Jocelyn Crowley | Live on Sound Authors

February 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent:  Welcome back to Sound Authors!  My next guest on the show is Jocelyn Crowley, PhD.  She’s a professor of public policy and she’s the author of the book called Defiant Dads:  Fathers’ rights activists in America.  It’s a gorgeous front cover and pops right off the shelf and it’s an honor to speak to her today.  Welcome to the show.

Jocelyn Crowley:  Thank you so much for having me, I’m glad that you like the cover!

Dr. Kent:  Oh I love it; it’s that nice blue shirt that dads love to wear.

Jocelyn Crowley:  That’s right, they’re trained to wear I guess.

Dr. Kent:  So tell me about this book and how you decided to write this one.

Jocelyn Crowley:  Sure, well I think there were a couple of reasons that I got interested in the topic.  First of all I would say it is my primary area of interest academically so when I finished up my first book which was about the politics of child support policy in the untied states I found out that there were these organizations that were sprouting up all over the country dedicated to pursuing fathers rights and as I concluded that book I started to think to myself, wow, what are these groups about?  What do they want?  And do these claims have any merit?  So I think academically I was just very drawn to what they were doing at the time.  I think secondly I was interested in researching these groups because of my own family circumstances.  Growing up in a single parent family during the 1970s and 1980s, there wasn’t a lot of interest or research about fathers at that time and the role they play in families.  What their absence might in fact do to children, so personally I became interested in the topic as well.

Dr. Kent:  It’s been fascinating, since Barack Obama has been elected president there’s a lot of talk especially in the African American community, this role model of a man who loves his kids and is there for his kids, it’s a two parent household in a cultural group that doesn’t necessarily value that as much.

Jocelyn Crowley:  Well I think that the president can do a lot in terms of modeling good parental behavior and having two young children in the Whitehouse at this moment in time is definitely good for the nation.  It’s a great symbol for what we can aspire to be because there is a general consensus in the research community that two parent families do provide one of the best environments for children.  Now of course not every two parent family is perfect, but we do know they buffer children against a whole host of negative outcomes like poor school performance, teenage pregnancy, involvement with drugs and alcohol, so I think what researchers have noted is that increased supervision that these parents supply for their children really help prevent these outcomes.  The question my book also tried to look at though was what happens when families fall apart?  How do fathers try to stay in their lives and what kinds of barriers do they confront in trying to stay in their children’s lives?

Dr. Kent:  Huh.  Lets talk for a second about you’ve published many articles that are lets say academic.  As someone who came out of academia as well, I know definitely that those aren’t necessarily accessible to everyone.  What for you and your career, do you feel that there’s a different message coming out of your articles that are academic and books that are more for the trade audience?

Jocelyn Crowley:  That’s a really interesting question.  Definitely I would say that there are pushes and pulls in both areas.  When you’re in academics you do have to publish more scholarly articles in order to move ahead professionally so it’s something I’ve always struggled with but my aim in publishing this book is to write it so that it meets the needs of both audiences.  In the sense that I do believe that it covers some of the more scholarly and academics related to child support and custody issues.  However at the same time I tried to weave in and out all of these fathers voices with whom I spoke over the course of a couple of years; 158 fathers rights activists and try to weave their personal stories in the book in order to make the book more accessible to people across the spectrum and hopefully make it interesting to them as well.

Dr. Kent:  I think often, I watch a few movies on the Lifetime Networks and I have three powerful feminists, a mother a sister and a fiancé.

Jocelyn Crowley:  Oh congratulations on the fiancé part!

Dr. Kent:  Thank you but there’s a very strong presence I guess in the world of women that says if there’s someone that deserts the family it’s the father and if someone needs to have more rights it’s the woman.  So what does it mean to have father’s rights?  I was just writing a comment on twitter about the interview we’re having right now and I got a response that was sort of responded immediately to that term fathers rights and it’s so loaded.

Jocelyn Crowley:  It is so loaded.  What I found interesting in talking to these guys is that I was really interested in delving into this question of what does it mean by rights and what these activists really want to do is they want to modify child support law and child custody law in ways that definitely will be more favorable to them than they currently are.  Basically I argued that’s not necessarily the best thing for women and children.  So that’s what I’m concerned about there.  in the area of child support, when a family falls apart we know quite consistently that research has shown time and time again women suffer economically, much more than men do.  Why is that the case?

Oftentimes they drop out of the paid labor force when they have children or they work part time or from home and their skill set can definitely suffer over time so when the family dissolves they’re not in the same place that their former husbands might be economically.  So I find that calls to modify child support awards to reduce them in most cases are not necessarily good for women and children.  On the other side of the coin, father’s rights activists talk a lot about child custody and wanting to reform child custody.  Right now we know in the majority of cases when families do fall apart, women get the majority of time with their children, they tend to get primary physical custody and fathers have visitation or parenting time.

So they really want a 50-50 split of time when the family falls apart.  I think this is a noble goal and something I would support.  I think its always in the best interest of a child to have continuing positive contact with both parents in the case where a family falls apart; however, I do think women studies show that they do almost double the childcare work as fathers do so that when the family falls apart that child might have a stronger attachment to the mother figure in the child’s life.  So what I would encourage fathers to do is definitely get more involved with their children while the families are together.  If that means scaling back on work hours and making some professional sacrifices, I think that is ultimately worth it if heaven forbid they have to divorce their partner down the road, they will have put in that time and be able to show the judge they were in fact an equal parent to that child while the marriage was still together.

Dr. Kent:  I guess this whole issue is really tied up with lawyers and judges and depositions and all of that and that takes a huge emotional toll on all parties.

