Welcome to Dr. Zender’s Psychology Today blog, The New Normal.
Traumatic accidents can seriously impact every area of your life. However, with the proper information and support you—or someone you care about—can reclaim the life you were meant to live. In Dr. Zender’s blog, you will find tools, tips and ideas to facilitate your recovery process —tools that will help you to cope with your physical and psychological injuries and conditions. You will learn to do more than just survive, you will learn to thrive!
A note to auto insurance companies: You will find valuable information here that will help you better serve your insured customers. In fact, when patients get the proper supports, needed care and treatment up front, they need far fewer resources in the long run than if support is withheld. That translates into a big win-win for your company and a boost to your bottom line!
Free Hands Do Not Mean Free Minds
As a psychologist specializing in treating victims of auto crashes, many of my patients face life long disabilities and pain due to injuries resulting from crashes that resulted from the actions of distracted drivers. It is likely no surprise that the cell phone is the number one problem when it comes to motor vehicle trauma caused by distracted drivers. Neal [...]
Self-Driving Cars and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
We are at a major juncture in technological developments with respect to how we travel in cars. In a February 13, 2017, article Janet Burns reported that Ford Motor Company announced plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years in self-driving artificial intelligence in a virtual driver system to be created by Argo AI. The plan is to [...]
Who Is Responsible For the Crash?
Is Apple guilty? Arden Dier posted an article in the NEWSER on December 29, 2016, entitled “Parents Sue, Blame FaceTime for Death of Daughter.” The article describes the tragic death of a 5-year-old girl who died as a result of a car slamming into the back of the vehicle the girl was riding in. According to Dier’s report, the driver of the offending vehicle [...]
Accident vs. Crash
When should the word "accident" be replaced with "crash"? In my practice as a clinical and forensic psychologist specializing in trauma resulting from vehicular crashes we often use the word accident to describe the event. However, often the traumatic event was not the result of behaviors that are unintentional in the sense of some level of personal negligence can be attributed. Such behaviors that could be [...]
Lady Gaga’s PTSD and the Mind Body Connection
Lady Gaga recently announced that she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic pain from being sexually assaulted when she was 19. She performed a song “Til It Happens to You” at the Oscars this year. The song was written for a documentary about sexual assault entitled The Hunting Ground. It was very courageous for Lady Gaga to reveal her struggles with PTSD [...]
Lord Nelson’s Traumatic Brain Injury
Lord Horatio Nelson was England’s most celebrated soldier, the Admiral who defeated Napoleon’s navy at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805. He was a brilliant, brave and admired naval strategist and warrior. Sadly, Nelson fell from a shot fired from the enemy ship Redoutable, and his amazing and heroic career came to an end. Despite his resounding victories, [...]
