Creativity and Being A Friend

True Connections Foster Your Creative Life

Published on December 22, 2012 by Carrie Barron, M.D. in The Creativity Cure

Recently I met a happily married, successful businesswoman at a small gathering. After we shared personal stories over two glasses of wine while sitting in a corner she said, “ I have no friends.”  She rapidly moved on to the subject of her work and spoke about it in a riveting way.
 She asked me if I ever ate lunch in the neighborhood and was I familiar with the restaurants.  I told her I am because my office is nearby.  I did not know why she was interested.  By the end of the evening she said,  “Will you be my friend? Can we have lunch?”
 "Yes, I would love to!”  I said, while thinking to myself, “maybe she means mother rather than friend, “ as I am almost twice her age.  Whatever. Friends can mother and mothers can be friends, so who cares what you call it.
 We decided to meet for coffee a few days later in a jammed little café downtown with raw wood, lavender glitter and a few 20-somethings in wool caps typing.   We talked about work, creativity, and families.

 I too hope we will be good friends.  There is something about her.

 Have you ever considered the qualities you value in a friend?   It differs for everyone. Some need lighthearted friends and others do better with slightly depressed friends.  You could want someone that tells you, in truth, that your prom dress is dreadful on the day of the prom but I doubt it.  More likely you will want someone supportive. Certain people appear to have a high tolerance for meanness –almost as if they do not register it –but then they get depressed.

 Over the years several clients have shared stories about devastating betrayals by friends. Some people have deficits in the ability to truly care for another person (in spite of a charismatic exterior) and it is good to be able to spot this.   As writer W. Somerset Maugham once said, “When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over character.”
A client told me that she was wondering if she was capable of being a real friend. Others had been invited to her neighbor’s mother’s funeral but she had not.  She said, ”Do you think I am not someone who can be a good friend?” We explored her question.

 Career ambitions or a demanding home life can interfere with friendships because building a relationship takes time. Since so many people have brutal schedules they may not have much time and thus suffer from friend-loneliness.  Half of an hour now and again is good enough for coffee and a conversation.

 Freud did say that mental health involves the ability to work and to love. Play is crucial too, so carving out a bit of time to just be with someone in a non-goal oriented way is a good idea.

 A couple of adult clients have told me that they do not know how to make friends and it seems like other people do. They feel like they are the only one with this concern but loneliness is common.  One can learn to reach out even if it feels awkward. Many people want to have close relationships but fear rejection or judgment so they avoid it.  This can be overcome.
 A week ago I attended a funeral of a distant relative. Her best friend spoke about how the deceased been the most important person in her life.   Stories about nicknames, hikes and letters stuffed with glitter that required vacuuming after opening were told with smiles and tears.
 Her best friend was with her when she died.
 Last summer, I met a mother of a pre-teen who told me that her work was “being a friend.”  She had just nurtured a companion through cancer and she tries to be available to members of her circle who need her. I was intrigued and impressed by her self-definition.
 True connections lead to the right conversations lead to the right thing happening inside of you – the Real Self.  If you feel safe and stimulated at the same time, good things happen.  You can let go. You can be honest.  You can create.  Together you can pull off an event, project, plan or meal with or without glitter.

Made by Chloe's hand

Research (Simone Schnall et al., “Social Support and the Perception of the Geographical Slant,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44(2008) shows that people with good friends are more likely to beat illness or climb steep hills. The hill looks smaller with your friend by your side.

This article was originally published at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-creativity-cure/201212/creativity-and-being-friend

An exact account of dopamine

What Does Dopamine Actually Do?

Is dopamine the reward chemical?

Published on December 30, 2012 by Stephen Fleming, Ph.D. in The Hidden Mind

Dopamine is a famous chemical. It holds a prized position in the annals of popular science as the “reward” drug. Countless articles refer to the latest studies of foods, sex and exercise as boosting dopamine, and, by implication, pleasure. But is this characterization correct? What does dopamine actually do?

In the past two decades, research on the role of dopamine in the brain has proceeded apace. A key finding is that dopamine is not the “reward” chemical, at least not in the way that the media would have us believe.

In the 1990s, a now-classic experiment was carried out by Wolfram Schultz and colleagues. He recorded from brain cells that produce dopamine and deliver it to other brain areas. An increase in the firing of these neurons is a sign that more dopamine is being released in the brain. Schultz switched on a light, and then delivered a tasty drop of juice to the animal. Initially, the dopamine cells responded to the juice, consistent with the “reward” theory. But over time, as the animal began to understand that juice always followed lights, the dopamine response went away, even though the animals continued to gulp the juice down. Then, when the researchers unexpectedly stopped the flow of juice, dopamine decreased. This experiment provided an initial clue as to what dopamine was doing in the brain.

In parallel, computer scientists were building on early work on trial-and-error learning in psychology. A prominent theory, the Rescorla-Wagner rule, proposed that learning should occur when events are unexpected. This makes sense – if the food at your favourite restaurant is much as you expected, there is no point in updating your opinion of the chef. At the time Schultz was doing his experiments, computer scientists were using a variant of Rescola-Wagner learning to develop sophisticated computer programs that could learn, among other things, to play a good game of backgammon. These algorithms relied on computing the difference between what you expect and what you get – an error in prediction, or “prediction error”.

To illustrate the concept of prediction error, let’s imagine you have a decent bottle of wine that has been maturing for some years in the cellar. On New Year’s Eve, you decide the time is right to try the stuff. Initially your expectations (your predictions) are high, but when you open the cork, you notice it has crumbled. This piece of news leads to a negative prediction error, and you lower your expectations accordingly. Nevertheless, you plough on, pour it out and take a sip, and, despite the cork, it’s superb. Now a positive prediction error ensues – the wine is better than expected.

Revising our expectations using prediction errors is a very efficient way to learn, at least in the long run. Almost everything we do in life comes with both a prediction, and an associated prediction error signal. The jolt we feel getting on a stationary escalator is a manifestation of our prediction that the escalator is usually moving. The Schultz studies, and many subsequent experiments, have shown that the dopamine response in the brain closely tracks what one would expect from a prediction error signal. No dopamine is released later on in the experiment, because the animal has learnt to expect the juice.

So is dopamine a reward chemical? In a sense, yes – what we call rewards are often things that are unexpectedly good. Consider bumping into a good friend on the street or getting a pay rise. These unexpected events will lead to positive prediction errors, and increases in dopamine. But if we get what we expect, even if it’s a very pleasurable experience, dopamine probably plays less of a role. Even if that experience involves a special bottle of wine.

this article was published originally on http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-hidden-mind/201212/what-does-dopamine-actually-do