Jocelyn Crowley:  Oh absolutely.  I mean there definitely is a cottage industry around divorce and child custody and a lot of my interview respondents really complained about this.  There are social workers that can become involved when custody is in contention, there are psychologists, there are mental health evaluators and what is a little bit troubling is that they do try to play God in a sense where they become involved in a particular case and try to create a report for the judge saying in their view who might be the parent for primary custody.  I think this can be definitely problematic.

The mental health professional might not have the best idea of who the best parent might be after exposure to the family only for a brief period of time.  I understand the force of those complaints.  Again I think ideally at one point in time we are going to move toward the more 50-50 standard of custody if that’s possible if both parents live near each other but at the same time we do need to encourage fathers to take more responsibility for childcare while their families are together so when the judge does look at what’s going on in the family, he or she can say look, both parents did equal amounts of care giving, therefore a 50-50 decision is warranted.

Dr. Kent:  I just had someone comment in on the show and they said, there are no such things as father’s rights.  There’s a great deal of vitriol on both sides; whether an individuals had a bad experience as a man or woman in one of these situations.  What kind of stories did you find when researching all of these?

Jocelyn Crowley:  It’s definitely true.  Wherever you are, when you have a family that breaks up emotions are high on both sides and in my book I only spoke to these fathers’ rights activists so I didn’t speak to their former partners to get their side of the story but definitely emotions are running high.  Although I’m critical of some of the father’s rights policy positions in that I don’t know if they’re necessarily helpful to women and children, what I did find was they created in many cases a positive set of circumstances by which fathers could start to rebuild their lives and make the best possible relationship with their ex-partner and their children.

For example one of the father’s rights activists that I interviewed was in one of his group meetings and talked about how he was extremely angry with his ex because she never told him about his daughter’s doctor appointments, dentist appointments and all these things and he yelled at her.  The group really gave him a talking to and said that’s not the way to make things work.  You’re not supposed to be yelling at your child’s mother.  If you have an issue, speak in a civil non confrontational way.  He actually took from that group that experience and advice and ended up writing a card to his ex saying I’m really sorry for what I did.  The group also tends to give really good advice when it comes to making sure fathers are confident in their new roles as perhaps non-residential fathers.

So one man in a group described his experience of wanting his son to stay with him the entire summer because he didn’t get a lot of time during the year but that son wanted to go back to school early because he wanted to try out for the football team.  The father was struggling because although he wanted his son to play football, at the same time he wanted the most amount of time with him.  The group really counseled him to go and be a little bit generous and make sure that child was able to play football because that was what would make him happiest at that stage in his life.  So he ultimately decided to give up some of his time to benefit his son down the road.  So there were lots of stories like that and lots of ways the group was able to help these fathers move along and like I said rebuild relationships in families.

Dr. Kent:  So what’s with the title Defiant Dads?

Jocelyn Crowley:  I was thinking of what a catchy title might be and when I talk about them being defiant, what I mean is they are definitely trying to defy current policy positions in the areas of child support and custody. They think they’re paying too much child support in most cases and definitely want more custody.  So they’re trying to organize politically and trying to defy the current status quo in those two areas.

Dr. Kent:  It’s such a fascinating topic and I have a good friend who is a wonderful house dad and his wife goes off to work and he stays home with the kids.  I have a brother in law who took my sisters name so there are some very sensitive men.  What is the future of moms and dads and fathers rights and all that?

Jocelyn Crowley:  Well I definitely think that these fathers’ rights groups have a role to play in American family policy.  I think they should continue to provide the support that they do to fathers going through a break up to provide them with legal information regarding obtaining a lawyer, getting proper advice as to what to do in their case.  I would ask and encourage them to reconsider some of their more hard-line policies on child support and custody because I think we need to really take into account not necessarily completely what they want and desire but what’s in the best interest of the children and the former family unit.  So I encourage them to think about modifying some of their position but continue the really good work in terms of helping fathers rebuild their life in the aftermath of a breakup.

Dr. Kent:  It’s been a fascinating discussion, it’s not something I think about every day but it’s a beautiful book; Defiant Dads:  Fathers’ rights activists in America and are you working on any new projects?

Jocelyn Crowley:  Right now I’m working on a project that focuses on mothers.  Mothers for a change; I’m interested in how mothers right now in 2009 are trying to combine having careers with having children and how did they balance it all?  So I decided to take a step back from fathers and now focus on mothers.

Dr. Kent:  And it’s such an important time right now to think about single mothers because they really are the ones suffering the most in this economic downturn.

Jocelyn Crowley:  Absolutely I agree.

Dr. Kent:  Well it’s been such an honor chatting with you and the book is called Defiant Dads:  Fathers’ rights activists in America by Jocelyn Elise Crowley, thank you so much.

Jocelyn Crowley:  Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it.

Dr. Kent:  My next guest on the show will be a birth activist.  Her name is Karen Brody and her latest book is called Birth and we’ll talk to her in just a minute so come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, TRANSCRIPTS, Politics, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Sound Authors Radio Show Releases Interview With Garen Thomas on www.blogtalkradio.com/soundauthors

February 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment

 (NY, NY February 16, 2009)  Blog Talk Radio network broadcasting Sound Authors, a live interview talk radio show, features bestselling author Garen Thomas. Garen Thomas author of Yes We Can: A Biography of Barack Obama takes the reader through the life of Barack Obama. From his struggle to fit in with his classmates, and concern about not knowing his biological father, through his term as an Illinois senator, and the long campaign for president, to his historic victory. Garen Thomas worked as an editor in children’s book publishing for more than a decade, editing numerous notable children’s picture books and novels.

