Interesting article in the Chicago Tribune on body piercing and tattoos among university students. Not surprisingly, the study finds that “The more body art you have, the more likely you are to be involved in deviance,” but students who have just 1 tattoo or piercing are not prone to more deviant behavior. The full study will be published in March in the Social Science Journal.
What has your experience been working with clients with multiple tattoos and piercings? Have you also found they are prone to more deviant behavior? Are they more prone to self-harm?
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-talk-tattoos-bad-behaviorjan13,0,4187809.column
Interesting article in the New York times by Katie Hafner titled To Deal With Obsession, Some Defriend Facebook. Is social networking a new addiction or is it just a way for teens to stay connected? Would love to hear your opinions and experiences. Check out the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/technology/internet/21facebook.html?ref=technology
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Working in the correctional system changes a person. It also changes that person’s family. Wives, husbands, and children are all impacted by having a family member employed within the prison walls. The changes are all-encompassing. Behavior, attitude, and thought process are changed. These changes affect correctional peace officers, supervisors, prison doctors, nurses, and psychologists, all prison personnel and their families. This process of change begins in basic training, when prison staff learn to develop an “Us” versus “Them” mentality. This attitude solidifies over the officer’s career. In the initial training the officer learns to hide emotions and to put on a prison guard persona. The purpose of this persona is to keep order and to keep the officer safe on the job. This persona is referred to as a “command presence.” The longer a person works in corrections, the more pervasive and ingrained the command presence becomes. Overtime, this persona becomes like a second layer of skin. The officer go everywhere with it. At work this can be a life-saver, and at home it can be cumbersome and in some cases detrimental to the officer’s health and relationships. To mitigate the negative impact of maintaining a perpetual command presence, the officer must learn how to turn off this persona after hours, just like he or she would remove his or her uniform at home. (more…)
There was a very interesting article in the LA Times on 10/6/09 entitled: Vaccines to Combat Drug Addiction showing Promise. It discussed vaccines that are being created to help individuals fight drug addictions. These vaccines will not work like traditional vaccines and prevent drug addiction, but instead they will help the body produce an antibody that will bind the drug to it. The antibody will then prevent the drug from reaching the brain thus inhibiting the chemical high that would normally be caused by using the drug. In essence, the vaccine will nullify the intoxicating effect of the drug. It does not appear that these vaccines will work for all drug, but nicotine, cocaine, heroin, and meth appear to be responsive to the vaccine. This sounds like a promising adjunct to traditional treatment for addiction. How do you think these new vaccines will impact the treatment of chemical dependency, once they are on the market? Do you see any dangers? Or have any concerns about a vaccine that fights addiction? We would love to hear your thoughts.
There was an interesting feature article in the LA Times www.latimes.com/features/health/ entitled “You Can Cut Back” by Shari Roan. The article is interesting, but I am afraid the title could be misleading to many alcoholics. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Practical CE Seminars