Passion versus Obsession
A client was recently expressing her concern that her adolescent son may have Aspergers. He is and always has been a computer genius or computer nerd, depending on who is describing him, with a few friends that have similar interests. She and her husband are very social people which makes their son’s personality all the more striking in its contrast to theirs. He has one official diagnosis, ADD, and is medicated for that. Other than ADD, he is an adolescent which probably should be a pathology all of its own to define the narcissistic, angry years that begin around 13 and end around 20. Or so I am told. Over the years, they have consulted with many mental health professionals. Currently, the combination of adolescence, stimulant medication, his temperament and personality are expressing some very unpleasant behaviors. Aspergers keeps rearing its head as they consult with psychiatrists, neurologists, therapists and counselors.
The issues pointing at Aspergers are the lack of basic social skills, the inability to decode social signals, lack of eye contact, and conversations that about narrowly defined, highly technical interests. However, the last doctor that they saw said that he thought "everyone" at the medical school had Aspergers.
And we have all heard others say that "everyone" in Silicone Valley including "you know who" has Aspergers.
In thinking about this, I wondered about the difference between being considered passsionate about say, computers or being considerered obsessed with them. Or medicine, or whatever the narrowly defined highly technical interest might be. If the interest is "highly technical" maybe we say obsession. If the interest is not technical, such as a sport, maybe we say, passionate?
Of course one of my favorite blogs is Creating Passionate Users which is written by some very technical people….who write engaging, passionate posts most recently about the developmental stages of companies. What do you think about passsion versus obsession?
Doris Wild Helmering is Blogging!
I am excited to note that Doris Wild Helmering has a blog. Doris, has a busy private therapy and coaching practice here in St. Louis and is a nationally recognized expert on relationships. She is a prolific author, on-air therapist, and frequent radio and TV guest….yes, Oprah, CNN, Goodmorning America and she has even offered advice to Roseanne about controlling anger. Check out her blog….I am sure she will have a lot to say!
In Case of Emergency
As the finger pointing continues over Hurricane Katrina along with the cries for leadership a thought occured to me while listening to the Head of my youngest son’s school today welcome two families from New Orleans who had moved in with relatives here in St. Louis and had enrolled their children in school. The school had an emergency phone number and a plan developed after September 11th. I wondered how many parents sitting in the room knew what that number was or had it written down….on easily accessible, old fashioned paper. The school had sent it to us numerous times along with "the plan". But like the exit maps on the back of hotel doors and the location of emergency exits on airplanes, in movie theaters, or a fire escape plan from our own homes , it wasn’t top of mind enough to be of much use in case of an emergency. And the finger pointing and calls for leadership should really begin with ourselves.
Back in 1980, some of you may recall there was a fire in the MGM Grand Hotel early one morning. Eighty four people died and 675 people were injured. There were no sprinkler system in the hotel, there was complete chaos as people awoke to discover the inferno around them; they jumped to their deaths, doors locked preventing escape.
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