Sound Author’s host Dr. Kent Gustavson had the pleasure of interviewing Garen on the February 11th, 2009 show. This podcast and all archived podcasts can be searched from the Sound Authors website at www.soundauthors.com/category/podcast. Each Friday at 3PM Eastern Standard Time, Sound Authors radio show features live interviews and readings from all varieties of authors, known and not-yet-known; all soon-to-be bestselling authors from all walks of life, from Hollywood actors to marathoners, to PhD therapists or life coaches.

Tune in next week, February 20th, 2009 to hear award winning Dr. Allan Hamilton. Based on thirty years experience as Harvard-educated brain surgeon, The Scalpel and the Soul tells the unspoken stories behind remarkable patients and strange events, and shares the moral and spiritual lessons found in them. Doctors are trained to disregard the inexplicable and the unbelievable. They push aside the powers of the soul, and the healing forces of belief. In this book, Dr. Hamilton shares a rare glimpse of how the spiritual and the supernatural manifest themselves even in the high-tech world of 21st century intensive care units or operating rooms Sound Authors radio show each week is replete with authors from around the country and around the world, each telling their tales, from self-help to fiction, children’s books to thrillers, how-to books to corporate guidebooks.

Original music is also featured, along with up-and-coming bands and singer-songwriters. Listen for musician interviews and fresh music each week! No need to run out to your nearest bookstore to find the next great book or CD. Tune in to Sound Authors every Friday at 3PM EST on Blog Talk Radio at http://www.blogtalkradio.com. The show also podcasts each interview separately, and all archived podcasts can be searched from the Sound Authors website at www.soundauthors.com or www.blogtalkradio.com/soundauthors .  Sound Authors - where authors sound off! Sound Authors Host Dr. Kent Gustavson’s background is in music, but his career has been in publishing. He is the owner of an independent book publisher, and a publishing consultant around the world. His many CDs and his book are available from his website online, or through the Sound Authors website.  ###

Sound Authors
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Modavox  amber@soundauthors.com

Posted by amber | Filed Under PRESS RELEASES 

Interview with Kristin Tillquist | Sound Authors Radio

February 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent:  Welcome back to Sound Authors!  My next guest on the show is Kristen Tillquist.  She has a book called Capitalizing on Kindness: Why 21st Century Professionals need to be nice.  What a great, timely book for this transition in government and for this economic time.  as I said earlier in the show, every time I leave my house here in new York, I feel like I’m in a war zone because traffic is so crazy and I think people just are having difficult times maybe at home, maybe in their professional lives and they’re just not nice.  Welcome to the show Kristin Tillquist.

Kristin Tillquist:  Thank you, I’m glad to be here and I’m glad you mentioned some of your own experience and that’s really a symptom of the 21st century in so many ways as far as being in many ways crime and some of the common courtesies that make the world go around in a more pleasant way.

Dr. Kent:  But I have heard in business things have started to change towards what people call a more female way of managing things.  A lot more pleasantries, a lot less big heads, hard heads.  Talk about the business world today.

Kristin Tillquist:  Well the business world is really what the book Capitalizing on Kindness is all about but the point about everyday world it seems that people are actually finding a decline in courtesy and kind of common every kindnesses over the last five years.  People are finding that it seems to them people are less kind but in the business world I think you bring up a good point that in some ways kindness is infiltrating the business world but we have a long, long way to go and one of the reasons I put this together and really brought a lot of research into it and a lot of case studies and examples is that I think as professionals in the 21st century right now, we’re really missing a tremendous opportunity in business to give and receive the benefits of kindness.

In giving kindness in business world through communicating better, through building a caring reputations, you’re using thanks a lot, using a lot of different appreciation that leads to a positive personality.  These sorts of things make a business more kinder and gentler but the flip side of that which is a little known fact in some cases is that it also makes the business world a more profitable place.  So what I want to do in this book and in talking people all across the country and then around the world is to let people know the nice guys can come out of the closet and truly be successful in the business world, especially in this down economy.

Dr. Kent:  How did you get into the process of writing?  Have you been a writer for a long time?

Kristin Tillquist:  I’m actually an attorney by trade.  I used to practice law and I got into litigation early on in my practice so I was always in court and always in situations that were by necessity adversarial and I found that pretty unsatisfying in the sense that I knew there was a better way of doing things.  What I started to observe, even in the practice of law, was people think you have to be cutthroat in the practice of law; you have to be very competitive, which is true in some ways.

But in many ways what I found is when the attorneys and their clients were conscious of being respectful of getting to the bottom of what was really at stake, what the people on either side really needed, wanted; often it was something as simple as respect and recognition.  So when people that practice law can recognize that and be kind to each other, we often get better results from their clients and there’s also research that backs that up and shows that the judges and juries are more likely to award more money to clients that are nice, that are positive, and also that are actually likely to award less money to people that don’t behave in that manner.

So that’s partially where I got into the interest of why kindness is both so essential in business but also how it works and why it really greases the wheels of commerce especially in the global world.  Then I ended up working as the chief of staff for the Mayor of the City of Riverside in California, which is the fastest growing county region in the United States.  I see a lot of the political side of things and again there’s good and bad in that and there’s lots of ways in which kindness makes things work much better on every front.

Dr. Kent:  Well that’s an interesting point; when Barack Obama just got sworn in.  He seems like such a nice guy.

