please visit http://www.counselingpsychotherapynjny.com/

Reference:
Kallis, R. (2021). Creating a future relationship or destroying my self-esteem? An exploratory study on dating app experiences and well-being. Journal of Communication Technology, 4(1), 78-100. https://doi.org/10.51548/joctec-2021-005

Image Source:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/11/10749670/tinder-secretly-ranks-users-desirability

Personality Psychology: The Big Five O.C.E.A.N.

GalleryJudy Gurfein 2 Comments

Personality Psychology: The Big Five O.C.E.A.N.

By Crystal Tsui

You may have seen quizzes online that can help determine your personality. Most of the quizzes online revolve around the basis of five core personality traits. Fiske, Norman, Smith, Goldberg, and McCrae & Costa were the leading researchers that brought evidence of the big five traits. The five traits are scaled on a spectrum, for example if a person was rated low in Neuroticism; they were rated high in Emotional Stability. The five traits are categorized as:

  • Openness: high levels of imagination, insight, tend to be adventurous, creative
  • Conscientiousness: high levels of thoughtfulness, goal-directed behaviors, good impulse controls, and organized
  • Extroversion: high levels of excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.
  • Agreeableness: high levels of trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors
  • Neuroticism: high levels of sadness, moodiness, and emotional instability. They tend not to handle stress well.

These five traits have been found to be universal. One study showed that people in more than 50 different cultures found that the five dimensions could be accurately used to describe personality. Also, the five dimensions have biological and environmental origins that can influence the change of personality.

Another study showed that our five factors change over time. It showed that agreeableness and conscientiousness increased, but extroversion, neuroticism, and openness generally decrease as a person ages. Sex also contributes to the five factors as well. Women tend to score higher in both agreeableness and neuroticism. Even though sex differences have been found, it does not, by itself, demonstrate that the sexes are innately different in personality, although that is a possibility.

Frank Sulloway, a psychologist who focused on birth order, found that personality traits correlate with the order of individuals’ birth. He found that firstborns are statistically more conscientious, more socially dominant, less agreeable, and less open to new ideas compared to those born later. This could be due to firstborns caring for their younger siblings at a young age.

The Big Five is not based on any underlying theory; it is merely an empirical finding, meaning that the underlying causes behind them are unknown.

If you or someone you know is dealing with borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder or any other personality disorders, please contact our psychotherapy offices in New York or New Jersey to talk to one of our licensed professional psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, or psychotherapists at Arista Counseling & Psychotherapy. Contact our Paramus, NJ or Manhattan, NY offices respectively, at (201) 368-3700 or (212) 722-1920 to set up an appointment. For more information, please visit http://www.counselingpsychotherapynjny.com/ .

Sources:

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-big-five-personality-dimensions-2795422

https://www.mentalhelp.net/psychological-testing/big-five-personality-traits/

https://blog.adioma.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/big-five-personality-traits-infographic.png