Key Words

Glossary

© like everything else on this website, definitions are copyright 2011- Linda Freedman, PhD

Anonymity—the omniscience associated with Internet relationships; the opportunity to mask one’s identity or impersonate.  Anonymity emboldens predators who seek personal gain or sexual relationships via electronic communication. 

Behaviorally green®—a work or school environment free from relationship-violence.

Bullying—a type of relationship abuse characterized by exclusion, physical attacks, and/or  name-calling.  On-line, it is called Cyber Bullying.  Adults are victims of Cyber Stalking. 

Coercion—by virtue of authority, one person is able to convince, persuade, or blackmail another into behaving in ways that hurt or shame, an abuse of power.  Coercion is associated with holding rewards in abeyance for lack of compliance to morally disagreeable acts, firing, hiring, withholding wages or advancement, and negative evaluations, grades, or job reviews. 

Empathy— having the ability to feel the feelings of others, or at least recognizing the feelings of others intellectually.

Gaming, media, and social network addictions— addiction is implied when productivity or learning is impaired, and when other relationships outside the social network or game suffer.  Research that grades and work performance is impaired by the compulsion to play or to network indicates developmental delay associated with withdrawal from the “real world” and responsibility.

Hazing-- a form of bullying and harassment, often an initiation rite for a fraternity or a sports team. Being able to tolerate hazing signifies worthiness for acceptance into the club. 

Hostile environment—a work, school, or play atmosphere characterized by threats and disrespect, fear of retaliation for refusing to participate in sexual demands.  A hostile environment can be defined by upsetting sexual or racial/ethnic communication.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 entitles workers and student to emotional safety at school and work, a respectful environment. (read more)  MAG,add the rest of the definitions any way you want, obviously.  I threw in Read More because that’s what I see everywhere.

Informed consent—sexual relationships, even some those that may seem consensual, are not always legal.   Informed consent , a legal term, implies that the persons who agree to relations are not impaired by substances, are not impaired mentally, and are of majority age.

Internet predators—thought to be individuals who troll (search) the Internet for psychologically vulnerable people, maybe children, but also trusting people who need friends.  The predator develops a relationship, usually through a social networking site, and grooms it to obtain sexual favors or financial gain, i.e., money or pornography.

Litigation — the threat of law suits and damages is always inherent when corporate, team, civil, or school social rules, rules that are not work related are scoffed, when individuals cross psychological, sexual, or physical boundaries.

Pedophilia—a mental disorder, a paraphilia, according to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental and Behavioral Disorders-IV-TR (DSM-IV-TR, 2000).  Pedophilia is defined as having a sexual preference for prepubescent children.  That preference is manifested in persistent and recurrent thoughts, fantasies, urges, sexual arousal, or behavior.

Pornography and sexual exploitation—Internet predators seek out and groom teenagers, but also children and adults to supply an ever-growing demand for media and photographs with sexual content.  Because some targets are not old enough to provide informed consent, teens and prepubescent children are vulnerable to sexual exploitation, and ultimately, even sex addictions.

Position of authority – anyone who has the power to influence decisions by virtue of age, position, or rank.  Being in a position of authority enables people to exert unfair influence, to exploit those who are in subdominant roles, breaching what should be trust.  

Protected classes — legal designated “classes” include biological sex, age, ethnicity, race, disability, religion, national origin, or sexual identification.   The spirit behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is that everyone should be treated the same at work and at school.  The protected classes also include other groups, i.e., veterans.  Amendments that vary from state to state.

Relationship system— we start with one system, ourselves (made of many biological systems) and add family, partners, friends, people and institutions in the community, work colleagues and administrators, and find that we are a part of several of networks, or systems of relationships.

Sensitivity- being aware that others may not have your sense of humor and might feel badly about what you say to them and refraining from it. We are sometimes wired this way, to be sensitive but sometimes we become this way because of the context of our families. This is about being sensitive to the sensitivities of others.

Sex addiction— an obsession with sexual gratification or sexual behavior.  Exposure to pornography at a young age seems to be associated with obsessive thoughts about sex that don’t disappear with growth and development.  Many think that sex addictions begin very young, probably due to experience with sexual abuse, or exposure to pornography.

Sexting—sending photographs or videos with sexual content over electronic media, i.e., cell phones and computers.  These are easily copied and disseminated, causing shame, embarrassment, and psychological distress for victims.  

Sexual harassment – (also see unwanted sexual communication and hostile environment)  On the scale of sexual assault, sexual harassment is often less physical, more often with words and pictures.  It is always emotionally upsetting and psychologically invasive if not physically aggressive.  The mere suggestion of desired sexual behavior or a body part might be sexual harassment, especially if it is repeated and disturbing.   Examples:
A sexual joke about someone’s sexual behavior, perhaps where that person slept the night before.  Patting someone, touching, even gently, and saying something about a body part, when the touch and the comment are unwanted.  Publicly saying things like:

I really put it to her! 

Even privately saying:  I want some of what you’ve got. 

Suggesting:  Go out with me, or you might just lose your job.

Social Intelligence  —knowing when behavior or words will stress someone or will make them happy.  It is also referred to as a social or emotional IQ, and having empathy, feeling the feelings of others.

Social skill—a having a behavioral repertoire that makes others comfortable in social situations.  Socially skilled individuals usually have the ability to feel the feelings of others, but don’t always.