Kristin Tillquist:  Absolutely and you know that is no question that has played into his enormous success.  People were able to identify with him, they simply liked him.  I actually mentioned a little bit about his contest with Senator Clinton earlier on and part of it being although she had the higher level of experience without question and played a lot of higher level of connections that were Washington based and so on, he was so likeable and one of the powers that I talk about in the book is the power of positive personality, being someone that’s likeable and people can connect with is so strong and there’s been a lot of analysis done and it looks like that may have been the factor that allowed President Obama to get to where he is.  You do like him.

Dr. Kent:  Absolutely and now in the workplace from day to day of course you need to sort of kowtow or brown nose to your boss, be nice, give gifts and all of that but beyond that, what does a boss do?  What do you do to your fellow colleagues and things like that?  How does that play into it, especially in this economic downtime?  Why is it so important to be nice?

Kristin Tillquist:  Well that’s an excellent question, especially with the economy.  How does this work?  But I definitely want to make sure that we’re not looking at kowtowing or brown nosing because it’s absolutely the opposite approach that I take in the book.  A colleague of mine has a good way of putting it and she says don’t ever mistake my niceness for weakness.  This is not about rolling over and always being the one who does all the extra work or taking the bad jobs or doing the dirty work.  It’s actually not that, it’s the antithesis really.  Its about how to put forward your own goals and objectives as a professional in a very strong, savvy, directed sort of manner, but at the same point always looking at the exact same time how you can help other people to achieve their goals and reach their highest potential.

So it means being gentle with someone whose having a day that means taking down the core of a colleague or a boss and seeing if there’s an abrasive personality for example.  What’s really going on behind that?  What are they trying to accomplish?  What insecurities are they dealing with?  And then figure out a way to help them achieve their goals.  Its simple things like writing a reference letter for someone who needs it or offering to write that letter before even being asked.  It might occasionally be staying late and helping someone with a deadline knowing full and well that you’re giving them a good favor and helping them in that moment and simultaneously you know that favor comes right back to you through incredible good will and opportunities to be assisted yourself in the future.  So the power of reciprocity is key ways that professionals succeed.

Dr. Kent:  So it boils down to karma?

Kristin Tillquist:  No, not karma in the sense of well you know, karma is used in so many ways.  I think what it boils down to is a non-religious golden rule.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto your loved ones and really treat people the way you would like to be treated and would hope to be treated and really modeling that role.  So there is a lot of reciprocity of what goes around comes around and also what you send out in the world just gets magnified.  So if you and your colleagues in your workplace or if you’re an independent business person, or even if you’re the CEO of a large corporation, you do set the tone and you do create a ripple effect.  I talk a lot about kindness capital and its something, of course we’re talking about human capital and social capital; there’s also something called kindness capital where what you do in terms of simple kindness be it thanking someone, writing that reference letter or whatever the case may be or negotiating in a way that works well for all the parties involved.  It creates more kindness and that is simply something we need to have.  We need to magnify kindness, we need to create more of it and it does ripple out.  There are a variety of sociological and business case studies that show that when someone is kind and does a favor for someone else or a kindness that the people who receive the kindness are just enormously, exponentially more likely to be kind themselves.

Dr. Kent:  So if I drive around here in New York, if I drive nicely maybe other people will see that and they’ll be nice to other people?

Kristin Tillquist:  Wouldn’t that be nice!  In the business world, we’re talking about corporate kindness too.  This is again where often times I find that business people need evidence and need to be persuaded because there is that nice guys finish last myth and its really a myth.  If you look at all the successful people in corporations and you dig down, they don’t necessarily use the word kindness in their mission statements, which they ought to, and I’m increasingly hoping that they will but they use a lot of different terminology.

If you look at businesses that practice corporate kindness, for example creating a positive employee environment and practices like encouraging their employees to be volunteers and volunteer in their communities and they practice corporate philanthropy.  Those companies have 35-45% higher stock values than companies that don’t.  so what I did in capitalizing in kindness in the book is put a lot of evidence to help people who might think they understand kindness as a good thing, but to really show them how it actually pays off for the people who receive the kindness and the people that give the kindness.

Dr. Kent:  There are times I’ve been labeled as a pure altruist.  I’ll end up giving people the shirt off my back, or my most prized possessions.  Do personalities come into play?  Are certain people just tend to be more altruistic and people want sort of that well why should I be nice, what am I going to get out of it?

Kristin Tillquist:  first actually I take issue with the term altruism because as yourself and I’m glad to hear that’s your approach because that means definitely more people like you to do that and to model that behavior but people as an “altruist” you’ve got a wonderful benefit of feeling great don’t you?  I mean if you do something nice for someone, say you do give someone the shirt off your back.  When you do you get an affect that’s called the helpers high, a documented fact where it’s like running in a race or a marathon.

People actually have endorphin rushes; it gives you a feeling of euphoria and a glow of good will.  So the altruist is always getting a benefit so to me a true altruism or pure altruism is a bit of a misnomer.  It actually exists but aside from that, I think that personalities play into it somewhat but what I’ve done is people who are naturally like yourself and people who have been modeling themselves for me who are I call them naturally nice.  They’re just nice guys and you can tell.  You can see it, they’re personable, they’re easy to get along with, they’re just welcoming.  But like I said it doesn’t have to be one type of personality, they can also have very strong willed, very intense business people who are truly kind.

But what you can do and what I’ve tried to make really easy in the book is I list at the back of each chapter practice pointers so that people who don’t find themselves even naturally say outgoing or maybe its hard for people to trust them because of a physical appearance they may have or whatever it may be.  It gives them practice pointers they can work with in dealing with people in business associations, every day life, personal life, and try and make it really simple to help them hone their approach and make it really easy for people to really warn up to them.

