HEIDI PRESS
News Editor
e reminds one of TV pop
psychologist Dr. Leo Buscag-
lia, but he's not into hug
therapy. Rather, Dr. Steve
Goren would like to help
people keep their lives in balance.
One of the major reasons sing-
les' lives are out of balance, accord-
ing to Goren, is that they lack
strokes. "As human beings we need
five things to stay alive: oxygen,
food, water and shelter. But one
thing we all need is strokes to stay
alive."
We need love and attention
and one of the biggest problems
facing single people is the fact they
don't get enough strokes, enough
love and attention, and they end up
doing either odd things or setting
up liaisons with people who really
aren't right for them."
Then how do singles get these
strokes?
Goren said he believes support
groups are the answer. As soon as
you hear the words support group
you begin thinking, well, it's like a
hackneyed expression. But I think
there's a reality to it. We all need
that support and I think it's won-
derful that our society's beginning
to recognize that."
A management consultant to
industry who specializes in teach-
ing stress management, Goren said
people spend too much time criticiz-
ing each other and not enough time
"treating other people with more
love and respect."
"We spend undue amounts of
time in our lives criticizing people
and, of course, when you criticize
someone that makes them feel bad
about themselves and that puts
them in a negative cycle.
"We all hate being criticized.
It's a common feature to human-
kind. We all hate being criticized,
H
Dr. Steve Goren
says positive strokes
can offset a negative
emotional cycle
yet we're all guilty of doing it to
each other. If we could all stop
criticizing and start looking for pos-
itives, we'd probably be a lot better
off."
Goren said one way to stop the
negative cycle is "to realize that we
all need love, we all need support,
we all need strokes."
"One thing that everyone
needs to keep in mind is that they
do need strokes, regardless how
they get them, be it from a social
group, be it from people they date
or be it from other people in simi-
lar circumstances."
A graduate of Wayne State
University and Columbia Pacific
University, where he earned his
doctorate in stress management,
Goren said it's easy to fall into a
negative cycle, a model of which he
presented at a recent symposium
sponsored by SPACE (a service for
separated, divorced and widowed
men and women).
The four components of the
negative cycle are unhappiness, low
energy, low productivity and nega-
tive self-image. The cycle can start
with any of the four and lead to the
other three. For example, loss, such
as death or end of a relationship
can cause unhappiness. That can
lead to low energy, low energy to
low productivity and low prod-
uctivity to low self-esteem which
leads right back to unhappiness.
To break the cycle, Goren
recommends a three-pronged ap-
proach: do something productive,
surround yourself with support
groups and participate in a physi-
. cal activity to gain more energy.
Goren compares stress caused
by the negative cycle to a bucket of
water. "In a way your body's like a
bucket. It only has so much energy
and everything that you ask it to
do drains out some of the energy."
The solution, according to Go-
ren, is to drain out the unwanted
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