Blog #9

Today I met Dr. Shinitzky at his North office. Our first meeting was with a dominant junior league baseball player. He has emotional outburst and gets very angry when things don’t go his way. He will hit the bat on the ground and throw his batting helmet into the dugout. His parents got in touch with Dr. Shinitzky to address their son’s emotional reactivity. In our meeting, Dr. Shinitzky allowed the young man to speak on how he feels he’s doing. It's important that he opens himself up to self reflection in order to be aware of his behavior. The young man says that he has gotten better and his parents agree. Yet he still gets in his own head while the game is going on. At his age the frontal lobe is still developing and tends to lose control and go crazy with emotions when things don’t go to plan. Dr. Shinitzky implemented several exercises with him that would help train his brain. He played a game called don’t do what  Dr. S says, which is simulator to Simon Says. The idea was that the young man would be able to inhibit himself from doing the movement if he heard the instructions “Dr. S says”. The broader idea was that this would allow this young man to star training his brain, inhibiting his behavior of outburst when things don’t go his way.

Another area that Dr. Shinitzky brought to my attention was that the father had problems with anger too. He said his anger was like a rollercoaster and that he could get very angry to the point when his face gets flush and he starts to tremble. Now, Dr. Shinitzky and I believe that you are the best and worst of what you are exposed to. This young man has been exposed to explosive outburst and anger though watching his father react in certain situations. So it was important that we engaged the father and had him state that there in room for improvement for all people. It's important to remember that parents play an important role in the development of their child, they can easily create behaviors based off the things that say and do. This session was a great example of what happens when you are exposed to the best and worst of your situation. Parents, helps your kids out, be the best you can be and watch the behaviors and happens you do and show your kids, your behaviors do have an effect!

The next session was a follow up. A very good tennis player ordered a CISS (Campbell Interest and Skills Survey). This survey is designed to get the best profile of you, it evaluates your interest, skills, and shows you different breakdowns for who you are and what potential career paths are available to you. The outcomes are as follows: Pursue, Develope, Explore, Avoid. These terms show up on the test, this test compares your interest to people who are successful in the field. The results are shown through Diamonds, while means skill, and black means interest. These diamonds are then categorized based of very low, low, medium, high, and very high. The results break down how you fit in to each category and potential career paths that fit your interest and skills. The test will also give suggestions and open you up to fields that you may have not considered but that could be great paths for you in the long term.

The last patient of the day is a golfer. He was very dominant and seemed to just keep climbing and climbing. He recently had a major growth spurt and is now six foot. The golfer is now struggling to remain and dominant a he was. That being said he has become very frustrated and is struggling doing as well as he had in the past. His parents are worried that he emotionally is hurt and that I will cause him to not care or just stop. As any parents would, they want the best for their son, so that’s why they are working with Dr. Shinitzky. The first plan of attack was to set goals that were tangible, allow the young man to get better and grow into his body, rather than having all this focus on not being able to play his game. The best quote I’ve heard to date was when it comes to your body adjusting, “its longer than you thin, but shorter than you fear.”Dr. Shinitzky. Overall, the young man was very reflective and was thankful for the opportunity to face adversity so he was prepared for when it came later down the road.