Dr. Kent:  So you also deal with I guess the scrooge personality and he was lucky enough to have Marley’s ghost lead him around and then he could change his life.  Is there a solution for the kind of grumpy folks at the top who are all about money?

Kristin Tillquist:  Well I think for most people they are just not portraying what they’re truly wanting and a lot of people, especially right now with how the economy is so incredibly painful and difficult for people to work with and to get around.  It’s just a very difficult situation and it really exacerbates our sense of being vulnerable and our sense of insecurity and that’s what I analyze as being the core of most problems is people who feel insecure.  So when people feel insecure both in a personal life, work life, or even globally, it causes people to act badly in so many ways.  So oftentimes you see the personality that seems so hard to work with is uncaring is simply unsure.

So it’s not a magic wand that you can just be nice to some really awful person and they’ll change, of course that’s not the case but it does give some insight into certain personalities.  What you can do, what’s really key for your boss or the employee, is in the power of connecting, which is one of powers is how to create a sense of a larger purpose.  Because people really need to have some reason to be motivated in the world, not just for daily bread and making a paycheck and even now, even when the economy is bad they still want you to be part of something bigger and more important.

So if you can find out if people in business, workplace can specialize and figure out what’s that larger purpose that they are striving towards and even if their just a small cog in that wheel to make sure that people buy into it and really believe in it.  I think that’s key and lots of businesses like the Marriott Hotels and Mr. Marriott himself, the founder, is known for doing that when he visits different branches of his Marriott Hotels.  He will stop and have lunches with his executives and so on but then he’ll pop into the kitchen and he’ll talk to the staff there.  he’ll talk to the people cleaning up the floors and doing whatever needs to be done and not only does he show them a kindness like connecting with them and helping them put a face to a name, they understand that a little bit more what they’re doing there and why making that salad is valuable.  He also gets to see what the quality control is so he really is one of those people that knows how to create connections and both sides benefit.

Dr. Kent:  Wow!  Well it’s a fascinating discussion for many reasons right now and I think the most interesting thing about it is what we said at the very beginning with the new President Obama who seems to be a very nice guy and we all see that by watching CNN.  It’s been great chatting with you.  The book is called Capitalizing on Kindness: Why 21st century professionals need to be nice, by Kristen Tillquist.  Where can we find out more about you?

Kristin Tillquist:  You can pop on my website if anyone wants to, its kindnesscapital.com and the book is in bookstores.

Dr. Kent:  Wonderful, and of course the book is available, it’s published by Career Press.  Thank you so much for chatting with me Kristen.

Kristin Tillquist:  Thank you, I enjoyed it.

Dr. Kent:  My next guest on the show is a musician.  As always we feature a musician in the fourth part of each show.  His name is Yosvany Terry and he is known for his innovation performing with legends like Silvia Rodriguez and other incredible young Cuban jazz players.  I’m going to play a tune from him and then we’ll talk to him after that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, TRANSCRIPTS, Business, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Interview with Professor Brian Rothbart | Sound Authors Radio

February 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent:  Welcome back to Sound Authors!  My next guest on the show is Professor Brian Rothbart.  He is known as the father of chronic pain elimination.  He’s got 40 years of experience as a doctor and a researcher.  Welcome to the show Dr. Rothbart.

Prof. Rothbart:  Thanks Kent, thank you for inviting me.

Dr. Kent:  Tell me a little bit about your newest book.

Prof. Rothbart:  Well we just finished writing and actually it’s going to be available this month.  It’s a book titled Forever Free from Chronic Pain.  Basically, the book talks about my 40 years of research and clinical experience and actually my own experiences living with chronic pain and how it culminating in the therapy that I invented that actually eliminates, not manages, but eliminates many of the chronic muscle and joint pain without using drugs or without doing surgery.

Dr. Kent:  Explain for the listeners what exactly chronic pain is?  There’s so many diagnoses these days; what does it mean chronic pain?

Prof. Rothbart:  When we talk about chronic pain, we’re talking about people who are having ongoing pain that has lasted more than three months.  So if you have knee pain, back pain, hip pain, spinal pain that’s been going on longer than three months, we call that chronic pain.  As compared to acute pain that lasts only for a few weeks and then it’s over.

Dr. Kent:  Things like fibro myalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome and things like that?

Prof. Rothbart:  Yes, it all fits into it and actually what’s really interesting about this is that I researched, which culminated in a paper that I published eight years ago.  It actually identified the source, the actual source of many of the chronic muscle and joint problems that we’re seeing and that includes fibro myalgia and many of the chronic fatigue syndrome patients.  In the past, when I was a member of the American Academy for Pain Management for many years and lectured about we needed to find the source of the chronic pain because we were treating symptoms.

Pain is a symptom, not the source and when you treat a symptom it keeps recurring.  This was a frustration for so many years because as patients, we actually had to manage the pain, we couldn’t eliminate it, we were managing it.  For many years I was saying we need to find the source; if we can find the source, we can eliminate the pain.  In 2002, I published a very significant paper that actually identified the source of chronic muscle and joint pain in many of the people suffering today.  Interestingly enough, it is an embryologic foot type, unknown before my research.  It’s a foot type your born with that causes your feet to twist when you walk and you know that its happening because if you look at the heels of your shoes, if the outside of your heels are wearing faster than the rest of the heel, you have this foot structure.

