Martha Peaslee Levine

By Martha Peaslee Levine

Communication challenges are apparent in many different ways when working with individuals who struggle with eating disorders. These issues can include the influence of parenting styles to society’s weight messages to comments by professionals as they interact with those struggling with eating disorders. Other challenges come from the skewed interpretations that individuals with eating disorders can place on messages that they receive. This chapter examines the literature on many of these issues, highlights challenges with clinical examples, and proposes potential tools to ameliorate some of the impact of these issues on communication.

Part of the book: Eating Disorders

By Martha Peaslee Levine

It has been well documented that individuals struggling with eating disorders don’t have clear perceptions of their own bodies. Yet they overly rely on their body image as their sense of self. Even the criteria of certain eating disorders recognize that individuals are strongly affected by their body weight and shape, which is often seen through a distorted lens. Individuals with eating disorders, particularly anorexia nervosa, struggle not only with recognizing their external beauty but also their internal positive qualities. Their perfectionism and critical sense of self leads them to have negative views of their beauty and self-worth. This chapter will look at some of the reasons individuals with eating disorders struggle to appreciate their own beauty, internally as well as externally, and will offer some tools to help with these struggles. Many individuals, even those without disordered eating, struggle with critical self-perception. Perhaps this chapter can help us all become more compassionate to ourselves as we consider our external and internal aspects of beauty.

Part of the book: Beauty

By Martha Peaslee Levine

We talk about the “art” of medicine because medicine is more than science. The science portion drives diagnosis and treatment. However as more tests become available, the art of the relationship and communication with patients is being steadily lost. Physicians often interrupt their patients only seconds into the interview. If we stop their story that quickly, we are not listening to what they have to say. If we do not listen to their story, how can we understand their illnesses and the effects on their lives? This chapter will examine physician-patient relationships by looking at ways to help foster these relationships and what can hinder them. We need to actively listen to our patients, listening for clues about their illness and/or suffering. We need to use observation and our emotions to understand the context of their illness. Examples will be included to help elucidate some of the challenges. Models that can provide a framework for communication will be discussed. Suggestions for ways to help improve communication and interpersonal relationships between physicians and their patients will be offered. This chapter will provide a chance to think about improving communication with our patients to help strengthen our interpersonal relationships.

Part of the book: Interpersonal Relationships

By Martha Peaslee Levine and David M. Levine

For 99 years, Coca-Cola sold itself as an American icon made with a secret recipe that was locked away in an Atlanta vault. Then, in 1985, in an attempt to compete with Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola changed the taste of Coke. After an uproar, the old version of Coke was reissued as Coke Classic; New Coke faded away. Evidence shows that New Coke tasted better, so it should have been eagerly accepted by the public. But it was not. Why did changing a long-term brand to a better-tasting alternative fail? Examining this issue from both the psychological and legal dimensions, we come to understand many aspects of this failed experiment, which can be useful for other brands interested in making transitions. It is clear that if companies use psychological tools to connect consumers to a brand and trademark law tools to strengthen and protect that connection, they risk adverse reactions and criticism if they then change the brand. Tools that can guard a brand from competitors can also lock it into a cage with tightly defined expectations by the public. Because advertising through media and sports generates strong connections with these beverages, health concerns and possible future research on obesogenic behaviors are considered.

Part of the book: The Psychology of Trust

By Martha Peaslee Levine and Dayna M. Levine

Mentoring is an essential step in the learning process for many professions. In medicine, mentoring and working as an apprentice is vital to the education of future physicians. In other vocations, such as field biology, mentors help trainees learn how to navigate potentially dangerous situations, such as obtaining data on deadly animals. When lives are potentially at stake, are special mentoring skills required? The qualities of a good mentor and the benefits of mentoring have been explored by others. The question for this chapter is whether there are certain qualities that mentors bring to potentially life-threatening situations that help build trust and ensure the safety of all involved. The authors will explore this topic through the lens of their experiences and literature review. They each work in a field where trust in mentoring is vital. How does trust work in these situations and what can happen if a trainee and mentor do not trust or overly trust each other? As mentors and mentees walk the tightrope of these high-risk situations, how do they keep everyone safe?

Part of the book: Trust and Psychology

By Martha Peaslee Levine

Part of the book: Trust and Psychology