Unwelcome sexual communication— a wide spectrum of undesired communication, i.e., sharing and sending unsolicited pornography, leering, stalking, coercion for sex, threatening job loss, unwanted touch, making offensive jokes. 

Verbal abuse – more than a spouse calling another spouse a bad name, or making a sarcastic comment.  It is more than calling an employee stupid or incompetent.  It is even more than calling a player a disgrace.  (link “player a disgrace” to Team Wise). 

 It is also verbal abuse to threaten, to intimidate, scare, or coerce.  Whenever words convey something negative, whenever they directly insult or imply someone is deficient in a mean way, the interaction might be considered verbally abusive, a form or relationship violence.  These are allbuzz words for harassment litigation.  

Linda Freedman, MSW, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

Sensitivity

It is assumed that corporations considered work-friendly have trained managers about sexual harassment, and that schools provide workshops for teachers.

Workshops tend to be about the law, which can be harsh, and employee handbooks, how to communicate the wisdom behind the laws to employees so that they don't cross them.

The active ingredient in the workshops that work is engaging participants, somehow making it so interesting, so accessible, that they want to talk. But who is willing to talk about harassing anyone?  Or having been harassed?  Work isn't an encounter group. It isn't where we need to go to get therapy.

So the better workshop is about every day situations, what we might call, every day miss-steps. Because like those statistics, every five minutes someone is being raped, every ten seconds someone is being beat, probably every day people somebody is putting a foot in a mouth.

Call it sensitivity training, call it empathy training. Whatever you call it, it is about watching what we say.  SO not easy.

Empathy Training

It's becoming more and more important, social intelligence, and empathy is the active ingredient.  Success in business, success in politics, success in family and friendship-- it all depends upon this.

I promise I'll fill in the blanks in a week or two, talk more about it, but it isn't natural, mind-reading.  It is a skill and it rides upon words, not divination.

You would think that reading people's feelings is easy.  Some of us wear our emotions on our sleeves, but even these are misinterpreted.  Many of us do a fairly good job, intuiting what others are feeling.  We can tell when we have upset someone, we can tell when someone is angry.  We can feel the anxiety of a spouse who wants to leave earlier for the airport. 

Some of us care more than others, is the truth.  We tune in better, more often.  We're the ones who teach others how to do it, because we're the ones who see that it works.  We need it, no question, to be successful (depending, granted, upon one's definition of success).

You can teach people to empathize in therapy and in group training sessions, because they want to learn.  They already care.  There is no beginning, it is a homeostatic system. Caring people empathize and empathetic people care.  They watch their words, how their actions affect others.  Most of couples therapy is founded upon this principle:  If you care, you'll feel your partner's worries and you won't like how it feels.

Another way to say it is that if one of you has a problem, the other has a problem, too.

So how do we do this, empathy training?  A grown man will cry when his favorite team loses, will bang the table when the ball is fumbled. But he might call his kid a cry baby for crying over a lost toy.

So one way is to say, Your team lost a game and you felt bad.  The kid lost a toy.  Same feeling.  Why would you want him to feel bad?

When we run groups, when we teach a room full of people to become empaths, the procedure is a little different, more provocative.  But the idea is the same.  The job is getting inside someone's head, reading someone's feelings implies feeling our own, making comparisons.

Empathy training is a little more complicated than that, but there are tricks, and we have to begin to talk about it. 

Linda Freedman, LCSW, LMFT, PhD

Tyler Clementi's Suicide

Tyler Clementi killed himself. But we could say, if we were honest, that two other people, college kids, pushed him off the bridge.

File this one under diversity education/cyber-bullying/empathy training/and what a waste.

The first time a patient told me about a college roommate who videotaped someone in a residence hall doing something he/she wouldn't have wanted publicized, I was shocked. And it isn't easy to shock a therapist.

The second time, I raised an eyebrow. Similar circumstances, apartment.

The third time it was a high school teacher who had been exposed on the Internet, an angry student caught him swearing at the class. Not the same level of embarrassment, obviously.

But we're all vulnerable. Most of us have dreams of being caught undressed, wake up and say, It was just a dream, a fear dream. Dreams are about fears or wishes. They express our vulnerability.

But there are classes of individuals who are considered to be even more vulnerable than others. Add shame, embarrassment, exposure, humiliation and bullying to a life destined to get used to fighting prejudice, and any sexual minority person might feel life isn't worth living.

Yahoo story:

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – The parents of a Rutgers University student who killed himself after his roommate allegedly used a webcam to spy on him during a tryst with another man have filed notice that they're considering suing the school.

Joseph and Jane Clementi, parents of Tyler Clementi, filed notice Friday preserving their right to sue. They have to wait six months after the notice to file a lawsuit over their son's death, which became a symbol in a national outcry over the bullying of young gays.

Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old violinist, only in school a few weeks, jumped off the George Washington bridge.

The suspects left school, are charged with invasion of privacy. There may be charges of bias intimidation.

Is the school really responsible? Probably not. And looking for a settlement won't bring back their son.

We could say that parents have to warn their children, have to prepare them, discuss these things, but the schools should, too. I'm not sure where to start, at what age exactly, but I think diversity education should begin before kids are old enough to use cameras.

Add it to the list. What a waste.

Linda Freedman, PhD