When you have this foot structure and the foot twists, it’s like a foundation an unstable foundation on a building.  The whole building becomes unstable, you’re going to have problems with the doors, the windows, even the roof can leak.  Well it turns out when you have a foot with a twist; it produces structural changes in the joints and muscles around the joints that in time leads to chronic pain.  My therapy is very different in its approach because it’s specifically identifies and treats this embryological foot type and it does it in a totally different way.  We apply a signal to the bottom of the foot to change the signal sent to the brain where the body is in space, actually normalizing the signals coming from the feet.

The brain receives the signal and automatically changes the position f the body, puts it in more correct position.  When the posture is in a more correct position, the joints are properly aligned, the joints around those joints are in the proper position and the joints and muscles can then heal.  That’s the basis of what we call Rothbart Propialseptive Therapy.

Dr. Kent:  So, Forever Free from Chronic Pain is the book and the pain sufferers guide to getting your life back.  Is it possible to be free from chronic pain then?

Prof. Rothbart:  Absolutely.  I’ve treated countless numbers of patients who come to me living in chronic pain for 20-30 years and been everywhere, tried everything, being treated for the symptoms, being treated for the chronic knee problem; two, three, four knee surgeries, doing physical therapy, patients coming to me with chronic back pain, sciatica, chronic neck, shoulder tension and they’re frustration has been that the same physicians who have treated them symptomatically.  Now treating the symptoms can work.

You can get rid of back pain if you stay in ongoing therapy; continuously taking the drugs, continuously going for manipulation, continuously doing the different physical therapies will reduce your pain, but its ongoing therapy.  These patients come to me and if they have this embryological foot type that I described, which by the way we estimate covers 80% of the world population we believe has this foot structure so its very common.  If a patient comes to me with this foot structure by using this Rothbart propialseptive therapy, by stabilizing the signals to the brain, we don’t manage; we eliminate the pain, which means the pain is gone.  You no longer have to take drugs, you no longer have to be in surgery, the pain is eliminated.  Not managed, eliminated, and that’s what this book is about.

Dr. Kent:  Here’s a question for you: I get a lot of folks that come on the show and we’ve all heard a lot about a lot of different treatments that are eastern medicine or acupuncture or this and that.  Now you’re talking about actual medicine so explain to me in whatever way you can understand to a lay person what exactly happens in your treatment.

Prof. Rothbart:  Okay; what it is basically is first of all, once we identify the source of the pain, which is critical in any therapy.  If you don’t know the source of the problem, you can’t eliminate it.  Once the source is identified as being the underlying source as embryologic foot type, what ends up in chronic pain for an individual is by the way the foot moves.  It sends a distorted signal to the brain when the foot twists.

Dr. Kent:  That could be chronic pain for like a knee, your back or anything?

Prof. Rothbart:  Exactly, any weight bearing joint.  The brain acting on the signal changes the position of the body.  It doesn’t know that the signal is distorted, it acts on the distorted signal and you end up with a distorted posture, which leads you into chronic pain.  The way this therapy works is we normalize that signal coming from the foot.  We do that using a device we call propialseptive in-sole.  But the end result is normalizing the signal to the cerebellum, the balance center of the brain.  The cerebellum acts on that signal, automatically corrects the posture, which places the joints and muscles in their correct anatomical position, and that allows those muscles and joints to heal.  That’s the basis of this therapy.  Allowing the body to heal by eliminating the source of the problem where it started.  Very different from any other type of therapy.

Dr. Kent:  Now you’re calling from Italy right now?

Prof. Rothbart:  Right now we’re in Rome, Italy, actually 12 miles outside of Rome, it’s a beautiful area here.

Dr. Kent:  It’s a place I always wanted to go; have you visited the Michelangelo ceiling and all of that?

Prof. Rothbart:  Oh of course, how could you not?  It’s breathtaking.

Dr. Kent:  So your work itself is now based in Italy?  Tell me about that.

Prof. Rothbart:  Yes, actually it is.  I ended up in Italy because my research is being followed by the Institute of ###, a major research facility in Italy, much like the NIH in the United States.  They were so interested in my work; they offered me a fellowship, actually a research seat in the department of bioengineering here at the ISS.  In fact I was the first American ever to hold that seat and that’s obviously allowed me to do a lot research here and we fell in love with the country and we decided to stay here.  The research continues and I see patients here and its one of the truly great countries of the world.  If you haven’t been here you have to visit.

Dr. Kent:  So give me some secrets out of your new book Forever Free from Chronic Pain.  Is it something that people need to use your message?  What’s the secret in the book?

Prof. Rothbart:  Well the secret is basically first looking for the source of your problem and the book describes how they can look at themselves to see if they have this embryological foot type or take the book actually to their physician.  There’s several chapters written for the lay person and physician that tells you how to identify this foot structure and if indeed they have this foot structure, there then is a therapy available that will eliminate it.  We have set up actually an academy called the International Academy of Rothbart Propialseptive Therapy that is currently teaching physicians from all over the world how to use this approach effectively to help their patients and once and for all break the chains of chronic pain and get their life back.

So this book empowers the patient number one to see if indeed their chronic pain is coming from this embryologic foot type and if it is, number two it outlines the steps they can take to eliminate their pain.  It’s a powerful book, its one that I finally decided I had to write to get this message out.  Up until now basically patients have been managed, the pain has been managed, not eliminated and the message needs to get out that there is a way to eliminate the pain.  Not manage it, eliminate it.  That’s why I wrote the book.

Dr. Kent:  In what cases does your method not work?  If people don’t have that foot disorder?

Prof. Rothbart:  Yes, there’s no one thing that works on everything and that includes my therapy.  There are types of chronic pain that are not due to this foot structure.  For instance, there are myosin gravis, primary muscle diseases for example, trauma caused from tumors, cancer, pain from cancer, these things would not respond to my therapy because the source is not embryological foot type, the source is something else.  The key is and I keep going back to this message; whenever you go see a physician the first question you need to ask is what is the source of my problem?  Where did it start?  And if that question cannot be answered you cannot eliminate it, you’re going to manage it.

For instance, if you come in to an orthopedist and say why am I having knee pain and he says to you when you fell off your bike you tore a ligament and the ligament is the problem.  We have to surgically repair it.  Then when they do the surgery and repair it, the pain is gone.  Isolate the problem and correct it, but if you go into your physician and say I’ve had a lot of joint pain; my knees hurt, my back hurts, I’m having stomach problems, breathing problems, my ankles hurt, I’ve been everywhere and I don’t understand it and they say to you that you have fibro myalgia you say okay, what causes it?  And they’ll say to you we don’t know, we don’t know what causes it but we are going to give you drugs or we’re going to give you physical therapy.

We’re going to do all these things to make you better, you are being managed.  What is happening is they cannot identify the source and so they’re treating the symptoms.  When you treat symptoms, you never get rid of the problem.  You may feel better, you may feel worse but the problem is ongoing and you’ll be in therapy for the rest of your life.  So the main thing I say to people is whenever you go to your physician, the first question you should ask is what is causing my problem?  What is the source?  And if they can’t tell you the source of the problem you need to understand that you’re being managed.  The problem is being managed, which means it will be ongoing.  That is probably the most important message I try to give in this book for people to understand that is a key question you must ask any physician that’s treating you.

Dr. Kent:  Well what a wonderful conversation.  The book is called Forever Free from Chronic Pain and when is that coming out?

Prof. Rothbart:  It’s actually coming out next week I believe.  It will be available; they can go on my website of the same name foreverfreefromchronicpain.com.  It talks about the book and they can actually read a free chapter.  It talks about where you can order the book; the e-book is available now, the hardcopy will be available next week, that’s what I’m told by the publisher.  It is a book that will truly change lives of people currently living lives in chronic pain, who are giving up hope.  This book offers insights of how to get your life back.  It’s an important book to read.

Dr. Kent:  Well it’s been a pleasure speaking with Dr. Brian Rothbart.  The book is called Forever Free from Chronic Pain and the website is foreverfreefromchronicpain.com.

Prof. Rothbart:  Thank you so much for inviting me to be on your show.

Dr. Kent:  The next guest on my show is Kristen Tillquist and we’re going to speak to her about her latest book and come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, Health, Medicine, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Interview with Clea & John Adams | Sound Authors Radio

February 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent:  Welcome to Sound Authors!  I’ve got four wonderful guests on the show today.  Three of course are authors and one is a musician.  I have Clea Adams, the author of the Dragonfly Secret on at the beginning.  Then I have professor Rothbart on, known as the father of chronic pain elimination.  My third guest then will be Kristin Tillquist, author of Capitalizing on Kindness, Why 21st century needs to be nice.  That’s something great in these tough economic times when around here in New York when you go out on the street you’re taking your life in your own hands because people just aren’t nice; times are too hard to be nice.  And at the end of the show I’ve got a great musician, composer and educator Yosvany Terry, an amazing jazz player.  So without further ado, my first guest on the show, her name is Clea Adams.  She’s the author of the Dragonfly Secret.  It’s a beautiful children’s book.  Welcome to the show.

Clea Adams:  Hi Dr. Kent, thank you and I do have my co-author John Adams on the line as well with you.

John Adams:  Hi Kent!

Dr. Kent:  Hi, so Clea and John Adams, the co-authors and tell me how this book came about.

Clea Adams:  Well it was just released last October and the first book in the dragonfly series was called the Dragonfly Door and both books help children cope with a lot.  in this particular story, we like to describe it that all children love secrets and this book has a secret to help children, especially those who may have suffered a lot and it basically takes place in a beautiful garden where a mysterious boy named David befriends a little dragonfly named Leah and without much explanation, David asks Leah to do three things for him and she the dragonfly starts her special assignment.  She meets other people that need her help too and its not until the surprise ending of the story that you begin to realize that its really a book about loss, hope and love all being carried on the wings of this little dragonfly.

Dr. Kent:  This book has gotten several awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Award, which is incredibly prestigious.  Talk about the life of this first book that you had – The Dragonfly Door.

John Adams:  The dragonfly door has won several awards and really that’s a story about these two insect friends Leah and Nan and the struggles that Nan has to go through when her friend disappears from under the marsh where they live together.  Really this story has two purposes.  Number one is it shows children who may have had a loss in life that their feelings of loss are normal but then at the same time what it does is gives parents and grandparents the tools to express their own fears about life and death and we’ve heard from a number of teachers, parents, grandparents.  Many people love to use this book because there’s so many layers to it and really ambiguous enough to where you can go any direction that you want.  If it’s just talking about friendship, talking about patience, diversity or something as serious as loss and change.

Clea Adams:  And I would also add that both books now have won the moms choice gold award and that actually hasn’t been announced.  I think they’re going to announce that at the end of January.

Dr. Kent:  Isn’t that wonderful!  And the thing about children’s books that’s so wonderful, I know from my own childhood that my favorites were the Dr. Seuss Books, The Lorax and the Butter Battle Book and there’s always a greater dimension to a good children’s book.  What goes into writing it?

John Adams:  Well I think from our perspective, we want our books to really have a purpose and that’s one of the reasons why we pushed forward with both of these books.  We find that so many other publishers want to have other genres that their kind of lighthearted but I think it’s fair to say we’re willing to tackle some very serious issues because we think its very worthwhile books that will stand the test of time and help people.

Dr. Kent:  What inspired you to start writing this first book and now the second one about the dragonfly?

John Adams:  I’m the guilty one there.  About 34-35 years ago when I was 13 I had a very tragic loss in my family and the memory of that loss and the pain from that loss has been with me all my life.  I carry that and then about four or five years ago, I learned about a teenager, a girl named Ann, who was 13 years old and she had lost her sixth grade friend, a boy who was 11 years old at the time and as part of her grieving process and reaching out to others in the community, she and her friends actually went forward and started a grief outreach program called the dragonfly project.  When I learned about that is it carried me back to when I was a child and I thought about everything that I went through and when I look at what Ann and her friends were doing following a tragedy to someone they were very close to, they were reaching out to a community of others and in fact to this day they’ve reached out to about 20,000-21,000 people throughout the world with this outreach program they formed.  So I certainly think about that and what I could do to help children.  That started pushing me along the way to write this book.

Clea Adams:  And I think as well both John & I are real nature lovers and we’ve really had found in our personal lives comfort from nature and I think you’ll find that both of these stories have a comforting message using nature as really the centerpiece of that.

Dr. Kent:  And the neat things about children’s books is that the visual has come back.  I think as adults we’re sometimes scared to say we like picture books but I got to say I have a huge collection of children’s books because I love looking at the pictures.  What does the artwork mean to you?

Clea Adams:  Oh my gosh!  Well that’s so true for us too and there’s so many beautiful books out there today and we were lucky to find Barbara Gibson who actually, she started her career with the National Geographic Children’s Magazine and to this day I think she’s done over 40 children’s books.  What she was able to detect was not only really the heart and soul of the story, but do it in like you’re saying, a very captivating way.  What’s really unique about her talent is the first book really takes place completely under the marsh, except for this one last scene where the dragonfly transforms into a beautiful, well a water nymph turns into this beautiful dragonfly.  So Barbara has really captured all those muted colors but she really has had made the creatures within the story just really lovable.

Then with the second book, which takes place in a garden, she is able to bring a brilliancy to the colors and that really complements the hopefulness of the story when you write it.  The illustrations can make a huge difference in any story.

Dr. Kent:  What’s interesting about children’s books to me is that the text is usually, I don’t want to say simple, but very concise and I know that again, I said earlier I love Dr. Seuss.  I know he spent weeks and months on each one of his books, if not years.  How long did it take to craft these books and what’s that process like?

John Adams:  Well both of the books we spent about a year writing the text, so each story is between 1500 and 1800 words and I think with a lot of people its hard to imagine why it would take that long but we were very diligent in how we crafted the words and trying to put everything together to show what was taking place within the story.  Then at the same time we were very diligent about having professional critiques with those stories and I think with each one we went through about five or six critiques to make sure that we were moving in the right direction because it was important that we approached it with the understanding that these books need to stand on their own.  Not because of us or anything but because they had a purpose for children.  We also by the way I would add that with the first book in particular, we spent some time with two child psychologists because the whole purpose again was to help children with loss and change.  So we wanted to make sure that we had a psychologist’s perspective and were approaching it the right way.

Dr. Kent:  What’s your background both of you?

John Adams:  We both come from the business world so this is totally unexpected for us.  Its one of those things where you’re inspired and you move beyond the edge a little bit and there’s a saying “If you jump your parachute will appear”, well that’s what we did.  We jumped.

Clea Adams:  That’s a good way to describe it and I would say I’ve been writing and reading my whole life and when we do school visits we do try to reiterate with kids that its important to be inspired and to feel fire that you’re writing for a purpose and I think that the kids really respond to that message.  Because we usually give a lot of examples too and its funny you should bring up the Dr. Seuss books because we do use those as an example of how they are classics and how you do want to keep returning to something that has either made you laugh in childhood or maybe taken you on an adventure or something like that.

Dr. Kent:  I see, one of my other favorite books is the one with Where the Wild Things Are.

Clea Adams:  Oh yeah, and I’m a big Nancy Drew fan so I think I’ve read all of those.

Dr. Kent:  Oh absolutely!  So what is it?  Are you going to continue with this series?  Do you want to sort of keep doing this and get them out to more schools and clinics and things like that?  What’s the plan?

Clea Adams:  Yeah, exactly.  We would like to do more school visits but as far as the writing goes, we have a couple ideas cooking in our heads and a couple on paper and we would like to continue to write and produce more books, but I think right now as you know, the focus for us with this newly released book The Dragonfly Secret, we’re focused on the marketing and promotion.  Sometimes I wish we had more time to be writing but we’re hoping to get back to that later in the year and possibly with another dragonfly book within that series.  And maybe go off on a different tangent as well, so we’ll see what happens.

Dr. Kent:  Well it’s been a real honor chatting with Clea and John Adams, their book is called The Dragonfly Secret.  It’s a wonderful story and gorgeous pictures; even the back cover with the picture of a dragonfly landing on a flower is just stunning.  So I hope it does really well, just as the Dragonfly Door has done.

Clea Adams:  Thank you very much, thanks for having us!

Dr. Kent:  Absolutely and we can visit their website online at dragonflystories.com.  My next guest on the show will be a fellow named Professor Rothbart and he’s going to tell us about chronic pain elimination so come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Childrens, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

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